Good Monday to you. I am recovered from my “vacation” last week. Mostly by working 40 hours between Thursday and Sunday. Here’s hoping for a better week.
- American oil exports are booming. Somehow, in a (more) capitalist society, exports boom as prices fall, where as in states that run oil companies, that isn’t the case. Its almost like there’s some libertarian principle at work there. (Also posted because I miss working at the terminal. Well, I’m not 100% sure I miss wearing full-length FRCs on 10 July, but the pictures made me nostalgic.)
- In a far more glib link, people are paying $25,000 to have their browneyes botoxed. I’m not saying these people have too much money, but by the time someone’s looking at your butthole, its probably not going to be a dealbreaker if the eye is a little lazy. Kudos to that doc, though. Way to recognize an untapped market.
- Looks like the IRS will be the big winner in the Mayweather-McGregor fight. No wonder Floyd agreed to it.
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Turn the other cheek? Not in Florida traffic! - Priests Gone Wild – Florida edition.
I’m still tired from the weekend, so I’m going with the obvious song.
Comments
669 responses to “Monday Afternoon Links”
Priests Gone Wild – Florida edition.
Show him your cross!
He kicks ass for the Lord.
When in Rome…
Is that a promise?
Heh
Did he show them his Papal Badge?
He’s Episcopalian.
First! Anal Botox!!
Aww, shit. Second.
And a sloppy one, at that.
#2 – seems appropriate.
Third… time that link has been posted.
That’s for the benefit of our readers in Oregon.
May they RIP
Knowing that Trump has been impeached.
Hey!
“Anal Botox”
We should start a band.
Sounds like it would be pretty shitty.
So it’s not just a clever name?
Anal Botox is pretty tight, if you know what I mean.
Look, taxation is theft and all, and I’m the last person in the world to defend the IRS..
..but at the same time, this is why it was obvious Floyd is never going to retire voluntarily, because he’s going to be broke within a couple of years once it happens.
On the one hand, I don’t see how these guys are unable to manage their finances well enough to get out with a decent nest egg.
On the other hand, at least he’s not like those scumbag Hollywood celebrities who have accountants pull out every trick in the book to avoid paying taxes while lecturing everyone on how they really want everyone to pay more.
On the gripping hand, Mayweather’s a bit of a cunt.
I like (some) sports but this strikes me as a bit ridiculous.
I paid that to see him “fight” Pacquiao. I’m not paying too see these guys settle their egos.
“Look, taxation is theft and all, and I’m the last person in the world to defend the IRS.”
Enjoy your cocktail parties
That was unnecessary, and if JB wishes to challenge you to a duel over it I volunteer as his second.
I would gladly accept any duel
It will not be a duel, but a challenge. You will have to travel to the Florida Everglades and live for a week. All you may bring with you are an iPod with all episodes of this podcast: http://werebel.libsyn.com/website. If you survive, you will be victorious.
Ok, I take it back then
Whatever, Robby.
That’s an interesting story between the Mayweather fight and the Florida Man of the Cloth.
A mystifying story wrapped in an enigma.
Its the proof of Russian hackollusion tampering!
I’m afraid I don’t understand.
People are paying money to loosen their buttholes?!?
I would think that the opposite would be true.
Is your b-hole an unsightly shade of brown? Have you considered having it professionally lightened, but are too ashamed to talk to a professional?
Bright Rings home butthole rejuvenation system might be just what you’re looking for!
Don’t buy his product, it’s just Crest Whitening strips and a Splorch applicator.
I was going to make a joke at Jessies expense about that story but of course he had to get here first and ruin it.
White washing at its finest.
With the commercial jingle written and performed by the Butthole Surfers.
Huh? Tightening up the poop chute seems like a bad idea as long as STEVE SMITH is still at large.
“Don’t fool yourself girl, it’s going right up your poop chute.”
*sigh* there will never be another Frank Zappa.
I knew you’d be surprised!
I can’t tell if the extra bullet point is an honest mistake, or just trolling.
GILMORE hardest hit.
I won’t criticize, at least he uses bullets.
I thought it was a link to a solid story with proof of Russian tampering.
Hot “hero”-on-“hero” action
That happened in New York. I thought shootings didn’t happen there. There must be a loophole that needs closed.
How about, no guns for any military personnel that have been deployed. That would be a good start.
I think Obama worked on that for a while.
In a far more glib link, people are paying $25,000 to have their browneyes botoxed.
Who’s your browneyed girl?
“Your daddy was a brown eyed handsome man”
Way to recognize an untapped market.
I wouldn’t say its an untapped market, exactly.
/narrows gaze.
/hat tip to Swiss.
