Hate Week continues. Only 4 days, 4 hours and 40 minutes left (when I finished this piece) until kickoff. Fuck ❌ichigan. But we got some sad news in Buckeye Nation yesterday. Terry Glenn died after a one-car accident just after midnight Sunday. Dude was a hell of a receiver. RIP, Candyman.
Terry Glenn scoring on Notre Dame (who hasn’t beaten Ohio State since Hitler was invading Poland)
On the ice, we had six games. The Blue Jackets topped the Sabres. The surging Coyotes took down the Maple Leafs. The Flames pounded the Crapitals. The Preds beat the Jets. De Debbils took it to OT and beat the Minnesoda WIIIIIIILD. And the Anaheim Mighty Ducks beat the Sharts.
And even though nothing of consequence happens in the NBA until the spring, I’ll note that the Celtics extended their winning streak to 16 games after another come-from-behind win, this time over the Mavs.
That’s it. I’m not going to heavy with sports because there wasn’t that much to discuss. So rejoice, some of you. Anyway, here are…the links!
Jesus, that’s a great speaker!
I’m starting the links off light today. Its a product review of a kickass bluetooth speaker in Gizmodo. But the fun really gets going in the comments.
And I’m gonna follow that up with with some really, really, really great news out of the Trump administration. More winning through rolling back on executive overreach.
Then I’m gonna go into a story that’s so shocking I still don’t know if I’m in a dream. A Chicago cop actually jailed for shooting someone while on duty? Isn’t this one of the seven seals that once broken will begin the end times?
At some point, I’ll have to go to some darker places with the links. Which means addressing the serial pervert Charlie Rose and his suspension from CBS and PBS. Apparently this was an open secret for years and years. Which speaks volumes not only about Charlie Rose but about the cretins working around him.
Staying on topic…once the Al Franken air clears, maybe people can start getting down to discussing the John Conyers situation. Nice use of taxpayer money there, John.
Let’s keep this slideshow our secret.
Back to some really good news. Well, its not news really. It’s the Chronicle’s story (with lots of pictures) about the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Did I mention there were pictures? Lots of pictures.
Which brings us to the last link. The link that will make you go “really? That’s the president you’re gonna say uses language to sway people rather than the slick-talking guy before his that was gonna cause the oceans to recede and the earth to heal”? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you what might be the most retarded Newsweek lede, if not article, in the history of the world.
I didn’t know whether to stick with rap or go back to rock. Aw, fuck it. Here’s the song today.
Go have a great day. #GoBucks! ⭕️????⭕️
Festus Firstus! Eeeeeeyaaaaagh!
Take a deep breath there, killer.
I should probably thank the brazen mouse from yesterday, if not for trying to figure out how it disappeared without setting off any traps, I’d have never discovered the massive problem in my campaign against the bastards.
Running along the floor at the base of kitchen cabinets is a recessed space, with a baseboard about three inches back from the face of the cabinets proper. From above, it looks completely closed in. When the mouse vanished in that vicinity, I got down on the floor and saw what looked like the perfect mouse highway – a run of baseboard molding that gave a narrow shelf along the inside of that space for the mice to run on. Okay, I figure I’ll block that off and the mice will have to be re-routed into the traps.
I find my measuring tape and start gathering dimensions, and what do I find? The bottom panel of the cabinets sits a half inch up from the bottom of the facade, and the back of the recess is only as tall as the bottom of the facade. There was this half inch tall, eleven foot long* slot through which the mice could pass into the space under the cabinets. Now I have to get a piece of wood to fit in there and block the entire thing off if I’m going to have any hope of winning.
Part of me wants to flood the void with some sort of pesticide before blocking it off, but don’t want to be laying there breathing that while affixing the wood.
*(it was broken up by the walls between the cabinets, but that was not a significant factor)
Imma laugh when they chew perfect little arches in the baseboard c/w hinged doors to slam on your nose! Maybe they’ll steal your traps and set them up inside should you venture to stick your hand in there.
This is how I would deal with the problem.
But if you kill them in a trap that’s accessible, then you can easily dispose of them. If you somehow pen them in an area by doing what you’re going to do, then they die inside the cabinets. I think you’re better off just finding an attractive bait and laying traps.
I’m 99% sure there’s at least one other mouse access point to that space. What I’m trying to do is change the routes so that they can’t just avoid the traps by going through anywhere along the cabinet space.
Why don’t you get a pellet gun and just shoot them?
Because from the time I get surprised by one to the time they disappear is half a second, or less. Not even enough time to remember I own one, let alone get my hands on it, charge it and take aim. Given that these guys can avoid being seen for weeks at a time, carrying an active countermeasure is more trouble than it’s worth. The air rifle is for the coup de grace when the traps fail to kill.
Sod that – go big! strands of concertina wire, some caltrops mixed in with poison and traps. Have a barbed assegai ready for hand to paw combat.
These are mice, not skaven.
Steel wool is the mouse equivalent of concertina.
It is one of the very few things they won’t chew through.
But if I block the gap with steel wool, won’t they just go through the wall of the cabinet (which is plywood plus vineer)?
Over stuff the hole at the juncture, and they’ll find a new path, which should drive them towards your traps.
The “hole” is eleven feet long.
*unless you mean the new one they chew after blocking the current gap.
Stuff both ends and they’ll likely choose a different course
Long was probably the wrong descriptor – it’s eleven feet wide and a half inch tall, a half in deep. I would need eleven feet of steel wool to obstruct passage – and that gets pricey.
Claymores, lots of little tiny claymores.
I fond that if you can wound a mouse or two, crucifixion of several of them at key mouse entry points is helpful. Listening to the death lamentations bothers me much less than it does the mice brethern.
My first apartment on my own was when I was 21 in Bloomington, IN. I had lived with two roommates in the main ground level flat, crazy-stoner Tim lived in the basement and our weed and occasional shroom dealers lived in the upstairs flat. It was pretty rock-and-roll.
The year after I moved solo in the basement. What a fucking shithole. But it was *my* shithole. My shower literally was just rough concrete and an industrial nozzle. It was what you would see at a zoo when they’re cleaning the elephants and rhinos.
I had a rat that was fucking with me for a few weeks. I’d see it scurrying around at night. I would keep shoes by the bed so I could hurl them at the cunt if it made an appearance. Then I decided to get some rat poison. It said to leave out a table spoon somewhere. I laid out half the fucking box. The next day it’s gone. I repeat. The next day it’s gone. I poisoned the ever-loving fuck out of this fucking rat. Probably the most violent thing that I’ve ever done to any (live) mammal. (Though I did have to use a chainsaw to cut deer/cows/horses in half when I worked for a private zoo with only big cats. Huh. That story is probably more interesting than this one…Pay no mind!)
The rat died in the walls and for ten days my flat smelled like the blackest of putrified flesh. Don’t fucking mess with me, rodents.
I used to live at 339 S Dunn between 1990-1992. We called it the Bunkhouse (named after our band). Green Day stayed there. As well as Superchunk, ALL, Lemonheads, and many more bands. We partied pretty hard there. Sex, drugs, rock n roll.
Cool.
Super close.
610 S Washington (and First) from 2007-2009. Absolute hipster ghetto. It was glorious.
Things don’t change!
“Though I did have to use a chainsaw to cut deer/cows/horses in half when I worked for a private zoo with only big cats”
Geez, man! Why wouldn’t you tell that story instead?????
I know! I mentioned that!
I have a minor in animal behavior and I worked at the Exotic Feline Rescue Sanctuary about 45 min. west of Bloomington. Crazy fucking Joe had about 55 lions, 60 or so tigers, ~15 leopards and maybe 3 or for mountain lions. Half of my job was doing observational research on the nuzzling behavior of the cats. That was boring, as cats sleep 20 or so hours a day.
The other half was helping the facility out, which largely consisted of butchering said animals. We needed 3000kg of meat a day. Farmers would call us up if a horse or cow died–we’d pick it up for free and get it off their hands. We’d then string ’em up in the summer sun and butcher ’em.
My first day I wore shorts because I didn’t know any better. We strung up 12 goats my first few hours there. Covered in blood, I drove back home. It was like popcorn at a theater–eventually you become scent-blind and stop thinking about it. I went into the kitchen where my vegetarian ex was studying. That…uh…that caused an argument.
One of the tigers, cleverly named Raja…, would try to piss on people a lot. 20 foot spray. It also tried to eat me once. It was stalking me in its enclosure. I didn’t need any coffee that day. Christ that may be the most scared I’ve ever been.
A few years ago some idiot didn’t lock her up properly as a worker tried to clean the cage. They found the worker with her head in the tiger’s mouth. They got her out of there. She had to get helicoptored to the Indy hospital. She was mostly OK if I remember properly.
I also got drunk with the farm hands and got a mountain lion stoned regularly. She was such a kitty. A 120 pound kitty, but a kitty. She absolutely loved it and would cuddle up next to me and would in her own way complain if I didn’t give her a toke.
Summer of 2008. Good times.
Mice always run along the edge of the wall. When you put out traps put them up against the wall. Also, again…peanut butter and bb guns. I won my war against the little bastards. I haven’t seen any evidence of them for months.
Oh…if you are gonna plug up access for mice dont use wood. Use steel wool. They cant chew that. Wood wont last a day.
Having ruminated on that I have to wonder – if the rest of the cabinet is made of wood anyway – what good would it be to plug the gap with steel wool? It would be an added expense, and thys’ just chew through somewhere else.
I followed that advice – they do not follow that behavioural guideline very well. I watched them dart across the open floor (hense the investigation into how it disappeared.) Both the ledge from the molding and the slot into the cabident void made the traps along the wall moot.
I also haven’t got the spare time to sit there and watch for the little shits to show their beady eyes and hope my aim at a tiny, rapidly moving target is good enough to catch them in the fraction of a second they’re exposed.
I buy poison from the co-op that dehydrated the mice to death. They leave my domicile in search of water and die elsewhere. I have been putting that poison in my attic for years and it keeps the mouse population to a minimum. When I do find evidence of mice, a trap (baited with peanut butter) will catch what didn’t eat the poisin.
That’s a wee bit of a canard. Most rodent poisons work by thinning their blood so much that the hemorrhage to death first time they get in a fight with a buddy or eat something that damages their stomach. That’s why they’re so quick.
When you do find them ‘dehydrated to death’ they’re just the mummified remains of the little bastard who bled out 6 weeks ago and didn’t get eaten by something else in the food chain.
Poison is the way to go with mice and rats. I use the green stuff that comes in blocks. I live on the water in Florida, so we have a continuous supply of rats. The green stuff works great.
I would just toss some bait into the Gap underneath the cabinets. They should have no trouble at all finding it. Once you have clear the building, you can set up a perimeter outside with bait stations to keep them from coming back.
Offer to give him a toy motorcycle if he agrees to move across the street.
Oh man. I had forgotten all about Ralph Mouse! I loved those books when I was a wee lad.
Your battle reminds me of the gopher battle in Caddyshack…the gopher won btw.
I am less unhinged than whatever Bill Murray’s character’s name was in that movie.
Carl Spakler
“If I kill all the golfers, they’re gonna lock me up and throw away the key… ”
Carl Spangler
Yep, Spangler. Only an idiot would think it was Spakler.
*adjust collar, looks around nervously*
Pond would be good for you.
The worst part is when the snakes move in because there are mice there. Then you have to get a mongoose to catch the snake that’s catching the mice. Soon it becomes the old lady who swallowed a fly.
After that, it turns into Florida.
I don’t need to get rid of the snakes. Besides, if I wanted to do something about a snake problem I’d put a cage with a heat rock in it, leave the door open and turn off the furance. The snakes would seek out the warmth and be easily captured.
Then I’d have pet snakes.
😀
You know who else used language to sway people?
Girolamo Savonarola?
Frank Abagnale?
Grima Wormtongue?
Benny Hinn?
https://youtu.be/a54iqEr1flQ
Every human since language developed 100,000 years ago?
Every high Cha character ever?
Noam Chomsky?
Perry Mason?
Dean Martin?
Umberto Eco?
Nerd.
H.B. Stowe?
Jesus?
Dammit!
Jesus?
Our local Mulatto of valorous title?
I actually use sick beats to get those asses swayin’.
Don Juan?
No Sleep til Brooklyn.
That song was a revelation at the time. For my rocking rap, I like No Sleep til Brooklyn.
That DMC video took the balls from a pretty decent band and ushered in the Rap era. We should put on black arm bands whenever someone plays that shit.
True story. This song was playing when I first met my wife at a fraternity party in college. My first words to her: “So, are you a Beastie Boys fan?”
so smooth.
