Hindsight being 20/20 makes this stuff pretty easy to talk about now. Looks like dude was a powder keg waiting to blow. No, scratch that. He was a slow-burning timer fuse that knew exactly what he was doing and took meticulous notes and nobody heeded the warning signs and/or tried to stop him.
You’re a fucking psy-cho.
Hey dumbass, everything on the internet IS THERE FOREVER!!!!! I think she’s either got a lonely life ahead of her or a lucrative future in fetish porn. Or both perhaps. Either way, she sure sounds like a real winner. And she wears her hair like shit.
Who wins Liar Of The Day? No wait, Liar Of The Week. nah, not good enough..how about Liar Of The Month? Still not quite right. Ooh, I know: who deserves the Nobel Prize In Lying for 2017? That’s right. This guy beat out TOS’s very own Dunphy, who was unavailable to have accepted the award anyway due to sponsorship obligations between both the promoters of his rock tour and those involved in the World Big Wave Championships. Anyway, what a narcissistic, lying sack of shit.
The most noticeable sponsor of the NFL is blaming lagging sales on the league. See, and this is why I don’t trust all those analytics guys, because you can get numbers to tell you whatever you want if you come up with the right formula. Well, that and for even more ridiculous shit like this.
Poor people only! (And by poor, I mean $104k a year). Ain’t rent-fixing grand?
Holy shit! This has to be the most surprising thing I’ve ever heard!!!!! Don’t these people know there’s a law that says not to do this? The comments are an eclectic blend ranging from “no duh” to “Trumpz Murrica” and several points in between. Enjoy the derp.
In Illinois, apparently the wheels of justice don’t grind at all when it comes to ethics complaints. But don’t worry. The legislative Inspector General will get right on that…just as soon as the vacancy since 2015 is filled.
That’s all for the links today. And now…the sports!
Hey look its soccer scores from the UCL! Monaco actually got a point. Sevilla won, Man City topped Naples, Shakhtar all but put themselves into the knockout stages, Porto won, Spurs stunned Real 3-1, BvB continues to shit the proverbial bed (which contrary to popular belief is not a pastime of all Germans)…and Liverpool beat up Maribor again and sit atop their group.
On the frozen ponds, The Pens beat Edmonton, Jersey beat Vancouver, Toronto got the ship righted by topping the Mighty Ducks, the Sharks blasted the Predators and the Blackhawks completely shut down the Flyers and beat their asses 3-0. That’s a Swissy special report there. He needed that win…and he got it!
Buzzing around the bases like the Enola Gay buzzed around…well, you know.
And my, oh my! I haven’t seen a Jap get bombed like that since August 9, 1945. Poor guy. He was graceful as ever. But whoever thought it was a good idea ::cough::Dave Roberts::cough:: to put a guy on the mound that the Astros are very familiar with from his Rangers days and who they absolutely shelled the last several times they’ve faced him needs to have their head examined…Hannibal Lector-style. Anyway, the entire World Series went exactly as I predicted it. And I mean I predicted the winner of every single game and even called how games 6 and 7 would play out. Wish I’d have made that parlay in Vegas, but I didn’t because I wasn’t there and I’m the kind of guy who believes in jinxing his team. Case in point: when Ohio State went down 14-0 to Penn State this past Saturday, I blamed myself for thinking my red jersey would be ok to wear. So I went upstairs, took it off and changed back into my white one. And the rest is history.
Oh well. Astros win! Astros win! ASTROS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They’ll be doing this in Houston this week. In L.A., reports are sketchy, but I’m hearing that the riots planned for this weekend will still go on as scheduled.
Have a great day, friends. I’ve got a busy one ahead of me.
“Police requested that a charge of “intimidation based on bigotry or bias” be added Wednesday when Brochu appeared before a judge in Hartford Community Court”
How about no?
“Brochu told police she “began to lash out due to a ‘hostile environment’ caused by [the victim’s] rude behavior, not compromising, and posting Snapchat videos of me sleeping and making fun of me snoring.” She also told police she requested a room change on Oct. 11, but was unsuccessful.”
So why assume it was motivated by racism?
Because in at least one of her posts she made what some might consider a racist comment, calling her roommate “Jamaica Barbie”.
By the way, If that girl was posting pictures of her on Snapchat against her wishes while she was in her own room, she should sue her.
Was she from Jamaica?
Yes but her name was BARBARA.
Because that’s how prosecutors build a career.
The aliens are already amomg us!
They don’t look like us if you PUT ON THE GLASSES!!!
Chew bubblegum or kick ass. Your choice.
I am all out of bubblegum.
Look, gum is cheap. What’s your preferred brand?
UCS has never been to the movies.
UCS takes Swiss to buy some gum.
Or start eating that garbage can
I guess “research” now means thinking up shit that sophomores getting high in their dorm rooms would come up with.
I think the average sophomore has a better grasp how evolution works.
If you think we have useful idiots here in academia…the UK make ours look like Aristotle.
+1 fake space alien invasion to stimulate the economy
That wouldn’t work in England. Anyone saying they should fight off the aliens would be arrested for alienphobia.
Oh that’s an ASBO for sure.
I’ve seen a ton of “studies” like that recently – just stupid shit that everyone already knows (or in this case, something that anyone could have thought up) dressed up in fancy scientistic language. One of them made the “discovery” that there’s no single sex move guaranteed to please a woman and the best way to have good sex is to communicate with your partner about what is pleasurable for them. Well no shit! Anyone who has not drank the “pickup artist” Kool-Aid already knows that.
It could be a distorted sample because I read this site so much, but I think the “publish or perish” dynamic is motivating researchers to put out stupid bullshit. They know they’ll get called out if they publish something that is incorrect, but they probably won’t catch any flak by publishing something that is dead obvious to common people.
I dunno. I’ve seen a lot more pictures of hot British chicks over the last couple years, and some even have straight teeth. Is that how you tell the aliens from the natives?
Those were Polish immigrants, dude.
I guess if you believe advertising works, then less eyeballs on the ads would mean less business in the stores.
I’m sure there’s some correlation and perhaps a tiny bit of causation. But he makes it sound like the entire drop is due to the NFL.
Call me cynical, but I’d almost believe he’s exploiting this to renegotiate his ad rate. Which is a responsible thing to do, but let’s at least recognize it for what it probably is.
Well sure, it’s convenient for Papa John’s to be able to lay the blame on the NFL. And the NFL is stupid for getting in a position that allows it.
He also happens to be a Trump supporter and donated to his campaign. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
Is he? I thought he was the one that gave Trump shit post-election on the immigration thing.
I wonder how his sales did in the immediate aftermath of his donations being made public. Or right after the election. That would probably be a better indicator than the NFL piece, seeing as their ads are on all the time during college as well.
There was also an outcry when it came out the the owner is a conservative Catholic, and donated to pro-life organizations.
Yeah, on the football site I frequent I constantly got shit for speaking out against the anthem being played when they could say I wasn’t sucking military dick hard enough.
But now that the anti-anthem stuff is anti-Trump, they think they’re virtuous for supporting the players.
Ted S., as you are a Michigan fan, is that site Mgo? Because the amount of stupid over that stuff there is almost as amazing as at Eleven Warriors. Derp freaking tastic.
No, I’m not a Michigan fan. I don’t really have a rooting interest in college football, except that Sloopy is so obnoxious regarding Ohio State that it’s made me hate them intensely.
lol.
My work is done here.
He was the only member of the committee (final vote, two fought it throughout the process) to oppose the basketball stadium fiasco in Louisville. Although it wasn’t so much about the taxpayer funding as it was the location.
Call me cynical, but I’d almost believe he’s exploiting this to renegotiate his ad rate.
I think you’re right about this. Sales are down, viewership of his prime ad slots is down, so he’s correlating the two for leverage to reduce costs.
Russia’s Weird, Divisive Facebook Ads Released
“My concern is that a dictator like Vladimir Putin abused flaws in our social media platforms to inject the worst kind of identity politics into the voting decisions of at least 100 million Americans,”
“That’s our fucking job” said Democratic Rep. Andre Carson
Thank you, Edit Faerie!
Yep.
+1 Pickup truck with Rebel flag running over brown kids
YEEEEHAW! THIS IS WHAT WE MEAN BY “DON’T TREAD ON ME”
“My concern is that a dictator like Vladimir Putin abused flaws in our social media platforms to inject the worst kind of identity politics into the voting decisions of at least 100 million Americans,” said Democratic Rep. Andre Carson, per the New York Times.
Translated from Politispeech to English: I hate the first amendment when it goes against my politics.
Fuck these assholes. This is a clear 1A case. And anybody that wants to stifle speech on the internet is both a fucking asshole and a naive retard.
So if the First Amendment doesn’t protect foreigners who purchase ads, does that also mean that the Fifth Amendment does not protect illegal immigrants? That’s their logic in a nutshell, right?
I’ve heard people argue that constitutional protections only apply to citizens.
But their text is written as boundary stakes on the government, which would imply they can’t do X, Y or Zto anybody.
A viewpoint understood by, what, 1% of the population? To the other 99%, the government is supposed to have whatever limitless power they choose to vote for themselves.
Despite the fact that pretty much every person in the country has required history and/or civics courses. We don’t teach them jack fucking shit about the most rudimentary concepts that the country was supposed to be built on. What a fucking disgrace.
We don’t teach them jack fucking shit about the most rudimentary concepts that the country was supposed to be built on.
Considering the large cadre of leftists in education who desire to subvert the founding concepts, this is probably at least partially intentional. The long march through the institutions continues apace.
One ad posted the day before the election told Texans to be ready to secede if “Killary Rotten Clinton” won.
Chimpy McHalliburton was unable to give his opinion during the hearing.
And with that, those stupid redneck hicks in Texas were basically brainwashed to vote for Trump. Why won’t you take us seriously?
That wasn’t a Russian ad, it was a Mike M. ad.
??
Hey! Thanks for the Halloween help the other day. I got a nice start on a playlist.
*applause*
Do we have any proof whatsoever that the Kremlin was behind this, or were these just basically Russian 4chan-ers?
Shut up Nazi!
-the entire Democratic Party apparatus.
FTFY
Do we have any proof whatsoever that the Kremlin was behind this,
After seeing the ads, the only thing I cold take away from the Kremlin claims is that if they’re behind this, they’re really bad at propaganda. That stuff came off like a bad Chick tract.
The lack of evidence is just evidence that the Kremlin is super good at hiding their tracks.
Facebook is just another potential skin-suit for the left. All they need is to manufacture a pretense to begin flaying. Zuckerberg is going to be wiping the left’s spunk off of his chin when the blow comes. Have fun Mark.
Why do they call Putin a dictator?
Oligarch? Maybe. Dictator? No.
Also, I know many many many native Russians, and I don’t believe Putin had to rig any elections at all. He’s pretty darn popular in Russia. To them, he’s the man that brought pride back to Mother Russia, and they’re actually proud to be Russian again.
The more we see The Swamp getting exposed, the more I believe Putin isn’t much worse than any of our own politicians. And in any case, he’s certainly no dictator
A whole lot of jailed/exiled opponents and dead journalists might disagree….if they could.
Don’t make me picture Hillary Clinton topless on a horse.
That’s like saying “don’t think of a hammer”.
Fuck you, potato.
Hey, we’re not talking about the Clintons!
This does raise an interesting (semantic) question: when does an authoritarian become a dictator? If a ruler both has the support of his people sufficiently to fairly win elections but also uses his duly elected position to persecute his enemies/opponents, what is the proper classification? In the end it really doesn’t matter the terms, I guess, but it would make for an interesting discussion.
He’s pretty much a modern day Czar. Less oppressive than the Soviets and the Czars in many ways, however. And from my perspective, the Russian psyche has always called for a strongman.
the Russian psyche has always called for a strongman.
Ah, that there is some PRIME CUT collectivization right there!
To be fair, the majority of humanity, throughout all time, has looked for a strongman/ruler.
“Facebook Says Russian Ads Comprised Only .004% of Newsfeed During Election
Half of them were pro-Hillary.”
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/11/another-stunning-liberal-lie-exposed-facebook-says-russian-ads-comprised-004-newsfeed-election/
Half of them were pro-Hillary
Well, there goes the narrative, if we’re being honest. The truth comes out: the Russians weren’t supporting Trump, they were supporting chaos, by trying to stoke divisiveness among the factions of their rival. And the Democrats seem to have played right into their hands.
1. Is a foreign government running ads illegal?
2. Was it the Russian government or people from Russia?
This second point appears to be conflated constantly. Not every Russian is working for their government. If an American complains about Putin it doesn’t mean they are a government operative.
Considering we know for a fact that our intelligence agencies have the capabilities to mask their ip’s, etc. as coming from foreign domains, do we even know that these were done by non Americans?
Congrats to the Astros. That first WS win has to feel great for you and Houston. See ya next year.
I’m always sad after the last out of the World Series. Baseball’s over 🙁
Baseball was over in May.
/White Sox fan
*points at Swiss*
“Ha-ha!” in Nelson voice
I’m so conditioned, I was still waiting for the old Lastros in July. It’s really going to hurt in a year or two when they go back to their old ways.
Correa isn’t a free agent until 2022. Enjoy the next few years.
I’m just happy the Dodgers lost.
Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar teacher suspended over historical sex assault allegations
It’s believed one allegation arouse
That’s a helluva John-o
The 1970s?! Forty fucking years ago?!