/narrows gays
i knew i couldn’t be the first to think of that line.
Me too.
*does victory dance*
American oil exports are booming. Somehow, in a (more) capitalist society, exports boom as prices fall, where as in states that run oil companies, that isn’t the case.
What could be greater proof of Trump’s allegiance to Putin than allowing American oil to start competing with his petrostate?
Clearly it’s all a ruse. Once Europeans start getting their energy from the US then the Russians will strike- when it makes the least amount of sense and they will be at their weakest. #Resist Logic
You got it!
America sells energy to EU, thus impoverishing their Social Democracy.
Then, once energy arrives, Russians strike. Trump lets them and they take all the energy, using to fuel sexism and Bible-thumping. While now EU is both poor and low-energy.
Then, the gaynocide begins!
You could work for Vox
One must understand the Russian mind!
I’ve never seen Vox write anything that makes that much sense.
Online records show that Adams is the rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Fletcher, N.C., just south of Asheville.
And folks think the Episcopalians have gone soft!
Rector? Heck, it nearly killed her!
by the time someone’s looking at your butthole, its probably not going to be a dealbreaker
Hey, now, you want em to call you maybe, right?
an untapped market
*strongly narrows gaze*
Brown eyed girl?
Why didn’t anybody think of that line before?
Clearly not as clever
What’s Crystal Gale, chopped liver?
She must’ve had a lot of butt sex.
The problem is afterwards, they can’t unnarrow their brown eye.
Does that doctor have an “ASSMAN” vanity plate?
*standing applause*
close
This business gave him New Start.
a fleet of cars!
Canada’s Beloved National Broadcaster publishes an article that is not 100% retarded, I’m in shock.
Amazon Prime does more for northern food security than federal subsidies, say Iqaluit residents
Ah, but they still had to prog about how ‘this doesn’t help the most needing’
Wade Thorhaug, with the Qayuqtuvik Society, said families with bad or no credit can’t order online or spend thousands at a time to ship large quantities of food by sealift each summer.
“If there was something that was more targeted towards people who are generally food insecure that would have a bigger impact in the community,” he said.
I said “not 100% retarded”.
If they had a non-retarded article on economics or politics, they’d be burn down by a mob of angry PM Zoolander fangirls. Like the Bacchae but less fun.
I really don’t understand the love for Trudeau II. I’m not well versed in Canadian politics, but I’ve heard the guy speak and he nor his policy proposals are that impressive.
What is it with the Left loving vapid politicians who lacks any sort of original thought?
Ask the nearest Obama voter
True.
a) He’s a Leftie
b) He spouts Leftie Dogma without stepping on his dick more than twice per speech
c)-z) HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THE HAIR?!?!
Every time I heard an Obama speech during the 2008 Presidential campaign I remembered this poignant episode of Cheers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2YKtg_dNVE
Sometimes I want to go where nobody knows my name.
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic. But I once lived in a ‘nice little town’. It was the kind of place where you’d go to the grocery store and you knew 50% of the people there and when you saw one of them coming, you’d try to duck down another aisle to avoid having to talk to them. If you failed avoiding them, the conversation would go something like this: ‘Yeah, I was talking to my neighbor while ago and she told me that her cousins aunt best friend saw you drive through Taco Bell today. You think it’s gonna rain?’.
When I finally got out of there, I loved going to get groceries and not seeing a single fucking human that I knew.
That was the worst part about living back home. Nothing I did as a kid went unnoticed. Everything was reported. My parents didn’t want that information most of the time.
“and that neighbor’s cousin Bart saw you drive past the country store with that no good Laura!”
In the summers of 1993 and 1994, I went with my family on long road trips east of the Mississippi. It was exceedingly enjoyable walking around anonymously.
My mom still lives in a little town of 1400 people. Whenever I go to visit her I’ll be approached by people I don’t know who want to tell me that they remember me. Hey, good on ya, pal. Glad to see your life is so full that the comings and goings of a neighbor’s relatives are the highlight of your week.
To be fair, Laura was quite a skank.
Yeah, Laura wasn’t the best call.
Fun, though.
Some of both, actually.
Soave 2020?
If he can avoid being as dumb as Gayjay, he can get 6% of the vote, + 1 pt for hair.
If he can avoid being as dumb as Gayjay
I think you’re asking too much of Robby’s abilities.
There really isn’t that much ‘love’ for Trudeau. He’s not like his dad who had a sufficient cult of personality, and he’s not even that popular in his own party (the leadership races had a lot of the other prominent Liberals taking shots and mocking him). It’s pretty much a widely accepted conclusion that he’s at least a little air-headed, if not an idiot (to the point where Zoolander has desperately tried to stage things to make him look ‘smart’). Steyn had a pretty good take recently about how no one is buying Zoolander’s social justice bullshit.