I was drinking Colt 45 as well. I was pretty much Billy Dee Williams.
Hey, it DID work (every time).
You know, you guys are gonna limit my choices for the rest of the week.*
*Although I’m always reluctant to play anything off of Licensed To Ill when I can as easily pick something from Paul’s Boutique or Ill Communication, both of which are infinitely better albums.
CHECK YOUR HEAD OR GTFO.
license to Ill
http://imgur.com/av92aAw
Awesome song. My favorite on the album.
No. There can be only one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl1hgXfX5-U
::crosses another song off the list to link this week::
Rap and rock…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Ruh4LT6aU
I absolutely despised Kid Rock when he first hit the scene…
But he has grown on me over the years.
I have no opinion on Kid Rock whatsoever.
Speaking of Manson:
Charles Manson’s Science Fiction Roots
How L. Ron Hubbard and Robert Heinlein influenced a murderous cult.
TW: New Republic
Charles Manson, libertarian!
That seems to be the New Republic’s point, right? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go order one of those Jesus speakers.
It would be insulting if it wasn’t so obviously retarded what they are doing. Take anything bad and try to tie it to your opponent’s. Deep down I know that people don’t change and that they have always been this stupid, but it seems like in the older times the prime propped up for arguments were actually clever and smart. I’d expect this from a fifth grader.
I never thought the “Libertarian Moment” would look like this!
And yet, somehow Beatles fans continue to occupy high office.
Oh thank God – someone else who dislikes the Beatles
I find it amusing that covers of their songs often sound better than the originals.
Most of the covers annoy me.
Anyone who has read both knows there is very little in common between Stranger and Mistress.
Look. Libertarianisim is evil. Charles Manson was evil. Therefore they are the same thing.
That’s just science.
CONSENSUS!
You expect NewRepublic to actually do bare-bones research?
Surprised there is no mention of Trump.
That mask keeps on slipping.
Wait, Al Franken is their guy who “make valuable political and cultural contributions”?
He yells really loudly at Trump’s nominees.
He wrote a book about Rush Limbaugh.
I’d tell you the truth, but you’d hold it against me.
If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
That “it” has me worried.
It’s just a cucumber wrapped in aluminum foil.
Was your father a meat burglar? Because it looks like somebody shoved two fine hams down the back of your dress.
You like chicken? Taste this, it’s foul.
“Like two badgers, fighting in a small sack”
And there it is: an admission that they judge your moral worth by whether or not you prog hard.
Yeah. Which is scary. I know it happens on both sides, but the left has been more and more open about admitting that they find no worth in people who oppose them. At some point it will become even more mainstream to just characterize your opponent as not Human.
Camps for adults?
You “people” need to concentrate!
“but fear participating in a sex panic. ”
No you don’t.
…..fear participating in a sex panic that might benefit Republicans
Because it will likely implode and splatter feces all over the participants,
Shorter NYT: “It’s okay when our side does it.”
“right plays on the media’s desire to seem fair-minded”
The greatest lie the left wing media told was too convince left wingers that it didn’t exist.
“the right plays on the media’s desire to seem fair-minded”
Not to BE fair minded, of course, but to SEEM that way…
I can at least understand his political value to anyone that is a true believer, but what cultural contributions has Franken made other than a creepy and unfunny character on SNL?
The Al Franken Decade?
classic NYT.
89) African-American unemployment in the US has reached a 17-year low.
Have you heard this? Probably not, I only looked it up because Suthenboy said something about it yesterday. It’s true, though! Amazing how this great news isn’t being trumpeted on front pages.
But, it’s not really Trump’s doing, right? Well, true Trump hasn’t been in charge of economy for even a year yet, but the rate has dropped to 7.0% in September 2017 from 8.3% in September 2016. He certainly hasn’t done anything to stop it.
Actually, I think he deserves a lot of credit for it—blacks are disproportionately represented among our country’s unskilled workers—and who are blacks competing against in the low-skilled end of the market? Illegal immigrants, who are willing to work for below minimum wage. Curtailing that, along with a generally strong economy, benefits blacks more than anything.
What is the labor force participation
For African-Americans, 62.6% in October 2017, vs. 62.1% in October 2016.
From here: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm
Is that a low/high LFP rate? It sounds low, but I don’t have a frame of reference.
It looks like the highest it’s ever been was in July 1999, when it was 67.0%. The current rate looks to be at the low end of average.
The overall rate in October 2017 was 62.7, so AAs are just a tic below the overall rate.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300006
African-American unemployment in the US has reached a 17-year low….the rate has dropped to 7.0% in September 2017 from 8.3% in September 2016.
You see!!!! Joe Biden was right! Those dastardly Republicans under Trump really are putting black people back in chains!
NJ’s new Democrat governor has promised to raise the minimum wage to $15 when he takes office, so expect the 2018 unemployed rate to soar in NJ. Why does he hate poor people, black people, and small business owners?
It’s okay though, he’s going to raise taxes too.
That is just the cherry on top. Everything is looking up everywhere. Unemployment is at record lows, investment skyrocketing, stock market going like mad, etc, etc. It is Trump’s doing. The economy behaves according to how people feel, what they think, how much confidence they have. Doing shit like rolling back regulations, trashing Net Neutrality, firing worthless government slugs etc gives people hope. That is all you have to to do to spur the economy. Trump keeps grinning and wiping his ass with the Chocolate Jesus’ pinko bullshit and the economy is going to take off like a rocket.
Or people will wake up one day and discover that Amazon is $1,000 a share and doesn’t make money.
love the new avatar.
Or people will wake up one day and discover that Amazon is $1,000 a share and doesn’t make money.
And then they’ll shift all their investments into Tesla.
And I’m gonna follow that up with with some really, really, really great news out of the Trump administration. More winning through rolling back on executive overreach. – why do you hate free internet?
I predict a surprised reaction at TOS. “That horrible man did something good?”
You are giving them too much credit.
As my co-workers say: “why do you want to ruin the internet?”
For some reason net-Neutrality really grinds my gears. I think it’s the smugness of everyone involved. They think they are so self evidently correct. That’s why I always like to say: yes the internet will be ruined, just like it was in 2015.
My response is “Then there is lots of money to be made by starting an ISP that promises to follow net neutrality.”
Oh, Zod. No more net neutrality comment fights.
Witch Hunt
Wicca, the religion that many feminists find empowering, can be home to sexual predators and paedophiles
“include naked or “skyclad” practices, and sexual rites.”
Wicca always sounds like something I want to get involved with until I get a look at the chicks actually taking part.
Do you have some sort of problem with excess body hair and poor hygiene?
Don’t forget body fat percentages that for the “slimmer” ones start around 30% and keep going up..
Do millenials have to relate absolutely everything to Harry fucking Potter?
It’s the only thing they’ve ever actually read. Sparknotes took care of the classics from middle school through college.
It’s frustrating indeed. I didn’t read Harry Potter, and the books I did read no one else did. I may be a millennial, but I have little in the way of culture to share with them
I read Harry potter, but I supplemented it with Richard Pipes, rand, Solzhenitsyn, hayek, hazlitt, and a bunch of other stuff. Potter is fantasy and should be recognized as such.
Do Gen-X’ers have to relate everything to Star Wars?
Not this one.
Of course not, the force is weak with some of them.
Live long, and prosper.
Where the white women at?
We should just elect them to higher office.
The funny part of it is that the core of wiccan spirituality is the male female duality. Both the God and the Goddess are required and both ate tied to many of the dualistic aspects of nature.
Feminists however took this belief system and have largely ripped the god out of it with few acknowledging his role at all and honestly most not even being aware of the dualistic nature of the religion.
Just one of the many reasons I find wiccans to be not very serious about their religion and prefer the company of Druids and if they aren’t white supremacists Assatru
Just one of the many reasons I find wiccans to be not very serious about their religion
You mean besides the fact it was founded by horny old British men who wanted to dance naked in the moonlight with women decades younger than them?
(Not judging, it’s a hell of a scam)
Clearly as serious about their religion as certain Hollywood producers are about their casting calls.
When vegetables are closer in price to chips, people eat healthier
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171116132135.htm
Skipping this part : The researchers used the Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010), developed by the United States Department of Agriculture, to assess the study participants’ dietary quality.
“A well-balanced diet of fruits, veggies, whole grains, low-fat milk and lean protein, with a minimal consumption of sodium and sugary foods and drinks — like soda and junk food — would receive an optimal score on the HEI-2010,” Kern said.
Which I can’t say I agree with. Low fat low sodium does not convince me in any way of health and lots of the whole grain thing I find overrated. That being said you Americans do eat too much sugars.
But about the actual study. I am curious why there are such big differences in bad/good food cost between neighborhoods. I mean I get why eggs in place a and b differ in price, but why does the difference between eggs and chips in a so different than b? It is possible that price influences buying patterns but also the other way around.
And this bit kinda makes me thing of bias of the researchers in a certain preexisting direction
“Prospective studies that examine interventions effecting food prices — such as taxes on soda and junk food or subsidies for fruits and vegetables — would be vital to understand how food prices influence purchasing decisions and subsequent diet quality,” Kern concluded. “Improving diet quality in the U.S., especially for the most vulnerable populations, is a large public health concern and future research could help address this issue.”
From the actual study: a food frequency questionnaire assessed diet – this is not always reliable.
Supermarket food/beverage prices came from Information Resources Inc. (n = 794 supermarkets). For each individual, the average price of select indicators of healthier foods (vegetables, fruits, dairy) and unhealthier foods (soda, sweets, salty snacks), as well as their ratio, was computed for supermarkets within three miles of the person’s residential address. – so big supermarkets in that data base close to the house of the person.
I am not saying there is not effect, there probably is, just basic economics. But I am always weary of these studies which seem to be geared at social engineering by government. This does not mean they are necessarily wrong. So I need to control my suspicion and actually read the studies…
The prices for processed foods like chips are pretty much fixed with very little variety from location to location, especially within a region. The prices for fresh meats, dairy, and produce can vary widely from store to store within the same city. This is most pronounced with meat pricing where for example boneless skinless chicken breast can vary from as low as $1.79/lb to as high as $5.49/lb but you see it with veggies and dairy as well
I am curious why there are such big differences in bad/good food cost between neighborhoods.
My guess is due to demand and shelf-life. In an area with low demand, short shelf life goods are going to have to be priced more expensive in order to compensate for greater loss. Thus, fewer people buy veggies > prices for veggies go up > even fewer people buy them.
Farm subsidies are a big part of the problem.
I’m overwhelmed with links!
Take the good news while you can. I’m sure we’ll be back to five knuckle nut punches in no time.
I think they have a cream for that.
Is there a good article on the ins and out of net neutrality? That’s an issue I sorely lack the ability to debate with anyone that starts throwing around examples of providers that have throttled service in the past. I know it’s been relatively rare I know.
Net neutrality: we give the government, which has a verifiable record of censoring the internet and spying on Americans, control of internet infrastructure just in case the private companies that currently control it decide to start censoring the internet and spying on Americans. Oh, we also leave the local monopolies that everybody thinks net neutrality does away with, since those aren’t granted by the fedgov in the first place.
That’s not a good enough argument for someone that sees the gov as something inherently good. Or at least better than evil corporations.
Those people probably aren’t going to be convinced anyway, but FEE has a decent article on the whole subject here
Thks. Your argument pretty much sums up my argument. Though I usually point out that the bill is 300 some odd pages so I ask folks if they know what’s in the rest of it minus the few pages that covers throttling
Imagine if lots of companies owned the highways, but only one company might own the roads to a small city. Net neutrality would say that every vehicle, no matter what weight or how many axles must be able to access the road no matter what other traffic is on it. You can’t charge them more for special access, or limit delivery trucks during rush hour or late at night. It basically lets the 3 or 4 highest volume content providers to use your roads without any input from you about how the traffic is shaped.
So….it’d be like Austin traffic?
Fewer suicide entrance ramps, but yeah.
That’s a pretty good analogy. Better than my “imagine that all the internet companies are prostitutes”
go on..
Well, depends on whether you structure the analogy as a metaphor, or a simile.
I like this one. It also captures the consumer side of things pretty well as someone might be living in that small city and want a particular widget that can only be delivered by one trucking company. If the local road company has a dispute with that trucking company stopping deliveries into the city, the customers options usually are move (either literally or to a different ISP if available), buy a different widget (sometimes for sale by the road company), do without or apply public pressure to those companies to resolve their dispute.
The big contentious issues are:
Moving is expensive.
ISPs have a mix of legal and natural monopoly advantages with an added dose of easement and subsidies.
ISPs are often also in the widget business leading to increased conflict with other widget businesses.