“Three [tenured] Dartmouth College professors whose research had included studies of sexual desire and attractiveness have been put on paid leave…”
I’ve concluded that tenure is a bad idea.
“research”
Go on…
The longstanding teacher at Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School was suspended by the Victorian Institute of Teaching on Wednesday.
Did she turn their bottoms bright crimson lovingly with a birch switch, and diddle their fannies?
Go on….
*actual LOL*
Paywalled.
Anyway, there is almost no way to get to the truth that might be behind allegations that old.
I think he loves selfies of himself.
He just hates it when anyone else tries to get in the frame.
The fucker was taking selfies at Mandela’s funeral. Not outside, but during the memorial.
But he hates them!
What a narcissistic twat.
Did I miss something in the article, because all I saw was that he hates other people taking selfies. Which does make him a narcissitic twat, but is more consistant.
“He just hates it when anyone else tries to get in the frame.”
^This^
Coming soon
Imagine zipping across Colorado in a levitating pod that can reach speeds of 700 mph. You could travel from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs in less than 20 minutes and be at the airport in no time.
The reality is closer than you might think, and the Colorado Department of Transportation is taking the possibility of the Rocky Mountain Hyperloop seriously.
CDOT plans to spend the next nine months crunching the numbers to determine what it might take to bring the futuristic technology to Colorado after partnering with Hyperloop One — one of the companies racing to develop the super-speed technology.
The proposed Rocky Mountain Hyperloop — which would be centered at Denver International Airport and stretch to Fort Collins; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Pueblo; and Vail — carries a hefty $24 billion price tag. CDOT estimated it would need an initial investment of $3 billion just to get the first stretch from Greeley to DIA completed.
This steep financial cost combined with lingering questions about how the technology would function in the real world have left CDOT, Hyperloop One and their partner infrastructure firm AECOM with a lot of homework before this futuristic fantasy could become a reality in Colorado.
I’m investing everything in magic wand futures.
I (kind of) hate to be a wet blanket, but getting this thing built makes an elevator to the moon look easy.
magine zipping across Colorado in a levitating pod that can reach speeds of 700 mph.
That legal weed is fairly potent, eh?
*narrows gaze*
No its lucrative. The politicians there are awash in new tax revenue. Its like giving one of the Disney kids $200 million. Of course they’re going to buy a Maseratti, crash it and spend the rest on hookers and blow on their 18th birthday.
Springfield Monorail 2.0.
Well, sir, there’s nothing on earth
Like a genuine, bona fide
Electrified, six-pod hyperloop
What’d I say?
Hyperloop
What’s it called?
Hyperloop
That’s right! Hyperloop
Hyperloop
Hyperloop
Hyperloop
“I hear those things are awfully fatal”
It’ll be great, sir, just you wait’ll!
“Won’t heat expansion wreck the tubes?”
That’s a bunch of lies by rubes!
“What if there’s a terror strike?”
Then we’ll rebuild by tax hike!
“Were you sent here by the Kochs?”
Check out funny guy with his jokes!
This boondoggle’s never-ending
Fuck you assholes, cut some spending
Hyperloop!
Hyperloop!
Hyperloop!
*stands, applauds*
Not on your life, my Hindoo friend.
“Imagine zipping across Colorado in a levitating pod that can reach speeds of 700 mph. You could travel from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs in less than 20 minutes and be at the airport in no time.”
I’m somehow doubting this. Because I imagine the lines to get on the thing will be like at the airport because of security. Because of the speed any sort of terror attack would be catastrophic. So you may as well just fly.
That’s before you get to the problems of safety with a hundred mile vacuum tube…
It’s probably just a vacuum in segments that move with the train. So lets say a series of twenty 5-mile vacuum tubes.
In order to get any decent throughput, you’re going to need to keep a decent stream of passengers running the line. so unless you have really good switching to snap open those separators, it’s liable to run with them open if they build that way. Plus, when there is a puncture, you’re going to have to decellerate everything in the tube pretty darn quick without killing anyone. Because they’re going to hit either the cut-off bulkhead or the high pressure zone at 700mph otherwise.
I have to assume the loading/unloading is supposed to be handled on side tubes (much like the station track on a rail line with a main track running past uninterrupted) that can be run as airlocks, which will cut back on throughput.
This just sounds ever more dangerous, expensive and unwieldy the more the engineering issues are examined.
I just can’t believe there is any practical way to reduce the air density by 80 or 90% over miles of big-ass tubes, even in segments. You have to seal them reasonably well, including at the ends, and suck a huge amount of air out every time the train runs. I know you can engineer a prototype in the parking lot on a much smaller scale, but at actual operational size?
The Hyperloop strikes me as obvious horseshit as an actual mass transit system.
While I agree to the impracticalyity, this part is not true. You build a side tube airlock, where you need only pressurize/depressurize a span the length of the train to board and disembark. This re-merges with the main tube (which does not get pressurized for the operation) in the same way a train track might.
It’s still a stupid idea, but you don’t have to pressuize the whole system to load it.
Another major impracticality is adding capacity after the initial built-out.
Just look at the problems with the simple act of adding a new stop. With a highway or rail run, you’d have the ability to leave the system in operation. Some inventive switching coordination might be needed on rail lines while the work was being done, but the system would still be operational. For a loop you’d need to repressurize a segment, hook in the new airlock points, and make sure it doesn’t leak before you can get that span back in operation. Unless we’re going to build multiple tubes each way just for redundancy, that takes the link down. If you do have multiple tubes, that’s going to be a maintenence nightmare multiplied.
Right after they finish the regular rail line from Denver to Boulder. Or the one to Golden that ends at the Sheriffs office instead of where people actually care about.
Bride kills 17 in botched plot to kill husband
I wonder if the guy is still going to marry her.
They’re already married.
They’re going to need some counselling to get through this hard time in their lives.
There’s a true love story in there somewhere. I can feel it.
Thank Vishnu she didn’t have a gun.
Common sense milk control NOW!
Some cultures are better than others.
Yoghurt pun?
My god I hope so. I highly doubt it.
But let’s just bask for a moment.
Why do yoplait with my emotions like that, man?
This is all greek to me man
We’ll get to the bottom of this.
Book em, Danno(n)!
Puns are a sign of an advanced culture
No, they are signs you all need a *narrows gaze*
Buenos Dios.
Today is the Day of the Dead
Sports on the bottom of the post, what kind of madness is this? Is it a seasonal change? A metaphor for how the country has lost its way? A clever new protest vector?
Some people are gonna need to cook up a new excuse for ignoring the links.
Excuse? I don’t need an excuse to not read something.
It’s pretty much just me trolling for laughs.
That’s all it takes to get a chuckle out of you?
Well, we are laughing at you, not with sloopy…
I remember the failed train shooter in the Netherlands? after his guns malfunctioned and he was tackled and disarmed pleaded with his subduers to give his guns back to him. Now this guy in NY is asking to be able to fly an ISIS flag in his hospital room. I dont know what kind of crazy that is but it seems to be peculiar to these radical islamonazis. It is some kind of weird mix of narcissism and sociopathic personality disorder that I have never seen in westerners. Most western sociopaths seem to at least try to hide their sociopathy because they know it wont be well received. These murderous islamic fanatics seem to think that they are in some kind of play and everyone else is in on it. He plays the hero and we willingly play the victims. It’s bizarre.
I have seen the ‘other people consume my bodily fluids’ weirdoes before. It usually takes the form of drinking from other people’s drinks without permission or when no one is looking. Creepy.
“After addressing more pressing issues like climate change and food waste” – World’s most transparent flim-flam artist talks about phony baloney bullshit. News at 11. Seriously, could this POS just go away already? Take the hildebeest with you motherfucker.
The current NFL clusterfuck is a perfect example of why the left will always lose in the end. If you fill your head with scrambled shit you wont be able to successfully solve problems, instead you will just keep creating more for yourself. All we have to do is stand back and try not to let any of the shit get on us when it inevitably implodes.
Corruption in Il? And water is wet. I got nuthin’.
Back to biscuits and gravy.
They should bring that flag into his room, light it on fire, and drip it on him
Or stuff it down his throat and use it to waterboard him.
Just fill his IV with pork grease and arsenic and call it a day.
Sit down and I’ll make you some biscuit and gravy
‘Alien’ corpses found in mysterious tomb are REAL, second scientist claims
Which mesoamerican civilization deliberately deformed the skulls of their children?
Can we get a second opinion on whether or not the irregular number of digits was a congenital deformity (or the result of maiming)?
Most of them. I dug one up myself.
The Flathead Indians did that.
A substantial minority of the Vadoma tribe of Zimbabwe pass on a recessive gene that gives them cleft feet, which makes them two-toed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vadoma#Ectrodactyly
This academic probably used the word “alien” in the sense of “previously unknown”, and some ignorant, sensational headline seeking journalist ran with it. The poor anthropologist is probably horrified to have his name associated with this report.
P.S. There exists substantial evidence that Hillary Clinton “alienated” a substantial portion of the Midwest during the last election, but she didn’t use high flying aircraft and chem trails to alter their dna to be compatible with our new insect overlords from Planet X. She just called them “deplorables”.
The pueblo indians in the southwest did that as well.
Get Harrison Ford’s nursing home on the line, I’m smelling sequel!
Ugh, Crystal Skull was one of the worst movies ever made. Why, Harrison, why?
Of course this could easily be solved with DNA analysis.
Unless we are all aliens.
Whoa….
Would it be that much of a surprise that a early civilization might bury those with severe deformities in a different place?
Going to go ahead and say that whatever you hoped that suit was going to do for your credibility, that crazy hairdo has undone with prejudice.
That dude lives in my neighborhood. I’m acquaintances with his wife.
As KPIX found, however, some people are abusing the system. The reporter on the story, Susie Steimle, visits several listed owners for these BMR homes who appear to be renting out their homes to others illegally on Craigslist and Airbnb.
The obvious solution is ownership by the government. Of EVERYTHING. Top Men will best know how to distribute; from each, according to xer abilities, et c.
owners for these BMR homes
They keep using this word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
Prime example of a case where the legal and the moral are not congruent.
Obama said: ‘One of the weird things about becoming president is I found that people were no longer looking me in the eye and shaking my hand’
Then stop bowing and staring at their shoes on state visits. Or looking down your nose at them when you’re talking to the hoi polloi.
Great, Cleveland is on the Antifa riot list for the 4th now. Thankfully, I have no need to go downtown for anything soon (and I’ll be surprised if they’re still down there even a week later). But fear not, we have 4chan defending the suburbs. Beware the comments, that way lies madness.
Congrats to the ‘Stros. A bit of a letdown in Game 7, but I think we all knew that was the most likely outcome. Six fantastic games and two of the best ever played. If Game 5 would have been an elimination game I think it probably gets the GOAT nod. Well. After Game 7 last year.
And now no more baseball. The light in my life has gone out.
*cough* 1991 Twinkies vs. Braves *cough*
That was a game 7.
Former first lady Michelle Obama explained Wednesday at a summit in Chicago that she believes men are “entitled,” and that women protect them too much.
It’s like they live in bizarro world, where the opposite of reality is what they believe.
Send her a bill for every vacation she took on our dime.
Based on her attire and coiffure, this was some kind of hobo summit, yes?
That outfit…
This was a summit on flannel pajama use, I would take it?
Maybe Girlfriends just gotta get all curled up with their jammies and coffee when they’re straightening each other out about how to manage their men.
What I find fascinating about people who pay for Michelle to speak is she’s a half-wit. She’s just giving vapid opinions in public passing them off as some sort of intellectual statement. This is stuff the one idiot at the table babbles about. But here we are. Not only does she get paid to be a dullard she even gets published.
And to think her hubby the egoist took shots at capitalism. Every night they should pray.
Pray to the capitalist gods for the compensation they receive.
So what you’re saying is, she’s stealing Chelsea’s gig?
Paying for her stupid shallow comments is a nice way to confirm your own stupid opinions and make yourself feel smart and right in the process.
Paying for her stupid shallow comments is a nice way to keep yourself connected to the griftocracy.
You know who isn’t entitled? The woman whose salary at her phony-baloney hospital job tripled when her husband was elected to the Senate.
Which job by the way ceased to exist once Michelle no longer wanted it.
On one of the Fifth Column podcasts one of them threw out the idea that, when making sweeping statements about gender, you should try replacing the gender with a race and see how it sounds. Let’s try it!
I guess you could swap it, but does that make it any less gross?
Hell, most of the time, you can just flip the genders to see how extraordinarily bigoted it is.
So Michelle Obama’s dad was a guy with a major mobility disease that still managed to work his ass off to provide for his family and ensure his children had a good life.
Of course Michelle Obama still felt the need to shit on fathers without mentioning the quality of her own.
Yeah, men are entitled.
Weird crap going on in Gitmo. Apparently we are finally trying to put the guy responsible for the Cole bombing on trial in the fake Gitmo court. But, the defense attorneys quit, the Marine General lawyer in charge signed off that it was legit, but the Air Force Judge said it wasn’t. In a real military court that isn’t the judge’s call.
The Marine told the pouge to fuck off and now the General is confined to quarters although the Judge’s authority to do so is pretty tenuous.
Maybe Swiss can make sense of this craziness.
Weird….problem is, we have limited information. The judge sounds a bit overly huffy, and the lawyers like drama queens. I am leery of forcing lawyers to stick with a case, but I am not sure what was described was enough to let them abandon their client, and leave him without representation.
