Meh. That is the theme for this morning. Just don’t say we have a case of today…
Don’t say it.
Not sure sloopy or I have anything to say about the sports side of news, other than “meh”, maybe “bah!”…maybe even “feh”. So we are just going to skip that part, OK? So you get links….links of meh.
- Office parties slide, even more, toward “meh“.
- Weird headline aside, this story is the definition of “meh”.
- Prime Minister May offers “meh” leadership. Didn’t the UK have some sort of vote thing some time back that covered this?
- A Chicago alderman is an hypocritical ass about taxes? Meh.
How apt a theme.
It could be the fact that I’ve been up since yesterday, but I find it fiitng.
That’s some commitment to getting first.
I was expecting to be second or third.
I also wish they would not edit my comments.
Too festive?
Very well – you shall nevermore have errors corrected, be given credit for “first”, have illustrating pictures added – you can remain as is. Thanks for getting into the spirit of the site.
Individual self-reliance?
Meh
UCS likes “meh”. It’s suitably bland for him.
Couldn’t sleep, or…?
After the rocket science discussion prompted by the Nork missiles, I decided to go back into Kerbal Space Program. Next thing I knew, it was time to go to work…
If there’s one thing in this world that’s constant, it’s boobs.
http://archive.is/p5Gpv
3, 5, 9, 12 and 42, 42, 42!
That is counter-meh!
41.
Then 41.
Finally, 41!
6 wins her teutonic, Aryan perfection. Wowza.
19 places very tenuously. My crazy-meter is wailing like it’s London in 1942. But dear god. I’m going in.
33 is lovely. Almost a late upset. Kind eyes.
23 is a repeat! But I’ve selected her to win in the past. DQd but my oh my is she every my type.
27 frightens me.
28 is super hot in a more Normal, Less Freakish way. I like that about her.
38 better get paid and better have some security. I’m not saying “she’s askin’ for it,” but….she’s askin’ for it.
Sorry #44, find your own orgy.
Orgy with some quality time afterwards with #5 (first hit on a Google Image Search for her) and then exploration of Florence with #14.
That’ll wake you up in the morning.
38 seems like she has a good personality
So, you’re saying 38’s special?
Needs a link.
Whoops.
Trying again.
*narrows gaze*
Hold onto that thought loosely, but don’t let go
6, 13, and 23
Although your choices aren’t half bad either
All nice. Like #11 and #14 can meet me in Florence anytime.
How could 38 not been picture 12? It seems obvious.
I don’t always go to strip clubs, but when I do, I prefer Shotgun Willies.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/03/colorado-strip-club-sign-toxic-masculinity-glendale
I believe that was the place my friend and I were told by the waitress that we must be from Wisconsin…because of our swearing.
I’m more of a Kitty’s man.
I was bored at the one strip club I went to. The fact that it was near New London, CT probably didn’t help.
Not saying the artistes were old and unappealing, but they had authentic dueling scars from Heidelberg.
It has been several decades that strip clubs in CT have sucked ass…
Skanky hos pretending to be hawt is not cool.
We get the rejects it seems.
So, in other words, masculinity has nothing at all to do with it. Boorish behavior is boorish, and is not a feature of manhood as a social construct or anything else. But you’re gonna go ahead and pin it on men anyway.
Thank god there are people like the owner pushing back on this bullshit.
re: Prime Minister May
HARRY THE HAGGLER: Ohh, dear. Ohh, dear. Come on. Haggle.
BRIAN: Huh. All right. I’ll give you ten.
HARRY THE HAGGLER: That’s more like it. Ten?! Are you trying to insult me?! Me, with a poor dying grandmother?! Ten?!
BRIAN: All right. I’ll give you eleven.
HARRY THE HAGGLER: Now you’re gettin’ it. Eleven?! Did I hear you right?! Eleven?! This cost me twelve. You want to ruin me?!
The best part of working in a two-person office is no goddamn office parties.
That and being able to freely peruse Q’s links!
But you pool of people to sexually harass is kinda small
My workaround on that was to just repeatedly cop a feel on myself. Which was fine until I went and filed the lawsuit.
Shit, brah, you are a genius man..
Feel yourself up, sue the company for beaucoup bucks and guaranteed job security to boot!
if you’re a bit rough with yourself, you can get time off and claim workers comp.
Tyler Durden says hello.
That’s a bonus. Plus you don’t have to spend $ on them (probably). I moved earlier this year and rent from new people. The old place had a pretty swank party, at a country club, where we exchanged gifts. I probably spent about $200 on gifts. This new place, unless I plan a party, no one will notice that the season came and went. Ok by me.
Big perk of telecommuting also.
I haven’t seen the boss in months and I don’t expect to anytime soon either.
Retirement’s really workin’ for me in that regard.
I read (and linked) the NYT version of that NRA/Russian nexus story yesterday. The most interesting thing in that story as far as I’m concerned is that there exists a “gun rights movement” in Russia.
If it isn’t officially linked by staff…it doesn’t count.
You’ve got that backwards. If it hasn’t been linked in the comments, it doesn’t count.
There are comments?
There’s a staff?
There was… now we are just working with a scar burned into my hand. Should be fine ‘tho.
Step up to the plate, men.
I just love being told what my responsibilities in life are…
“even when recounting their own stories, women are rarely assumed to be reliable narrators.” – ehm huh?
“the burden to create change falls on men.” – not on me it does not. I never harrased anyone and actually intervened. Fortunately for me I have never saw anything resembling harassment in my office
“even when recounting their own stories, women are rarely assumed to be reliable narrators”
Then maybe you need to start acknowledging that there are in fact women out there that exaggerate/make false claims and disavow said women.
No, silly, you’re supposed to listen and believe, and take their word as gospel, then destroy whatever man she accuses.
In my experience they simply seem unable to avoid exaggeration or outright lying, because victimhood is so vogue.
Hrmm.. I left these lying around [sarc][/sarc]
“even when recounting their own stories, women are rarely assumed to be reliable narrators”
Assumed by whom? Because I remember several false rape accusations where the women were assumed to be perfectly reliable narrators even when their story kept changing.
Well, to be fair (drink), I don’t consider most men to be particularly reliable narrators either (if by ‘reliable narrator’, you mean lying asshole).
oops, ‘not reliable narrator’ = lying asshole.
My brain isn’t engaged yet.
People in general are unreliable narrators, and not just when we’re intentionally lying; the human brain just isn’t a camcorder with perfect recall. We remember some details more highly than others and distort or fill in the gaps of our memory to make everything fit nicely. The difference is that in most circumstances sane people keep this in mind when other people are narrating stuff, but with #metoo and similar crap people are just suspending that for the narrative.
Joe Pesci summed it up nicely in My Cousin Vinny – “are you sure about that five minutes?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9AqbDtSFNU
Yeah, maybe that’s the important, uncomfortable conversation that needs to be had.
Men have all the responsibilities and no rights.
This feminized society that basically holds men accountable for women being flaky nutjobs eventually will bring down western civilization. Then these commie hags can harangue the mooslim men that step in to make them part of their cattle herd.
^OMFG THIS.
There is a certain mindset that is in the ascendant and it seems to correlate strongly with third-wave feminism. It’s typified by this having your cake and eating it to approach to personal responsibility. It’s almost as if feminism went from “women can do anything men can do” to “women don’t have any responsibilities”.
So it’s not even like Mr. Mom is on the table, because the notion that the mother in a household would be obligated to contribute in a practical fashion is itself somehow sexist now. Obviously it would be disgusting to suggest that a woman handle anything that might carry the shameful taint of housewifery, such as cleaning, taking care of children, cooking, or grocery shopping, but it’s equally preposterous to imply that she should then carry an equivalent weight of responsibility for providing financial stability, or traditionally masculine tasks such as taking out garbage, home repair, or yard work.
Along the same lines, a woman has an absolute right to scold, yell at, berate, insult, or communicate with a man in any other fashion without any kind of self-control or check on her conduct, because expecting someone to treat someone else with respect or, God forbid, to suggest that marshaling one’s emotions (women are NEVER emotional, unless it’s a positive trait, in which case they’re the only ones with functional emotions) is a necessary precondition to respectful, productive discussion is sexism of the blackest kind. However, responding in kind, even slightly, is also an unforgivable sin, because it represents an attempt to use male privilege to silence a woman’s voice.
But I’m sure this will all turn out for the best. Can’t see any kind of blowback from this sort of thinking at all.
When a woman throws a tantrum over something, whatever it may be, and however inconsequential, illogical, or stupid, it was a justified and proper reaction. When a guy calls her out on this bullshit, he is a shitlord for not validating her ever-shifting emotional instability.
The entire problem is that women are not men. Hundred of thousands of years of evolution has made men and women behave in entirely different ways. The fact that feminists and in turn the left in general deny this is proof of their dishonesty. Women tend to be far more emotional and are geared more towards raising children and tending to things in the home, while men are geared more towards hunting to provide for the family and providing protection, which is why they are more aggressive and stronger than women. But tell a feminists this and they go hysterical.
Sure, there are some women who can go out and be a high powered executive, working long hours and making decisions based on logic with no emotions involved. This is NOT the norm, it’s exactly opposite of the norm. The feminists insisting that every woman must drive herself like this is really bad for women. None of this crazy shit is going to end well. Like the original post here said, if feminists could ever succeed in pushing this insanity to it’s ultimate end, we would be defenseless and invaded and taken over by a population who still have masculine men.
This is a nice illustration of the feminist identity-politics strain of the progressive lack of empathy. The Marxist class-struggle version is, ‘The business owners simply profits on my labor; he brings nothing to the transaction.’
The sociopathic tendencies of progressive thought are all too apparent.
No asshole when recounting our own stories HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS are less than reliable narrators.
It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with gender.
The false implicit assumption in that statement is that all biases are incorrect.
We have our office party coming up this week. Since I’m usually the first to leave I’ve apparently missed out on the drunken grope-fests.
I never attend them.
The great thing about this #metoo stupidity is that now, I can list the reasons, and I won’t look (quite so) paranoid.
Went to the unofficial Christmas party last night. My 20 month old tried to Al-Franken one of my co-workers boobs.
In fairness, she came up to him with a light up sweater
We’ll need a description of the boobs please.
“Description”?!
Pics.
I don’t know think they’d win KCCO.
I work with mainly 23-27 year old women. I believe I could hear several ovaries exploding as they couldn’t resist his cuteness. The only way he’ll ever get that many young women throwing themselves at him again is if he enters politics or entertainment.
Are you hiring? Asking for a friend…
You’re lucky you didn’t get some SJW-type saying you were already mistreating your son and need to deprogram him of his toxic masculinity.
No SJWs on my nursing unit. Thank God
I’d imagine some lines of work are less susceptible to the madness than others.
Was it like this?
That was definitely his thought process when he was younger
Our Holiday party is a lunch buffet. No drunken groping unless you brought your own.
We used to have a Christmas party until a couple of not-too-hard -on-the-eyes floozies got drunk and started danced on some tables, making the female management contingency (some of the scariest looking creatures you could ever run into in a dark ally) angry, and they banned the whole tradition. I don’t miss it much, because it was not open bar anyway.