It’s always a bit strange to me that no-one talks about local loop unbundling anymore.
I’ll bet whoever decided it was expedient to rev up the rape accusation engine to full throttle this year is really, really regretting it about now.
Me too…
This guy gets it.
In all fairness, who could have predicted how it would turn out?
anyone who has been paying attention?
Loch Ness Monster is spotted for the ninth time this year as sightings soar to record level
Nessexit.
*splutters on coffee, drops mug, staggers away from chair, begins frantic applause*
STEVE SMITH NOT PERSONAL FRIENDS WITH LOCH NESS MONSTER, BUT HEAR COUSIN SEA SMITH AND NESSY GET ALONG VERY WELL. NESSY HELP BRING IN MORE BOATERS TO AREA LOOKING FOR NESSY, AND SEA SMITH HAPPY TO SHOW THEM HIS LOG. BY SHOW THEM HIS LOG, MEAN RAPE!
SEA SMITH THE INSPIRATION FOR TENTACLE PORN
I blame Trump … and global warming.
Just cross your fingers and hope that he doesn’t return to his prostitute-killing ways
Beware the Loch Ness Monster
I’ve linked this before, but I figured I’d do it again considering Sloopy’s excellent music choice today. (sorry Festus)
The inside story of when Run‑DMC met Aerosmith and changed music forever
I’m surprised Steven Tyler didn’t have a regular guy he used. A famous millionaire rock star (assuming he hadn’t spent all his money at that point) has to buy drugs on the street?
In Keith Richards’s autobiography, he claims that heroin’s safe, when you use pure pharmaceutical-grade stuff like he did. He writes that once he ran out on tour and bought some off the street and never felt sicker.
Yeah, except it was Anthrax and Public Enemy that changed it, not that over-rated garbage.
Another reason to hate Michigan.
Exactly. Fuck ❌ichigan.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say ❌ichigan sucks.
Damn. Wolverines are bigger sluts than us Badgers. 11-0 and I don’t give a shit.
Oh, you and I will be talking next week.
Fun Fact: Michigan used to not be able to find 10 hotties to fill out the cheerleading squad and was importing their cheerleaders from the local community college.
Uffda. The state has decided to sue 3M -one of our biggest employers- for $5B.
The state says that some old dump sites have led to more cancer amongst some local suburbs. 3M says no study has ever linked those chemicals to cancer and that a state health study for the area showed lower than normal cancer rates.
3M has also bent over backwards in years past to clean up the sites. They must have really pissed off some bureaucrat somewhere to get this treatment.
Fortunately money for bureaucrats come from magic pixie dust so you don’t really need private companies in your state
About to become the Montana Mining and Manufacturing Co
*applause*
“On news at 11, we’ll discuss the state government’s latest efforts to make Minnesota disappear up its own asshole.”
No offense, but I feel very happy that my dad left Minnesota for the Army, preventing me from ever having to live there.
Men With Muscles and Money Are More Attractive to Straight Women and Gay Men—Showing Gender Roles Aren’t Progressing
A-doy. Women have evolved over millennia to place a high value on security, which means a mate who has the skills to earn a comfortable living and the ability to defend themselves from rapacious progressive idiots.
Evolution is a Cis-hetero Western idea used to keep women and minorites oppressed. /I predict this argument has already been made.
Wait why would women move forward? To what? Poor slobs? Money and fitness are and should be desirable.
well duh. After I started working out, I had a higher chance of becoming a “victim” to the female
glazegaze.“Mostly” how much? London’s population is roughly 60% white, so even if the pics are representative of society it’s going to be “mostly” white men.
We as a society should forge new soviet
menwomyn and gays!Color me shocked that fatherhood (i.e. “this man is already claimed”) and being pathetic are not considered sexually attracted.
Ooh, I’ve got a great idea! The writer of that piece should start a competing site with all the minorities and effeminate white dudes. Focus on sloppy people too.
If their theory is right, they’ll make millions!
if you think that’s true, you have a lot to learn about women, son.
I think it’s the opposite — I think it means your seed is good, and thus, attractive.
Women with kids like men with kids.
I’m starting to think that progressive social engineering is the exact opposite of evolution, which is mostly geared towards adaptation and survival. Progs are like a death cult, they will be the end of humanity if they ever get complete control. I’m not even being sarcastic.
Progressives are nothing if not deniers of reality. They dont call them useful idiots for no reason.
Reality is just a trick played on them by the reactionaries to prevent their socialist utopia from forming.
Sex Scandals Reveal How The Left Uses Shame To Destroy Morality
Indeed, the progressivist agenda counsels everyone to “feel no shame,” whether they be “gay or transgender or overweight; having had an abortion; having survived rape or childhood sexual abuse; or struggling with mental illness or addiction.” – well I have no objection to this. Besides maybe sometimes overweight you should not feel shame at any of those things. I don’t get this part
The progressive agenda is to destroy capitalism, western culture, and the traditional family. It’s a death cult. Hopefully they just cause their own extinction and not that of all of us.
That may be true. It does not mean one should feel shame about having been raped. Again that sentence makes no sense.
It does not mean one should feel shame about having been raped.
It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the origin of that shame. They think society is the origin, but it’s not. These days, everybody wants to help a victim of rape, not shame them. The shame is generated from within, but the feminists and Marxists never let a good opportunity to tear down society go to waste.
Victims should feel ashamed. They should be ashamed they for their part in it, chiefly for their lack of preparedness and failure to calculate risk. Shame indicates there were precautions not taken which, in objective light, appear reasonable.
Unless you’re a white cishet shitlord, of course.
Shame is not a repressive force, it’s the piece of you that recognizes horrible things. When it’s talking about your actions, it’s part of your mind telling you that you’ve been a horrible person – listen to that part of yourself.
What I learned when I tried to make my blended family a gluten-free, kosher, no-soy, vegan, organic, low-acid, no-dairy Thanksgiving
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2017/11/20/what-i-learned-when-i-tried-to-make-a-gluten-free-vegetarian-kosher-no-soy-vegan-organic-low-acid-no-dairy-thanksgiving/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.6b81975b0477
Most people like to have food on Thanksgiving.
Without clicking on the link, did the author learn that he/she is an insufferable cunt and no one for 5 generations on either side of their family can stand them?
What he said.
That’s a whole lot of proggy buzzwords in one link.
It better be high-alcohol.
That you’re North Korean?
That everyone in the family hates you now?
That could not have ended (or tasted) good.
“What I learned…”
Got locked out of the house while everyone else ate turkey, dressing and pumpkin pie? I am hoping that is it.
No – she is accommodating everyone’s special snow flake diet. This person needs vegan, that person needs gluten free. So, tons of food, and each person has something they can eat, even if they can’t eat everything. More martyr than I’ll convert them to my diet.
More martyr than I’ll convert them to my diet.
This. And also the best reason to have everyone bring something.
“I’m serving turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. If none of this is to your liking, bring your own food.”
Am I the only person who was expected to eat what was served as a child?
i’ll bring the candied yams, green beans, and gravy.
oh snap, forgot the deviled eggs! no idea how that happened. and halfway through the meal somebody will jump up and announce they left the rolls in the oven. every goddamn year.
and the Cowboys and Lions will play shitty games.
My grandmother (RIP) fucked up the rolls every year. It’s never the same without her panic.
And I do hope the Lions play shitty.
i feel like we’re cousins.
It was actually kind of sweet – not preachy or condescending in any way. She was trying to make everybody in a huge blended family gathering with a variety of religious, imagined, and actual health related restrictions (well, one person) happy (and not cause real health issues with the stepson with celiac), decided it was impossible, but that she could make sure that there was SOMETHING for everybody. It ended with a message that was more appreciation of family and thankfulness “everybody had plenty”. I was pleasantly surprised.
This is a community of autistic misanthropes.
Asking us to understand concepts like “hospitality” is a bit of a stretch.
I understand the concept.
I don’t extend it to people, but I understand the concept.
Fair enough.
I don’t want no weak-gened folk at my house. It might be catchin’. Like book-larnin.
I’m very hospitable to people I like. However, I don’t like very many people.
For a second I thought your were labeling the family with all the dietary needs the autistic misanthropes. Sounded OK to me.
She discovered that the rest of her extended family was just as big a bunch of pretentious twatwaffles. Eventually she gave up, cooked a fairly normal (normal for self-absorbed DC yuppie scum) Thanksgiving dinner, but still refers to it by that hundred-letter word salad above, because feels.
i have to say vegan is cheap. you can get the beans + rice burrito at Chipotle for $2.31 after tax. Indian cuisine has figured out how to make meatless palatable with all their foreign spices. what’s expensive and time consuming and likely complete fucking horseshit is juicing which is where you throw away 99% of the plant and drink the plant-flavored water.
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE???
NASA records first ‘alien’ traveller to Earth – and it looks spectacularly weird
That shape sounds like the moleten piece of a planetary body ejected on impact that cooled before reconsolidating into a round object, then broke from the parent star’s gravity because of the velocity it was going post-inpact.
Not a whole lot of information there.
How is it that this object isn’t trapped in our solar system’s gravity well?
Or that it isn’t just something on a big solar orbit, like other comets and asteroids?
Could be on a Parabolic “orbit” where the sun’s gravity bends the trajectory, but it fails to capture.
We’d need to plot out the actual trajectory to be sure.
Actually the term is hyperbolic. A parabolic orbit is one where the object is captured by the primary body, in this case the sun. A hyperbolic orbit is one that is open ended, where the path of an object is altered by the primary object, but not captured.
We have measured the position of the object multiple times (at least 3). Based off the positions, an approximation of the mass of the object, we can figure out the orbit. For this particular object, it shows a hyperbolic orbit. From the albedo and other surface characteristics, we have determined the object to not be like Oort, or Kuiper belt objects. So all that means it is from outside our solar system. Remember this is just the first object we have figured out is not from our solar system.
We should snag that puppy and see what kind of metals are in it. If only I had my space scavenger rig ready to fly, damnit!
I once found an iron meteorite about 3 feet long and 2 feet wide…a big fucker. It was in a wash just outside of Vail, Az. and about 30 years ago. That was back when Vail amounted to a gas station and a cafe with jakelopes on the wall. I didn’t find out until later that the damned thing was worth a fortune. I still kick myself when I think about it…but it was on private property and how in hell would I carry it out of there?
Clearly that was before you amassed your army of orphans.
^^^
supposed to say I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens
It was actually an alien spacecraft looking for intelligent life in our solar system. It didn’t find any.
“It’s the Chronicle’s story (with lots of pictures) about the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Did I mention there were pictures? Lots of pictures.” – I would think these lithe creatures are not thicc enough for you lot
my orphans look heartier than that lot. all protruding bones and sunken-cheeks.
AWS launches a Secret region for the U.S. intelligence community
Makes me want to run out and pay Amazon hundreds of dollars for a device that sits in my home and surreptitiously records everything I say and do.
I’m still blown away that people are willingly bringing those things into their house.
#MeToo.
Am I doing this right?
Jeff Bezos is actually Lex Luthor.
Hillary had a sad.
Hillary has a sad*
I predict quite a few more in her future.
I’m still blown away that anybody thinks cloud storage is really useful for storing secrets.
I think there’s a whole branch of government that thinks exactly that. As long as they’re your secrets, and not theirs.
New York City has its own version of Tube Crush on Instagram called Hot Dudes Reading, which features, as its namesake implies, attractive men who are reading on the subway.
STEVE SMITH HAVE OWN VERSION OF TUBE CRUSH.
STEVE SMITH CRUSH MANY WITH HIS TUBE!
Not creepy at all.
The left are in overdrive mode to out hypocrite their own hypocrisy. There are articles pouring in from every lefty rag, WaPo, NYT, CNN, you name it, defending Democrats and leftist from the same sexual harassment accusations that they are condemning Republicans for. They have no shame.
Yep, Ruth Marcus’ column today puts Moore and Clinton at one end of the awfulness spectrum and Franken at the other. She says Weinstein and Moore had criminal behavior but we need to probably go easy on Franken and others whose behavior is just boorish.
And no one but dyed in the wool pinkos are buying it.
the beatings will continue until morale improves…
We Glorify Male Feminists For Doing The Bare Minimum. It’s Time To Stop
There was another name for male feminists when I was growing up. Pussy.
Barron Trump Emerges From White House to Check Out Christmas Tree, His First Public Appearance in a Month
Isn’t it astonishing that the boneheaded American public doesn’t sufficiently genuflect to their betters in the media?
Gilmore’d
I didn’t even hover over the reply button…
You know, I’m almost hoping Trump wins a second term so that we can see the emergence of Teen Barron Trump – Shitlord Extraordinaire!