Sounds like “When Assholes Collide”.
This is why they should have either just killed the guy on sight, or run him through a pure military court, early on. This compromise shit is awful in both directions.
So does this fake Gitmo court have the authority to issue warrants for American civilian lawyers? Have them hunted down by U.S. Marshals, and forcibly relocated to Gitmo?
Does it even have authority over a U.S. Marine?
No one has authority over a Marine! RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
/motard
You know what they call a marine that ignores orders?
Civilian.
You know what they call a marine that refuses orders?
Inmate.
My retired-Army uncle told me this one once. I had to admit, it was funny.
The army calls helicopters “choppers”, the navy calls them “helos”, and the air force calls them “copters”. What do Marines call them?
*points at sky and grunts*
::snort:: that is pretty funny.
What do you call a Marine General who ignores the orders of an Air Force Colonel?
General.
In the wrong joke.
I was remarking on Chipwooder’s comment, not the gitmo situation.
That is what the review at the Pentagon (1st appellate stop?) will have to determine. Judge usually has at least immediate jurisdiction over the court (contempt, etc). I think the review is more on the ability of the lawyers to say “we’re out” – if that is allowed, then the sentence will be disapproved, and the Jarhead can flip the Bird and leave.
“Flip the Bird” pun intended?
The Colonel will not appreciate it when he lands.
Can he get his secret recipe though?
Yes.
Cop News
File under good but not good enough: Cops actually get in trouble for stealing.
http://www.ocregister.com/2017/11/01/3-santa-ana-police-officers-sentenced-to-community-service-for-petty-theft-and-vandalism-charges-connected-to-pot-shop-raid/
Notre Dame Is Dropping Birth Control Coverage For Its Thousands Of Students & Staff By 2018
A midwestern Catholic university usually in the news for its football program has decided to take a stand against women’s reproductive rights.
Because of course it’s your right to force other people to pay for your shit.
They should kneel in protest. Having college girls kneel is a good way to avoid pregnancy
If they were really Catholic girls at Notre Dame, they’d already know.
go on…
Catholic girls go crazy in college. I believe it’s because they lived a sheltered life up until college.
Um….I may have experienced that with one young lass, lo those many years back.
I married a Catholic girl… and had several Catholic GFs… so messed in the head but so much fun.
related son
*song
Zappa?
A midwestern Catholic university usually in the news for its football program has decided to take a stand against women’s reproductive rights.
I’m confused. Where’s the part where their tuition agreement said that coverage was to be provided? And where’s the other part where they’re outlawing birth control use by faculty and/or students?
A reproductive right ends when you start putting your hand in my wallet.
As most of the students are under 26, shouldnt they be on their parents insurance?
But that way Mommy and Daddy might find out that their perfect little angel likes to ride bareback.
Reports: Trump Wants To Call Tax Reform ‘The Cut Cut Cut Act’
I like it but I’m gonna be let down if it’s only two cuts worth of cuts.
It’ll be an increase in the rate of increase of spending.
Not quite the same impact as “fuck you, cut spending”, but it’ll do.
Cut you, cutting mothercutter!
Carl’s Jr.: Fuck You, I’m Eating.
Wait, I thought that was the anti-circumcision law. I have to pay more attention.
-1 …. oh, nevermind
*narrows gaze*
If he does that, people on the other side will be calling it the Kut-Kut-Kut Act….
Why We Still Need the ERA
Having the right to vote is important but, as feminists have always understood, it is not sufficient to guarantee equality.
I don’t think they realize what that will do to the extra privileges that women managed to rack up.
Of course, their worldview is based on the complete inability to objectivly assess the relationship between men, women, biology and the law.
Just wait until they their notices to register for the draft.
“get”
I mean that amendment is a death sentence for any law that lets a woman single handedly choose to have an abortion.
I was thinking of the wrecking ball that such a change could make the say, family court procedures, your average academic kangaroo court, etc. You know, where a lawsuit is likely to hit and reach the supremes. I’d say affirmative action would suffer, but race-based discrimination against whites and asians is still hanging in there in academia.
I for one am glad that the Patriarchy has spent lo these many years rolling back the rights of women. However, I have to admit that repealing their right to remain silent might not have been the best decision.
Tesla delays Model 3 production goal, reports loss
“Temporary” Like not knowing how to set up an efficient manufacturing process.
Their business model is not built on an efficient manufacturing process, it’s built on milking government subsidies.
$300/share? Only if there’s 10,000 shares.
Elon: “HYPERLOOP!! MARS!!! AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!”
What a fuckhead. And it appears to be worse than the article reports. This guy is a h8tr (otherwise known as a short), but there are some interesting tidbits in his column.
Kevin Drum has a doubt
But what about 20 years from now? Or 30? We won’t all be out of jobs by then, but a lot of us will—and it will be no golden age. Until we figure out how to fairly distribute the fruits of robot labor, it will be an era of mass joblessness and mass poverty. Working-class job losses played a big role in the 2016 election, and if we don’t want a long succession of demagogues blustering their way into office because machines are taking away people’s livelihoods, this needs to change, and fast. Along with global warming, the transition to a workless future is the biggest challenge by far that progressive politics—not to mention all of humanity—faces. And yet it’s barely on our radar.
How soon ’til robots take over the Armageddon Porn industry?
Until WE figure out how to fairly distribute the fruits of robot labor, you say? Bring on the technocratbots!
What part about ROBOTS MAKE THINGS CHEAPER TO BUY, TOO DUMMY!!! don’t they get?
The part where it might potentially give them fewer wallets to take from.
First off, we are not going to hit some sort of work-free state by 2050. Secondly, being unproductive over extended period has a distinct negative impact on mental health. This is well-documented by many people. So anything that leaves lots of useless, shiftless masses lying about will result in unrest, violence and nihilism until we either find ways to express these energies and motives productively, or degenerate into hedonistic depravities that mark the end of our civilization.
Looks like we finally found something War is good for
You think the robots are just going to keep giving it all away? I’ll just say one thing: start learning to like the taste of metal, meatbag.
A post-scarcity society is so scary!!
Don Boudreaux yesterday:
“But look at what ATMs did to the banking business! They put all the tellers out of work and caused all the bank offices to close!”
There are about 10 times more bank offices and tellers than before the ATM.
yea, but if ATM’s didn’t exist, there would be 100X more@!!!
To be fair, that owes a lot more to the insight of Vernon Hill than it did to the ATM. For a long time, the banking business was shrinking the number of retail outlets and trying to push as many customers to the ATM as possible. The logic was the 80/20 rule, in which 20% of your customers account for 80% of your profits. Prior to getting into banking, Hill had been a developer for McDonalds’ franchises. His fundamental insight was that retail banking really wasn’t really all that different from any other retail business. So, he applied the logic of a fast food franchise to the bank he ran, expanding hours, adding locations, picking off customers of closed branches of other banks (they even gave their people bonuses when local branches of other banks closed), etc. The bank, Commerce, did really well. It was able to charge customers more for loans and pay them less on deposits because it offered convenience. And it grew quickly.
Ultimately, unsurprisingly, Hill ran afoul of bank regulators. He was forced out of Commerce and the bank was soon after acquired by TD. But, the change in the banking industry he ushered in remains.
Was not aware of the role that Vernon Hill played, I’m not an expert on the banking industry. My observation is more along the lines that automating one part of the service chain simply allowed observant people like Vernon Hill to see that there was untapped demand for banking services other than just getting cash from the bank. The same will prove true when other things are automated. People will demand other services once one service is automated.
Someone I know is studying computer science, and one time he told me that he believes “capitalism is the problem” with regards to the possibility of technological unemployment. He predicted that if robots can manufacture everything, we will eventually end up with one giant corporation that produces every single product and charges monopoly prices, making the owners super-rich while leaving everyone else dirt poor.
No mention of more jobs that would be created. No mention of why automation technology would be so cheap as to completely supplant virtually all human labor yet only one company can afford it. No mention of how people would just work fewer hours and thus naturally spread out the remaining jobs to those who want to work. No mention of how people would retire earlier if jobs were so productive and products were so cheap.
I sincerely hope your friend’s boolean logic is on firmer ground than xer economic logic.
He’s showed me some of the programs he’s made, and they seem to work fine. His degree program actually included a class in logic, which is why it’s so odd that he’s a hardcore “progressive”.
Of course, someone who is already on board with that political philosophy might just be strengthened in their convictions by studying logical things like computer science. He seems to think that the market is disorganized, illogical, and unreliable, and all of society should be planned and organized from the top down.
My big hope is that one day, he’ll start an IT company and realize how fucking difficult it is to run a business in this regulatory environment. He also subscribes to the belief that CEOs and upper-level managers “don’t do any real work” and thus don’t deserve the salaries they get; maybe trying to run his own enterprise could show him how unjust it is for people who contributed nothing to demand a cut of his earnings when he came up with the idea, took the risk, did all the early work, and steers the entire company through a rapidly changing market.
Oh yes. It’s amazing how many propellerheads (as a former one, I’m entitled to use it as a term of endearment) just *know* that managers and owners don’t contribute anything of value to the enterprise. Equally amazing, the vast majority of them somehow keep taking that steady company paycheck rather than launching out on their own.
It seems to me to stem from not having a clue what these people are even doing all day.
I don’t know what these managers do all day, let alone why it is worth so much. If anyone can fill in some of that gap, it might help some.
I’m sure you’re right that that’s part of it. “The less you know about how to do something, the easier it seems” effect. And, I’m sure it isn’t limited to the propellerheads, it goes all the way around.
As always, it’s the smugness on top of the ignorance that I find off-putting. Those (in any role) who have the humility to think “I don’t know what that person actually does, so I don’t really know whether it’s difficult or valuable” are usually not the ones mouthing off about how little value everyone contributes compared to themselves.
So… what do they do?
No idea what your managers do, UnCiv.
In general though, there is a fairly consistent pattern when people become managers for the first time after they have been front-line workers. And that pattern is that they find themselves working longer hours on different things that are often less defined and controlled than line workers, and that many of them fail as managers and return to line work or leave.
Which seems inconsistent with the belief that managers have easy, no-work jobs.
I was actually hoping for a generic real world CEO or upper management work description.
I don’t know what these managers do all day, let alone why it is worth so much.
A non-trivial part of it is sales. But, not just to customers. To suppliers. To potential partners. To investors.
Then you have to spend a lot of time knowing the business. Not just what the IT or engineering guys are doing. But, also the Finance guys, the Marketing guys, the Sales guys and the folks in Legal and Compliance. What are they working on? How is it going? Do they need any additional people? Do they need outside help?
Once you’ve got that, you’re spending a lot of time figuring out where you want your business to go. That means figuring out what products you want to focus on. Figuring out where your industry is going. Making sense of what opportunities are out there. Getting a handle on your major risks.
I liked it better when we were trying to be more bike friendly than Seattle/Portland.
Now Minneapolis seems determined to out commie those cities. A long article about how openly socialist pols are making hay in the upcoming city elections. The local commie who brought us mandatory paid sick leave and $15/hr is glowingly portrayed in the story.
Also a lot of good whining from the millenials:
How is health care unafordable? I thought the ACA fixed that for good? And how horrible is it that you have to prove to your boss that you deserve a raise?
millennials who grew up in the shadow of America’s worst economic crisis in a century
Wrong.
“We really kind of hate showing up to these jobs where you have to pay your dues to the boss before you can get a living wage.”
Welcome to the real world, cupcake, people have always had to start at the bottom and work their way up, you entitled little dipshits. So of course they think it’s a good idea to simply steal from others via socialism.
“Most of my friends are precariously employed at multiple jobs and completely broke,”
Wut?
“My friends had no idea how to manage money and live within their means”
You know what helps get past that stage? Roommates. It’s annoying, but a split share of rent and utility costs will let you stretch the rest of a thin budget until you can get the next job up the ladder.
But the fuckers don’t want to do what every other generation has had to do, they want to start at the top. And it’s the fault of their parents and educators for teaching them to think that way.
When I first graduated college, I had to get by in the LA area on a whopping $24 grand, and this was in the still booming economy of 1999. I had to share an apartment in a fairly rough section of Long Beach – $900 2 bedroom, I paid 500 of it so I got the garage space.
I graduated from a top-25 school and my first job out of college paid $5.50/hour.
My second was about $22k during the mid-90s.
Something tells me his friends don’t have any marketable skills.
A Women’s Studies degree is extremely valuable, you shitlord! It’s just that this oppressive capitalist system doesn’t pay these wise scholars the six-figure salaries that they deserve!
/sarcasm, but not too far off from what SJWs actually believe
Indeed. That’s the entire problem with economic systems that don’t take “deserve” into account.
Deserves got nothing to do with it.
I was counting on someone to enact that labor for me.
Most libertarian-utilized movie quote of all time?
Did you not see that these millenials are super smart?
I think this is one where you point out that having degrees does not necessarily make you “educated”. I wonder if you could sit down with the Rea character and show him how those Uber drivers all have degrees in total bull shit. Kids with degrees in majors that have hard facts/processes are all employed and doing fine.
Even if you do concede the point about being “educated”, education != skills. The only skill many of them have is “playing academia”.
Exactly. Credentialed does not equal educated.
What do you mean, a degree in grievance studies isn’t marketable?!