All he has are the vapid, Millennial social justice warriors who coo over every virtue signal he does, and all the idiotic women who voted for him because they think he’s attractive.
Hopefully, when the elections happen again, the Conservatives will trounce Trudeau’s party.
Not gonna happen. Tories ruled for almost ten years – entire apparatus of the state will ensure they don’t get another chance, no matter what. PM Zoolander is getting a second term if they have to Weekend At Bernie’s his corpse.
New Tory leader’s not that well-known, but he’s at least more human than the possible-android-from-the-future Harper was. He’s got some socon leanings so I’m guessing the election is going to be a lot of virtue signalling. I think we’ll likely see at least the Liberals get bumped down to a minority government, but I’m afraid the Tories reigned for too long and got too corrupt and that’s stuck in a lot of people’s minds.
If that were true, Pan, the Libs would already be shoving electoral reform that benefits them through as quickly as possible. But they’re stuck because of the public response. I don’t expect a ‘Trumpesque’ event or anything, but I do expect some kind of pushback against the social justice idiocy Zoolander is pumping out.
Do you think Ontario is gonna turn un-woke? Since my view of Canada is Prog Central in real life, with all the online shit I see being Even More Prog Than You Can Possibly Imagine, I’m just assuming we are gonna have Socks-Trans-Refugee Election again, with PM Zoolander losing some votes but still squeezing in.
I’ve no idea why Liberal Party decided not to change the electoral system to “Mark Liberals as second preference or Commies/Nazis get into power” they wanted. They have the power, why did they calculate FPTP will get them more seats?
Ontario ain’t nowhere near as woke as you think it is. Sure, Toronto and Ottawa are lost causes, and I might be a little biased based on current location and upbringing, but even places like Kingston with their high student population or Cornwall with their Ottawa bureaucrat retirees aren’t huge fans of the Wynne government overall. People in general are pissed about the deficit and energy hikes even without the carbon tax plan, and if you pay even the slightest attention to provincial politics you’re well aware of how corrupt they are.
If the Tories in this province weren’t so profoundly incompetent (and it doesn’t help that people remember Harris like they remember Reagan, either fondly or very negatively, no middle ground) they’d probably have the next election in the bag. But Hudak was really bad last time around, and Brown is basically a Red Tory. Basically a lot of people are sick of the Libs but have no decent alternatives.
I’ve no idea why Liberal Party decided not to change the electoral system to “Mark Liberals as second preference or Commies/Nazis get into power” they wanted.
My guess is that the Old Guard saw the backlash that was popping up and wisely decided to suggest they can the idea until they could get more support. It looks really bad for the Libs to suddenly change the voting process to a way that benefits them when they’re immediately put in power. If they stick around for five to eight years they’ll probably try again with a less negative response.
They have the power, why did they calculate FPTP will get them more seats?
Hubris? I don’t know much about Canada, but from what you describe it strikes me that they are so confident in themselves that they don’t believe they need such a change.
People in general are pissed about the deficit and energy hikes even without the carbon tax plan, and if you pay even the slightest attention to provincial politics you’re well aware of how corrupt they are.
Yeah, OK, but
But Hudak was really bad last time around, and Brown is basically a Red Tory. Basically a lot of people are sick of the Libs but have no decent alternatives.
So they had a chance to vote non-woke, and they re-chose woke, when it was obvious she’s only good at SJWing. I mean, what was problem with Hudak? So-Conning? Tax-cutting? Service-cutting?
What I’m asking, how many of them want an alternative that’s basically “Liberals but not Wynne”?
Even if they boot her at long last, as long as PM Zoolander doesn’t go all-Wynne, why would he not get another chance?
So they had a chance to vote non-woke, and they re-chose woke,
No, they chose not to vote, even though turnout was better that election that last.
Look at this election map. Notice a pattern? Like the Liberals only really have two major strongholds in the whole province, and they’re the major urban centers?
I mean, what was problem with Hudak?
Obsession with issues that alienate voters mostly, and generally just a dumb human being in general. He stepped on his dick a lot, and again, there’s the Harris legacy that the Liberals constantly propagandize like it was Mad Max.
He reminds me of Bobby Newport from parks n rec
And socks. Don’t forget the socks.
Not that impressive?
They’re downright banal.
Chelsea vs. Zoolander: which is worse while operating heavy machinery?
Is it because he’s cute as a button?
It’s always “all of it or nunavut” with these progs, isn’t it?
There are some “progressives” who actually oppose effective non-government solutions because they see a huge problem with people not relying on the government.