I pretty much never go to the corporate office party. It was lame the way described here for years, so there’s really not much to miss out on. This year, the department’s office party is on the same day as my club’s party. That gives me the perfect excuse to cut out early.
I’ve never really gotten the entire office party thing. If you like to hang out with the people you work with, it’s something you probably do anyway. If you don’t, the entire thing is an exercise in awkwardness of playing corporate politics while pretending to be having a good time.
Finally, am I the only person in America who doesn’t see the sense in office romances? My father told me when I was very young “Do not shit where you eat.”. I really don’t see a “happily ever after” to the story.
There’s not much sense in office romances, unless, of course, you’re attracted to each other. They’re certainly not a good idea – never were – and certainly not now – but we can’t all be risk/reward optimizing machines.
I have been lucky enough that all my office conquests (none of them working directly in my area) ended up moving elsewhere in the very large (33K employees) company we work for, or outright leaving it. But the way the last one ended up going and the crazy I had to deal with, I think I am going to stop shitting on the same table I eat from, as this is sooner or later going to bite me.
I have a “no personal relationships at work” rule for myself. So far so good. I just can’t imagine what a pain-in-the-ass it would be to date/have an affair with someone at work and then have it all go south. Messy.
I worked at two places where co-workers dated each other. The first place was a lot of college and post-college age people in the same department, and it was the _talk_ of the office. The general atmosphere was almost a dating pool sometimes, so that was weird. The second place was more mature, but the two co-worked both had affairs, so two marriages fell apart because of it. If I recall those employees left their jobs too. In both situations, the gossip and such made the work place quite uncomfortable.
The age group is a big factor, as is the kind of work. I worked in restaurants all through college (and up until about ten years ago, at least part time) and it’s like you couldn’t design a better system to get 20-somethings to hook up with each other. Periods of high stress followed by lulls, usually winding up getting off work already at a bar with cash in your pocket, high turnover. It’s like getting paid to go to high school. The funny thing is I could almost quantify how far I drifted out of the “eligible” pool as I got older, like each year moved me further and further into “old guy who works here” territory.
We have a pot luck for lunch the week before Christmas.
Its usually some good food, but not a party.
Every holiday party since I left the Air Force has been a bunch of .gov workers awkwardly wishing each other a happy holiday. I told one lady, who happened to be a severe holy roller, Merry Christmas and she seemed almost confused that it was mentioned at work. Like, something in her brain didn’t compute because it was switched off.
I brought beer for a white elephant exchange and everyone was so touchy about the subject of alcohol at work it wound up being engineered to rotate to an office visitor who was invited to the party, so no beer would be in the office by close of business.
I volunteered to bring a turkey, and they lost their shit over the fact that I brought a knife–to carve the turkey.
My new office scheduled their party this Friday…
…. can’t even bring Oreos.
What does your office have against Daryl and Tyrone?
Wut?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/01/politics/investigates-fbi-syria-greene/index.html
Sounds like they need to review their security clearance protocols.
Deep Cover?
No, ‘Gone Native’. It happens – we see the equivalent with prison psychs/convicts etc.
I’m reluctant to call it ‘Bad Boy Allure’, but it’s Bad Boy Allure.
Why are they blurring her face? It can’t be to protect opsec; she can’t possibly still be an FBI employee. She’s a convict and we’re protecting her . . . what? Confidentiality?
Naturally, she got off with a lighter sentence compared to what any of us serfs would have gotten for doing the same thing.
Well, the lighter sentence would have been in recognition of a shitload of HUMINT she gave up as part of a bargain. Not sure I agree, but it’s not unreasonable.
Blurring her face? Probably got witness relocation in Dearborn.
Interesting that a GIS doesn’t cough up any unblurred pix. Probably right on the relo deal, and on the sentencing deal.
We discussed this here back when it first happened and came to a consensus that it was deep cover.
Don’t recall that. Deep cover ops rarely result in jail time unless you go waaaay outside the lines. I think she’s a dumb bint who smartened up a little too late, and was able to parlay her status as a member of the cop tribe into a sweet deal.
Meh. I’ve shaved with Occam’s razor all my life. I see no reason to change now.
I have never wanted to strap on a football helmet and spear someone in the spine until yesterday with Gronkowski. What a dick.
Just watched the video. WTF
I thought it was just supposed to be a culture of cheating with the Patriots?
I didn’t see the game but I understand why he’s frustrated. Because he’s the size of a Guard or Defensive End, the refs always seem to let the secondary treat him like one – grabbing and holding all the way down the field.
Yeah, but in fairness that happens to every tight end once they get past the linebackers.
I’ve always thought it was suspicious that there just happened to be one thug culture type of guy on the team in the form of Hernandez and he fit right in. Maybe that kind of mindset is more in line with the Pats team culture than they admit.
Go with fistfights, helmet hits at full speed, players diving at knees, etc. you never get upset but a relatively common late hit has you over the edge?
I don’t know what video you saw, but it was more than a standard late hit.
I think you missed the play. That was decidedly uncommon.
He basically play-acted like he was tripped and did a full-on WWE move on that guy. He went into Suh territory there.
Wow, what a piece of shit. He doesn’t get a call on a fairly tame case of PI, so he throws himself at a prone, defenseless player. Doesn’t even have the balls to fight him like a man, has to jump on him while he’s face down on the ground. For the heinous crime of getting away with a very minor foul against a Patriot. Fuck the Pats, fuck Gronk, fuck that whole culture.
Video here
Went right for his head. Should have been ejected from the game for that. (1) Defenseless player face down (2) out of bounds (3) after the play is over, and (4) he goes right for his head. Should be suspended – probably one game is enough, but I wouldn’t object to two.
Wealthy capitalists are threat to freedom
Again, pure projection. Someone who can’t imagine doing anything good unless coerced assumes everyone else to be the same.
Same problem we have with the left accusing everyone else of being perverts and predators abusing their power to bed womenz. Now we find out that it was practically all projection on their part whenever they made those accusations, as the virtue signalers are dropping like flies.
Sounds horrible, those libertarians sound like they should be put in re-education camps.
And conveniently, some of the War Relocation Centers progressive icon FDR used to house Japanese Americans during WWII are still on federal property, even if they need completely rebuilt.
That paper has some pretty good letters though. Not that I agree with everything this particular person says, but much better than the other article’s nonsense.
he free-market capitalism is known by many different names — neoliberalism, Reaganomics, trickle-down economics, voodoo economics, rugged individualism and even fascism. – this has gut to be the most retarded thing I read today. Even fascism? Really? Who seriously calls free market capitalism fascism? Besides the more deranged lefties?
Looking at most those names it is only known by those names in the most bubbly of lefty bubbles.
Yeah, half of those names are only used by critics of the idea. But not just leftists: “voodoo economics” and “trickle-down economics” are terms used by centrist (by US standards) critics of the free market.
If government doesn’t get to pick the winners and losers, and more importantly, gets to hobble the people the leftist mob doesn’t like to deny them the ability to cross the finish line with more than your average leftist, the world is evul.
That is a strange deffinition of centrist
Well, “voodoo economics” was a term used by George Bush (the first) to describe Reagan’s policies when they were political opponents, and in the American political paradigm he is a creature of the center. I’ve also heard many people who would be described as centrist use the phrase “trickle-down economics”, but it is more popular with leftists. The main point is that it’s not just leftists who use these phrases, but maybe that’s because leftist thought has managed to colonize so much of society.
Works for me.
Those are also functions.
Agree with two of the three. No Fed ‘police’ needed.
“The free-market capitalism is known by many different names — neoliberalism, Reaganomics, trickle-down economics, voodoo economics, rugged individualism and even fascism. ”
This sentence told me everything I needed to know about this person’s understanding of economics, let alone free market economics. I get that economics is a specialized field, but I do not get how you could honestly confuse the free market and fascism. Either you did no research, or you are willfully ignoring the facts. Either way you are being dishonest.
Free Market = Nazi. Nazi = fascist. Therefore, Free Market = Fascism. Come on, this is simple stuff really.
I thought Fascism, which only differs from other collectivist ideologies in what nonsense they tell the plebes to make them think they have a say in what happens with the wealth that always belongs to the top men, is precisely where government controls industry and the economy, and thus markets are not free. The only difference with communism there is that the communist, with a nudge and a wink, tell the plebes they own it all.
Free markets want nothing to do with any socialist ideology. Now your average leftist idiot thinking fascism isn’t socialism might be the problem here.
Huh. Reason didn’t make the list.
Phew.
Had me worried that not all the Nazis had been identified. Now, the round-ups can commence.
I’m not sure how I missed that.
A photo of the sign was taken by Bonnie AD, a Denver activist for “conscious sexuality”, who posted the image on her Instagram account, @eroticselflove. It duly made the rounds on social media.
“I had a visceral reaction of disgust when I saw the sign, because toxic masculinity is not a joke,” AD said. “I wanted to share the image because I think that community accountability is vital for social change. Largely, the response on social media has been one of disgust.
“This message is approving of toxic masculinity, which is socially irresponsible and culturally poisonous. Anyone on the feminine spectrum, especially sex workers, already have to deal with the covert problems of toxic masculinity and rape culture, so when an establishment publicly makes this kind of commentary, they are adding unnecessary weight to an issue that is already a burden, and a danger, to many people.”
Yeah, okay.
I had a visceral reaction of disgust when I saw the sign, because toxic masculinity is not a joke,
Yes, at this point it is. It is because you and your friends made it a joke. Even the most masculine of men are happy to disapprove of guys who act like cads and genuinely mistreat women. But you and your friends decided that was unacceptable. That that was just another form of sexism and “rape culture”. The only acceptable outcome from you and your friends was that men treat their masculinity as something to be ashamed of or purged, if possible. All while ensuring you just the sort of world made possible by the very masculinity you damn and expect them to damn. It was such a imbecilic and transparent con job that even the most unreflective and uneducated man could see it for the farce that it was. And now you’ve rendered your argument and movement a punchline.
Oh no! For the first time ever, feminists are mad at a strip club!
Ugly hags that are insecure and worried about their ability to wield power, will always dislike strip clubs…
If it isn’t officially linked by staff…it doesn’t count.
I expect nothing. It minimizes disappointment.
THAT, we can deliver!
“You’ll get nothing, and like it!”
Cook County is going to have a Sherrif’s Sale (or however Illinois deals with unpaid property taxes) for that Alderman’s property right? Right? Hey! Why are you laughing at me?
The couple bought the 1,203-square-foot, brick house for $175,000 in November 2015. They borrowed the full purchase amount from an individual, according to property records. The loan is due a year from now.
Let me go our on a limb here: He won’t pay on time. Late or not at all.
Or, in exchange for certain favors, the loan note will be ripped up.
Damn, I should have thought of that. It is Chicago after all.
1,203 square feet for $175k in Chicago?
Sounds like a dump.
Sounds tiny. It’s barely bigger than my house.
My studio is by far the smallest place I’ver ever lived. I’m very upset that I only have one burner on my stove and a tiny toaster oven to cook, because I cook probably 80% of my food. On the plus side, it teaches you a lot of good skills when you have to little space to work with and how you have to prioritize differently in order to get a still-hot-and-delicious meal at the end of it.