If by “emergence” you mean “rocking in a corner and keening from sensory overload”, then it is certain.
Newsweek has gone completely insane.
Barron Trump Emerges From White House
Did he see his shadow? Will there be six more weeks of sexual harassment accusations?
we can only achieve equal rights – which rights are unequal again
Family courts laws for starters
“hanks to the cascade of sexual violence experiences coming to light with #MeToo, it’s never been clearer just how much power men have.”
No, it just shows how how too many people in our society are too anxious to grab a moment of attention any time and any way they get the chance, and shines a spotlight on the hypocrisy of Democrats and leftists.
I would say that in general, it is more that power and having dominion over your fellows attracts scum. Yes, the press is covering for one flank of our politics, but that is not the big story.
Power and having dominion over your fellows attracts women too.
Yes, men are so powerful that any man can have his life destroyed on the mere accusation of any woman.
women deserve to be paid the same as men – and again you deserve to be paid whatever you negotiate
Every woman has an experience with sexual abuse at the hands of men
Either your definition of “sexual abuse” or “men” is wrong.
“Every woman has an experience with sexual abuse at the hands of men”
Citation needed.
Well, whenever a man looks at her, he’s raping her with his eyes. Whenever he doesn’t, he’s assaulting her with his lack of attention… and so on.
Studies show that 5 out of 4 college women have been sexually assaulted by men. Do the math.
I thought the proggie she-hags claimed it was 5 out of 4…
Mrs. Trshmnstr was fuming about this before I left this morning. She thinks all this #metoo bullshit makes women look pitiful and whiny. She also sees the connection between #metoo and the delegitimization of true rape and abuse.
No need to show off how awesome your wife is, Mr. Trshmnstr, we get it.
She takes care of my spawn every day… that makes her a friggin Saint!
But yes, I do like to brag a little bit about her nascent libertarian transformation. ?
Just gloss over the fact that the majority of people who vote are women. It’s almost like most women care about more than whether the candidate has a vagina or not. Clearly they are not sufficiently woke and must be educated on their compliance with patriarchy.
“we can only achieve equal rights we can only achieve equal rights with equal participation by both sexes, especially given that the majority of lawmakers are men”
And name one law that favors men over women?
The Selective Service Act?
Alcoholic Male Prairie Voles Likely to Cheat, Less Happy In Monogamous Relationships
http://www.ibtimes.com/alcoholic-male-prairie-voles-likely-cheat-less-happy-monogamous-relationships-2616650
Though mice, rats or any other rodent hate alcohol, prairie voles can out drink most of us.
“These animals drink a lot of alcohol,” says neuroscientist Andrey E. Ryabinin, who oversaw the study. “In a day, they can drink comparable to 15 bottles of wine,” he said in a report by National Geographic.
“They maintain the same pair bond for their entire lives,” Andrey Ryabinin of Oregon Health and Science University told New Scientist in a release. She said that prairie voles are such alcoholics that they prefer alcohol to water.
Prior research conducted by Ryabinin and others demonstrated alcohol could affect the voles’ relationships. Those studies revealed that male voles who drink heavily are more likely to cheat compared to voles who are more moderate drinkers. When female voles were the heavy drinkers, though, they were more likely to stick with their partner.
“I wasn’t cheating – I was just too drunk to realize she wasn’t you” – Voleman
So….get the wife loaded, and she won’t leave you, even if you drunkenly cheat on her?
Only if you’re a vole.
Besides, there would end up being a lot more long nights where you’re expected to hold her hair while she pukes.
Where are voles getting their alcohol?
Is it because prairie dogs are opening liquor stores in the neighborhood and preying on them?
So, first monogamy then alcoholism, right?
Is Spirit Airlines as bad as people say? For my upcoming trip, I could save about $100 with them. Is it worth it?
I’ve heard their cooking is pretty good.
*narrows gaze*
It depends how long the flight is and if you’re checking a bag or not. Their checked bags take forever to make it to the terminal. Otherwise, they’re fine.
Pro tip: get an emergency exit row seat. It’s worth it if you’re 6’ or taller.
It’s worse.
I tried once. Never again.
All i can say is avoid Tarom.
It would be a BWI to Vegas flight. $362. I would not be checking a bag – I’d use my CPAP bag as a “personal item” and stuff socks, underwear, and a couple of shirts into it to avoid paying anything extra for baggage – It’s only a 2.5 day trip anyway.
Pros – $100 cheaper than anything else, plus the advantage of flying in and out of the same airport. The cheapest non-Spirit flights leave from Reagan and fly back into Dulles.
Cons – everything I’ve ever heard about Spirit. I’d be particularly concerned about my connection – only one hour between flights in DFW, and I’ve read that Spirit will charge you $100 if you miss your connection even if it’s because your first flight arrived late.
$100 is two lap dances once you get to Vegas. Or 20 hands of $5 blackjack.
I know what I’d do.
Hah….already promised my wife I wouldn’t gamble. Much. Strip clubs are out too – meeting friends out there to see the Misfits, and one of them is bringing his 13 year old son. The original plan was to go to the LA, where these guys all live, but the cheapest tickets on the secondary market to the LA show were $90. Vegas was only $27, which was OK by me because the flight is a couple hundred bucks cheaper to Vegas than LA.
Have fun, you fiend!
Just like Aeroflot was in the 80’s, except the cabin crew speak marginally better English.
It’s a bus, and if you want anything that you wouldn’t expect to have on a suburban bus, you pay for it in time and convenience.
It’s a pain in the neck, but no worse than other bargain airlines. Honestly, I found the much-vaunted Southwest to be worse.
Take that back! Southwest is the best airline bar none!
Seriously though, Ill pay a little more to fly southwest rather than deal with the shit experience on most the rest of the domestic carriers.
Ask her.
I’ve flown them several times, never had a single problem with them.
The key thing to remember about Spirit is that they essentially itemize every single little thing so pretty much nothing but the seat is included in your ticket price. As long as you get that and either plan accordingly or anticipate being charged for additional things at the airport it should be fine
Bingo. Pack very light, print out your boarding pass at home, don’t expect to get even a glass of water.
The best thing, in my experience, is how fast you get on and off – charge jackholes for their 500 pound “carry ons”, and watch them disappear.
Print out? What are you, a Luddite? Boarding pass on phone so no extra piece of paper to keep track of.
My mother spent her life passing as white. Discovering her secret changed my view of race — and myself.
Well, as a Quadroon, you’re now ineligable for Klan membership. And nothing else has changed.
*assuming Azemar was fully Black, and the “designation” was not a one drop designation.
If it was, my statement above still stands.
Right. ‘Black’ in New Orleans…well nearly anywhere in Louisiana….doesnt mean much. I imagine Louisiana has more ethnicities than any place on earth.
Her mom: “I’m so happy people don’t know I’m black.”
Her: “I’m so happy I get to tell people I’m black.”
Family of opportunists.
Interesting turnabout in social hierarchy in the span of a century too.
I remember when I found out that my great Grandma was possibly a Polish Jew who passed as a Catholic in order to escape the Nazis. I was like, “Oh, neat!”
Who are these people that are so battered and bruised by the fact that, throughout history, everyone has fucked everyone?
You know who else was suspected of having Jewish ancestry…
Max Baer?
Max Baer Jr?
Christopher Columbus?
Washington Post reporter assigned to the Alabama beat, “Bernie Bernstein”?
Pepe the Frog?
Tragic Mulattoes.
Lady, you’re whiter than Rachel Dolezal.
There was a kid in my (very very white) high school who was adopted. I had no idea that he was “part black” nor did I care. It wasn’t until someone mentioned it that I finally tied his physical characteristics together.
Did they mention it while y’all were in the showers after gym class?
I have what they call, a passing complexion
Is this another ‘I am a gun owner but even I think…’ arguments?
Iron Rule: Ignore everything before the but.
And now for some good news
I love hearing about stuff like this.
Imagine how disillusioned those kids are going to be when they turn 21 and take a trip to their local “gentlemen’s club”.
Some of the young women will have been there not long after turning 18
Shit.
Heh – the first time I went to a strip club for a bachelor party – I was uh, rather taken aback by the overt nudity. But I quickly learned to accept it 😉
Yeah I was thinking the branding could use some work haha
“Wait, you mean I didn’t need to wear coat and tie??”
Also, is that a picture of a prayer I’m seeing? SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, YOU LITTLE BASTARDS!
One of the lessons should be to wear sweatpants.
You know I somehow managed to make it through my professional life without sexually harassing anyone. Of course I currently work in IT, which – at least in this company – is like a monk’s cloister. But I also have a rule not to get personally involved with the women at my job since there is too fraught with danger.
There is one woman here who I would – fantasy only – love to have an affair with – but again it isn’t worth trouble since she’s a nutter (but incredibly attractive).
I was accused of sexual harassment once. It was in avionics school in the Marines. I was the class leader because of rank seniority (I had been a lance corporal the longest), and there was this Tracy Flick type chick in the class that really, REALLY wanted the job. She and her little boyfriend were constantly complaining about decisions I made. One day I got tired of it and called her a fucking cunt, which of course led to her claiming “sexual harassment”. Got me threatened with NJP, although in the end all they did was fire me as class leader.
Wherein I reply to a reply within Iowahawk’s tweets and don’t realize until later who I replied to
Wait looking at the comment you replied to wasn’t there a dondero meme on the old site?
There was Dondero on the old site. The meme came later.
Dondee-rooooo!
Also no blue check-mark? Twitter peasant
Xkcd actually had a funny comic the other day criticizing Twitter over it’s ‘verified’ policy.
Dondero? *shifty look*
Nice first name BTW 😉
I bet the last name is something Jewish.
DONDEROOOOO!!!!
DONDEROOOOOOOOO!
I wonder when he will find his way here? And how long he lasts?
*fiercely narrows gaze*
*mulls over catbutting robc*
Dondero is fun. In small doses. Back in ought seven I use to argue with him regularly on Red State, before the Paulista purge.
On a tangentially related topic, this site is really missing some non-libertarian non-trolls.
If I want an argument, I have to bring up the Single Land Tax and that gets tiring.
Only statists are for open borders!
Or pizza styles.
I’m not missing them.
Did he drop his home address there too?
No, he was more mainstream there.
Did he send you his home address so you can fight?
” some really, really, really great news out of the Trump administration. More winning through rolling back on executive overreach.”
It doesnt matter. He is still the devil. Here is a guy who has been in the public eye for over 40 years. He has never been accused of much of anything beyond being a notorious serial monogamist. He wins an election and becomes a threat to the pinkos creeping hold on power and all of a sudden he is a racist, white supremacist, rapist patriarchal boorish monster. Fortunately for Americans one who will be re-elected. More pinko tears please.
Charlie Manson? Really? It aint called derangement syndrome for nuthin’. The comments are good.
Manson’s white privilege should’ve overcame being born to a hooker, never knowing his father, and being raped as a child. I really want someone to make that case.
This may be an edgelord opinion, but I think it’s kind of a travesty that Manson got convicted of murder 1 despite never having touched one of the people he was convicted of premeditatedly murdering. The conspiracy charge was legit.
Well he conspired to murder beautiful people, not just poor ugly ones.
Yeah. Sharon Tate. That just broke my heart. I know, I know, actress and all…but you know, Sharon Tate.
*Fearless Vampire Killers – one of the best movies ever made.
Fearless Vampire Killers https://youtu.be/rkP__7tTM5M
I knew I could count on you
You’ve been doing a bang-up job yourself.
Lullabies May be Product of Battle Between Parents and Babies
New theory views lullabies as a signal to babies that parents are giving all they can.
https://www.insidescience.org/news/lullabies-may-be-product-battle-between-parents-and-babies
“I’m going to put you in a fucking tree and let you fall out if you don’t go the fuck to sleep”
Didn’t know any lullabies, so I sung TV theme songs to my kids. I’m sure they’ll turn out okay.
I soothed my grand-daughter to ‘Sedated’ by the Ramones.
It was actually very effective.
When #6.2 was 2 or 3, we bought him a tee shirt with the slogan “Rock and Roll Preschool” on it. We still have it somewhere, although it’s pretty well-worn.
“Skulls” by the Misfits was a go-to when serenading my child.
Age-of-consent laws don’t reflect teenage psychology. Here’s how to fix them.
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/11/20/16677180/age-consent-teenage-psychology-law-roy-moore
Consent laws, I argue, should allow people within a certain age range (say, 16 to 21) to offer “assent” to sex with a significantly older person — but permit them to revoke that assent at any time. “Assent” is a weaker form of agreement, legally speaking, than “consent.”