Even if the degrees are useful, I think many young people are unwilling to face the fact that unless you get an advanced STEM degree, your first job out of college will probably not be very good. You often times have to put up with these jobs for the experience. Once you have both the experience AND the degree, then you can start shopping around for something much better.
My friend got an associate’s degree in some kind of network administration. The first job he could find was at a factory that made cash registers and POS systems, and most of it consisted of loading these products into a truck and occasionally installing software on them. After two years of that, he got a job as a network admin for a school system. Now he’s a network specialist at a local IT company making great money.
Most millennials today seem to whine because they’re not being paid a huge salary right out of college, then they blame “the system”. While this complaint is mostly bullshit, I think it’s bad that kids are told their entire lives that if they go to college, they’ll get an awesome job. They leave out the parts about 1) getting a degree that is actually in demand, and 2) getting the work experience to go with the degree.
A degree is not just a magic ticket to a six-figure salary.
Millennials with STEM degrees think they should be VP in ten years. At billion dollar global companies. I suppose that could happen the way title inflation is going. But an actual position of power at a company that size only goes to people who have demonstrated a long track record of competence at various positions of increasing responsibility. Maybe in the FIRE economy it’s different but it ain’t that way in STEM unless you start your own company and succeed.
The entitlement attitude of some millenials is just staggering. We regularly have new employees (as in, this is their first job) asking why they haven’t been promoted at their 90-day meeting with their supervisor. 90 fucking days into your first real job and you think you should be promoted. The mind boggles.
I was born in ’87 and people have told me that I’m technically a millennial, but nobody hates the lazy, entitled millennials more than me (kind of like how hard working black people absolutely detest the small percentage of black people who are welfare bums or criminals).
I hate that employers might stereotype me as some kind of Pajama Boy.
Hmmmm….my math may be a bit shaky, but I do believe that the Great Depression was less than 100 years ago.
Those dates aren’t adjusted for inflation, duh.
*listens to the sweet sound of more businesses heading for the suburbs*
Hey Minneapolis! How about a little preview of your future!
You stupid, stupid people.
The problem is that the Met Council will take money away from all the suburbs and use it to prop up Minneapolis.
That and that the rich progs of southern Mpls will flee to the suburbs and begin agitating for the same stupid ordinances that fucked up Mpls in the first place.
My youngest is a Jr in high school this year. After he graduates, we may have to start seriously looking at places to flee to.
My wife and I are already discussing other places to try. Not just because of this, but Minnesota just isn’t what it was.
I was in banking/investments.
When people have cash flow problems are cry being broke, it’s ALWAYS because of A) bad decisions, B) poor basic money management skills and C) just plain poor discipline. I can’t tell you how many ‘discovery’ interviews and ‘know your clients’ forms I filled out revealing this timeless truth.
And by the way, we had to be careful (by taking long, diligent notes etc.) with such clients because they’re the ones who were likely to complain and make a big fuss calling the manager and crap like that.
Uffda, Al Franken is a tedious jack ass.
He is hectoring the Facebook lawyer about letting someone pay for an ad with rubles. I wish FB would man up and say, “hey anyone who shows up with a valid payment can run whatever they want on our platform.” And then push back and say, “do you think that the US citizens are so stupid that they can’t tell Russian bull shit from reality?”
Yes, yes they do. It’s the only thing keeping their current narrative afloat. If it required them to belive clouds were green, they’d believe it.
I’m sure failed comedian Al Franken was extremely concerned when Barack Obama’s campaigns accepted campaign contributions from absolutely anywhere on his website.
But they didn’t accept rubles or Nork yuan as payment! That is how diligent they were about following the laws.
Based on Franken’s popularity, I’d say he has reason to think the American public is stupid.
Based on Franken’s popularity, I’d say
he haswe have reason to think the American public is stupid.I’m guessing Al regards himself quite highly.
*Did Edit Ferry Guess Right?*
Also, based on our inability to succesfully use tags.
Thank you, moodily contemplative edit Ferry.
I’d like to submit a new edit ferry photo option to the overlords..
Excellent find.
I am disappointed that nobody has the cajones to do the Howard Hughes and tell the grandstanding senators to shove it up their ass. Everybody is so concerned for their own well-being that they won’t risk any confrontation with the notoriously petty Senate.
^This
I think you would be an instant star. “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
Ironic that the guy who said that was named Welch. Wonder if he is related to our friend from TOS?
My favorite scene from The Aviator.
Great movie
Is Facebook NOT a global company?
It’s a message that resonates especially well with millennials who grew up in the shadow of America’s worst economic crisis in a century, burdened by soul-crushing student loan debt, rising rents, unaffordable health care, and waning dreams of achieving middle-class goals like home ownership and supporting a family.
If only we could put the government in charge of that stuff…
World’s most expensive dram of Scotch was a fake
Mmm counterfeit Scotch.
A bottle of turpentine and some food coloring will make a convincing replica scotch.
Now that’s quality trolling.
Nah, he is just slipping into bland mode again.
How dare you. He’s been baking cakes and bread and other domestic chores all for nothing.
HE WANTS A DIVORCE!
*UCS storms out front door and calls Robbo Suavo(the other guy)*
To be sure, UCS does his share…
Only if it’s especially nasty turpentine
Grind up some old fence board in there to make it authentic.
One dram and your piss can take the paint off the wall.
Did someone say – “Let’s make some Scotch“
I suggest that the Swiss Confederation declare war on whomever sold them the bottle. I think most of the cantons would go along.
Last night I was listening to the Nick DiPaolo Show and the topic was terrorism. I generally have little problem with his conservative takes but last night..woo nelly.
One caller, with a straight face, suggested putting Muslims in internment camps asserting it ‘worked’ when FDR did it to the Japanese (and Italians – who were also put under strict curfew in places like California).
I was buzzing. Not once did they think about this: When you round people up, it usually is without causes and you inevitably ruin the lives of innocent people.
Why in the world would anyone in this day and age think this a good idea for a tiny percentage of assholes committing these crimes? If anything, law enforcement pretty much know who these people are and you’re probably better off (if you were inclined to go ‘Commissioner Gordon’ and play with the rules and laws) surgically removing these dopes if you get my drift.
Anyway. And then the thought occurred to me, it’s possible Trump would like such an idea.
cause
But we already saw how that would turn out.
You don’t think he’s proposed it already? I’ll bet $1000 he’s asked Mattis about the possibility and had to be talked out of it.
Yep. I don’t think folks think through those kinds of things thoroughly. Quite frankly, I would offer armed resistance to such a roundup, because it’s only a matter of time, if the government does that, until the progressives regain power and put me into a camp.
24 already did it.
Great links Sloopy.
Warrant: Couple forced child to brush teeth with cat feces as punishment
It’s stories like these that make me wish the end is near.
I don’t get messed up fucks like that. I’ve never had an issue with my daughter that putting her in the corner or her room didn’t take care of
Me neither, one branding with a hot clothes iron and she was as compliant as could be.
*Frantically calls CPS*
“Common Parcel Service, how may I direct your call?”
Re: job-stealing robots
If it ever got to the point where “robots did every job”, then humans would not need to work–for income, or sustenance–because every needful thing would be provided by robots. Humans need food; so they procure a gardening/farming robot, turn it on, and watch it go. All the human would need to do would be to decide what crops and/or livestock to grow.
One might object that obtaining a farmerbot would be impossible without some source of income. Well, the robots would not supplant human workers all at once, so people would have time to save up for one. With robots building robots, however, it isn’t likely that the price of a farmerbot would be much higher than zero.
Also, since robots, no matter how advanced the A.I. programming, cannot experience emotions, then they cannot make actual decisions about things. They cannot have preferences, and so humans will still be required to make decisions about what to build, what to grow, etc.
Farmbots are already open-source and getting cheaper.
Looks more like gardenbot.
Touche. A woman near my mother-in-law has about 5 raised beds in her front yard and grows (without the farmbot) salad greens for locavore themed restaurants and makes on the order of $1000 a month. I figure I could probably get a 15’x15′ bed on a single one of those and make about half that. Tough to make a single gantry much more than 16′.
I should suggest this to my step grandmother. She has an excellent, GMO, all natural vegetable garden (best salads I’ve ever had in my life, including greens and other vegetables I usually do not like nor eat).
I’m guessing it will eventually scale up to more farm-sized.
It looks like that is the plan. This is experimental, let the gardeners work out the kinks in the software.
See?
Harumph! ** gets all mad about this **
That Night Ranger cover is priceless! The hooker, crazy Arab, and especially the dude in surgical scrubs and blue blockers!
The ’80s: come for the coke, stay for the fashion.
hah…..my mom had Blu-Blockers
I’ve enjoyed the non-stop 80’s angle to Stranger Things. I’ve felt strangely wistful for acid washed jeans lately.
The Bjorn Borg Donnay racquet in the bedroom sealed the deal for me.
This is the one I had.
Nice! Mine.
They really nail the little details so well. The lights the boys have on their bikes, the sweater Mike’s sister often wears, the kitchen décor, the foil-topped TV dinners. Nostalgia is a cheap emotion, but I do love soaking in it anyway.
I liked the Siouxsie Sioux and Erica Kane references myself.
I hate how the band crowds out the scene behind them. The photographer should’ve put them all in the scene as other characters.
While the press writes about little but RUSSIA!!!!, the Dem Party is imploding. Donna Brazile in Politico:
Damn. Seeing that written by Donna Brazile ? Those are some long knives you’ve got there.
So is she truly aghast at the takeover or just trying to rewrite some history and gain some distance from the Clintons?
The second. The Clintons are losing the internal power struggle. This is just Brutus getting a knife in.
Donna should go on a book tour: “I’ll tell you what fucking happened”
Assume all the parts that make Donna look good are false. The DWS stuff is probably mostly true. The Clinton campaign buying control of the DNC might be truish. But the part where Donna just stumbled into all of this stuff even though she was on the board of the DNC? No fucking way. Same with the “promise to Bernie”. I doubt anything like that happened.
True. This is their “shocked to find gambling” attempt at cleaning house.
Avoid prosecution, make some money, laying low when the gettins’good. Smartest thing Ive seen a liberal do in a while.
Holy shit. She’s going after everybody!
The Lightbringer, huh?
Well, he did lighten the shit out of their bank accounts.
The bank accounts began to recede..
*prolonged ovation*
I wonder how much distance from his presidency it will take for journalists and historians to admit that Obama left his party in complete shambles when he left office.
Well it took about 100 years for progressives to turn against Woodrow Wilson, so I’m going to go with that.
What is the likelihood of the DNC collapsing and tracing its fall to Obama?
When you say “tracing” do you mean “realizing” or “admitting out loud” ?
But Hillary would have been a benevolent good leader. She wouldn’t have carried this autocratic behavior over to the presidency
“When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard…”
I don’t know why this stuck out to me, but who in the hell gives a fuck where you vacationed? It’s a superfluous, meaningless detail that could actually come off as smug. Just say “When I got back from vacation…”
Establishing that Brazile is a full-fledged member of the in-crowd.
But of course she is still suffering from intersectional discrimination as a black woman.
Yup. The guy I knew in the Marines who never knew his father and whose mother was a junkie, and grew up without a permanent home as he crashed from one relative’s couch to another? White, and thus a privileged shitlord. The children of wealthy Dem politicians vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard? If black, then the victims of white supremacy every day of their lives.
It signals your elite status.
Heh, I was going to post that, but you beat me to it.
So, Donna Brazille who was caught red handed passing debate questions to Hillary? That Donna Brazille? What happens when you have a political party as corrupt as the Democrats, and btw this always happens when a party is leftist, is eventually someone’s going to start throwing someone under the bus to save their own ass. A great example is the Labor Party of Brazil. And it started with just a single person, then slowly worked it’s way up to Dilma’s impeachment and now it’s money laundering and corruption charges against someone new every week. Been going on for years. This is the future of the Democrats. But that doesn’t mean they won’t still be around and even maybe in power. When you create policies to ensure a large population of peasants and promise them free shit, you can be pretty sure that for every rat who goes under the bus, they’ll be another one willing to jump aboard to get their chance at the big government trough of other people’s money.
My Tweeters is BLOWING UP with this article.
I feel bad for you, KK, afflicted with the Tweeters as you are.
It’s all good – it’s my own personal echo chamber with only libertarians, avgeeks, and skiers.
“This Is What It’s Like to Fall in Love With Your Brother
Defying laws and societal taboos, one couple shares their undeniable connection.”
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a48526/genetic-sexual-attraction-incest-sibling-relationship/
Yikes!
There’s no way those photos represent anything close to the actual appearance of the couple in question.
Incest is the best
put your sister to the test
or at least that’s how the diddy went
“Vice is nice, but incest is best.” is the one we always heard.
I think some of you were hanging around with what me might call “bad influencers”.
It’s the game the whole family can play.
Written by Cersei and Jamie Lannister?
I tried to watch that show, but I had no idea what the hell was going on.
I just ignore it until they start removing their clothes.
This comes to mind
https://youtu.be/MRz_quXLp0o
I was expecting something from Star Wars.
Wow, creepy but I know someone in the exact same scenario. He was adopted by a family as an infant, and later found his biological sister when he was in his early 20’s. They immediately hit it off, and just vanished, the family that raised him never heard from him again. This was 45-50 years ago, I always thought it would make a good novel.