My entire apartment, including my bathroom and kitchen is about the size of a normal-sized bedroom (non master) in the States. I’ve cozy and I’ve gotten used to it. Makes cleaning a snap. And I work a 3-min walk away. It’s kinda fun keeping your life so small.
For fuck’s sake.
*too
*It’s cozy and I’ve gotten used to it.
I lived in a tiny studio apartment when I lived in Slovakia. No oven or microwave, just a portable electric burner and a sink.
My bought a Foreman grill off German Amazon the day after I moved in.
I found living in confined space like that to be miserable, and I say “good riddance”. Sure, my house is small by the standards of houses, but it’s still big enough.
Sounded like a house owned for the purpose of having property in the district to me. I also wondered the same as Swiss. It all fits.
Standard 3 year mortgage. Sounds legit.
Police: Woman Made Ricin, Tested it on Neighbors at Retirement Community
Woah, grandma, time to get that MJ card.
Yipe, what do you do with a person who’s too old for prison and too psychotic for a nursing home?
Do what we’ve always done. Put them in the Senate.
Oh. Never Mind
Paging Nancy Pelosi!
*hands pillow to orderly, nods, leaves room*
At least she labels. My wife didn’t have that beat into her with chemistry labs, so she doesn’t understand why I am a label nazi.
neoliberalism, Reaganomics, trickle-down economics, voodoo economics, rugged individualism and even fascism. All have the world view of Ayn Rand
If Ayn Rand did not exist, it would be necessary to invent her.
Technically, the Ayn Rand the left talks about barely existed either.
They exist now.
Somehow I read that backwards. I guess I need more coffee.
I was a little confused. But now I see what you were saying. The left Ayn Rand talked about are here and they are acting like what she said the would do is not ridiculous.
They’re both clowns, but I don’t think this would go as Kimmel believes it would, despite the difference in age.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/kimmel-moore-engage-twitter-war/
Christ, what an asshole.
I’m no fan of Roy Moore, but he’s absolutely right about the bigotry, and it’s why he’s doing so well. Trump was a leading indicator of a trend that’s going to dominate American politics for decades if the left’s total inability to learn and change is any guide.
The left, like the Bourbons, forget nothing and learn nothing. They only thing they know to do is “prog harder”.
I’ve written to Santa for something off this list…
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/04/jeremy-s/ar-15-drop-in-trigger-roundup/
TW: Triggers
*bitter laugh* Like that will happen.
We must listen to male sexual abuse victims #too
#themtoo
What is the alternative for something that doesn’t exist?
Men can’t be victims! Men are always the abusers!
Hasn’t SF already admitted to being molested by Hillary?
Also, I don’t think there’s a Glib here who hasn’t been…touched by STEVE SMITH. #wetoo
Nobody’s started on this yet, so I’ll create the hashtag:
#TouchedByAnAngel
That’s gonna be a hard one to prosecute, but I’m hoping I can still get the victim points,
So, if we say you have a case of the Mondays, do we get a Garfield Cat Butt?
We never had anything resembling such a saying in Romania, fortunately
SAS could change selection test to make it easier for female recruits
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/03/sas-could-change-selection-make-easier-female-recruits/
The SAS is considering adapting its gruelling selection test to give women a better chance of succeeding, according to reports. The elite special forces unit is thought to be looking at plans to make one of its trademark recruitment exercises easier for female candidates to complete
Soldiers hoping to join the Special Air Service and its sister regiment, the Special Boat Service (SBS), currently have to pass an initial physical test, which involves carrying heavy rucksacks over a series of long marches across mountainous terrain.
But according to reports, the SAS is considering allowing female recruits to carry lighter loads and giving them more time to complete the test.
The suggestion comes after the government said it wanted to see all close combat units in the British military open to women by 2019.
It is felt that the marching tests are unfairly discriminating against women who may have the attributes needed to succeed as SAS soldiers.
And here I though there was a reason for these tests. Maybe a grueling march tells you something about a persons endurance to hardship. But then again what do I know I aint never been in no army
Lower the standards so women can get in. Reduce combat effectiveness to feel better. Their choice.
“And the trees all walked as equals by hatchet, axe, and saw.”
-Shitty band from the 70s
Thems fightin words.
Just a joke, I like Rush (up until the early 90s anyway).
Paging Diana Moon Glampers!
SF got rid of nearly all requirements to pass training. They didn’t say it was for females but it looks like they are just getting ready. Nobody can say they failed standards if there’s no standards.
I’m certainly no military guy, so I do wonder what the purpose of the tests actually is. I get it if the point is to carry out wounded, etc. If it is an endurance/stress test, then they don’t need to carry similar weights. I know plenty of women more mentally and physically tough than some men and would rather have them in my foxhole when the SHTF. Should they be excluded because they can’t carry 85% of their body weight? What percentage do the men have to carry?
I’m not trying to be a jackwagon. Honest questions. I also think there may be other reasons to keep them out, but that is a different discussion.
Certain branches will need to be capable as a unit, of travelling significant distances with heavy loads. The ability to haul a SAW across broken ground under fire, or haul the ammo to feed it isn’t a ‘nice to have’. It’s vitally important, and if you’re in combat and some of the unit are down, the girls might have to do just that.
Not by design, but because shit happens. One of the significant concerns is that because men
all have toxic masculinityare men, the equality dynamic is affected. This isn’t a training issue, it’s the way people are – and from my experience, these men are rough men prepared to do violence to protect the weak – and society has taught men (despite all the bullshit) that women are – statistically, on average – “weaker”.The thing is that this is all utter bullshit. Any women who want to become front-line troops can do so, and participate to the fullest degree. Women are as capable as men in many combat roles involving mechanized warfare – they typically have wider field of vision, they’re a bit better at managing high G’s. Just about the only metric in which they demonstrably lag behind men is in upper body strength, which is why they’re almost uniquely disqualified for infantry roles. Which is why we’re where we’re at today.
Ask all the guys left holding the bag every time the capable chick decided she wanted no part of hard work and blamed her inability to perform on feminine issues ranging from the monthly curse to pregnancies how they feel about capable females. Not saying all women who join the military are there just for the benefits and to get away with doing the least possible, especially since there are quite a few men doing the same, but in general when a woman tells me she wants to be a ground pounder, especially one in an elite unit, I wonder WTF is going on…
Which is why lowering standards for women in the military is a horrible idea. I know a couple ladies in the military, including a master sergeant, and the goods ones are real tough cookies who don’t take crap from everyone. By lowering standards for women, they’re giving women a stigma that they’re only there because vagina and diversity, that they can’t be counted on when work needs doing, etc. Yeah there aren’t many ladies serving, but lowering standards is an insult and degrading to the ones who earned where they got, who clawed there way in with blood and sweat and tears. It’s patronizing and generally demeaning to women, but it feelz good for them.
Citations for this, or just anecdotes? I’m not suggesting people didn’t have lived experiences, but I wonder how many men are really as emotionally capable as you think.
Crap that was meant for AlexinCT.
I agree with your assessment Behold!.
Start by Google women getting pregnant to avoid duty (especially in war time), and then follow that rabbit down the hole (also reflect that for every story published there are likely dozens that never make the light of day because there is a vested interest to hide them). Google readiness stories and how the military has too many disciplines where some people, practically always males, are overworked.
I also went to a military school and I saw this entitlement there first hand there, and after. I know people in the service dealing with it daily and not even being able to complain for fear they will be the ones reprimanded. Also notice that I didn’t say this was the case for all women, but it was especially the case for the ones demanding it be made easier for them to qualify for MOS jobs that are demanding.
I hope you’ll excuse a possible overreaction here, but ‘lived experiences’? We don’t tend to see language like that here except in citations from The Root or Everyday feminism.
The whole point of stressful, challenging training is precisely to identify the emotionally capable men, because while most men would like to think they are, they aren’t.
Basic – and for that matter – extended – training is not only to assess an applicant’s physical fitness. A physician can do that in 5 minutes, and in 10, can probably figure out whether someone is capable of becoming fit enough with further training.
It’s also an extended psychological and emotional test that attempts to evaluate the suitability of the individual for the role; however, it’s the physiological hurdle that is the problem for women. By default, i wouldn’t doubt any female applicant’s dedication when they sign up for it, any more than I would a man. I would reserve the right to amend my opinion after observing the physical, psychological and emotional evidence I saw thru’out training.
Lastly, don’t ignore the fact that many dedicated men – in all levels of training – but particularly these elite forces – eliminate themselves because they discover that their own self-assessment doesn’t match the expectations of the group with which they seek to serve. There’s no dishonor in that kind of failure.
Start by Google women getting pregnant to avoid duty (especially in war time),
Anecdotally I can tell you that happens all the time–and I was Air Force where 90% of us will never go outside the wire.
None of which I dispute; these are some of the other reasons I mentioned above. But none of this speaks to how much they haul or how emotionally stable they are.
I don’t have a fully formed opinion on this, but I think women and men mixing in combat situations is problematic for several reasons. Can most/all of them be mitigated without significant reduction in readiness, efficiency, etc? I personally doubt it, but honestly don’t know enough about the details.
This is an example of why I mostly lurk. Internet discussions are difficult for me. Even though I’m not a people person, I enjoy debates, but in person…
You can play a game to answer some of those questions.
How many men with racehorse-jockey physique do you see when you look at pictures of active-duty military? How many of them look low-testosterone? (test only applies in combat arms). The reason those archetypal ‘special forces guys’ (as an extreme example) look like that is because what they do requires, and builds lots of muscles. Assuming they could have got in, with my level of fitness and physique, AND they could handle training and duty, they would end up looking like that.
As you’re aware, it’s not just the physical capacity to haul things around that counts. There are lots of guys quite fit enough to make it into those units, and the desire to do so, but they fail psychologically – usually in benign, forgivable ways – to be able to deliver. And even then, some get in who turn out to be the “wrong stuff”.
My observation, other side of the pond, from the 90’s, is that I met very few women in the armed forces who could expect to haul 50% of the necessary weight in a controlled, non-hostile environment, but a few could. I only met maybe two that could face the combination of psychological stress and physical endurance for days on end that were required to undertake hard training in a relatively benign environment ( 60F, damp and rainy temperate hills, forests and open country. My Welsh nemesis knows where.)
Small, self-selected sample, but the environment was at the low-stress end of the spectrum with no simulated combat. Only 4 of the women I saw enter that season of training made it to the end, and all the candidates were scrupulously careful about not alienating them. So, something like 320 candidates, of those 60 women, Just over 220 qualified IIRC. Note – and it’s important – every man jack (woman jill?) of them was already in the military before the course. Those who flunked out all had a billet to return to, so it’s not as though we rounded up a gaggle of shop-girls from the nearest town. A small number of them (like the guys) were effectively ‘lifers’ in the military.
It’s just outright unreasonable and unfair to point almost any woman at a piece of equipment like a Carl Gustav recoilless rifle and a pack of 4 (dummy) rounds and tell her she has to tote that just over 1.6km to a fire base on the other side of the hill. She’s got a 60lb pack and you just added about 30lb of unwieldy, unwelcome weight to her day, even though the rifle and ammo are in proper carriers.