Here’s how I imagine it working. Suppose Jane Doe (16) gives legal assent to sex with Troy (30). That assent is legally binding, but would be unilaterally revocable. If the minor concludes that the sex was exploitative, before she reaches 18 (or 19 or 20), she could void her assent. (Parents could not void a minor’s assent for her, under this system.)
Wait is the waiving of assent retroactive? Because there is plenty that can go wrong with this
something something blackmail.
That assent is legally binding, but would be unilaterally revocable. If the minor concludes that the sex was exploitative, before she reaches 18 (or 19 or 20), she could void her assent.
2017: harder daddy
2021: lol j/k it was raep
Yep, nothing that could possibly go wrong there.
I can’t see a system like that getting abused. No, sir.
I think that is the point. They are going to keep throwing acid on our society until it crumbles.
This is a great idea. I can’t think of a better incentive to keep older people away from younger other than the fact of knowing that at any time what they did could be changed and classified as rape.
Oh wait keeping the old folks away from the young isn’t the goal?
That is IQ-lowering level retardation.
Everyone wants a sugar daddy until daddy want some sugar.
The writer is on to something there but the idea of retroactive revocation is just moronic.
In reality it should be more like if Troy has sex with Jane it can still be prosecuted as a crime, albeit a lower level crime than rape and one of the key elements of that crime must be that the minor in question has been harmed in some measurable way. Not the bullshit idea that all sex as a teen is somehow damaging in some mysterious way that everyone seems to think exists but no one can ever actually articulate even though pretty much all of us had sex as a teen and don’t seem to have been harmed by it but actual real domonstrable harm to their physical or mental health that can reasonably be tied to the sex.
So if you bang a consenting 16 year old and she spirals into a cycle of self harm and depression because she wasn’t ready for it then yeah you might be facing charges after the fact because even though she consented as the older party you had a duty to try and verify that she was mentally mature enough before going there but in order to convict you they are going to have to prove that she suffered actual negative consequences.
Any Glibs live in Rapid City, SD? If so, you might want to keep an eye on this guy. I’m thinking he’ll move on to bigger things one day
‘I’m no maniac’: Former Moorhead man sentenced for killing cat
WARTY RAGE!
Look people. This will only cement the image in cats minds that they are more important than humans.
Killing cats? That’s no maniac, that’s a hero.
A hero to rodent kind maybe.
My dachshund kills little rodents just as much as any cat
My FiL’s dachshund would kill rabbits, groundhogs, moles, squirrels and anything else that deemed to enter his yard.
He would then consume the corpse, because trying to take it from him would result in you being killed and eaten.
He was so fat his dick actually drug on the ground.
If I’m remembering my Steinbeck correctly, this doesn’t end well.
If I’m remembering my Lovecraft correctly, this doesn’t end well.
If I’m remembering my Fred Quimby correctly, the cat will be fine in a few seconds.
ah, my favorite work of Lovecraft (non-Cthulhu version)
Torturing/killing small animals is a pretty big red flag. Obviously not everyone who does it goes on to kill people, but almost all serial killers have a history of this kind of behavior.
^Bingo^
A guy I went to HS with killed his mother’s dog by stabbing it in the throat just for fun. That dude really creeped me out. Twenty years later he was released from a mental hospital and a year later two women were discovered buried in his back yard.
Were they there before his stay, or did he bury them after he got out?
via /r/nfl, fear not, Browns fans! If each of these 46 things happened, the Browns can still make the playoffs!
Other than Week 12, I think the Texans might do their part.
Well,that could happen.
Except for the “Brown beat the…” part.
The Browns could be the Bears.
The Trump administration is going after Harvard’s affirmative action program for racially discriminating against Asians.
“DOJ investigating Harvard’s admission policies: report”
—-The Hill
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/361313-doj-investigating-harvards-admission-policies-report
What’s the difference between this and the Jewish quota that existed at the Ivies in the late 19th/early 20th centuries?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota
Asians aren’t reptilian-human hybrids controlling everything through a shadow government.
Be quiet about that. Our Jew gold is hidden between our human skin suit and our reptilian skin. If everyone found out about that we’d be in trouble.
Your sssssssecret isssssss sssssafe with me
*perks up, begins to search Amazon for scaling knives*
The scales are under the gold. Regular flensing knives work best
I hope Harvard just says they’re no longer going to accept any federal funding. And. I hope a shitload of other private schools follow suit.
*EDIT FAIRY EVEN HELPS STAFF*
That would be great. Prog heads would explode!
They could stop charging tuition and I believe their endowment would last forever.
Oh my. I have a new favorite Edit Fairy
That edit faerie helps my staff, too.
Apparently Asians are the new Nazis.
Asians are the white people of academics
Bit old, but relevant: Princeton frowns on minority applicants who aren’t steriotypical enough
Would it help if I joined the “Sons of Norway“?
I’m thinking about what this will do to the anti–fa and SJWs on campuses all over the country.
Who do they protest for?
Who do they protest against?
The school administration for discriminating against Asians?
The school administration for trying to stop discriminating against Asians?
?
Oh that’s easy; they say that Asian Americans discrimination isn’t the result of affirmative action, and RHEE at Trump for racistly saying it is.
They ignore it completely.
Restoring the meritocracy. Every day is like Christmas with this guy.
As stated previously, everyone loves tits.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/704677/breast-obsession-men-and-women-explained-by-scientists
Titty Tuesday!
http://archive.is/nxOID
3, 5, 13, 38
Everyone loves tits. Not everyone loves excessively large ones
11 cause I like the fancy hat, 27, 37 looks cute
Define “excessive”…
We’ll convert you yet Pie!
Here’s the thing, Q – It’s about proportionality. You’re upper bound is just too disproportionate to the woman to be attractive, and at those sizes just gets freakish.
http://www.affaritaliani.it/upload/Al/0007/Alessia2.jpg
Would.
Fawk. I need to go take a baby aspirin.
I am with you Pie. I dont need exaggerated proportions to be attracted to a woman.
I don’t ‘need’ it either, but bazingah!
Orgy.
5, 12, 35 for me
29 is the winner
5 is the bunny boiler
8 is a big Step Brothers fan
8 is a big Step Brothers fan
A pretty close doppelganger for Beavis too
5 can boil my bunny any day….
Yeah, I never liked that bunny anyway.
Welcome back, Q!
I think 19 and I could be friends.
Probably 37 but the quality and angle of the photo messes that up.
24.
12.
1.
5.
They think scientists have to explain this to us….and then they get it wrong. Idjits.
“Women prefer less risk and less competition, appear to prioritize equality over efficiency and report a greater willingness to share wealth.”
https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0713.html
Revoke their voting rights!
TIWTANFL
It’s almost as if the genders are different or something, maybe even on a biological level.
/shitlording
But remember, any difference in female incomes and/or job choice can be attributed 100 percent to a giant sexist conspiracy to keep women down.
This is probably going to be the best thing about electing Trump. I’m not a fan of these lifetime appointments, but as long as the system works like that, it’s better to have liberty-minded judges than proggie social engineers.
http://archive.is/WnnyC
Trump’s been a very liberty-friendly outside of the pills and weed. Laissez-faire on legislation, anti-regulation, liberty-leaning judicial appointees. He’s not the best at promoting his agenda to Congress, but they were going to be useless no matter what.
came about four years after Democrats, citing Republican filibusters of President Barack Obama’s circuit-court nominees, eliminated a Senate rule that required the majority party to mount 60 votes to advance a nominee to a confirmation vote.
oh fuck that is classic.
You know… my wife’s brother died of a brain tumor, and it was one of the worst experiences one can imagine, so I’m not going to say anything here. I’ll just link this and roll my eyes.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/mccain-rand-paul-is-now-working-for-vladimir-putin-236106
As I’ve said before, the fact that he’s not sitting on a beach somewhere with his grandchildren enjoying his last months on Earth with family shows how venal and power hungry he is. He’d rather use his remaining time to grandstand and attention whore rather than enjoy simple pleasures and take stock of existence.
THIS. If I have a year or so to live, man, fuck working. I’d spend every last waking hour with the people I love.
Right!? If I’ve got a deadline, no pun intended, I’m putting my affairs in order, movin’ the fam to a beach house, and hittin’ the bucket list aggressively.
hittin’ the bucket list aggressively
I believe McCain is doing just that.
“hittin’ the bucket list aggressively”
Euphemism?
I didn’t say I’d be at the same beach house…
You’re already here.
*sniff* You like me! You really like me!
I’d also be trying out every drug I could get my hands on.
Meth, heroin, crack. Yup. Sign me up.
I suppose its viewed as demonstrating his commitment to ‘public service’
It’s all about his legacy at this point. It has become all consuming and means far more to him than his family.
Yep Q, that says more than anything about the man. Most Americans think we are different, that we dont have power hungry dictator types here. They think it cant happen here. McCain is exhibit no. 1 that they are dead wrong.
This brain tumor, could it be causing senility? Because this is just getting outrageous.
I think that knowing his time is limited has removed any desire of his to pretend that he’s not a cunt.
When was he pretending not to be? Because he’s always been a jackass since I can remember.
Jet lag can be a wonderful thing if you make it work to your advantage. Having gone to the gym and finished my grocery shopping all before 6:30, it’s amazing what you can accomplish when you involuntarily wake up at 4.
Back to some really good news. Well, its not news really. It’s the Chronicle’s story (with lots of pictures) about the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Did I mention there were pictures? Lots of pictures.
It’s a good thing I’m working at home today. I see Q has posted tits. I think I’ll be busy with something not-work-related for a while.
Back from India and ready of action!
Aishwarya Rai is almost too beautiful.
http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/79/590x/secondary/Aishwarya-Rai-Bachchan-941064.jpg
She is a beauty.
Looks like she bleached her skin, kind of off-putting.
Gorgeous.
Some music.
NBC report from….2013 on pedpphelia ring at the State Deparment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb6JeX6dvEk
You’re a dumb Pizzagater!!!!
So that’s a thing I’ve been thinking about. It seems like everydamnbody is getting outed as a serial harrasser these days, many of whom are if not heroes of the left at least members in good standing. The tide is even turning against Slick Willy, who was the target of several denunciations from prominent leftist media outlets, including such towering intellects as Chris Hayes. So what if Pizzagate is really a thing? How much has to come out for a total collapse of the establishment? I’ll be honest, my schadenfreude is only tempered by the fact that some people did suffer actual harm. That aside, watching this feeding frenzy is an absolute gas. I can only hope that there’s a smoking gun with Hillary’s prints all over it and that I can see the big reveal on MSNBC, preferably during Rachel Maddow’s show.
Is that related to that story?
I don’t know my pedophelia stories.
But man, between this report, Feldman and other murmurs over the years, one has to wonder if you have to follow the smoke.
That’s been on my mind lately. When it first came out the whole Pizzagate thing seemed a little far-fetched, but then I would also have said that it’s pretty damned unlikely that Charlie Rose is a first-order perv. At this point nothing would surprise me.
I see my literature has swayed your mind. Would you care to subscribe to the newsletter?
If there is ONE article we can select to show why the left is unhinged it’s the one linked to Newsweek where they compare Manson and Trump.
Wow.
Just.
Fucken wow.
Well considering that Manson was a hero to the extreme Left and the hippie movement types, maybe Trump is growing on them.
Other than Mao, Pol Pot, Lenin, Stalin, Guevara, Castro, Manson and Jim Jones, can you think of any other mass murderers that were heroes of the left, smart guy?
Winnie Mandela?
Oh god. The names I once got called by a progressive (former) acquaintance when I brought up her history…
Not that any form of murder is “good”, but necklacing? Sweet Jesus.
My in-laws expressed their distaste for Winnie one time. Did a little extra reading and I now understand why. That history has been memory holed.
Do terrorists count?
Also, what are you doing reading the links, shouldn’t you be working?
I was unfamiliar with Newsweek’s tilt, to be honest, but now I can safely stick them in the pile of pathologically unhinged leftist rags I ignore. I mean, seriously, how the fuck can you refer to yourself as a journalist and write that article?
Why would I want to waste my time looking through pictures of a bunch of anorexic unattractive models? Because that’s what Victoria’s Secret models all are. Let me know when there’s a fashion show with women that don’t look like they just got out of a concentration camp.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0e/49/51/0e495156ffc1f0796cbdbf20a8930ff3.jpg
Much better.
I was afraid of what you were gonna do with that, but yowza!
I like girls from concentration camps, it’s easy to get their number…
Tattooed right on their arm.
Hey, that’s what Larry David said
/looks around for Swiss.
He’s working
*strongly narrows gaze*
Once I was watching a documentary on the concentration camps, one filmed by Alfred Hitchcock but not released to the public for some years.