“Condé Nast to Cease Teen Vogue in Print, Cut 80 Jobs and Lower Mag Frequencies”
http://wwd.com/business-news/media/conde-nast-to-close-teen-vogue-cut-80-jobs-and-lower-mag-frequencies-11040148/amp/
*shocked face*
Apparently the back door maneuver failed to turn things around.
Hahahahahahaha
Those assholes ruined it.
They really should have tried MLW’s covers.
I am so disappointed by this, I had so much more material! I’M STILL DOING NEXT MONTH’S ISSUE
I managed to drag myself to the end of that stupendously tedious Kevin Drum article about the End of Work. He needs to get a “The End is Nigh” sign like the guy in the old New Yorker cartoons, and tramp around Times Square on his lunch break. But we get to the meat of things, eventually. After he lays out the dire need for UBI and a crippling wealth tax, and the obvious benefits of nationalizing all the robots in order to allow government bureaucrats to direct their activities in the most socially productive ways, he ponders the question of who will will take on responsibility for saving mankind from the robot plague. Who do you think?
So who’s left? Like it or not, the only real choice to sound the alarm outside the geek community is the Democratic Party, along with its associated constellation of labor unions, think tanks, and activists. Imperfect as it is—and its reliance on rich donors makes it conspicuously imperfect—it’s the only national organization that has both the principles and the size to do the job.
Unfortunately, political parties are inherently short-term thinkers. Democrats today are absorbed with fighting President Donald Trump, saving Obamacare, pushing for a $15 minimum wage—and arguing about all those things. They have no time to think hard about the end of work.
Yes, folks, the Democrats will save us. No names were named, unfortunately.
has both the principles
I assume their two principles are:
1) lie
2) cheat
Just like the Republican party.
I thought the two principles of the Republican Party were:
1. Cower in fear of being called a bad name.
2. Surrender at every opportunity.
Right.
1)Toady to reporters that hate them
2)Surrender on all policy votes
#1 will never, ever cease to baffle me. The compulsion of Republican politicians to try to curry favor with the media that will never, ever like them is beyond bizarre.
It’s the narcissistic tendency of people who are in politics to want to be liked by the in crowd. Amazingly stupid, but understandable.
I think it’s because they’re afraid the bad publicity will hurt them at the polls. Maybe they should learn from Trump…
I think the rise of Trump and the fall of the Democrats might be because more and more of the normals are wising up to the fact that the Dem solution for every single “problem” is the same: give us the power to reorganize the world, and the money to do it, and don’t question us.
Like, there’s not single political issue for them that doesn’t end with “…..and that’s why we need to raise taxes and give the federal government more power.”
When you start talking glowingly of communism, that’s probably going to put off most people, but that’s where they’re going, regardless and no one is stopping them by golly! I just read somewhere that a Soros backed group and The Communist Party of America are getting ready to start some mass protest against Trump fascism. You can’t even make this stuff up.
Ironically, the fact that Communists put normals in legitimate fear of their life is probably one reason that the Nazis were able to take over. When people are choosing between “people that will kill me”, “people who can’t or won’t do shit to stop people from killing me” and “people who will kill the people that want to kill me”, option C starts to look pretty appealing, even if they are evil.
Do they want more Nazis? Because this is how they get more Nazis.
Ever see The Expanse? The depictions of Earth in the future are pretty bleak, and they hint that it came about because of more and more safety nets, yet people still lived on the streets.
I think that’s where we’re headed. We’ll keep voting in policies that are supposed to prevent this feared end-of-work apocalypse, and we’ll end up making it happen.
Failure to know how markets operate kill my ability to suspend disbelief when consuming “dystopic future” genre media.
It bugged me when listening to the audio book of Ready Player One more than the silly “reveal” that his best-online-friend was a black lesbian.
And the only reason that bothered me was that I was certain the “best friend” was going to turn out to be the protagonist’s long-lost father.
The fact that there is a “Long lost” relative that you expected to show up bothers me.
The protagonist states early in the story that his father left, or died, or something, and then he is accepted as a friend by a mysterious stranger. I thought that an explanation for this friend’s interest and promotion of the protagonist could be explained by the friend being his father–as in, the father went underground, to “fight the powers that be”, but kept tabs on his son’s welfare. Maybe the father saw that his son could succeed where he, himself had failed.
thats my point… the dystopian future will not come because of free markets, but because we will try and control markets and try to reduce the risk and repercussions of outcomes to zero.
“Authorities are looking for another Muslim white identity extremist”
https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/925844960087289856
“Muslim white identity”
Well, I love how they had to say he identifies as white. If he were another race, would they be bringing up that part of the description? No way.
Next stop: “alt-right extremist”
I can just hear the CNN talking heads now.
CNN 1: “Look, we have to ask ourselves the tough questions. That’s what we do as serious journalists. We have to ask, are these Muslim extremists and the Far Right extremists really the same people?”
CNN 2: “Well, there’s certainly some things that don’t seem to be just coincidence. This guy they’re looking for now, he’s from Uzbekistan. And Uzbekistan is close to some other countries which are really close to Russia. And we know a certain person who has close ties to Russia.”
CNN 1: “That’s right, it’s all starting to come together now and it’s really looking bad for Donald Trump this time. Could this be the one that finally brings him down and saves America from his reign of terror?”
“Coming up after the break, Trump’s ongoing war on journalism and how it’s undermining Our American Democracy.”
He did drive a truck.
Ummmm….wha?
I tried to make sense of it, but my intersectionality slide-rule caught fire.
Sure. You never had an intersectionality slide-rule, like all good thinking people would have, you shitlord.
Tariq Nasheed is just some elaborate troll, right? I mean he has to be.
Well Muslim extremists are the white people of minorities
Someone’s still butthurt about the fact that law-enforcement noticed that there are violent black racist groups.
Bin Laden was a weeb. This explains so very, very much.
*stares suspiciously at J Titor*
We were warned that video games lead to violence, but we refused to let our betters save us!
Christ, Naruto, Bleach and DBZ? That’s not weeb.
What about this?
https://twitter.com/Stairfax/status/925412219394908160
I call and raise.
Completely glossing over the fact he played Counter Strike?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5cBkhYBVt8
Al-Sabhan Calls for ‘Toppling Hizbullah’, Promises ‘Astonishing’ Developments
http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/237517-al-sabhan-calls-for-toppling-hizbullah-promises-astonishing-developments
Yemen and Syria are boring. Moving on to Lebanon.
I’m digging the unibrow. But if I were a billionaire sheik, I think I’d get that fixed. That would be a good start as astonishing developments.
But if I were a billionaire sheik, I think I’d get that fixed
But, if you’re a billionaire sheik, you don’t need to.
So that explains Trump’s hair.
Exactly! Did it stop him from acquiring various skiers , porn stars and models?
“Hey dumbass, everything on the internet IS THERE FOREVER!!!!! ”
Aren’t there people who can wipe that for you? Like with a cloth?
A Japanese company has granted non-smoking members of staff an additional six days of paid holiday a year after they complained they work more than colleagues who take cigarette breaks.
Marketing firm Piala Inc. introduced the new policy in September after members of staff expressed frustration over some colleagues going on smoking breaks throughout the day.
And since bosses announced the rule two months ago, 30 employees have taken advantage of the extra paid leave.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/japanese-company-gives-non-smokers-6-extra-holiday-days-a-year-to-compensate-for-cigarette-breaks/ar-AAuhXa9?ocid=sf
This is not a bad idea to encourage people to quit smoking, but it is also heavy handed, like many anti-smoking measures.
It’s an incentive though, not a punishment.
Quit smoking, get an extra week of vacation.
“Keep smoking, and lose your job if you don’t work more than your colleagues” sounds kinda like a punishment to me.
It’s guaranteed to be divisive in any case.
“Oh you’re counting my smoke-break time against me but NOT counting the hen club’s coffee-gossip time and nerd-boy’s time looking at redheads in bikinis??”
It will not end well.
I just take longer lunches every day to compensate for my smoker office-mate.
How about the non-smokers also pay the exact same amount smokers pay in tax on their cigarettes annually, then they can get their vacation?
“Microsoft believes its HoloLens headset initially will catch on with corporate trainers, designers and repair technicians in its bid for commanding position in the budding market for augmented and virtual reality.”
“Microsoft’s Augmented-Reality Strategy: Pilots Over Zombie Hunters”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsofts-augmented-reality-strategy-pilots-over-zombie-hunters-1509627600
Porn.
Virtual reality and augmented reality will catch on–because porn.
Steve Smith will presumably use augmented reality for rape.
STEVE SMITH NO USE AUGMENTED REALITY. STEVE SMITH AUGMENT JOGGER’S REALITY!
Porn was first to everything. Porn was first to moving pictures. First to Super 8. First to popularize close captioning, the Internet, and online payments. Hell, porn killed Betamax and HD-DVD because it went with VHS and Bluray. There is already VR porn using those spherical/hemispherical cameras.
Updated Adam Smith: “It is not from the benevolence of the videographer, the software developer, or the venture capitalist that we expect our technology, but from their regard to their own desire to wank.”
That Adam Smith, such a fucking horne-dogg.
Didn’t he invent the “Invisible Hand” masturbation technique?
I think that is when you wear a denim glove while beating it. So when you look down you don’t see your hand at all because it looks like your jeans.
See? This is how innovation happens.
Didn’t he invent the “Invisible Hand” masturbation technique?
I am laughing, and people are asking why I’m laughing, but I can’t repeat what I said, because I am the only male in the room. *Sigh*
Luckily, I am working from home today, and I could laugh at that all I wanted!
Some VR games are pretty good. You need a very powerful GPU to really enjoy it though, so it’s not for your avg casual gamer. Fallout 4 is coming sometime this fall/winter, and it’s supposed to be the full game, so it will be the first game that’s probably more than 10 hours or so of gaming. I can only keep the headset on for about an hour at a time when playing full room scale, you start sweating from the heat.
Until the headset gets down in price and weight, I’m not really going to look at it. I’ll sink $700 into a video card, as I know I’ll use it, but thats a lot to shell out for an unknown.
The weight of the headset won’t bother you. It’s pretty light. The problems are the heat after a while, what’s called the binocular effect (the FOV is too small), the lower resolution and the screendoor effect. You can make the image quality much better through AA, but you’ll need every bit of that $700 GPU to achieve it. And even with all that, it’s very impressive and immersive at time. And all that will be worked out in the next few gens I’m sure.
As a video game technology, VR will go down as yet another fad that everyone was briefly sure would be the Next Big Thing. I’m about as hard-core as you can afford to be while still holding down a job, and I have absolutely zero interest in gaming with a bunch of shit strapped to my head. VR’s moment in the sun is already almost over.
I personally wish they would quit fucking around trying to make VR gaming happen, and put more into VR as a way of delivering virtual “experiences” — virtual travel, undersea, space exploration. I *might* be willing to pay for that.
I’m not too sure about the porn prospects either, but I guess I wouldn’t be opposed to say, the Westworld Bordello scene as a $5 experience.
There’s a lot of headsets coming to compete with Oculus and Vive, soon. With as much investment as is happening, we’re going to see a lot more impressive VR in a few short years. I mean it wasn’t even really a thing until Oculus began development, what? 5 years ago? The technology is in it’s infancy. What VR really needs for improvement next is a realistic FOV. It should be at least 150 degrees to match human peripheral vision. Right now it’s 110. So you can see an unnatural border at the edge of your peripheral vision, which is somewhat immersion breaking. Next we need higher resolution because even with the best hardware with AA, the image is still sort of blurry beyond a few yards. Things up close look great, but far away stuff with be blurry looking.
Also, I completely disagree with you, VR is not going anywhere.
Just to be clear, I don’t claim that my prognostication skills are good for shit. It’s an opinion pulled completely out of my ass and stated with confidence for effect.
Having said that, I’ll take that bet – at least for gaming. VR is the next “motion control”.
There’s many reasons that isn’t true. But I’ll just stick to the main one. It is FAR more immersive than anything ever has been. I’ll just speak from personal experience. Even with the issues I’ve noted, one of the games I was playing, I was ducking down behind some of those concrete road barriers in the street and peeping over to see if I could pop up and take a few shots at the enemy. After I took them all out, I stood up to rest for a minute. I actually tried to lay my guns, which are of course, the controllers down on top the concrete barrier and dropped them on the floor. I’ve done stuff like that several times in games. It’s immersive enough that it can actually trick your brain into thinking it’s real. One of the demos for the oculus has a T-Rex that will scare the crap out of you, seriously. Your in this large corridor with high ceilings and about a couple hundred feet long. You’re just standing there, when all of the sudden this T-Rex comes round the corner at the far end of the corridor. It sees you and starts approaching. At first you’re thinking this is cool, but when it gets up really close to you… I pulled the headset off, because no matter how hard you try to convince yourself it’s real, you can’t.
‘not real’
I side with Hyperion that VR isn’t a passing fad, but it also isn’t taking over the gaming industry: rather, it will establish a niche in which it is superior (immersive first person gaming) and all other genres will remain as they have been, played on the flat screen. And in my opinion, VR’s superiority for immersion comes disproportionately from the touch controls. When I first tried VR, it was a headset with Xbox controller configuration, and while neat it didn’t blow me away. When I tried it later with the touch controllers, the experience was so much more immersive that I went out and bought a VR system for myself. As someone who only entered gaming in the late 90s (for frame of reference), VR with touch controls is the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced in gaming.