I’m not saying it’s unreasonable because she’s a woman, it’s unreasonable because I have no expectation of her, or a guy who might have the same build and strength of achieving it.
Meh, heard it here plenty. I don’t read feminism books or follow much of that stuff, but the term makes sense to me. My lived experience is different from many others and from the norm, average, whatever. If it used differently in feminism, then…whoops.
I really appreciate the detailed responses.
My cousin has successfully avoided deployment by getting pregnant each time she was supposed to deploy.
By the way, she was recently promoted to Captain. Because their weren’t enough female captains or something.
There are promotion quotas these days, and after the 8 years of Obama this has resulted in even more dysfunction. Why do you think we have had no less than 2 collisions at sea that most of us familiar with the vessels, procedures, and capabilities find baffling? And I bet you when bad things happen they punish the wrong people, and not the people promoted because they have the right plumbing, melanin, or whatever other diversity criteria was defined as part of the quota.
I tend to think the first situation is why I’d disqualify all women from entering any service where deployments would be an option. Are there options to join the military where deployments are not a requisite?
The second happens everywhere, though usually not that explicitly.
No Stillhunter. When you sign up they will send you where ever they want to. During the days of the draft you could refuse to carry/use a weapon, but as a volunteer force, you join, you fight, when and where, you are told to. Which is why I always get pissed when I hear about people getting preggers or becoming contentious objectors to get out of the contract they signed to fulfill. There are a lot of people that just saw the military as a way to get money from tax payers before the perpetual war we are now in came about, and most people that join these days understand the risk. Of course, one gender seems to be given an easier pass to get out of doing the heavy lifting, while everyone needs to waste time on the PC indoctrination.
Shit, what happened to the military being there to destroy the enemy’s will to fight by breaking their shit and killing their people? It’s not a meals-on-wheels thing, which is why all this defense spending going to stupid shit is galling.
That’s what I figured, but given the changes in the military over the years, i wasn’t sure if they had a way to utilize people with technical quals without them needing to do the dirty military stuff. I suppose that’s what contractors are for though.
Thanks to you as well for the detailed responses and analysis.
If it is an endurance/stress test, then they don’t need to carry similar weights.
If their job involves carrying stuff (which it probably does – contrary to leftist belief guns and ammo aren’t animate objects), then yes, endurance tests absolutely need to involve carrying similar weights.
Since I am a terrible typer that didn’t come off as intended. I’m just asking what they need to carry? I’ve heard people hear mention the larger amount of gear they have to carry. If that is the standard, I’m perfectly fine with that. I’m just asking questions that other non-military will ask.
It’s not just the gear, but any Small unit special operations force Like the SAS has to be capable of evacuating its wounded – which means carrying them at least as far as the evac point. This is most definately a bonefide job requirement that carries “else people will die” as a caveat.
UCS makes a good point. In the specific (but not unique) case of the SAS/SBS, they often have to take other specialized personnel along with them, help extract them, particularly if they’re incapacitated. Those specialized personnel would have been deployed with appropriate (and often troublesome) equipment of their own that would also need to be toted.
I thought you were more thorough than that. I mentioned that as a possible reason for the tests, and it makes perfect sense to me. Reason enough in my opinion to not reduce standards, but what do I know?
I’ve been up since yesterday. My brain is not at its best.
Equipment, ammo, weapons, supplies.
Most infantry units, especially ‘elite’ units are expected to be capable of supporting themselves without logistical support for a period of time, in hostile environments. An M249 Squad Automatic weapon weighs 18lb, plus some ammo and other bits abd bobs, so it’s about 23lb of unwieldy, often hot metal. And the support grunt will be toting maybe the basic loadout of 600 rounds of 5.56 ammo, but probably more, so he’ll have about 15lb minimum, and probably nearer 25 what with metal cans etc. None of this stuff is ergonomic or easy to carry – especially at speed, across rough terrain.
That’s in addition to their packs with water, rations, etc.
Then you might have someone like an SDM (Squad designated marksman) – he’ll be carrying a rifle of about 16lb plus about 10 lb ammo – again, with equipment, plus (maybe) some bulky additional optics. Comms equipment isn’t (or wasn’t) light.
You’ll have personnel with bulky medical gear, and even the grunts will be loaded up with stuff, that sometimes will need hauling across broken ground in a hurry.
And then lots of them will be wearing plates. The more active ex-mil guys and gals will fill you in on that. Hot, bulky, heavy.
Will they always be hauling 80lb? Nope. But training is designed to ensure that when they need to, they can. And in extremeis, that there’s a high probability that they will be able to. Let’s not forget that this doesn’t only measure raw strength, but endurance.
Don’t forget that a lot of the stuff the grunts are expected to do when out in the shit end up being problematic for females, because of basic female biology…
Go on…
You ever hear of sepsis? A bad period not properly dealt with can cause a young woman some serious problems.
ok, not what I was expecting…
I spent some time as part of a Stinger Missile team in the early ’90s – 2 men, 1 carries Stinger/launcher (35lbs.), rifle (M16A2 9lbs. + another 10lbs. of ammo/grenades), 3 quarts of water+ spare batteries for PRC-77 radio + rucksack/LBE (another 15 – 20lbs.), and often a a mortar round for the 11C guys while the 2nd guy carries Stinger (22lbs.), PRC-77 radio + spare battery (20lbs.), rifle/ammo/water/ruck/etc. As an extra bonus, since we were not organic to the infantry unit, just assigned to a platoon in whatever company was on deployment status, the grunts would, more often than not, neglect to feed us; scrounging and trading became an art form.
They have to carry what they need – weapons, comms, food. They have to be able to move quickly while they carry these heavy loads. They operate independently, often deep in enemy territory.
Nothing good can come out of lowering standards to admit women. Infantry in general is hard on the body. When I was in Marine ATC, we had several SNCOs who were former grunts that lat-moved into ATC because they had bad backs, shoulders, or knees. Even the fittest women is likely going to break down relatively quickly due to the constant pounding.
Fit women… Pounding… Euphemism overload.
I’ll be in my bunk.
Unrelated to links. Anyone here a certified PMP… Pause to allow the pimp jokes. My wife is getting ready to take the exam and she’s freaking out because she was told most people don’t pass their first attempt. From what I read about the PMP it does appear to try to milk people for money but it’s valuable in the workplace.
Just make sure she keeps her bitches in line.
She just needs to keep her PMP-hand strong.
Has she taken any kind of prep training? I never bothered with it – most of my project work is change management (herding cats) but I know lots of people who passed the first time if they studied.
Meh.
What every Roman said in 476.
Had seen enough of them barbarian invasion waves by that point.
They were right to shrug. The Goths didn’t come to destroy to destroy the classical world – they wanted to rule it.
Classical civilization continued in the Mediterranean for a century and a half until the followers of a certain caravan raider arrived on the scene.
They wanted to rule it yes, but they also were desperate to become civilized by it.
They knew where it was at.
yep – then they got way too civilized and comfortable…
Nothing softens you more than success…..
AB resistance has been an issue for decades, however people would rather pump money into “climate change” and other fantasies than the actual thing that’s going to kill us all.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/01/life-expectancy-has-dropped-antibiotic-resistance-says-ons/
You can sell big socialist government at the cure for the fake climate change nonsense because most idiots won’t know better. I don’t think you can do the same for a problem that is purely biological/chemical in nature without it being blatantly obvious that you are a shill for collectivism.
Maybe they’re secretly hoping the AB issue will deal with the climate change issue. The environmentalist movement seems to have a disproportionately large number of anti-humanity cultists.
I blame corn subsidies.
The ‘death planet’ that defies science: Strange world with a toxic atmosphere made almost entirely of carbon monoxide baffles astronomers
Global Warming – duh.
Someone’s heater malfunctioned.
Man made universe change!
It’s in the upper east side of the galaxy.
Is there a spectrographic difference between carbon monoxide and say, an oxidated benzene ring or similar carboxide of 1:1 ratio from the distances we’re talking about?
Whatever lines they give out will persist as long as you can see light. They’ll be subject to red shift, but that’s well-settled science these days.
I suppose my question is, can we spectrographically tell the difference between, say CO and C6O6?
Yes.
With one tweet, Bill Kristol briefly comes out of the glass closet as a Democrat, then runs back to being “conservative”.
Sexual harassment accusation in three, two…
Wow, way to other non-binary folks.
To be fair, they othered themselves and appear to get off on it.
Kristol, not you, Leon. You’re probably on to something.
Bill Kristol, all of William Buckley’s snide elitism with none of the charisma or intelligence. It’s sad really.
How apt.
Wow, yeah, that’s dead on. He desperately wants to be Buckley but is entirely unqualified.
The’y better guard against an invasion of anything left-wing into the conservative/libertarian ranks. They took over and murdered liberalism and they can sure as hell take out cons/libs who are not as numerous as libs.
Progressives are like Zombies. You have to shoot them in the head* like in ‘The Night of the Living Dead’.
The progressive slogan: MORE BRAINS.
They think that eating more of it they’ll get smarter but it does nothing!
*Figuratively!
Tardy. Reason.com is already well on its way to skin-suit status.
More Than 200 Pounds of Mexican Bologna Seized and Destroyed By Feds
For once, the Dog actually smelled something…
WTF is Mexican Bologna? Is it made from messican a$$ sex?
Something you’re not allowed to import, apparently.
All jokes aside, its is basically the same thing as regular bologna. We even get a brand of it that is imported to Mexico here in AZ (Fud). Somehow I have my doubts this lady was anything other than a decoy to distract the dog.
For lulz, she should have bought American made bologna, and asked the CBP if it was OK to re-import formerly exported American bologna.
It is not. A friend of mine had his race trailer gone through at the Mexican border. Eventually they confiscated some American bacon they found in his cooler.
I saw the pics of the new puppy, dude! What a cool dog!
Gotta be Tank, though..
We just went through the checkpoint at Falfurriuas, TX two weeks ago, which is 75 miles inside the border. That is some 1984 shit there. I was not amused at having dogs sniffing my car as I drive a public highway.
There’s a prominent sign near my home on the NY-CT border which declares that importation of firewood from NY is a illegal and may ‘attract significant legal penalties’, which of course, tells me it’s bullshit, but I am tempted to do it so I can add “log smuggler” to my social business card.
Unless anyone has a better and more triggering short phrase I could use.
“There’s a prominent sign near my home on the NY-CT border which declares that importation of firewood from NY is a illegal ”
How is that even legal? Interstate commerce and all. Unless they banned all firewood.
I’ve seen similar signs in MA since they had those Chinese maple bugs.
Always the Chinese bugs or diseases – they killed our elms, chestnuts, ash trees, and now they aredestroy our maples our maples. I swear, if I can’t get maple syrup, we should nuke them.
Iinvertebrates aren’t known for their respect for state and national borders.
You know who else wasn’t known for their respect for state and national borders…
Lord of the wasteland?
Mexicans?
Mr. Garrison running for the office of POTUS?
California has been doing it for years with produce and whatever else. Do they still have those checkpoints?
As a forester, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no way to stop all the bugs from getting in and trying to do so is like the war on drugs; expensive, inefficient, targets the wrong things, benefits the connected, blah, blah blah…
It is hard though, because they do cause massive devastation to forests. Urban trees are easier to protect typically, though still very expensive and reserved for high-value trees.