Among all the shots of misery and horror, there is a rather longish stretch of the new showers (water) being installed by the allies for the survivors. And then a bunch of women walk in, strip down, and begin to shower. The women all looked rather well-fed and attractive. Ah Hitchcock – perv to the core.
Linky
SJWednesday: The Algorithmic Justice League Edition (No, I’m not making that up)
There’s no such thing as peak derp… there’s no such thing as peak derp….
Right, you just pile a little more derp on top of the derp already created.
“Standing on the shoulders of giants”.
So, would this result in an SJW Terminator? Or would the infusion of derp prevent an AI takeover by embedding a weakness?
The Terminators will destroy the world with autistic screeching.
Oh my god, imagine an opening shot of a mechanized Trigglypuff crushing a human skull with her hooves.
I’d bet on prevent. Algorithmic Justice means writing algorithms that ignore patterns, which can only weaken them.
Biases are how machine learning algorithms work… Grrrahhh!!!! These people are too stupid to deal with.
Michelle Goldberg is still suffering from Liberal Whirling Disease
It’s not a coincidence that the post-Harvey Weinstein purge of sexual harassers has been largely confined to liberal-leaning fields like Hollywood, media and the Democratic Party. This isn’t because progressive institutions are more sexist than others — I’m confident there’s at least as much sexual abuse in finance as in publishing. Rather, organizations with liberal values have suddenly become extremely responsive to claims of sexism. Feminists, enraged and traumatized by Donald Trump’s election, know they can’t expect accountability from Republicans, but they’ve forced it from people who claim to share their ideals. As a result, it sometimes feels as if liberal institutions are devouring themselves over sex while conservatives, unburdened by the pretense of caring about gender equality, blithely continue their misrule.
These revelations are concentrated in “our” liberal institutions. That just proves we’re better than those Nazi Rethuglitards.
*I know, somebody else linked it, too.
I’m confident there’s at least as much sexual abuse in finance as in publishing
It is widely known that there are no women in finance on account of bro culture and muh soggy knees.
I work in finance and its about 50/50 in my experience.
Wolf of Wall Street?
I know our CFO and Comptroller would be surprised to hear that.
No blinders on her, nope, none at all.
“…and so, really, this is all just proof of how responsive the Nazi Party is to antisemitism.”
I never put much stock in psychological projection before.
Events of the past two years have changed my mind.
“This isn’t because progressive institutions are more sexist than others”
Um… Yes it is.
Women in finance are there because they’re qualified to be there, not because they posed nude.
Maybe, just maybe, there are some negative consequences to diversity hires.
At any level with accountability for results, nobody in finance makes it for long on anything other than their results.
“Finance” is a big business, with many different kinds of businesses. Your community banks are highly unlikely to be hotbeds of predation. Your money center investment firms, though, are magnets of aggressive people and could well have more predatory cultures, but ain’t no investment banker going to put a single fucking penny at risk giving somebody a job for a blow job.
This. Little bro works for a hedge fund. Tons of aggressive fuckheads, but none willing to give up their gig by fishing in the company pond. CEO fires quickly and they all know it.
I think of community banks as more being like the DMV.
To me, finance means you wake up at 3:30 am on the west coast, and yes, it’s very results oriented and professional. You fuck up, you get fired.
Are there people who work in finance that love hookers, blow, and strip clubs? Sure. But they keep it to themselves. If I got on the elevator at Goldman with stripper glitter on my jacket, I guarantee you I’d be gone by the end of the day.
Good luck with avoiding glitter pollution if you have a granddaughter about 7 years old or thereabouts.
You hit the other quote that I was sorely tempted to use.
It is fantastic when you are able to wave your hands and make an uncomfortable truth (aka liberals seem to be pretty pervy) into a strength. “Of course we are finding out that everyone in Hollywood is a creeper. It is because we are so honest and true.”
However, it doesn’t explain why no one brought up Charlie Rose’s behavior for years. If they were so fucking pure, you think he would have been canned a decade a go.
Or Harvey Weinstein, Bill Clinton, etc…
Liberal Hollywood in the 70’s gave us gobs of gratuitous nudity in film as a display of empowerment.
Liberal Hollywood forty years later denounces all gratuitous nudity as sexist and disempowering.
The moral of the story is Liberal Hollywood has always been completely full of shit. But their ability to meet market demands comes and goes in waves. Right now, they cannot meet market demand.
Algorithmic justice is a movement to address algorithmic bias in technology and artificial intelligence, which, as defined by the Algorithmic Justice League, is “like human bias [and] can result in exclusionary experiences and discriminatory practices.” As a self-proclaimed community organizer in our digital age, this piqued my concerns and interest on how AI is relevant to feminism and other social justice movements.
What these people want is an end to any sort of qualitative analysis. Every answer, every solution, should be based on completely randomized search methods.
You say that now, but wait until the random number generator picks you to be president.
If this like in that new Vegas vault, where you get murdered when your term is up?
Oh, I’m sure it wouldn’t be random. They’d just have some “algorithm” that is designed to favor Leftist ends, then they’d claim that nobody has the right to complain because “it’s a completely impartial AI that automatically makes the most judicious decision!”
What the fuck did Lois Lerner say in her testimony that’s so bad it might instantly provoke mobs with torches and pitchforks?
—-Washington Times
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/19/lois-lerner-holly-paz-want-testimony-sealed-perman/
I’d kind of forgotten about the whole thing, quite frankly. It was water under the bridge, but now I want to know . . .
What the Fuck did Lois Lerner say in her secret testimony that’s so bad, she’s afraid the public will react violently against her if they find out she said it?
Louis Lerner just admitting to do something so bad that if it came out it would piss of enough people that her life would be in jeapordy.
If I did something that shitty, I would like for no one to find out either.
Meh, I think she’s showboating. To me it reads like she’s just desperately trying to imply that her political foes are vicious, murderous vigilantes in order to prevent something that might be personally or professionally embarrassing from becoming public knowledge. But who knows? I’d definitely be interested in finding out.
Or hell, maybe she’s such a partisan that she’s using even this moment to tar the reputations of the people she disagrees with.
She’s arguing to have her testimony suppressed.
If she’s showboating, she’s doing it to have her testimony suppressed.
The argument is the showboating. There’s an outside possibility that even she doesn’t believe anyone would kill her or her children because of what her testimony would reveal, but making the argument is a way of discrediting conservatives.
Or not, maybe there really is something that she thinks is so bad it would drive people to kill her or her family. I’m just saying that it’s possible, and I know this is totally bananas, that she might be trying to manipulate public opinion by being dishonest about her enemies.
Maybe she should go into protective custody.
Why go to all that trouble when they could just keep the public in the dark about the sickening activities of their overlords?
Not just her, but so bad that they would attack her kids too.
And we’re talking about something new in that testimony, right?
What the public already knows isn’t bad enough–if they knew what she said in her testimony, we’re in a whole new ballgame?
my guess is her orders came down from the upper echelons of Obama’s administration and the death threats will come from unhinged leftists after she further tars their messiah’s legacy.
It wuz tha Russians what made me do it!
If she thinks it’s so bad she’ll get death threats, why not just issue the death threats anyway?
Put her in protective custody.
Woops!
“they could spur an enraged public to retaliate.”
Maybe they ought to.
FYI for Firefox + NoScript users:
NoScript has been updated to now work with the newest FireFox release.
I’m not too happy with the new Firefox. It does seem faster but it’s taking some time to learn the location of the refresh button. Why so far to the left? Also the NoScript interface is definitely goofier than before.
it’s taking some time to learn the location of the refresh button
F5, same as ever.
If you decide you’re not too keen on Firefox, try Qupzilla.
*right click>customize>put it where you want it
Yeah, the change to the NoScript interface is a pretty damn big change. I’m still trying to figure it out.
ah that worked.
You can drag it back to the right, but it doesn’t appear that you can embed it in the address bar anymore. Too bad, I liked that feature.
Either way, F5 is your friend.
F5 is my bitter enemy.
I agree. I liked it where it was.
I don’t like what they did with my bookmarks.
I used to be able to pull them from a list. Now I’ve got to go through two extra steps to get there–one to open them and one to close after I’ve opened the new one.
Does everybody here know about Chromium?
Chromium is the project upon which Google bases their Chrome browser. Google basically licenses the browser from Chromium and then customizes Chromium to make it Google’s Chrome.
You can just download Chromium without all the Google shit. You can use Duck Duck Go as your search machine and skip Google tracking every search you make, as well.
Works great. Highly recommended. You can still use Google as your search engine if you want with Chromium, too, but why would you subject yourself to Google running its Harvey Weinstein like hands all over your internet body with Chrome when you could just use Chromium instead?
In this holiday season, we all start thinking about the true meaning of Festivus. Airing of grievances? I’ve got a lot of problems with you people!
Some people complain about surveillance but won’t take advantage of free tools that can help them avoid that stuff. A lot of it’s probably because they just don’t know.
ctrl-b to open and close bookmarks
I don’t know if it still does, but the default build of Chromium used to phone home on an encrypted connection. Probably just usage stats and crash reports, but since it’s encrypted it’s impossible to tell. It tears the shit out of CPU and RAM on my system as well. Firefox is only marginally better, but it’s enough to be noticeable. I’m on linux though, on Windows it may be different. Vivaldi, Qupzilla and Opera are all Blink-based, so they’re effectively reskinned Chromium.
I use keyboard shortcuts when I’m working.
When I’m faffing about on the internet, I don’t want to have to type anything – unless it’s a comment arguing with people.
nice euphemism brah.
Chromium doesn’t have that feature.
“The RLZ feature is not included in the Chromium browser”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#User_tracking
Regardless, I’m not saying that Chromium is the total solution to anonymity on the web. I’m saying that it’s one tool you can use if you want to start minimizing how much information you’re sending to Google and how much of yourself you’re making publicly available.
Certainly, people who complain about government surveillance (because they’re genuinely concerned) but go dancing through their daily internet lives naked as the day they were born should be told that their fly is open and know how to zip it up.
We libertarians should know more about this stuff than we do. We should be the ones telling other people about this stuff, and I’m speaking as an experienced sinner in this regard. I didn’t really know anything until a few years ago, and what I know now is that if you really want to avoid surveillance, you’ve really gotta work hard specific tasks.
People should know why Swiss ISPs are a good idea for mail, what the Tor browser can and can’t do for you, what Tails is, etc., etc.
Especially these days when Google, Twitter, Facebook, et. al. are scrubbing content and dumping users based on speech. This stuff is just gonna get worse. I wouldn’t trust the government to protect us from these private companies, but I’d encourage people to learn about what their options are and choose a level of surveillance that’s right for them.
Rather than worrying about surveillance completely unaware that they’re walking around naked as a jaybird.
It wasn’t technically supposed to be sending any data when the issue was raised initially either. That was a couple years ago, which is an eternity in Chromium development, but it put me off enough that I don’t use it for a daily driver. It’s just something to be aware of.
Firefox has the inertial advantage on my systems anyway since I’ve had it installed since 1.0. Tabs were so mind blowing in a IE6 world…
I started with my Norwegian email provider way back in ’05 for reasons having nothing to do with spying or privacy (oh to be innocent again), but in light of everything that’s come to light since them I’m extremely glad that all my email traffic has been through them all this time.
Unfortunately, taking steps to secure your privacy is hard and giving away your privacy is easy. And a lot of people just really don’t care (or they don’t until they do, anyway). I’m not an evangelist about it. It’s the way things have been going since “web 2.0”.
Timely, but unsurprising.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/an-alarming-number-of-sites-employ-privacy-invading-session-replay-scripts/
On the general issue of web browsing and access, I use Cyberghost, which has a kooky interface, but you can set it up as a vanilla OpenVPN configuration, and they have a good selection of different countries that you can present as. Around Xmas, they usually have some great deals on annual subscriptions.
I’ve been using MalwareBytes for a long time, but I’ve recently added Kaspersky. Any company that will ‘out’ the CIA’s tools may still be an agent of the Russian government, but they’re ALSO acting in my best interests. I also have a portable version of Clam-AV that I run from time to time when I’m pretending to be Snowden.
If I want to email someone, I use my Unseen.IS email, and if I want to message people who are on Unseen’s platform, I’ll use their encrypted P2P chat. If I’m dealing with normies, I’ll encourage them to SMS via Signal, which also has a chromium plugin so you can text from your PC, although I’m considering moving to Threema.
Browser? Chromium. I police my chrome plugins pretty closely, and as of the current setup, I’m seeing no unexpected data connections to dubious sites. DuckDuckGo, of course, and I use Blur when I want to sign up for something and generate anonymized email addresses.