This popped up in my FB feed this morning:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/city-sues-capitol-hill-skate-shop-over-illicit-skateboarding-bowl-built-on-green-lakes-duck-island/
A group of skateboarders enter a DIY skate spot contest by pouring some cement on a tiny island in the middle of a lake. The city catches wind of this and files suit for an amount in the “low six figures” against the local skate shop that submitted the entry. How much do they expect to actually recoup from them? My guess is that the shop will file for bankruptcy and the taxpayers will be on the hook for the legal fees and whatever stupidly expensive “restoration” work done to essentially tear out what amounts to a fifty square foot patch of cement on an artificial island. That’s right – while the island may sound like a natural refuge for endangered species by the way the city is describing it, it is actually a man-made lump of dirt that was built under the WPA and is now home to a bunch of ducks since the initial attempt to populate it with swans failed miserably.
http://www.historylink.org/File/3082
As long as it isn’t inhabited by Fucking Hate Birds, the Birds That Hate.
Aston Martin Now Sells Idiotic Tom Brady ‘Signature Edition’ Vanquish
Brutal but hilarious car review.
Oh, and in case you were wondering:
Bravo, TTAC. You don’t completely suck.
I just love the “Control that will be blocked by the passenger’s knee” in the interior shot.
Until that, it was just ‘meh’, not as dull as portrayed, but not terribly interesting either.
Are the tires deflated?
That’s it folks. Let’s wrap it up here.
Yeah, that about does it for today.
GO HOME EVERYONE, SHOW IS OVER!
I love the replies.
Smartwater is the only thing that is allowed in the cup holders. A reader scans the bar code and ejects anything else out of the car.
You’re then scolded by a woman’s voice speaking in angry Portuguese.
Prepare bunk for arrival.
https://archive.is/FwI7Z
7, 23, 34
Is #13 going for the IT cosplay look?
How dumb am I that I read that as I.T. and not IT?
I.T. cosplay; she’d have to dress up as a socially awkward, middle aged H1B visa holder from New Delhi.
Hawt.
4 and 34.
1 through 6.
Ahhh! Freckles! My only weakness!
3 and 26.
And all of the rest of them, fuck it.
The character “May” in Zardoz had freckles. Just watched it this past weekend.
Redheads tend toward the crazy side. But they sure are nice to look at.
ALL. My soul will be stolen and I will die happy.
All the actual reds plus half of the fakes. To go.
7, 8, 23, 31, 33, 38…
Oh screw it, give me one of each
A thread of redheads?
*raises glass to Q*
Details of the Tax Reform Bill Just Released
https://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-stick-with-big-corporate-tax-cuts-in-house-bill-1509629510
It’s a lot to take in at once, but it looks beneficial. Corporate tax rate got sliced and the income ladder brackets will provide a better outcome for lower and middle class. Not nearly as good as it could have been, but looks like progress. I’m also disappointed to see a repeal of the insurance mandate was not included.
If nothing else, the intense shrieks of the resident prog trolls on the WSJ comments board have convinced me this reform is in the right direction.
The two best things I saw there are 24,000 standard deduction for couples. And the fact that they are not touching the 401K. The media have been lying their asses off about that part all along and now are busted again.
Every year my wife goes through the hassle of figure out our itemized deductions and every year it is never close to the standard deduction.
After a violent collision with the AMT, I give it to an accountant.
Are they killing the AMT I hope?
I always do that. Turbo Tax tells me. Nope, show me.
Overall looks like Rep Brady did a good job and didn’t cave on key points. The Home Builders Association is outraged – the home mortgage interest remains (Grandfathered), but new capped at $500,000 for new home purchases. Extremely curious to see the final pass-through language.
I’m cautiously optimistic that the insurance mandate will be a short-term non-issue with Koskinen out at IRS since Trump has stressed non-enforcement.
I’m just curious, but does anyone here actually itemize? I’ve never had itemized deductions come out higher than the standard deduction. Maybe some people have million dollar mortgages. So this doubling of the standard deductions sounds like a sweet deal to me.
I should say since I’ve been married, the standard deduction has always been higher for me.
I let TurboTax decide if I should or not.
I use TaxAct. I’ve done my own taxes since before the internet was a thing though. Although a few years that I owned a business, I has someone else do them.
Same. Last year was first year that we didn’t itemize. Mortgage is only a couple years away from being paid off and the interest amount of the payments has dropped below the point where we have enough to itemize. Kinda sucks because charitable donations do nothing taxwise now, although intellectually I realize it just means we’re paying less money to government from the start.
Only recently – but we have our taxes done for us.
Reason? My wife’s business.
Well, with a business, of course.
The only reason my parents itemize is that my dad does handyman stuff for $, and reports most of that income to the IRS, and therefore between his tools, depreciation on the Truck, and my mom’s use of personal cell for business, it makes sense. Since they “Retired” and my mom does consulting jobs 6 months of the year (she’s just the type that doesn’t want to stop working totally, just only work half the year, plus it pays for nice vacations), they write off a lot of things she uses. For instance, she’s a totally paper person (prints greater than 200 pages a month when consulting, Epson literally upgraded her printer for her when the past one failed, since they get $75 a month in ink from my parents). With all of those costs, plus donations of materials and time, it makes sense for them to itemize.
” $75 a month in ink from my parents”
Amazon refilled cartridges, that is all. My wife prints a lot of stuff too and that’s how I’ve save a lot of money.
They don’t work quite as well, and well, there’s the write off aspect. She needs to spend enough to write off the amount she does spend on work. But I will suggest it to them.
Yes – I itemize.
Well, we’ve identified yet another one percenter in the ranks. Tony was right all along about most libertarian being one percenter zillionaires.
I’m watching Squawk (waiting for tax proposal briefing), and Tom Perez (former DNC chair) just started railing about the one-percenters loving this bill – then I see your post.
We do have a business, but have been itemizing since purchasing our first home. I previously lived in extremely high SALT states. I don’t have a mortgage here in Iowa, but home value is very low (assessed at $200K). Iowa is a fully-loaded tax state (state, property, sales) and rates are not low so I would itemize regardless.
Tom Perez… imagine a full on commie going hysterical over tax cuts. His utopia needs funded and he’ll let you peasants know what you need, how much you need, and when or if you need it at all.
Oh hell yes, as soon as I “bought” a house the itemized deduction was FAR higher than the standard deduction, and I don’t live in anything close to a million-dollar home.
My mortgage is less than 200k, so maybe that’s why it’s not enough for me. Also, low property tax state.
What are you trying to do, live within your means or something?
Yes. I know it’s weird and old fashioned and stuff.
I knew it. Wrecker.
Same here.
*high fives Hyperion*
I’ve itemized practically since I bought my first house. Property taxes and mortgage insurance alone make it a bigger deduction.
Mortgage insurance? Are you living on the edge?
Should have been mortgage interest. I haven’t had mortgage insurance in probably 20 years, because I keep a decent loan-to-value ratio when I buy a house so its not required.
That’s what I was getting at.
If you still had PMI payments…. It’s probably a hooker and blow problem.
Yes, we itemize — state income tax plus mortgage interest makes it worthwhile. Although as the mortgage is being paid down, that could change in the near future.
Hyperion, do you have no investments whatsoever? House plus brokerage account = itemized deductions for me.
I always itemize. The difference is substantial.
When I owned a home I did.
Since then I don’t think I’ve ever had quite enough itemized deductions to make much of a difference either way. My wife does always calculate them just in case however
The proposal for the corporate tax cuts overall are pathetic and not competitive with places like Singapore or Hong Kong. Fucking stupid.
The Revolution eats their own.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-democratic-civil-war-is-getting-nasty-even-if-no-one-is-paying-attention
So, I’m seeing all these articles lately, just saw another at WaPo, where some rare seemingly self aware Democrat is complaining about identity politics and calling on Democrats to tone it down. It’s too late. These people will be purged. The loony left now completely own the Democrat party and dissent will not be tolerated. If the ‘moderate’ ones, if that’s what you want to call them, try to push back hard on this, there will be violence. Maybe the new loony left party of America and the Clintons will kill each other off before the 2020 election.
…while still going all-in on identity politics and blaming all the world’s problems on Whitey.
It’s a conundrum indeed.
They let the far left in and let them get control. And they’re going to lie in that bed, no matter how it turns out. If you create a monster and you lose control of it, you shouldn’t be surprised, but look at the shocked look on Pelosi and other’s faces. They still do not get it.
I don’t think they realize that Obama begat Bernie. The clintons were always center leaning and unsuccessfully tried moving left when they gauged the wind. Not a big deal at the national level yet but as extreme leftists win more local elections they will be mainstream in twenty years.
I’m beginnimg to consider the shitlord status of my son’s orthodontist. He has four techs working for him. All of them are in their early to mid 20s. All of them are an attractive dirty blond, about 5’6″ and have the exact same body type…
Go on….
Um…they all deliver pain for money.
Go on….
We’re gonna need pics to verify this. Also cup size?
*holds out hands*
They’re about yea big.
Hawt.
Maybe they are all related, like that Seinfeld restaurant scene that I can’t seem to find on YouTube.
Sounds like my orthodontists office. Which is why 13 year old RBS did not mind getting his braces adjusted.
Hello Nurse!, right?
So you’re saying that I’m in the wrong business? Figures.
But, but, King Musk is a sooper genius!
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-drives-farther-off-course-1509571922
Paywalled…
This looks worse when one considers that profit estimates already had dropped steadily.
Was there ever ‘profit’? Are they talking about bigger negative numbers?
Here:
https://archive.is/KCUPq
So I saw this last night, dunno if you guys discussed it already, but try to read it without throwing up.
Washington Post sees NYT posting communist propaganda, says “hold my beer”.
The comments are even worse. You can tell some of them are Party members. One of them contradicted the article, saying the Party never took credit for education.
The real challenge is spotting all the falsehoods without referencing other sources. Protip: true believers feel morally justified putting out blatant lies for The Cause. Knowing this makes it a bit easier.
See my comment upthread about Democrats openly getting into bed with communists. This is what I’m talking about. And this should come as no surprise since progressivism and communism are the exact same ideology. They don’t even try the ‘No, we’re talking about socialist democracy, not communism, you don’t even know what socialism means!’. No, they’ve completely dropped any pretense, the mask is off.
It’s because they all agree the private property is problematic. Property rights uphold inequality, which keeps whypipo at the top and prevents confiscatory racial justice. When you’ve concluded capitalism is the problem, there’s only one way to go.
And their entire ‘Resist’ movement has nothing really to do with Trump, or with statues, or white privilege. The true enemy is capitalism. And to get rid of that, they must destroy Western civilization, starting with Western culture, traditional family values, and the first 2 amendments.
Stopped there.
“Runaway capitalism”? What in the ever loving fuck?
It means they don’t crack down on commerce hard enough, which explains why they aren’t starving.
“He knew such subsidies were possible only because of the decidedly un-communist lives that the younger generations are pursuing. Increasingly, young workers are fleeing Kerala’s low wages for the booming states of the Persian Gulf region, leaving Isaac to oversee an economy unlike anything Marx ever imagined — one fueled by global demand for Kerala’s healthy, educated workforce. But even with the gulf money, Isaac is running the largest deficit of any Indian state.”
That damn bad luck keeps rearing its ugly head to ruin worker’s paradises the world over.
Im on the fence here about ‘how shitty the media’s efforts to imply racial motivations for everything really are’
On one hand, they probably need to include the information. on the other hand, slipping it in there in this way simply tries to insinuate that this was the primary underlying cause of their dispute. e.g.
see *that’s supposed to be seen as an important and revealing quote*… because YOU KNOW WHY. See what i mean?
in ye olden days of less-scummy journalism, they would have simply stated openly in the beginning of the piece something like,
“It is unclear if the conflict between the two students – one of whom is white, and the other is black – had any racial motivations.” and then pointed out that a bunch of idiots were assuming it did, and offered their scant details suggesting it might. But they’d have made clear BEFORE dropping that shit that its completely in the eye of the beholder, and – Guess What? – bitchy catfights between female freshmen roomates? have been going on as long as there have been Dorms.
“Guess What? – bitchy catfights between female freshmen roomates? have been going on as long as there have been Dorms.”
NO! I’m shocked!
I’ve
gotheard about videos that purport to show this behavior?According to our in-depth research, 97% of dorm room catfights evolve into sexual encounters.
– Tenured Professors
The thought that it was NOT racially motivated probably never entered their woke little minds. I don’t think they’re deliberately deceiving. Their heads are too far up their own asses to know any better. And that’s why nobody but fellow travelers take the media seriously anymore.
We need to stay out of this.
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1102913833397&ca=9fdcf994-0571-4061-93af-7ee71c77c44e
FWIW, I’m extremely disappointed that we haven’t overtly supported/recognized an independent Kurdistan, but we ABSOLUTELY should not get involved with more ME tribal violence.
“ME tribal violence”
And that’s all it is and has been for hundred… thousands of years? And they will go right back to it the minute we turn our back. We should have learned this by now, but good business for the military industrial complex is more important that using common sense.
Look, how are we supposed to fix the ME if we don’t keep sticking our dicks in it? Clearly you just haven’t thought this through.
As far as I can tell, the one sure-fire fix is the glass parking lot strategy.
+1 Corporal Hicks
Agree. Kurds are some of our best allies but that whole shit show needs to be the local problem. Get us out.
“Good luck, everyone. We have a great deal on Patriot missile batteries and radars. The best deals.”