I can add “log smuggler” to my social business card.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
Are we still doing euphemisms?
Well, obviously I still am ….
Log smuggler? lol, nice one. You could also try “wood specialist” or “imported wood specialist,” right?
Well, I want ‘smuggler’ in there ‘cos it’s consistent with my whole scofflaw aesthetic. I’d have Super Genius on it too – except, well, i’d be stealing Brett L.’s thunder.
Interesting.
Pine is good.
Bitchez love them that wood..
Google “Emerald ash borer”
Moving firewood is a bad idea.
Yep, those things terrified my hometown (Blue Ash). They had tons of ordinances on moving firewood, and I completely agree with those laws, since they do protect property owners from losing trees (and having to deal with a lot of deadwood from it).
Yep, those are a thing around me. It sucks, because I’ve got regular access to cords and cords of firewood, but every year when we go up to the mountains to camp we can’t bring any of it. I’m typically skeptical of regulations but this is a case where it absolutely is an issue.
One of the scoutmasters my troop’s scoutmaster was friends with had a big piece of property he’d let a lot of troops camp at (called, unoriginally, Timberwood). We made a lot of improvements to the property for him, and that’s they only reason we were allowed to camp there after about 2001, because someone from the Toledo area brought an ash borer with them on firewood they brought, and it killed so many of the trees in the area we had a literally 20x20x6 log cabin style fire in February 2003. I’m amazed we didn’t start a wildfire.
Here’s my beef with it.
Once Emerald Ash Borers are identified to have successfully invaded both locations – what’s the chance that those signs and their attendant laws are removed?
Fair point, and sunsets should be built into all laws.
Is that like a turd burglar?
Thank goodness. We need Government to save us from the worst of the lunch meats. I know see ether error of my libertarian ways. If we don’t tax the rich at 90%, the Mexicans might be able to sneak in any kind of meat.
Mexicans. Smuggling the sausage Americans won’t smuggle.
Now we just need the pot for the libertarian trifecta.
You joke, but Nobody beat’s Jose’s meat.
We were laughing at that story over the weekend. After we finished laughing at the mental image of every “drug” dog within a mile mobbing the vehicle and arfing their heads off, the comments on the local story were excellent. The one I recall is “That stuff is excellent. I had no idea it was illegal here, but next time you are in Mexico you gotta try it.”
I have had occasion to look under the floor mats in my vehicle, and I haven’t found space to put 227 pounds of food there.
The future of driving is joyless:
http://driving.ca/auto-news/news/309862
Cause I get so much joy out of my commute already.
Musk knob-polishers. As predictable as the sunrise:
A good article from the same site:
Who cleans the puke?
Also:
So can I. Gross.
Truth About Cars had a string of these dirty self-driving car articles a few weeks ago.
Owners of the vehicle install a really obvious camera. Problem, mostly, solved.
No way.
We can’t even handle shared bicycles.
I don’t think cameras clean up puke.
Owners of the vehicle install a really obvious camera.
And riders of the vehicle tape over the lens of the really obvious camera.
Thereby being lulled into overlooking the half dozen concealed cameras.
^^This guy watches fake taxi^^
How was this not obvious to everyone from the get-go? If you are getting in the business of picking up drunkards in your car, you are going to get puke in your car. 2+2=4.
They let John write articles?
This subject is one of the few where I think John’s absolutely right. a)These cars will be disgusting b)if I don’t control where my car goes, that means someone else does.
They’ll have to force me to stop driving.
Especially on my bike.
Global explorer Karl Bushby: ‘It’s time to start looking at the journey home to Hull’
http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/global-explorer-karl-bushby-its-401722
So basically this guy has be walking by himself for 18 years. I can’t say I either get or admire what he is doing to be honest but whatever.
Well, he was probably trying to forget Hull.
But, like a dog returning to his vomit ….
Deadly 5ft Star Trek blade handed in to police as part of weapon amnesty
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5014829/star-trek-sword-handed-in-weapons-amnesty/
that does not look so functional to me… I doubt it would be used to commit crime
It incapacitates the victim by causing them to collapse with laughter.
Doesn’t matter. The cops in the UK get to make that determination,
If that guy had handed it in at a time when there wasn’t an announced amnesty, he could have had all sorts of problems.
I was at the street market in Greenwich this summer and there were a ton of swords, bayonets and ‘replica’ guns. Were the sellers scofflaws or is it really that lightly enforced?
From what I understand, it’s worse than that. Inconsistently and arbitrarily enforced. the worst kind of enforcement.
In fairness, that news story was Guernsey, and they’re a kind of ‘alternate reality’ Britain there. You’d think with being so close to France, they’d want to have at least some local deterrent when the EU comes to liberate them from post-Brexit UK.
Not clicking on a link from the S*n. Is it a bat’leth? It’s probably a bat’leth.
Ditto, but of course that is what it has to be.
Apparently, some well-known-cosplay-armorer’s version of one. As someone in the comments said
I really hate the UK.
For hayeksplosives
Trump has officially endorsed Roy Moore.
I think that merits a “Meh!!!” with exclamation marks.
No, but, seriously, though . . .
The media spends weeks railing against the acceptability of something, say Roy Moore, and then Trump goes and does the supposedly unacceptable with exclamation marks.
If that’s planned, it’s ingenious.
You guys know about the Overton window, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
This is sorta like that.
Trump smashes the Overton window. No one can dictate to him what is and isn’t acceptable.
Roy Moore was an explosive issue. Trump just reduced it to nothing-burger status, and CNN gets run over again.
. . . and again, and again, and again.
Roy Moore!?
Meh
Roy Moore already became a “meh” because the Democrats decided spending the last month defending Franken and Conyers would be a great idea and would totally not expose themselves as hypocrites re: Moore.
It also makes a pretty easy opportunity to compare and contrast. A couple of highly suspect accusations of ass-grabbing in the 70’s with zero witnesses – Versus actual photos of Franken grabbing tits, and recent corroborated accusations against Conyers.
Had this exact discussion with one of these proggie douchebags over the weekend. His head exploded when I just laughed at him and pointed out that without double standards and the contortionist ability to twist themselves into pretzels, people like him would all end up in mental institutions for wanting to bend reality to their ideological imperative.
I just lack the framework to think like these people do, I guess.
Mental stability is problematic that way.
IIRC, Roy Moore never confessed to any criminal conduct, correct? Makes it a pretty easy win for Trump:
1) Endorse the anti-establishment GOP guy running
2) Call the media fake news and hypocrites when they object
3) Watch media meltdown
4) Profit.
I’m starting to think it’s less 4d chess and more dems continually putting themselves in easily “check” positions.
I think Trump flies in the face of everything they teach in media theory or whatever’s left of journalism school.
Trump does everything you’re not supposed to do. We’ll see how he does on his reelection campaign, but he’s already survived “pussy grabbing” scandals, etc. that would have choked anyone else.
The left, but especially the lefty media better known as dnc operatives with bylines, hate Trump so much precisely because he plays by their rules instead of the double standard rules team red idiots keeps playing by.
Yeah, it’s kind of laughable how the media still hasn’t figured out how to attack Trump. They continue to use their same tactics that worked against other Republicans. You’d think they’d catch on that that doesn’t work against Trump, so they should switch up tactics.
Notice, Trump didn’t do the endorsement on a Friday, when you’re supposed to air your dirty laundry. He didn’t do it in the middle of all the Flynn and tax reform news, where it might get lost over the weekend. No, Trump shoots this Roy Moore rocket off early on Monday morning, so the news media can lead with it all week!
It comes across like Trump is standing up to a bully who’s been stealing everybody’s lunch money by punching the bully in the nose. What’s the media supposed to do now, admit they made a big deal out of . . .
And it’s not nothing. Those stories and that coverage should be able to sink a battleship. Hollywood moguls are forced to resign over this stuff, much less elected politicians. It doesn’t make any sense. Trump should lose by all the rules; it’s just that he doesn’t play by the rules. He throws rocks through the Overton window.
I’d think this was all because he’s shooting from the hip except he’s been practiced at manipulating the tabloid headlines since the ’80s. He’s not a newcomer to manipulating the media. He’s been doing it for decades.
He’s not a newcomer to manipulating the media. He’s been doing it for decades.
Precisely. He’s also not a newcomer to running large organizations, dealing with recalcitrant bureaucracies, or schmoozing with politicians. People act like he sprung folly-formed from the brow of NBC to be in The Apprentice. I said it during the campaign, and I stand by it: You do not survive, much less thrive, in the NYC real estate market or the global hospitality and gaming industry unless you have something going on.
folly-formed
Too good to fix
I haven’t followed it in any great detail, but my impression of the Moore thing is that he copped to being the creepy older guy at the mall but nothing that would constitute criminal behavior. He’s been accused, certainly, but I think the deal there is that the things he’s been accused of are either outside the statute of limitations or of questionable veracity.
I haven’t followed it in great detail either, but from what I can tell he was definitely in the market for a high schooler when he was in his 30s, but all that is confirmed is that he dated a couple with the knowledge and consent of their parents, and never did anything much on the dates. The more lurid accusations are all highly questionable.
Yeah, that’s my understanding as well. None of the serious allegations are criminal as such. So he was gross, but that’s not a crime. Maybe it’s not a quality you want in a senator, but that’s certainly never interfered with anyone else’s careers *cough*Joe Biden*cough*.
The allegations about the 14 year old most certainly were criminal.
I’m starting to think it’s less 4d chess
That’s what is really entertaining. It’s not even Chess, they’re basically playing ‘Go Fish’. Every time they ask if Trump has a card, he tells them to go fish. Them the next card Trump draws happens to be that card they just asked for. Which means Trump asks for their card to make his pair. They get upset that he remembered their card and get pissy about it.
Then of course, are the circumstances where they deny they had the card in the first place…
It’s chess, but the media puts its queen in a position to be taken by Trump’s pawn, then they get pissy when Trump actually captures it (because the establishment GOP never took it, they just let the queen sit in the middle of the board and dominate the game).
Maybe I’m playing a role in the debasement of political and moral culture (at least according to some conservatives, looking at you, Ben Shapiro), but I think the whole issue is that Progressives have run the terms “sexual assault”, “rape”, and “harassment” into the ground much like what they did to the term “racism”. Accuse everybody of harassment or assault, whether true or not, whether it was a micro or macro-aggression, and eventually some folks start to see your game and start to believe nobody at all.
Not only that, but there have been so many stories where they’ve thrown these accusations out that turned out to be false (Duke, UVA, Mattress Girl), that people are just not believing the BS anymore.
OT: good news (or the be careful what you wish for department? Not sure yet). Yours truly was added to the list of court appointed attorneys for felony representation! It’s a contract for a year, 10 cases. Go me. I guess I haven’t offended enough judges (yet) 😉
Nice
Congrats?
We shall see, right? If in February, you hear me complaining, remind me that I was asking for this!
I never have jury duty because I told the judge during the vior dire that the attorneys for both the prosecution and the defense looked guilty to me.