Needless to say, no cloud storage of ANY kind (with one very carefully-monitored exception that stores some links. Everything else on an Apricorn encrypted USB key, including my keepass database, with anything unsecured being password protected via 2FA via Yubikey in concert with a password card from passwordcard.org.
For business, I do a fair amount of development work, and where I have to hit public-facing servers, #1 is ensuring the boxes are hardened and that all my work goes thru’ an ssh tunnel direct to the server, and where possible, secured with a properly-deployed SSH key that doesn’t use DES, and if I have to use RSA, is a ridiculous 4096-bit key. By preference, I’ll use an elliptic curve key. DEFINITELY nothing specified directly by NIST.
At home, a pfSense gateway which is itself set up with OpenVPN, this time via an endpoint in Canada.
Finally, all my DNS lookups go via OpenDNS’ servers or the servers provided by Cyberghost. That way, there’s no (easy) way for the USG to directly determine where I’m visiting.
The behavioral modifications took some time to become natural, but I really find that once I’ve got all this set up, it’s not hard to maintain.
Of course, after all this, they can send black helicopters and/or guys with bad haircuts and poor trigger discipline to come and ‘have a conversation with me’, complete with hard-pipe-hittin’ niggaz per XKCD, but at least I’ll know I’m under investigation.
… and a double layer of tinfoil under the roof shingles.
I’m often challenged with the “why all the precautions? you have nothing to hide!”, which of course is true, but I am quite prepared to go to some effort to confound the state in its attempts to subvert my, and your privacy.
If enough people did this, the surveillance budget would need to grow so much, that the general public would notice.
Caveat – of course, by that point, most of the US population would know at least one person like me, Alinskying Uncle Sam.
Won’t use Firefox. Not after they decided Eich had to go for wrongthink. I support same-sex marriage, but don’t believe that drumming someone out of their position because of a political stance is the right thing to do.
500 to 1 this is covered by WaPo, NYT, NBC etc.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/one-border-patrol-agent-dead-another-injured-bashed-rocks-texas-border/
There’s something fishy about the statements that have been made so far.
It’d sure be nice if we had an actual press corps that could answer some of those questions through actual investigative journalism. That would get in the way of their agenda setting though.
maybe she’s such a partisan that she’s using even this moment to tar the reputations of the people she disagrees with.
Maybe she believes it. Maybe she’s projecting the intensity of her reaction to being called to account for her actions onto her victims.
I do not doubt that people make death threats on the internet. I deeply doubt they would ever follow through on them, especially against the children and other family members of some faceless political apparatchik.
Shit, she might, at that. Some of the Obama folks were almost cult-like in their outlook, as if they represented the forces of good fighting the evil Tea Party. Maybe she really bought in to the hype.
There’s a pretty good chance that any death threats were false flags to provide a pretext for suppressing her testimony, discrediting their enemies, etc.
McCain: he’s coming in hot for one last pass. One engine and half a wing have been shot away, and he can see big patches of the ground through the other wing. The tail rudder is about half jammed. There’s a rooster tail of burning fuel following him. He’s down to the last few rounds in the rotary cannon, and he thinks he might have one last missile. He’ll never make it home, and he won’t punch out this time. He’s going to fly that smoking junkheap of an airplane right up the Capitol steps, and do as much damage as he possibly can.
Comment from that Michelle Goldberg article:
Mary Brooklyn 11 hours ago
I am not at all conflicted about Al Franken. Beyond one stupid and sexist photo where he isn’t actually touching anyone, his accuser’s account of what happened is quite questionable given photos that surfaced this weekend. The second allegation is odd as well. The woman says she had just been groped, but she’s really smiling. I think that this is a Republican hit job. Oh, and Roger Stone tweeted about the initial allegations before they became news. How did he know ahead of time? And why hasn’t Tweeden been asked this on any one of the myriad of talk shows that she has appeared on? She says that she does not want an investigation. I wouldn’t want to be cross-examined if I were her either. If Republicans are successful in forcing out one of their most effective opponents, Franken will not be the last. This was clearly done to help Roy Moore get elected.
Right out of the Billary playbook.
It’s a conspiracy!
They can’t handle being attacked by the monster they created.
“Mary Brooklyn”? Sounds like a made-up name to me!
Trump is going to win 539 electoral votes in 2020. Don’t ask me how.
“Democrats, according to the news, are obsessed with gender-neutral bathrooms, taking away everyone’s guns, and making sure that the needs of immigrants are prioritized over those of American citizens.”
If the news were honest they’d be saying this, because that’s a very accurate depiction of today’s Dems.
I thought that far-left ideology (a la Bernie or Kucinich) meant closed borders and anti-free trade. At least that what I think it would be, considering that Bernie Sanders thinks that open borders is a Koch Brothers proposal.
If ads about racist white rednecks running down Muslim and Mexican children in the streets worked out in an off-year election in Virginia, surely the entire country feels the same way. All politics is national.
Without that ad, the Dems would’ve won by 15 instead of 9. The NoVA and Richmond swamp was desperate to signal their distaste of the “Dangerous One.”
One if our engineers is a great guy, but incredibly loud. He just wondered over to our area of the office and not I know I won’t be able to work well until he leaves. : Sigh:
Wandered*
now*
that’s going to take a Queen Mab-level edit faerie.
I am cubicle neighbors with a guy who has a constantly whistling nose. Seeing as how his finger is up to the second knuckle in his nostril most of the day, you’d expect him to eventually dislodge and ingest the obstruction that was causing the whistling, but no such luck. To make matters worse, his laugh consists of exhaling strongly through his nose and making that spit slurping sound from the sides of his mouth (kind of like Gail the Snail from Always Sunny in Philadelphia).
Remember open office concept is awesome and leads to cooperative development through the entire team!
*dejectedly nods in agreement, thinking about impending move to open office concept building*
*hands trshmnstr a germ filtering mask and ear plugs*
When we expanded our current office in Chicago, the head project manager was super gung ho about having an open office plan (he is also a fucking zealot about all things Agile). He wanted to set up project rooms where everyone on a project would basically be trapped in a room and work on a common table.
Luckily for him, his plan never made it out of the first meeting we had. I say lucky because if the developers found out that he was going to give away even the low cube walls they had, they would have rioted. My boss and I both looked at the PM and asked him if he was stupid. PM was stunned that people wouldn’t want to work in an open Agile environment.
When I worked back at Accenture in the day, I think it was Chicago that put the developers in their own offices around the common area. The managers all had to sit in the open common area so they could hear each others’ crazy plans. The developers were able to zone in and crank code out. Details are fuzzy though.
Open plan offices are vile. They agregate all the problems of dealing with other people and provide zero benefits. If I need to collaborate with someone – I need to be able to hear what they’re saying – not what everyone in a twelve desk radius is saying.
Luckily for him, his plan never made it out of the first meeting we had. I say lucky because if the developers found out that he was going to give away even the low cube walls they had, they would have rioted.
“I told them that if they take away my cube walls I will burn this place down.”
Hmm, this explains a lot about Agile Cyborg.
Thank god for headphones. Mine are glued to my head 90% of the day.
New York Times: Charles Manson was not a product of 60s counterculture! He was really like the modern alt-right!!
Baynard Woods is a reporter and editor at the Real News Network and the author of “Coffin Point: The Strange Cases of Ed McTeer, Witchdoctor Sheriff.”
Sounds authoritative!
Here’s a link to the “Real News Network”, and it’s exactly the kind of lefty fever swamp you’d imagine it to be, with headline like
From Argentina to Greece: The Legacy of Che Guevara
The Anti-Iran Axis Tries to ‘Blackmail’ Palestine
Democracy in Crisis: A Global Antifascist Movement
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel: How Effective Is It?
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
I only recently realized how bad this was getting because I mostly avoid the NYT and CNN.
Mask? What mask?
Opponents of the tax say it taxes earnings twice. But more than half of the biggest estates consist of unrealized capital gains — like stocks that have appreciated without being sold — that have never been previously taxed.
The ill gotten spoils of thrift and investment must be confiscated!
“unrealized capital gains”
Meaning capital gains that will be taxed as soon as they’re realized? Those unrealized capital gains?
This is so fucking ignorant that they may as well be writing about assault weapons.
You’d think that exorbitantly wealthy writers with high value holdings living in one of the world’s financial capitals might be able to write passably on finance.
Other than tax-advantaged retirement accounts (with miserly annual caps; and which aren’t a probate asset), all of the principal invested into those equities was, in point of fact, taxed as well. When the gain is realized, the cap gains tax is paid, and then the estate is taxed before distribution, the money has actually been through 3 phases of taxation.
Yep. If you inherit the asset, you inherit the basis too.
*at the time of the inheritance.
Capital gains are not taxed after they pass by inheritance. The basis steps up to the value at the death. That said, most capital ‘gains’ are just reductions in the value of the currency (inflation) rather than increases in the value of the asset
silly thought from someone who doesn’t know stock / investment stuff. Why should your dividends (and or gains) be taxed when the company has already run that income through the tax system?
It has long been argued by libertarian types that having a corporate income tax and dividend/cap gains taxes simultaneously is egregiously stupid and unfair since you’re taxing the same money twice.
What you see is the long term structural problem of government taxation. The government needs to be able to divert economic resources to its purposes from the market’s uses. If the market decides to extensively invest in capital creation, then taxation on income streams dries up, but the government is predicated on having x% of the GDP stream available to divert, so they also throw hooks into the capital creation stream (corporate taxes).
It has been analyzed that there is no economic difference in net stock valuation between issuing dividends or allowing the stock capex to increase, but we see that they go via two different taxation schemes, so people who prefer to pay taxes today will go for dividends.. and those who prefer to delay them go for capital gains.
I would postulate that the various taxes are a long term battle between various direct income counting methods and income by proxy, and attempting to be as detrimental to the wealth producing cycle as possible.
Some convolution is to hide who pays and who wins… if everyone puts money in… and gets something out.. you can always have plausible deniability that you are a net looser.. See Social Security.
Other parts of the complexity is all to support the “Progressive” income tax. If there was no desire for progressively, then you wouldn’t care if the tax was paid by person A at say 25% or group B at 25%… but when you want group A to pay 5% and group B 45% then it is critical when the tax is counted. Property taxes are flat. Sales taxes are flat-ish. Sin taxes are regressive. Capital gains?.. and corporate taxes, have to be flat or businesses would optimax their size with the tax rates.
If there is a wealth path through the economic stream that isn’t covered by a current tax, people will pursue it to the detriment of current tax streams, until it is large enough to have an effect and come under the scrutiny of the FYTW crowd… Hence the hydra of modern taxation systems.
Because the government needs moar money!
The basis steps up to the value at the death.
Didn’t realize that. Still, securities outside of an IRA or 401(k) had to be purchased with after-tax income. There’s no such thing as untaxed earnings. And cap gains and estate taxes absolutely do constitute double taxation (at least).
Yes, I clarified above.
It seems like the simplest answer* would be to let the inheritor choose between keeping the original basis or adjusting the basis to market value at time of death and, if it moved upward, pay capital gains tax on the difference.
* = Besides just leaving the current situation alone.
For the Ochs-Sulzbergers to complain about anyone’s manipulation to avoid taxation and engage in financial manipulation is a bit rich.
Meaning capital gains that will be taxed as soon as they’re realized? Those unrealized capital gains?
They bitch about active traders who make money buying and selling in the short term as parasites. They bitch about buy and hold investors who unfairly “shield” their evil profits from the tax man by not trading more often as parasites. I think I detect a pattern.
The first are wreckers, the second hoarders, and people like you who just want to see them keep their money are kulaks!
They bitch about active traders who make money buying and selling in the short term as parasites.
Especially ironic considering that short term capital gains are treated as ordinary income for tax purposes.
An old classic:
Raise your prices, and you’re gouging
Keep your prices the same, and you’re colluding
Lower your prices, and you’re dumping
Tentative Thanksgiving menu at my house:
-Slow cooker beef short ribs
-Marinated lamb shank
-Shakshouka
-Wire-cut, homemade polenta poured over a board with sides of red/green pesto and ricotta
-A root vegetable (potato, yam, butternut squash, carrot) and chorizo hash
-Fresh green bean casserole (bernaise sauce base – crispyThai fried garlic stirred in and topped)
-Slices of large chocolate chip cookie w/ ice cream
Le Grotte lambrusco will be flowing freely.
That’s a solid menu. No turkey, I see.
Spanish chorizo or Mexican?
Yeah, just haven’t been feeling turkey the last several years. Yesterday I was thinking about how turkey might taste prepared in the style of doro wat.