Hah! Tesla can’t even refund money to the rubes who “preordered” Model 3s without significant delays.
I guess it’s about time Elon makes all nicey with Trump to get some more crony bucks.
I am really curious about how much longer E.M. Barnum here is going to be able to prop up his massive scam.
Muh OX! Y’all done gored it!
One of the biggest flash points will be proposed changes to the popular mortgage interest deduction. Under the Republican plan, existing homeowners can keep the deduction, but future purchases will be capped at $500,000.
The National Association of Realtors came out swinging against the bill, suggesting a huge fight awaits over how real estate is treated.
“Eliminating or nullifying the tax incentives for homeownership puts home values and middle-class homeowners at risk, and from a cursory examination this legislation appears to do just that,” said William E. Brown, president of the National Association of Realtors. “We will have additional details upon a more thorough reading of the bill.”
Fuck you and the bubble you rode in on, William.
People buying houses costing more than a half-million don’t really strike me as “middle class”
My house was $83,000. I could have gone up to $150,000 without issue. When browsing causally, $350,000 homes in my area were downright huge. Unless you’re in San Fransisco, a half a million dollars is a lot of house.
That depends entirely on where you live. $500k is a small house or decent townhouse in much of New Jersey or Massachusetts.
It doesn’t change the basic concept of the underlying income needed to support that size house.
I use the loose guideline of debt at 2.5x income. At 80% debt to value, that is 3.125x income to house value.
That is $160k income for a $500k house, which isn’t middle class anywhere, IMO.
$160k is top 5%
Top 11% for households. I looked at the wrong number first.
But still, not middle class.
I’ve found that the “Middle Class” lifestyle does not line up with the middle quintile of income.
Speaking of, where are you looking up these %s?
google. Or where google directed me.
https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/
seems to be the best one I found.
That directs to the individual, not the household. Given that we’re talking about taxes, household percentage is probably a little bit better. Household calculation is here: https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator-2016/
Yes, see my comment above. But it has the links to the other ones too.
$160k income for a married couple is entry level middle-class in northern NJ.
They really should telecommute from flyover country.
Cost of living calculator says that 160k in Newark-Elizabeth is equivalent to 120k in Bowling Green, KY.
So, no, that isnt entry level middle-class. That might still be middle class, if we are generous.
Why do look at gross instead of net? 160k gross in jersey probably nets less than 120k gross would net in bowling green.
That is how the cost of living calculator handles it. It should adjust for taxes and etc, but who knows if it does.
So, middle class starts at the top 12% for Jerseyites?
Given the cost of living and the tax burden, yes.
The middle class is whatever bracket the speaker falls into. There is no middle class, but everyone thinks it’s them.
It depends on where you are, doesn’t it?
I probably wouldn’t argue with a revised limit based on Fannie Mae’s limit for conforming loans, which would actually decrease the limit to $424k for most homeowners, and go up to $631k (or so) depending on location. But I think a $500k limit is probably fair (I’m assuming that if you’re over the limit you can deduct the interest on up to $500k of the mortgage value, rather than being able to take a full deduction at $499k and none at $501k)
Just send Mr. Brown a box of a realtor’s preferred mid-day treat: sterilised, desiccated pieces of terrier feces. They love ’em and the head shot smile says it all.
Result:
1. Houses over 500k crash in value.
2. Houses in something like the 300-500k range drop somewhat in value as they get pushed out by the larger homes coming down in price.
3. Houses under 300k don’t notice anything.
Depends on what else is going on in the economy. If we start growing even faster, the effects of this will be drowned out my market demand.
Under the Republican plan, existing homeowners can keep the deduction, but future purchases will be capped at $500,000.
Note the dishonesty of saying “future purchases will be capped at $500,000”. There is actually no cap whatsoever on purchases. There is a cap on the amount of debt for which you can claim an interest deduction.
Eliminating or nullifying the tax incentives for homeownership
Note the dishonesty of characterizing a cap on deductible interest as “eliminating or nullifying” the tax benefit, as well.
Depending on where you are, a half million dollar house either makes you pretty much a (local) 1%er, or it makes you an entry level homeowner. In mid-to-downtown Tucson, it gets you a nice 1800 square foot house built prewar and renovated 10 years ago. Pretty much an upper-middle class home, with 10% down you’re looking at a P&I payment of about $3K/month.
Allowing people in high-cost markets to borrow money at a cheaper cost of funds supports the high prices in those markets; this could easily be sold as a way to try to soften prices in the $500K and up housing market to make those houses more affordable.
That would require people to understand the second order effects of subsidization. It Is Known that subsidization makes things cheaper. Just look at Obamacare!
To go with the notion that people buy houses based on the monthly cost, not the total price, the usual rule of thumb is to spend no more than 30% of your income on housing. This is typically calculated as 30% of gross income on your P&I payments, which would mean you can afford a $3,000 mortgage on a $100K income. For household income, that puts you at about the 75th percentile, which I count as upper middle class.
who picked 30% of gross income? That seems… high, especially when I do the math for myself, as in 333% of the house I own.
Its ye olde rule of thumb.
Just Principal and Interest payments means I can hop over to the nearest mortgage calculator and it says that with the 3.5% rate I got, using 30% of gross would tell me to buy a house approaching that half million mark – which is way too much house for a single dude living alone. Even then, I wouldn’t be able to shell out that much from my net income and maintain the rest of my standard of living.
I want to know where these sorts of rules of thumb derive, because sometimes they sound like they need to be re-evaluated. (Or were written by people who get paid from the outlay).
I’m with you on 30% being high.
As far as I’m concerned, anyone espousing that level is saying put all your money into a house and don’t do any saving or investing.
I’m thinking more like 15% as a good rule of thumb, though personally mine is less than that (yay for small town house prices)
My aunt lives in that part of town.
How’s your toe doing today?
Fine. I’ll know better once I go to the gym later, but I no longer have pins and needles below the knee.
Oh, and thanks for asking.
Did the bastard that bit you get fed to the black widow or did it escape?
It escaped for now. The only reason I know what happened is my wife saw it scurring away.
They certainly do. Tell Cuomo and De Blasio to lower the outrageous taxes those people have to pay. Don’t make the rest of us subsidize them.
New construction in my neighborhood is in the $400k+ range. My own house went from $270k in 2013 to, I believe, just south of $400k today.
Repeat after me: we are in a bubble. One day it will pop, and real estate prices will fall back to earth. Peter Schiff will be right again, and still won’t be taken seriously.
I’ve been thinking about cashing out and renting until that happens, but I like owning for its own sake.
Average is up to about $160/sqft near me for free standing homes on 1/3-1/5 of an acre. And lots of over on that. Median is probably $175, but there have been several of what look like family or estate sales that only reported $100/sqft. Anyhow, for 40 year old houses, even just a mile from the beach, out of any flood zones, and near the best public elementary school in the district, I would consider anything over $125/sqft a bubble.
Any attempt at tax reform that doesn’t completely eliminate the income tax for people in the lower brackets is a missed opportunity.
They shouldn’t be subject to taxes, filing requirements, record requirements, nothing.
As robotics and self-driving cars and other forms of automation continue to present ever more competition to unskilled labor, it’s absurd that we artificially make low skilled labor less competitive through income taxes.
For the millionth time, people will work for their take home pay–forcing companies to pay them more than that so they can afford to pay income taxes as well simply artificially inflates the cost of hiring unskilled labor.
If and when we ever get rid of the income tax–which is the single most socialist aspect of our society–it’ll only happen by phasing it out from the bottom tiers first. Meanwhile, some 85% of the income taxes collected come from the top tiers. We could eliminate the filing and reporting requirements for people on the bottom tiers and “lose” very little in tax “revenue”.
There’s also a psychological effect. People imagine they deserve free government services because they pay taxes. It’s the flip side of “no taxation without representation”. Pull the rug out from under that sense of entitlement, already.
But if there’s no reporting, how would we know they’re in the bracket?
/IRS
There’s already a fix for that.
Show probable cause and get a warrant.
Also, the expense for labor can still show up on a corporation’s tax filing.
It’s just that the employer would no longer need to submit a w-2.
What does that mean for people’s social security contributions, etc.?
Employers don’t need to file a W-2 with the IRS for that.
Maybe they should only need to file that information with the social security administration and not the IRS.
Any attempt at tax reform that doesn’t completely eliminate the income tax for people in the lower brackets is a missed opportunity.
Expanding the group of people who have zero financial stake in controlling government spending or tax collections sounds like an opportunity I’d like to miss.
Phasing out the income tax for the bottom tiers guarantees a smaller constituency for getting rid of the income tax altogether, doesn’t it?
You see it as an excuse to feed off of higher taxpayers, but they’re already doing that–even with the income tax.
Meanwhile, I’m talking about striking at the very heart of socialism.
Socialism = “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need”.
The second aspect “to each” is predicated on collecting the “from each”; therefore, the “from each” is even more fundamental to socialism.
Medicaid is probably the most socialist spending program of the U.S. government.
The income tax, however, is the most fundamentally socialist program.
The idea that I owe the government money because I earned it is so fundamentally flawed in every moral and practical way, and I want to strike at the heart of that.
Meanwhile, we’re talking about people whose jobs are under extreme threat from automation anyway.
Q: Who has even less incentive to worry about government spending than someone who works for a living but doesn’t pay taxes?
A: Someone who doens’t work for a living and can’t get a job because those jobs have all been replaced by automation–the cost of which isn’t burdened by income taxes, racial discrimination or sexual harassment claims, etc., etc.
People are only working for their take home pay anyway. Why actively discourage companies from hiring them through taxation?
“People are only working for their take home pay anyway. Why actively discourage companies from hiring them through taxation?”
Perhaps I should have emphasized.
The status quo is not consequence neutral.
Because the taxation of income forces companies to pay employees more than their take home pay, the government is actively discouraging companies from hiring and keeping unskilled labor on the the payroll.
If we don’t want so much of a welfare state, hell, policies that encourage companies to hire unskilled labor might be defensible, but I’m not going that far.
I’m saying that the government should stop going out of its way to make it hard for low wage labor to compete, and that’s especially important for unskilled labor–which is like a commodity. Unskilled labor, by definition, can’t differentiate itself with its skill set–so they can only compete on price. Meanwhile, the income tax makes it harder for them to compete.
Because the taxation of income forces companies to pay employees more than their take home pay,
On a $40K/ year job, a single person no deductions etc. pays about $3300 on federal income tax. None of that is any responsibility of the employer.
As a second-order effect, the income tax might decrease the available pool of potential employees at the margins, but I don’t think it would do so enough to change the supply/demand equation enough to require the employer to actually raise the salary by $3300.
I don’t think eliminating the income tax will have a noticeable effect on the pricing or availability of relatively low-income jobs. Now, eliminate payroll taxes, and you might see an effect.
Don’t miss the point that the employer could be paying that employee $3,300 less per year.
For non-skilled workers who are competing with the threat of automation, like I said, the fact that they’re unskilled means they can only differentiate themselves against automation on price. They’re basically a commodity, which means unskilled labor is more price sensitive than average–and the income tax requires the employer to pay that employee more than they would have to pay them, otherwise, to achieve the same take home pay.
Labor is a serious cost consideration for everything.
You know why the Romans built their roads straight as an arrow and some of them are still in good shape 2,000 years later? Because they built them with slave labor–and the labor costs were negligible. If we only build our roads to last 25 years, it’s because of the cost–especially the cost of labor.
Concrete lasts longer than asphalt. So why don’t we just pave everything with concrete?
The answer is that concrete is more labor intensive and, hence, more expensive.
Why did China become an economic powerhouse over the course of only 15 years?
The answer is because their labor was cheaper.
We used to manufacture things here that we now import from there.
Yes, I think artificially inflating the cost of employing unskilled labor has a significant impact on the economy–especially because the unskilled labor is a commodity that is most sensitive to price.
If the cost of engineers goes up, the demand for their services doesn’t fall as much.
Don’t miss the point that the employer could be paying that employee $3,300 less per year.
Assuming that people really take into account only their take-home, rather than their top-line pay, when looking at jobs (which isn’t my experience at all), and that the employer captures all of the tax savings rather than the person who would actually pay the tax (also doubtful), sure.
Could employers cut their pay a little for low-income jobs if those jobs were formally exempt from income taxes? Probably. Enough to drive job creation? Not much, IMO, but I’m not an economist and haven’t seen any studies. I just don’t think the impact of the income tax on low-paying jobs is significant enough for anyone to have a noticable impact on the economy.
I completely agree that the income tax is a blight on the nation.
I disagree that the way to get rid of it is to exempt more and more people from it. I don’t think that giving someone who is unemployed a job exempt from income taxes is going to increase the constituency for getting rid of the income tax whatsoever. I think if you want to get rid of the income tax, in fact, you need to do the exact opposite: make sure every single person who has an income has some income tax obligation.
Would making some jobs non-taxed increase the number of those jobs? Actually, no, I don’t think so. Whether the employee pays income taxes has zero impact on what the employer actually pays the employee or the cost of that job to the employer. Whether an employer creates a job depends on whether his cost (unaffected by the employee’s income tax) is more or less than the expected return to the business on that job.
The taxes that actually affect this calculation aren’t the income taxes, they are the payroll taxes for SocSec and Medicare.