I’ll have to remember that. Between that and my strong belief in the right of Jury Nullification, I doubt I’ll ever serve on a jury.
“Your honor, I do not believe anyone who has ever attended law school can be trusted with the practice of law.”
I actually was dismissed and fined $150 dollars (for contempt of court or some such nonsense) once for telling the judge she had no right to tell people jury nullification was prohibited in CT, because it was a constitutional right. She was furious that I had tainted all the other people that had shown up to serve and were in that room with us. That was the last time they ever called me up for jury duty (they used to call me annually for some fucking reason knowing I didn’t want any part of that). One other time I just told them I listened to Rush Limbaugh and that was enough. In The People’s Republic of CT, they don’t want people on juries that are not leftist twits or might actually know about the constitution or the law.
As I have repeatedly told people, not only do I not trust the legal system (see Hillary et al), but I will never get a jury of my peers because my peers need to get out of jury duty and work to pay their bills.
Mrs. #6 carries one of those little booklets of the Constitution when she gets called for jury duty. That works pretty well.
If you wind up defending me, I just want to say on the record that I have no idea what happened to my pants, and they can’t prove I was the one who stole the Panda. I also didn’t know the panda was underage.
It is felt that the marching tests are unfairly discriminating against women who may have the attributes needed to succeed as SAS soldiers.
Listen, women can be cold-hearted killers, they just need a ride to the battlefield.
And someone to help them hump their gear.
Perhaps some black porters (RACIST!!)?
Obviously the male SAS soldiers will be their porters regardless of color. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind carrying the ladies’ gear as well as their own.
Sexual harassment!!!! You are harassing those who identify as rucksacks.
Those pesky Rooskies are lowering ‘Murican freedom!
Also has this gem:
Apparently the Brits no longer being beholden to EU overlords makes them less free.
Remember freedom is slavery, so…
I don’t see how supporting Assad – dictator notwithstanding – makes it less free. The Obama admin. fricken armed ISIS affiliates to fight Russia/Assad FFS. Which is worse?
Also, as if democracies like the USA and UK didn’t interfere in Russia.
Get bent.
Oh, even more on Trump degrading our fine democracy: the U.S. downdraged from a full democracy to a flawed democracy in 2016. Because nothing shows that a country isn’t truly democratic than an upset to the political elites by the masses.
The US is not a democracy, you fuckwits!
Russia…solidified its illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory. China also flouted international law, ignoring a tribunal’s ruling against its expansive claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea…
Gee, it’s almost like there needs to be an enforcer standing behind a law for it to have any impact. Color me surprised.
Jesus Statue’s Butt Was Hiding A 240-Year-Old Secret Message
Why Jesus’s butt?
Dude, Catholics.
Where else are you going to show shit?
*stow
via Iowahawk, Venezuela’s going to create their own cryptocurrency, because apparently that will solve all their woes.
From the article:
Also:
While I have already promised Agile Cyborg the poet laureate position in any future robc presidency, I will create a twitter laureate position for David Burge.
He can only be so because Justice Willett had to adbicate that position.
(He was actually named the official Tweeter Laureate of Texas)
…when this inevitably fails, people are going to point to this as proof that cryptocurrency doesn’t work and needs to be reigned in and heavily regulated, aren’t they?
Yes, but also they will claim that no one could have seen this as a bad idea, so it’s not governments fault either.
All this made me think of was the cryptocurrency analog of the issue Bruce Schneier brings up – there are very few people capable of building really secure algos.
My take, Venezuela steals some shitty implementation of a cryptocurrency, rebadges it and tries to ‘improve it’ by reducing the cryptographic strength so that selected members of the administration can exploit it and mine themselves a few billion. Within 8 seconds, whatever protection the blockchain has, and the miners are exploited, and suddenly, the ‘new currency’ isn’t even usable as TP.
“Venezuela steals”
They prefer “seizes for the proletariat”.
Ugh, Bloomberg. I scrolled too far down and couldn’t avert my eyes from this.
I’m convinced these people live in an alternate reality.
So when an AI tells you the truth as it sees it from the data that you fed it, it’s just evidence of systematic racism. Overriding this “bias” with human wishful thinking will somehow make them more accurate.
Did some comments get obliterated?
Nevermind
If running Monocle, did you accidentally click on “Hide Old Threads?”
Why the NFL is in a ratings crash.
New York Giants Defensive End Olivier Vernon Tells Fed-Up NFL Fans: “Don’t Come To The Game”
That’s going to be a hit with management.
Giants owners really need to get their shit together and impose some discipline on this organization.
“Don’t come to the game”?
That can be arranged.
It’s not like the Giants are playoff bound or anything either. It takes a die-hard fan to sit through traffic and buy $5 hot dogs for the kids–just to watch Geno Smith instead of Eli lose.
There is an effort at organizing a fan boycott for next weekend’s game. The idea is to keep your tickets and still tailgate, but refuse to enter the stadium so there are tons of empty seats for the cameras. Even Raider fans were holding signs that were calling McAdoo a clown and saying “Eli didn’t deserve this”.
Sounds like fun except for the exorbitant parking fee.
I still can’t get over the decision to bench Eli. Their lack of a running game and injured receivers were obviously not his fault.
McAdoo just got fired.
That came a week too late for Eli’s streak to continue. The handling of that was so inept that it had to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
From what I read, they gave Eli the option to start, but he declined.
…well if you say so
Fans to Giants: You don’t like our empty seat disguises?
You have to wonder, how long does this persist? At a certain point, this all blows up. My guess is that it will happen the next time a team changes hands. When owners see in concrete terms that the value of their franchise has declined by millions of dollars, I think their tolerance for an out-of-touch Commissioner and diva players is going to see a very sudden shift.
Current TV contracts run through 2022, so that could be a factor. I believe TV viewership is down however, I suspect some of that has to do with the Giants, Packers, and a few other teams sucking.
Player contracts / pay will start to take hits soon. Guys like Vernon will wonder why nobody wants to pay customer repelling players $millions.
Is there a revenue sharing component to their contract? If so, they see a small hit this year.
They are losing money now, in amounts that they will notice.
Their ratings have been on a gradual decline which has steepened this year. Their contracts may be “locked in” through 2022, but for that kind of money they can (and it sounds like will) be renegotiated before then. And the idiot commission has the balls to ask for a platinum plated retirement package.
Funny how the whole “We’ll force Jerry Jones to sell the Cowboys because he dissed the commish” backlash evaporated into thin air, no?
The latest group to be blamed for Hillary losing the election: All those sexual harasser men who covered her campaign. It’s THEIR fault, not hers
Nothing screams ’empowered women’ more than blaming men for all their failings.
Right? Capable of anything…except accomplishing anything without the subservient labor of men, apparently according to some.
Jill Nicole Filipovic is an attorney and feminist, progressive author.
She also forms a brain trust with Joy Reid and Amanda Marcotte.
“brain trust”
::imagines a tumbleweed blowing through a deserted old western town::
Maybe it’s one of those trusts where the principle is locked away until the beneficiary reaches maturity?
You know who else really likes Jill Filipovic?
No, not Hitler, ENB.
The 2016 presidential race was so close that any of a half-dozen factors surely influenced the outcome: James Comey, racial politics, Clinton family baggage, the contentious Democratic primary, third-party spoilers, Russian interference, fake news.
Oh, c’mon, you can think of one more.
Hitler?
They obviously blame Trump and his supporters too. Not sure why you have to point that out again.
This one always bugs me when they bring it up. Are they seriously whining that the DNC not rigging the primary even harder in her favor than they were was an obstacle to overcome?
If there’s any evidence the NYT is a rag now it’s the fact they let her middling mind on its pages.
What a joke.
Lindy West too.
Otani rules out Yankees, Red Sox; prefers West Coast
He’s going to the Padres. There’s too many connections there for that not to happen.
Then he’s a fucking nitwit. Enjoy playing for bad teams and making peanuts to boot!
His agent probably wants to strangle him. Sure, let’s go ahead and reduce our leverage!
He has no leverage because of MLB rules. He can get a bonus from the signing team’s international bonus pool (Yankees have the at $3.3 million, but there’s only a 1-2 million difference if he’s signing with another team), but that’s about it. He’s going to be an MLB rookie for all other purposes, including salary.
Re: ricin granny-
At least she labels. My wife didn’t have that beat into her with chemistry labs, so she doesn’t understand why I am a label nazi.
“Hmm, what’s this? Some kind of spice?”
*removes lid from jar, takes big sniff, keels over*
Jesus Faria, a self-proclaimed Marxist economist and a former trade minister who’s now a member of the constituent assembly, recently said about the current foreign-exchange policy that a “truly free exchange market has to be established, where supply and demand meet to fix the price.”
Confiscatory taxation to follow.
A Marxist for free markets?
How else will society create the inmates for this gulag we built?
I’ve come to the conclusion that no one here really exists. This website is AI, programmed to create pithy, sarcastic responses as designed by Tupla. We are the product of his fevered dreams, as he rolls around in a sweat, crushing beer cans and his favorite fleshlight. When he awakes, the world as we know it will come to an end.
That sounds like something Tulpa would say.
Shut up, Tulpa!
Hope you haven’t watched Fight Club to the end.
Hey! I actually get to read a thread in real-time instead of a day or 2 late (stupid jobs and responsibilities).
Had my very first milk stout last night, the offering from Left Hand Brewing, and it was fantastic; a hearty thank you to the Sharpshooting Mexican for recommending it. The Stew Leonard’s does a make-your-own 6 pack for $12 so I also picked up Long Trail’s Double Bag, Leinenkugel’s Snowdrift Vanilla Porter, Greenpoint Harbor’s Black Duck Porter, Saranac’s 4059′ Porter, and a Guinness 200th Anniversary Export Stout. The Vanilla Porter was nice but not enough to seek out again and I will be getting started on the others once I get wee bairn #2 off to school.
I’m really enjoying the Bulleit Rye in my new favorite creations: The Screaming Mimi (so named because the color matches that of the helicopter on television’s Riptide) – 2 shots of Rye, big splash of Knudsen’s Cranberry Juice (cold-pressed, unsweetened, bitter cranberry juice) shaken with ice and poured into an pint glass which is then filled with ginger ale and the L0b0t’s Folly – 3 shots Rye, short splash of Knudsen’s Tart Cherry Juice, large splash of Knudsen’s Black Cherry Juice, squirt of lime juice shake with ice and strain into imperial pint glass, fill with ginger ale.
In regards to the Black Sabbath discussion the other day, you are all wrong and should sit in the box and feel shame. The high point of their work, as any fool can plainly see (and I can plainly see it), Never Say Die.
OMWC – I’ve been feeding the kids a daily diet of Spike Jones on our school commute; the boy now does the call/response of “B.O.! RINSO WHITE!“
The Screaming Mimi sounds good, I’m going to have to give that a try.
Once you taste the bitter, puckering, dry, wonderfulness of the cold-pressed, straight cranberry juice you will never again want any of that cranberry juice from concentrate cocktail nonsense. It is also nice for sauce making.
Interesting. I’ll have to run down some of that cranberry juice and give Mimi a go.