Actually it’s going to be choriço, but basically the same as Spanish chorizo if you ask me.
What’s your menu looking like?
Citrus brined turkey, smoked prime rib, and green beans stir fried in sesame oil.
I can’t get too weird because my parents are coming. My mom is a complainer.
Ooh yeah, that’s the good stuff. Horseradish?
Sounds good, though I have a preference for lamb chops over lamb shank. I think shank is harder to prepare in way that relieves the gameyness, though I have had some good ones.
Are we going to get an entire food post at some point in the next couple of days?
Minor’s Au Jus prep. I’m going to run some applewood smoke through the jus too.
Sweeeeet
Sounds like a fuckton of appropriation going on there.
also, sounds delicious.
The root vegetable hash needs to start with frying up 5 slices of hickory smoked bacon, keep the fat rendered, add some butter, then go to town. Shallots and tons of coarsely-chopped garlic cloves too. Can’t wait. It’ll help me tune out the rantings of a 9/11 troofer that will be present.
Also the best part about this menu is that there won’t be more than 2 or 3 hours total of prep & cooking time.
I’m doing dinner at my club with the girlfriend. That said, your menu sounds terrific.
We’re doing a low key Thanksgiving since its just the 3 of us, and the baby is barely eating solids at this point.
-Grilled lobster tails basted with melted butter, garlic, and lemon juice
-My wife’s rendition of her mother’s mashed potatoes (which are amazing!)
-green bean casserole (with homemade cream of mushroom soup)
-stuffing (from a box)
-pumpkin pie and pecan pie (from scratch)
Nothing wrong with low key, sometimes simple is better. 2 years ago it was roasted chickens stuffed with lemon halves and garlic. Cooking a chicken is way easier and more delicious than a traditional Thanksgiving turkey if you ask me.
Last year’s Thanksgiving was my favourite of all: we had just got back from Hong Kong on the evening of Thanksgiving Day, stayed at the airport Hilton, had bacon cheeseburgers and draft beer at the hotel restaurant. No extended family in sight, just me, my wife, and my daughter. Had a soak in the hotel jacuzzi the next morning.
Do you grill them whole or butterfly first?
I saw a good deal at Costco and now I’m inspired.
Still there Naptown Bill? I wanted to ask about your arm…arent you the one that complained about shoulder pain? It sounded very familiar to me. Has it quit yet? It didn’t move to the other arm did it?
“Tennis” elbow.
I was hittin’ balls all day…
How is that job as ‘Government Enforcer’ working out, anyway?
*trying to stifle laughter*
Move on over Bill & Hillary!
There is a new Democrat Power Couple.
In case you were wondering, David Brooks is still crazy
Not long ago, tech was the coolest industry. Everybody wanted to work at Google, Facebook and Apple. But over the past year the mood has shifted.
Some now believe tech is like the tobacco industry — corporations that make billions of dollars peddling a destructive addiction. Some believe it is like the N.F.L. — something millions of people love, but which everybody knows leaves a trail of human wreckage in its wake.
Surely the people in tech — who generally want to make the world a better place — don’t want to go down this road. It will be interesting to see if they can take the actions necessary to prevent their companies from becoming social pariahs.
How did a bunch of pathetic, easily distracted weak-willed monkeys ever conquer the globe?
I’d be really sad if it was written by anyone other than David Brooks. Luckily, he is so fucking stupid, I can ignore him (although I’m sure the clacking of the keys on his manual non-electric typewriter is annoying to those near him).
This shit about technology isolating us has been going on forever. Penn Jillette had a great takedown of someone who objected to Walkman’s and how they isolated us.
In Brooks’s glorious economic utopia, we’ll all be too busy toiling in the fields doing as we’re told by our betters to have any time to waste on such frivolities as IT. Just don’t pay too much attention to the starving, the disappearances, the tales of prison camps, and the occasional “missing” village.
I believe that the main reason that we suck as a society now is because there is little challenge to staying alive. Say what you want about “Social Darwinism”, but it’s one of the primary reasons that the US was pre-eminent for so long. We had liberty because the kind of people willing to take the risk to come here and settle demanded it. There was no safety net for people taking a ship to come here and setup a farm or business or work a trade. Self-responsibility was a requirement for survival. We’ve been riding the coattails of those folks for the last century or so.
It’s not hard to survive in the society that we have now. You will be handed the basic subsistence requirements without any real effort if you want it. Too many think it’s their right to exist at the expense of everyone else. There is really nowhere to go but space to escape that.
It is easier to survive than before, but harder to prosper. But even then, it’s mostly easier to survive because of technological advancement, not government.
Surely the people in tech — who generally want to make the world a better place
They do? What makes you think that?
This is like the last episode of the 5th Column. Moynihan was pissed at some guy who ran the Daily Beast’s opinion section of the site. His crime? Saying his job was to increase the number of clicks, not doing the best “journalism” ever.
Yup. Journalism is like art now. We need it and damned be the costs. If you rubes won’t pay for it voluntarily, we will have to start giving grants out.
Do you think if you went back in time, the giants of old time journalism (Horace Greely, Or Will Hearst) gave a shit about “journalism”? Or were they competing to sell more copies of their paper and make some $$.
These journolos need to figure out they are as big of a whore as the rest of us, hustling for that buck. They are just wearing different kinds of hot pants.
… go on …
it’s different when we do it.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-snl-women-al-franken-letter-of-support-20171121-story.html
A group of women who worked alongside Al Franken on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” have signed a statement of support for the Minnesota senator. Last week, broadcaster Leeann Tweeden accused Franken of forcibly kissing her in 2006. Another woman says he placed his hand on her buttocks while posing for a photo in 2010. Thirty-six women signed the SNL statement supporting the Democrat, including performers Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman, and many behind-the-scenes staff. The statement calls Franken’s conduct toward Tweeden “stupid and foolish,” but says the women know Franken as “a devoted and dedicated family man, a wonderful comedic performer, and an honorable public servant.” It says none of them have experienced improper behavior from Franken.
The statement was released Friday, before the second woman’s allegations came to light.
a devoted and dedicated family man, a wonderful comedic performer, and an honorable public servant
Oh, his pervy behavior must not be a big deal, then. Thank you random people!
“wonderful comedic performer,”
Citation required.
Point to the one woman who worked with him on SNL that was anywhere near as hot as Leeann?
Sorry, but no Gilda Radner? NOT FORGIVEN!!!
too soon, PJ. too soon.
“An LAPD officer accidentally filmed himself putting cocaine in a suspect’s wallet
It’s reportedly the first LAPD body camera video that the media and public have seen.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/14/16649034/lapd-police-plant-evidence-ronald-shields
A HUMBLE PROPOSAL
In a truly just world, these dedicated public servants would wear a body camera made my the Schrodinger Corp. If you try and tamper with it, it switches on for the rest of the shift, but if you leave it alone, you have no way of knowing if it is running or not.
The officer may then proceed to carry out his normal duties. The uncertainty would in the normal run of events, be irrelevant, but at times of stress – for example, when shooting an escaping vaper or some guy who just tried to deposit $10,001 in his bank account, it’s quite possible that the uncertainty would exacerbate their injudicious behavior to the point where they made even worse choices. Now, this might be hard on the alleged criminals, but it might provide sufficient additional impetus to police departments and cities taking disciplinary proceedings seriously.
A few dead citizens (who probably would have been shot in the back anyway) would be a small price to pay for the improvement in police image, wouldn’t it?
https://twitter.com/ZachJCarter/status/932777014649647104
where he gets destroyed in the thread for glossing over Europe’s involvement in Haiti and Haiti’s own self-inflicted misery.
I like that in his bio, he lists his preferred pronouns. And I’m sure Black Lives Matter thanks him for his service.
Pondering, in a vacuum
In his classic 1949 essay “Here Is New York,” E. B. White described the city as “a composite of tens of thousands of tiny neighborhood units,” each “virtually self-sufficient” with shops that met most residents’ basic needs, from groceries to shoes, from newspapers to haircuts. Every neighborhood was so complete, White wrote, “that many a New Yorker spends a lifetime within the confines of an area smaller than a country village.”
Nearly seven decades later, that observation is still largely valid, but it is being sorely tested by a scourge of store closings that afflicts one section of the city after another, notably in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. This plague has been underway for several years, but its familiarity does not diminish the damage inflicted on the economic and the psychic well-being of neighborhoods. One by one, cherished local shops are disappearing, replaced by national chains or, worse, nothing at all. To borrow from Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor who has examined the issue, “Blight extracts a social cost.”
————–
Another idea that merits consideration — and is likely to need Albany’s approval — is some sort of a “vacancy tax” on those landlords who leave storefronts unoccupied for years, hoping against hope that Sephora or Marc Jacobs or whatever will move in someday. Details would, of course, have to be worked out, including how steep a tax after how long a period of vacancy.
The core point is that all these dead spaces hurt, and neighborhoods have a right to protect themselves. “The city is losing what makes it appealing, what makes it New York,” Professor Wu said. Amen to that. The last thing anyone wants is a sequel to the E. B. White essay that might well be titled, “There Goes New York.”
Why are those storefronts empty? It’s baffling. Must be greedy landlords. And the internet. There’s no other reasonable explanation. None.
Logic – how does it work?
” cherished local shops are disappearing, replaced by national chains or, worse, nothing at all.”
Just wait until the minimum wage gets jacked up to $15. How will the artisanal mayonaisse place stay in business?
Govt. subsidies is my guess.
i’m going to do some derpster diving in the comments section.. if i’m not back in 5 minutes, an aneurysm killed me.
*stands like one of the Roman Imperial family, and makes a warriors’ salute*
oh boy..
DHR Ft Worth, Texas 1 day ago
NYC is a microcosm of Capitalism gone awry. It is what happens when an excess of capital chases too little demand. You’re right, it’s what happens when the profit from a $400 T-shirt ain’t enough to pay the rent and you can’t sell enough $10 T-shirts to pay the rent. NYC is the “canary coal mine.” One of two things must happen. The price of real estate must go down or the money in the pockets of T-shirts buyer’s must go up. This is the story of Capitalism all over the world. NYC just gives it to us in Technicolor.
MWAHAHAHAHA
Well, I’ll be a son bitch. Is it just me, or are there missing?
the first sentence screams “SATIRE!”, the rest not so much..
Drspock New York 1 day ago
This editorial misses the most obvious solution, commercial rent control. Residential rent control was created as a response to a housing crisis that threatened to economy and fabric of the city. Now we have a retail services crisis that deserves similar treatment.
I know the idea of rent control is an anathema to the NYTimes, but we can’t proclaim small businesses as the economic life blood of the city and ignore that fact that landlords are sucking that blood down to the last drop.
Thousands of small retail shops that provide important services for neighborhoods are gone because even sliver size spaces have shot up to $30,000 a month.
The structure of commercial rent control can be worked out. It needn’t be a one size fits all solution. But until and unless something is done our neighborhoods will consist of banks and chain pharmacies.
We need more and deserve more variety in retail services, but this will never happen as long as landlords can triple the commercial rent on space that’s already pushed commercial tenants to the breaking point.
Taxation will increase until tenancy improves!
Land tax, FTW!
I’m not sure this thought is fully formed yet, but I’ll see what yall think.
A huge difference between SoCons and Progs is in how far reaching their goals are. SoCons pearl clutch about “the community” whereas Progs meddle in “society.”
The difference can be seen best in responding to their statist proposals. If you respond with “do what you want in this town, as long as you let people to exempt themselves from your rule by moving out of your town,” the SoCons is usually satisfied. Rampant perversion and degeneracy are fine as long as they’re over THERE. The progs, on the other hand, can’t stomach dissent existing anywhere, and will never accept creating their utopian vision with any less than a global scope.
There is no limit to “progress”. They want to replace the existing order with something else, which will become the next order to be replaced. Anything that is tradition must be dismantled. New traditions are always forming.
Because humans are perfectible. The Fabians knew this, they would hammer society, by way of the individuals who comprised it upon the anvil of rationality until utopia is achieved.
That is what constitutes progress; perfecting the imperfect.
There is no limit to “progress”.
“Doin’ right ain’t got no end.”
No, you have to account for the SoCons who say “why should we move to another town just so some perverts can operate a dirty bookstore in our town?”
No I’m saying that objectors to the law would move. The contention is that SoCons will be happy as long as they get to keep the strip club out of Mayberry.
Progs, on the other hand, will whine about sexist exploitation no matter where the tittie bar is set up.
I think a huge percentage of So Cons focus on local rule is little more than an acknowledgement that they are losing the argument on a national scale and a recognition that community standards allows them to effectively blockade things on a national scale thanks to Mass Media.