Whether an employee takes the job depends, as you note, on his take-home pay, which is pretty unaffected by income tax at the lower quintile or so. And, in our welfare state utopia, the employee may also be comparing his take-home pay to the welfare he will be foregoing and that, not a de minimis income tax, is more likely to prevent someone from taking an entry-level job.
Well stated, R C.
I think you also need to look at it from a tax revenue perspective.
I’m not Rand Paul. I want a more capitalist society–even if it’s not 100% capitalist. And I’m willing to move there in steps to whatever extent the Constitution and the existing government will allow. It doesn’t need to happen all at the same time.
When you look at how much revenue is collected by income bracket, the last time I looked, some 85% of all income tax receipts came from people making more than $40,000 a year. That means you might be able to exempt 1/3 of Americans from paying income taxes–and only “lose” 15% of the tax revenue.
That’s one way you’re going to get swing voters to support your tax plan.
The other part is simply the perception part. Let’s face it, the reason the top 10% of income earners pay more than 50% of income tax receipts is because that’s the way 90% of the voters want it. Democracy may not be appropriate for a number of questions, but congress and the President have a hard time selling tax cuts from the top down. Reagan managed to do that in the wake of Carter–we may never see that again. Rather, if you want to make tax cuts politically viable in the real world, cut them from the bottom up.
See what good eliminating taxation on average working people, and they’re more likely to buy into eliminating income taxes for the rest of it. Again, if we’re going to eliminate income taxes, that’s the order in which it has to happen–short of Pinochet style, right-wing, coup.
See what good eliminating taxation on average working people, and they’re more likely to buy into eliminating income taxes for the rest of it.
I just don’t think it will work that way, Ken. In fact, I think it would reduce whatever low level of support there is for eliminating income taxes.
Even if it did, at least a larger portion of the economy would be free of income taxes.
Again, a more capitalist society is better.
As more and more people become wealthier, I suspect the support for further cutting income taxes would improve, for that reason, and I think people tend to go with what works. People supported free trade when they saw how bad communism worked. People supported “Reaganomics” when they saw that work, too.
People can and do argue with success, but it remains a success anyway.
And there are other ways to tax people, if you feel so inclined. Not all forms of taxation are equal–and taxing income is by far the most destructive form of taxation, from it being a foundational necessity for socialism up to and including it discouraging companies from hiring unskilled labor and keeping it on the payroll.
Even if it did, at least a larger portion of the economy would be free of income taxes.
Unless you really started raising the threshold for who would be exempt, I don’t think you would capture much that isn’t already effectively free of income tax.
And if you did grow the number of people exempt from income tax, you increase the moral hazard/perverse incentive. A larger class of people exempt from the income tax cuts against against repeal for all, and actually increasing the burden on the remaining group of increasingly outnumbered and outvoted tax cattle, which in turn increases the economic distortions imposed by the income tax and actually damages long-term growth by impairing capital formation.
Right now, there is pretty much zero support for cutting income taxes from people who pay little to no income taxes. I don’t see that changing, so increasing the number of people who are exempt increases the number of people who don’t support cutting or eliminating income taxes.
I also don’t think that exempting low-income people from the income tax (but not payroll taxes) will increase the number of available low-income jobs, or make a material difference in the number of people who would take those jobs.
Low wage people would enjoy the benefits of their lower costs to employers even if they didn’t believe in them.
And if we can only cut taxes for the wealthy by also eliminating them for everyone else, then that’s a win/win.
And if we can only cut taxes for the wealthy by also eliminating them for everyone else, then that’s a win/win.
I think it will work the other way, Ken – as (i) the pool of taxpayers shrinks and the demand for taxes stays static or goes up and (ii) the number of voters unaffected by the income tax goes up, the taxes on the “wealthy” will go up as well.
Low wage people would enjoy the benefits of their lower costs to employers even if they didn’t believe in them.
If the employer captures the value of the tax exemption, it has no benefit for their employees, whose take-home pay is unchanged. The only benefit is to however many new jobs/employees are created.
If the employee captures the value of the tax exemption, the employer doesn’t have lower costs, and there aren’t any new jobs/employees created.
Don’t get me wrong; I think it will have some benefits (likely to both) at the low end of the scale. But that is at the price of entrenching an increasingly distorted set of economic and political incentives, with the overall outcome likely to be a worse tax system and more divided polity.
Bottom line: you can’t even begin to solve the income tax problem without drastically cutting spending and the need for taxes. Concentrating them on a shrinking group of taxpayers isn’t the cure; its the disease.
“And if you did grow the number of people exempt from income tax, you increase the moral hazard/perverse incentive.”
If you accept that the American people won’t accept a steep cut in income taxes for the wealthy unless it also cuts or eliminates income taxes for lower income levels, then there won’t be a steep cut in income taxes for the wealthy–unless and until there is a cut or elimination of income taxes for the lower income levels.
I appreciate that there won’t be as much support for cutting taxes by people who don’t pay them. I hope you appreciate that this isn’t a good enough reason to never move towards the solution. I think it will be easier to make the case that soaking the rich isn’t a good idea when people in the lower income levels are making more money. I also thinking that income taxes stifle growth, and once that growth is unleashed, a lot more people will see the light.
The current “Mexican standoff” between ‘we can’t cut taxes for the rich because the lower middle class won’t stand for it’ and ‘if we cut taxes for the lower middle class, they won’t support cutting taxes further’ only serves the interests of the socialists. They want things to stay the same because the status quo is fundamentally socialist. If we want things to change, we have to make changes that people will accept, and no one will oppose eliminating income taxes on income tiers that represent unskilled labor–not on the basis that it only helps the rich.
If we’re ever going to change, that’s the way the change has to start. We can hold our breath until we turn blue and the poor decide to let us cut taxes on the rich out of principle and the goodness of their hearts, but I don’t think that’s very likely.
“If the employer captures the value of the tax exemption, it has no benefit for their employees, whose take-home pay is unchanged. The only benefit is to however many new jobs/employees are created.”
What about the benefits to people whose jobs aren’t so quickly eliminated due to automation?
What about the benefits to people whose jobs aren’t so quickly shipped overseas?
That we don’t respond to such market pressures by cutting taxes on labor when the unemployment rate goes up is astounding.
Long term economic growth is a function of creative destruction, and those innovations often come from entrepreneurs taking advantage of changes that make use of relatively inexpensive resources–especially labor.
Making labor artificially expensive through government intervention has the same kinds of impacts as if the government were making oil or some other commodity artificially expensive–only by making labor artificially expensive is especially evil because it impacts people directly rather than just some inanimate object.
Oil doesn’t have to suffer for lack of employment but people do.
However, artificially inflating the cost of oil would have all sorts of negative impacts on the economy, and not just in making companies less profitable. People might not be able to afford to go to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving. People not be able to afford to eat out as often. Waitresses get fewer tips and the economy needs fewer waitresses. When we stop artificially inflating the cost of something, it doesn’t just turn into profits that are pissed away into the sky–and that goes for labor, too.
It translates into economic growth. Labor is a fundamental factor of production and artificially inflating its cost has a negative impact on the economy in all sorts of ways. If we stopped artificially inflating its cost, it would also benefit the economy in all sorts of ways.
This is demonstrating the point that the income tax is more about control than it is about revenue for the government. The revenue is great, don’t get me wrong, but they need those sweet sweet forms filled out and submitted more than they need to money. They have the guns so they will always get the money – one way or the other.
And the way to sell this to the middle class . . .
It generally isn’t the wealthy who have the IRS coming after them. They can afford lawyers and accountants. When the wealthy do get in trouble, they make a big deal about it in the news, but it’s people living from paycheck to paycheck that typically have their bank accounts frozen, their wages garnished, etc. for failing to pay income taxes.
The burden of this tax really is disproportionately borne by average working people. Get rid of the reporting requirement to the IRS.
Nobody owes the government anything because they earned a salary. We’ve just been conditioned into thinking that’s perfectly appropriate and the people who want to keep what they earn are selfish and the government needs to watch every penny they make to make sure they’re paying their “fair share”.
Tesla can’t even refund money to the rubes who “preordered” Model 3s without significant delays.
The boobs on Bloomberg were talking about Tesla’s “disappointing” performance as if it might be some sort of surprise to any half-sentient investor.
I was wondering how many people actually pay more than $500k in mortgage interest, but I suppose one might have multiple homes to pay off. A place at the Yellowstone Club, a beach house in Marin County, a penthouse in Manhattan; it adds up.
*I don’t remember for certain, there may be some sort of “primary domicile” restriction on mortgage interest deeuctibility.
Hey, Brooksie, you look all alone down here….
You can only deduct the mortgage interest on your primary residence.
If you have multiple mortgaged assets then you refi the primary residence to shift all of the interest burden to the account that you may fully deduct.
I read that as a $500k cap on the amount of mortgage interest which may be deducted, not the dollar value of the residence, but all I looked at was the NYT article I linked.
Was I wrong? Or was it just poorly worded, as so much of their writing is? Maybe they shouldn’t have fired all those editors.
Good to know the FBI is spending its time investigating blow jobs instead of terrorists.
https://www.travelpulse.com/news/airlines/fbi-checks-out-sexy-strangers-on-delta-flight.html
That’s just criminal behavior 101.
NEVER do anything bad on an airplane or anywhere else under federal jurisdiction. EVER.
Thanks a lot, bin Laden!
FTA: The duo now joins an infamous list of lustful passengers, including a couple who engaged in sex acts aboard a recent Southwest Airlines flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas, or Condor Airlines pilots who allegedly filmed flight attendants having sex on a plane [emphasis mine].
IDK, sex on a plane beats snakes on a plane any day in my book.
“Fellow passengers condemned the behavior, calling it inappropriate and recommending the pair be punished.”
OOOOOOOOH. So tired of everyone being so holier-than-thou.
the FBI is spending its time investigating blow jobs
Crossing state lines with a woman for immoral purposes, dude. That’s the FBI'[s core mission.
If bad blowjobs aren’t a form of terrorism, then I don’t know what is.
Holy presumptuous colleague, Batman!
One of my younger colleagues told me she’d be willing to sit down with me and critique my work performance. Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.
Unless they’re your supervisor, or your client, there’s no way they are in a position to do that.
They are most decided not. Not to mention she’s only had one job, at this company (and hasn’t been promoted to any kind of supervisory position). I should be giving her advice.
Advice to give her:
Mind yo bitness newb.
*critiques UCS for the hell of it*
And I thought I worked with retards.
Pat your lap and tell her to take a seat.
Absolutely do it. And take notes for your kill first list.
Even the little millennial dude who just graduated from college rolled his eyes.
“I’ll go first. My critique of your work performance is that you have no clue how this place is supposed to work or what your role is, if you seriously believe that your “critique of my work performance” is appropriate in any way, shape or form. By offering to do so, you are undermining the cohesion of the team and the chain of command, which means your work performance is pretty detrimental to the company.
OK, now your turn.”
“And yes, that shirt does make you look fat.”
Oh. Do me next!
Sure:
https://youtu.be/axHoy0hnQy8?t=77
Grimey! I loved that episode.
To be clear… you’re Homer. You.
So I live in a palace, have two cars, a beautiful wife and my son owns a factory? Cool.
Most importantly, lobster.
The same one who’s unsolicited interview advice was to “be humble?”
The same!
Just hit the IGNORE button early and often.
I have a firm opinion that young people who fail to work in shit jobs in their teens and twenties never learn basic lessons like – know your fucking place. If you step over the line, you get verbally slammed and if you really deserve it or keep it up, physically slammed.
Shame and fear are underrated in the workplace. Shame is underrated in the society at large these days.
He father was a socialist mayor in Bulgaria (no idea if it was pre- or post-Soviet). She probably didn’t work at all until after college.
“Hi, that’s precious. Go fuck yourself. Don’t ever talk to me again unless it involves actual work we need to get accomplished.”
She’s leaving for vacation tomorrow and I won’t ever see or speak to her again! Hurrah!
^^^^this is the problem. What vacation? Fresh turd should be working at their new job.
At least you won’t have to put up with her for much longer.
She’s been here for years. They had a big management purge a few years ago, and she predates that.
i really hope you LOL’d in her face. b/c i would’ve LOL’d in her face.
I just said “I’m good”
So this open rebuttal to a commie professor came across my radar today and it is delicious:
That was an excellent letter. He really lays it all out.
Related, the author’s bio gave me a chuckle:
I should be giving her advice.
Dear colleague,
STFU & GTFO
This is why I keep my head waaay down at my jobs. Stay in the cube, look at the screen, get paid, go home.
Lay low. Strike when you see an opening. Seems to work in nearly any situation.
Ralph Northam is flailing around now – tells the a radio station that he’d vote to ban sanctuary cities.
Uh oh….no one tell the Latino Victory Coalition!
I remember when the dems were holding up VA as a shining success story. What a difference 2 years makes.
Virginia or Veterans Affairs? Both could fit as things the Ds have extolled recently before quietly going the other way.
I was referring to the state but well played.
I did a double take on that as well.
I look forward to their commercials with drivers in Subarus with Coexist bumper stickers looking to run down little colored kids.
Politico publishes article slamming the WSJ for their Mueller editorial, uses quotes from an angry guy identified as a former WSJ editor……neglects to mention that this former WSJ editor is now a Fusion GPS employee.
Journalistic ethics is apparently an oxymoron.
and the quote they used was really silly too. “oh noeessssss all the former WSJ alums he knows are angry with the WSJ editorial page.”