*raises glass*
Seriously, it was everything i want in a beer; oy, what a nice mouthfeel. Store also had the Victory At Sea and Unfiltered Sculpin which I’ve seen y’all speak highly of but they were only sold as sixers for $16 and that’s a bit much for me for something untried. I would very much like to participate in the next beer-it-forward event.
Paranoid was their best album.
In Twitter news, Joy Reid repents to a fellow Democrat, Charlie Crist, whom she once spread homophobic (by leftist standards) rumors about his married life.
She didn’t apologize. She more or less said it was okay at the time, but now because he holds the right views she’s apologizing.
But Ol’ Charlie has always held the right views. He was apparently so liberal that Marco Rubio looked like a Tea Party wet dream in comparison.
I’ll have to check and see if my congressman is still married. How is ol’ Chain-Gang Charlie doing in that department?
Nope. Filed for deevorce February 2017. After he was sure he wasn’t getting a role in the Clinton administration. Straight or gay, Crist is the slimiest, least principled scum to put on a suit and a tan since the V miniseries.
I find it funny that she targeted him of all people. That should be a lesson to all of the cowardly squishes in the Senate: no matter how much you capitulate to the progs, the prog appetite is never satisfied.
Crist is your congressman? And here I thought I had the worst congressional representative among glibs.
You live in Sheila Jackson Lee — oh, the other 2 last name female disaster.
I have the joy of being Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s constituent. I keep hoping she’ll get bounced, but given the demographics of this district she’d be replaced by somebody just like her.
Some BernieBro tried to primary her last year and is trying to do so again next year, but the Daily Kos progs are ironically not big fans of him because he agrees with the Right that the Seth Rich story sounds suspicious.
Yep. I would’ve voted for him in the primary, but that would require me to register as a democrat.
Truthfully she’s going to be representing this district until she either decides to leave on her own or she’s arrested.
“Yep. I would’ve voted for him in the primary, but that would require me to register as a democrat.”
That’s more valuable than being registered as a Libertarian.
I’m registered NPA right now. It’s not worth registering as a party just for primary purposes.
Move to Connecticut if you want to maintain your channel cred.
Mine is Andre Carson; he’s pretty bad. I don’t know if he reaches Sheila Jackson Lee levels of bad, though.
I’ve come to the conclusion that no one here really exists.
At this point, I’m pretty much a figment of my own imagination.
Good morning Glibs! Hope you all had a great weekend. Any bets on who will be next to be caught up in the sexual assault frenzy?
Whoopi Goldberg
Bill Maher.
Doubt it. While I have no doubt Maher has engaged in the behaviors, he’s too much a wild card as a target. Maher is the type who just might turn around and fight and reject their premises. The social justice cadres don’t go after wild card targets. They go after targets they know will lie down and accept their fate. I’m no fan of Maher. But, I don’t think he’s a safe enough target for the frenzy.
Matt McGorry. Simply too woke not to be.
Oh yeah. He’s likely to have a first floor apt. just so he has easy access to the
dungeonbasement.Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu4wwC6J0HA
I’m still thinking Geraldo Rivera is going to make the Walk of Shame before too much longer.
Let’s be honest. Geraldo has no shame, so he’d have to be dragged kicking and screaming by security.
“WATCH: @BetteMidler to Barbara Walters in an interview over 20 years ago. She says @GeraldoRivera and his producer shoved her into her bathroom, stuck poppers under her nose, and proceeded to grope her.”
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/936005318164844544
I was expecting Bob Menendez to get caught up in the Lolita Express thing but it seems the media ignored if for him and it didn’t come up much in his trial.
I’ll guess Tim Kaine – he seems like a creep and is headed back into a campaign.
Kevin Bacon.
To be fair, everyone has already seen Kevin Bacon’s penis.
Joss Whedon. Doughy soyboy feminist? Safe bet.
Got hit early on – Wife divorced him.
For anyone keeping score, here’s how this year’s Reason donation drive stacks up–straight from the horse’s mouth.
http://reason.com/blog/2017/12/04/25000-challenge-grant-time-donate-to-rea
It must be Trump’s mishandling of the economy – no one has the spare change to donate.
It seems to me that is a marked deviation from a trend.
I wonder what happened.
Splitters and wreckers, I wot.
I already did my part by clicking “The world would be better without Reason.”
It’s fun clicking on that link.
Well that’s the first time I’ve visited Reason for 4-5 months?
Translation: “We’re doing better than we did before we built our audience, but not so well as we did before we lost their trust.”
Stop keeping up with your Ex’s dating habits. It makes you look pitiful.
I want to know how Glibertarians is doing hit-wise and donation-wise. I may buy a STEVE SMITH mug today.
There are several here who should take this advice…
I think we’ve got plenty of money. We were about $8 to the good on merchandise last time someone checked. Which reminds me, if we owe anyone something, remind us.
I remember when we were told that Comey was a man of unquestionable integrity and an honorable public servant.
https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2017/12/03/james-comey-posts-weird-collage-of-fbi-agent-rear-ends-in-apparent-response-to-donald-trump/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
Well, THAT’S problematic.
He’s obviously gearing up for a political run of some kind.
And quoting himself? WTF?
The weird part of that story is that Trump is essentially right. An FBI agent who figured prominently in the Clinton investigation was having an affair with a DoJ lawyer and they were exchanging anti-Trump comments. It doesn’t make sense to see this as anything other than a hit to the claim of impartiality and integrity on the part of the FBI. The logical thing to do would be to shut up and let the storm pass. It’s like they can’t. They spend so much of their life in a bubble that they can’t fathom how anyone outside the bubble might see it.
the story of the last 2 years.
Well, not consistently. But, he is often more right than a lot of his opponents. All too often the conversation goes something like this:
The sky is a sort of dingy gray.
On rare occassions some odd, pale blue spots appear, but they fade away quickly.
Trump: “I’ve been working from sunup to sundown to defeat ISIS.”
Media: “FACT CHECK: Trump used the inaccurate terms ‘sunup’ and ‘sundown’ implying that the sun literally rises over the Earth every morning and descends in the evening. In fact, the sun does not move in relation to the Earth; the Earth actually rotates on an axis, causing the sun to be visible in some parts of the world while others are in darkness. Unfortunately, this view is common among the anti-science right wing.”
I keep coming back to this. I didn’t vote for Trump and I don’t think he’s a good president, frankly. But he isn’t a bad one, and that puts him in the upper third of his class right off the bat. And the list of his enemies reads like a who’s who of the most despicable swamp-creatures of American politics and media.
I can’t help but think of Agent Nelson Van Alden (*the very religious-sexually-repressed-and-crazy-and-murderous Treasury agent from Boardwalk Empire) every time i see Comey now.
Heh….good call.
Does anyone have any experience with income-restricted tax credit rentals? Specifically, how thorough the income vetting process is, and whether that info is shared between HUD and tax collectors? I’m asking for a dear friend.
Never mind, my friend is ineligible based on his student status. It was a dumb risk to take anyway.
I used to live in one of those apartments (in Ohio). I remember the landlord having to meet with all the tenants on a yearly basis to re-certify their income, although they told me that once you move in, they’re not going to put you out if you begin making too much money. They regularly had state inspectors on the premises looking around, including the inspection of occupied apartments.
I don’t really know much beyond that…. Seems like a mess of paperwork (like anything where the government is involved).
Seems that way to me, too. I glanced through the some of the HUD’s material on LIHTC, and it seems like a full-employment program for bureaucrats more than anything meant to help the working poor. One of the passages that stood out was a gloss over the number and variety of departments that either received or contributed data to or about the credit, both state-specific and federal.
Oh yea, the rents were fairly reasonable when I moved in, but they increased them every year. After about four years, I was paying $125 more than the apartments that my brother lived in (which were just as nice and not subject to all the paperwork and inspection bullshit). Once I realized that, I bounced out of there and left an online review detailing what a pain in the ass it is to live there.
Also, those apartments were run by some big company from another state. Seeing as how the rents weren’t actually lower than any other apartments, I don’t see how that tax credit program is actually helping any poor people.
Lefties would scream bloody murder if you suggested ditching the tax credit for “low income” apartments even though the free market is providing cheaper apartments.
I wondered about that, too. This place is very nice, but the price only makes sense given the move-in special they’re offering this month. The normal price is the minimum they’re allowed to charge under the tax credit scheme, about a fifth higher than the lease lock-in. Going by the conventional one-quarter of income metric, the normal price makes sense for someone at the lower bound of the middle-class income range… so we’re not talking about people in poverty.
Watched “Voyeur” on Netflix last night and let me save you the trouble, don’t. It’s nominally about a guy who bought a motel in Aurora, CO with the express purpose of building a secret hidden loft so he could spy on his guests. He kept meticulous records of everything he saw over the next 30 years owning the place. Now that the statute of limitations has expired, he wanted to tell his story. Truly fascinating subject matter, but the film makers utterly blew it. Could have been so interesting but all they did was focus on the foppish (and absurd) “journalist” writing up the guy’s story. Never heard of the guy before, but he’s supposed to be some kind of big deal. I dug into the “journalist” a bit more and found out that the only thing he’s written of any consequence is this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thy_Neighbor's_Wife
So the dood goes and lives at a sex commune for a few months (against his wife’s wishes) sleeps around with a bunch of people, writes about it then gets celebrated as some kind of literary giant? No wonder he came off as such an insufferable asshole in the documentary. If they had focused on the guy who owned the motel and his psychology, it could have been a great doc. Instead they devote about 75% of the screen time to this self-important NYC “journalist” who as far as I can tell has accomplished nothing beyond using being a “journalist” as a fig leaf for going on a sexual free-for-all. I am disappoint.
Not surprising, Talese is pure NYC ego.
He comes off as an insufferable prick in this doc.
Been around for years, pure Vanity Fair/Esquire shit.
Only social value is to throw Tom Wolfe’s genius into even greater.
Currently creating notoriety for himself by telling Spacey’s accuser to “Get over it”, and reminding people that he won an award for a piece on Manson back in the late 60’s.
I saw something similar on Cinemax, but I don’t remember the plot being that detailed.
Time magazine’s shortlist for Person of the Year
Genuinely surprised Putin nor Farrage are on there, given all the rhetoric of the former stealing elections/being the global puppetmaster and the latter for Brexit.
I have to re-interate…what is TIME Magazine?
What does re-interate mean?
Heh. Speedreading fail.
When I first read that, I though you’d put:
Time Magazine’s Shortest Person of the Year
If the Russia story is as big as the media claim it to be, then why isn’t Vlad Putin on that list?
I’m confused on this, and being sleep-deprived doesn’t help – What is the fate of the death tax in the conflicting House/Senate tax bills?
Depends on reconciliation, I think. I would bet on it not being eliminated, myself. Which is a shame. Getting rid of AMT and the estate tax would both be Good Things, which the Senate is apparently unwilling to do.
would both be Good Things, which the Senate is apparently unwilling to do
SHOCKER.
The Senate doesn’t *really* have a Republican majority even though everyone keeps saying it. You have a razor thin margin with a few of the Republicans both hating Trump and a few being Republicans in name only.
Yes, we can bitch about Congress. But if they had a strong majority, I honestly do believe things be much different.
It will be interesting to see what happens next year after elections.
I expect Senate Republicans are hoping they lose the majority. No majority, no mandate, no obligation to govern, and really an excuse to work with Democrats so as not to appear “obstructionist.” And Trump isn’t blameless in that calculation: for everything good that’s actually happened in the past year, Trump managed to occlude almost all of it behind a screen of venal self-indulgence and squirrel chasing. That’s not a good look, and I wonder whether Senators would be more inclined to run cover for him if he’d shelved his Twitter handle in January.
“And Trump isn’t blameless in that calculation: for everything good that’s actually happened in the past year, Trump managed to occlude almost all of it behind a screen of venal self-indulgence and squirrel chasing”
Agreed.
Also, his enemy-making probably hasn’t been all that helpful. I can’t say for certain that it’s influenced votes, but he should periodically extend the olive branch again to get what he wants. That’s what some of the biggest douche leaders were able to do in history.
We should feel reasonably lucky that Obama was ever the asshole, because he was just too big a turd to keep his near-supermajority or court Republicans.
I wonder whether Senators would be more inclined to run cover for him if he’d shelved his Twitter handle in January
I don’t wonder about that at all. Their problem with Trump is only incidentally his Twitter account. He’s “simply not one of us, dear boy” to them, and that will never change. So neither will their loathing and obstruction.
He’s Gatsby.
Hypothetical question: If someone knew they were about to die, couldn’t they give their entire estates as “gifts” to their children while they’re alive and thus avoid the death tax? Or is there a separate tax on giving things to your kids?
There’s a Gift Tax.
I’m not kidding – It has lower thresholds of value to trigger than the death tax too.
Its actually the “gifts and estate tax” to prevent just that. You can give a certain amount every year (used to be $10K, but a married couple could give $20K) to anyone without it being recognized as income or recaptured into the estate. Not sure about current details.
Naturally, there are innumerable ways to give more than that, if you are moderately clever and unconcerned with avoision of the tax laws.
Use trusts.
There’s a unified credit against the estate tax.
There are a number of quite good and totally legal ways to circumvent the ‘death tax’, but typically, there are annual caps, so it’s a good idea to plan and execute such steps in advance of your demise. Depending on your circumstances and to a degree, what state you live in, there are programs like “529 Education accounts” which – subject to some professional advice – you might want to look at.
Coincidentally, I have an estate planning meeting tonight, since both LSD and #6.2 are “adults” as far as Mrs.#6 and I are concerned, and we need to ensure that Uncle Sam doesn’t turn into “Rapacious Uncle Sam” (conjures up the image of Joe Biden).
” so it’s a good idea to plan and execute such steps in advance of your demise”
It’s called the Steinbrenner Ploy
Dupe, or pawn?
Trump played directly into their hands. His retweeted videos, purporting to show attacks by Muslim migrants on Westerners, reached nearly 44 million followers. The videos were unverified and have been challenged by local media (in one, the perpetrator wasn’t a Muslim migrant but a Dutch man who was later arrested). The deputy leader of Britain First, Jayda Fransen, was herself recently arrested and charged with hate speech at a rally in Belfast. She is also facing charges for religiously aggravated harassment in Kent. She posted an extraordinary video plea asking Trump to intervene to save her from jail. Her prosecution, she tells him “is evidence that Britain has become Sharia-compliant.”
Trump’s claim that the far-right groups that rioted last summer Charlottesville, Virginia, include “very fine people” were a signal to Europeans that he is profoundly ignorant about how these movements operate. “The most extreme fringe groups attempt to penetrate new audiences and mainstream their ideologies by using less extreme groups as strategic mouthpieces,” write ISD authors Jacob Davey and Julia Ebner. (Ebner went undercover to learn about the groups and has also written a book on the subject). “Their aim is the creation of a ‘mass movement’ through the radicalization of the ‘normies’ (average people who consume mainstream media), in particular Generation Z.”
The U.K. has experienced a rise in hate crimes (which also spiked during the 2016 campaign that preceded the vote to leave the European Union) following terrorist attacks on Manchester and London Bridge in May and June this year. The U.K. government reports a 27 percent increase in hate crimes this year over last year.
We can really drive those numbers by expansively redefining the crime.
Mind you, “hate crimes” in the UK now include tweeting unkind things about Muslims, so…
Tweeting unedited footage of muslims perpetrating GBH is too.
“Trump’s claim that the far-right groups that rioted last summer Charlottesville, Virginia, include “very fine people””
Except he never said that.
it’s clear from the transcript he was not referring to the “rough, bad people, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call ‘em”:
TRUMP: Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down, of to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.
REPORTER: George Washington and Robert E. Lee are not the same.
TRUMP: Oh no, George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down – excuse me. Are we going to take down, are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? Okay, good. Are we going to take down his statue? He was a major slave owner. Are we going to take down his statue? You know what? It’s fine, you’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people – and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats – you had a lot of bad people in the other group too.
REPORTER: I just didn’t understand what you were saying. You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?
TRUMP: No, no. There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before. If you look, they were people protesting very quietly, the taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day, it looked like they had some rough, bad people, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call ‘em. But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest, because you know, I don’t know if you know, but they had a permit. The other group didn’t have a permit. So I only tell you this: there are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country, a horrible moment. But there are two sides to the country.
folks on derpbook losing their shit over Clinton’s 1997 Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). apparently CHIP is a block grant of matching Federal funds that covers kids’ insurance premiums if the family income is too much for Medicaid. this program is expansive and i had no idea it existed.
a good reference map for seeing each state’s FPL (federal poverty level) limits for CHIP: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/chip-insurance/
As of January 2016, Arizona had the lowest eligibility limit for children’s coverage, 152% of the poverty level, while New York had the highest, 405%, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
2017 FPL is:
$12,060 for individuals
$16,240 for a family of 2
$20,420 for a family of 3
$24,600 for a family of 4
$28,780 for a family of 5
$32,960 for a family of 6
$37,140 for a family of 7
$41,320 for a family of 8
the northeast, northwest, Iowa, and Alabama stand out as having very high FPL limits for CHIP eligibility.
Office Christmas Party Fun – I once had a roommate who was a House Mom (she did the makeup, costumes, kept the back of the house running smoothly) at one of the fancier gentleman’s clubs in the French Quarter. there is no Office Christmas Party quite as raunchy and fun* as a strip club Christmas Party.
*Fun as defined by hedonist, single, bartender l0b0t, not now happily married, father of 2 l0b0t… YMMV
Well the Eagles sure showed they lacked confidence last night. It is one thing to dance around the end-zone against crappy teams, but this game at the Seahawks showed up the whole team.
Waste a challenge over 1 yard shows no confidence in your offense to get the yard on the next play. QB getting stripped at the goal line when trying for the extra yard shows no confidence he can move the ball 2 feet on the next play. Blatant holding to keep a guy from being downed at the 4 yard line for a first down instead of being downed at the one shows no confidence. Then no call for a review on an obvious forward pass beyond the line of scrimmage? Overthrowing a guy wide open for potential touchdown and then never running that play again? Sadly, Eagles aren’t ready for Super Bowl yet.
The Seahawks are in the big bucket of teams I don’t really care about one way or the other.
The Iggles managed to make their way to the top of teams of Ioathe, for life, when they hired Michael fucking Vick, convicted felon and known sadist. Fuck that franchise with a chainsaw bayonet.
Last night was easily Doug Pederson’s worst as Eagles coach. The entire team played scared.
Have to get it back together for next week.
Life as an Eagles fan (and a Philly sports fan in general) is not good for my health. At least right now I have the Sixers continuing to make me happy #TrustTheProcess
I predicted an Eagles loss.
1) They’re a hell of a team, but there was no way they were finishing 15-1. They’re not that good
1a) Winning streaks tend to end on the road
2) Seattle is formidable even with their injuries, and they needed that game a hell of a lot more than the Eagles did
I wouldn’t worry much about last night’s loss.
I’m not too worried yet. I’m just frustrated. We didn’t play our game, we played scared, we made the kinds of errors we haven’t made all year, and it cost us.
The Eagles need the #1 seed. Can’t go to Minnesota or New Orleans and expect to win in the playoffs (I know Vikings fans will disagree with me there). Next week’s absolutely a must win.
I disagree. 😉
Consequences? What’s that?
“It would almost be irresponsible if you weren’t thinking about moving,” he said.
The problem for the Connecticut hedge-fund set — and, more broadly, for a lot of the Wall Street crowd — is that Republican proposals in both the House and Senate would drive up taxes for many high-earners in the New York City area. By eliminating the deduction for most state and local taxes, an individual making a yearly salary of $1,000,000 — a figure not uncommon in the financial industry — would owe the Internal Revenue Service an additional $21,000, according to a preliminary analysis by accounting firm Marcum LLP.
————
But David Silver, a senior manager at accounting firm MBAF in New York, said he doesn’t see the beginning of an exodus.
“I would argue it’s probably not all that likely to uproot your family, leave your friends, and put your kids in new schools just because of proposed tax changes,” he said. Still, technology that allows collaboration between colleagues in far-flung offices has made moving to Florida an easier decision.
That guy who blew a big hole in New Jersey’s state budget when he folded his tent and snuck off to Florida? That never happened. Nobody makes decisions based on taxes.
Keep telling yourself that. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Wait a minute- I thought this tax proposal was a huge give away to the rich? As with any tax reform plan, you can always find winners and losers AND the media will always
find those that will reflect their bias. I know of one business that hasn’t been able to give raises, due to competitive pressures from a foreign supplier, for several years. The owner says he will raise salaries if his taxes drop from 35% to 20%. Yet the narrative seems to be that all business will pocket the tax decrease so they can fill their money bin to the tippy top.
Ha, police pump fifty and some odd rounds into an occupied car and no one is injured, in the process they also open fire on a squad car. Some people are in serious need of firing but we know they won’t be.
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2017/11/29/new-details-bizarre-shooting/
Everything about that story sounds fishy. Sounds to me like she tried to kill herself, was out of her mind on drugs from the attempt and doesn’t remember anything. She was probably so screwed up she couldn’t follow the officers’ commands, so they opened fire. How none of them hit her, I have no idea; outright incompetence but a miracle for her. What a weird story.
LARPing Pulp Fiction.
And she falls asleep during a one-way shootout…
“After about two hours, law enforcement brought in an armored vehicle to approach her car. They spotted her apparently asleep in the front seat.”
The owner says he will raise salaries if his taxes drop from 35% to 20%. Yet the narrative seems to be that all business will pocket the tax decrease so they can fill their money bin to the tippy top.
Steve Cohn asked a room filled with Titans of Industry if they’d pass that tax break on to their workers, and NOBODY RAISED THEIR HAND.
It’s in the New York Times. Proof positive.
I heard that owners were going to bury that sweet cash in the ground or stuff it in their mattress with all their other ill-gotten gain to help them sleep at night.
More coins to swim around in, Scrooge McDuck style.
I heard that owners were going to bury that sweet cash in the ground or stuff it in their mattress with all their other ill-gotten gain to help them sleep at night.
I have a gang of pirates bury my loot in elaborate hand-crafted wood and iron chests, on a Caribbean island, and then I kill them, to ensure secrecy.
I find the tried and true methods require little tinkering.