Remember when a bunch of corporations sent truckloads of water to that Michigan town with nasty water, and some “progressives” actually complained because “people might get the idea that basic necessities like water are the dominion of corporations rather than our governments”?
I’ve also had someone tell me that it’s a horrible thing that some people are asking for healthcare expense money on GoFundMe and other crowdfunding sites. He didn’t actually say it should be illegal, but he was making it sound like it had disastrous consequences for society. Plus, we all know that “progressives” make no distinction between “things I don’t like” and “things that should be illegal”.
Remember when people defended and/or excused the British healthcare system’s decision to kill a sick child, rather than let his parents take him abroad for treatment?
Like it was only yesterday.
Reason I’m in shock – this is a second non-retarded article in two days!
Slapping new regulations on Airbnb won’t cure cities’ housing woes
Comments below: “Nu-uh, totally kulaks and wreckers!”
My new theory is that Rex Murphy is a memetic plague that is slowly taking over the institution. We’ll know once they start complaining about climate change regulations.
And then there’s the Daily Mail.
That would never happen in a long-term rental!
Seriously, they have a lot of good articles. They just can’t write anything about Trump without shitting their pants in the process.
CBC is about as good as NYT – a propaganda arm of a faction within a major political party, which sometimes lets other factions express opinion and has a token non-retarded story once in a while, all the time insisting on how Professionally Independent they are.
Except, NYT probably pays better, so the articles are better written.
CBC gets your taxes. NYT doesn’t.
I expect push back in the form of ‘Amazon takes advantage of the poor’ articles in 3…2…..
Look, how dare them sell things that people want, sometimes at the best prices available, with free shipping (if you’re a filthy rich Prime member), and sometimes even 1-2 hour delivery. How dare them!
Well, listen to you rich-splaining. As usual, the 1% – WHO CAN AFFORD TO PAY THE EXTRA SHIPPING FEES – get to skate because they have money. Who’s paying for all that shipping? THE POOR. #PrimeForAll
On a related note, Amazon has started giving out free Prime memberships to Americans on food stamps, paid for by the other Prime members of course.
#PrimeForAll
Please don’t say that anywhere outside of this site.
Thorhaug says he’s “baffled” by how Amazon ships heavy items, like flour, with no markup. He doesn’t think relying on it is a long-term solution.
“I think that’s wishful thinking, somebody somewhere is looking at the numbers and whether we talk about it or not, it’s eating into somebody’s profits.”
Amazon is making the govt look horribly inefficient.
See the NYT editorial Ed Wuncler posted below; they assure us that govt is indeed very efficient.
My favorite part is that they’re concerned Amazon will stop subsidizing them through Prime if the numbers don’t line up.
Second favorite is that it’s a living case of “totally worth to pay more to keep jobs local” in action.
That’s a lost cause. People are spoiled and want a huge variety of products to choose from at the best price. And they want it NOW.
Wait, now we’re worried about *preserving* profits?
Suddenly buyers from all over the world are purchasing the new American supplies, from South Korea to India — even oil-rich Venezuela, which uses the light sweet crude that comes out of American shale to blend with its gooey heavy crude.
i really hope they’re not extending credit terms to Venezuela.
Don’t they pretty much have to be extending credit? The Chavistas have been stiffing misc. and sundry in the oil business due to an inexplicable lack of cash.
The name’s Artemis
Uffda, this ought to be quite the deal.
Two people I never thought were funny making shorts for Funny or Die (which I also never thought was funny, and they refuse to die.)
David Letterman was once very funny. The turning point came when he hosted the Oscars in 1995, made a bunch of jokes at the expense of the Glitterati (as he had frequently done during his career), got a righteous shunning for it and said to himself “Hey, these people have lots of money and power – I should treat them nice.” And so he did; and though he lost his comedy fastball over the years, he became a Broadcast Legend, his ass kissed by every celebrity under the sun. So things worked out for ol’ Dave, I guess. But I really miss his brand of comedy during his NBC years – that was one hell of a show.
I remember trying to watch him in the mid-80s when I was first goign to college and it just never clicked. I will admit it might be a product of the format though. I never got why people thought Johnny Carson was so funny either.
I was mostly bored to tears watching celebs try to hawk their latest product. They weren’t that smart or interesting to me.
He’s no Norm MacDonald. Maybe that’s why he loves him so much? In him, he sees what he once was and ought to be!
The only thing Franken ever did that was funny was getting elected to the Senate. And by “funny”, I mean “funny” as in “funny business”, “funny money” or “funny smell”.
He got an entire career based on people thinking “it doesn’t seem funny to me, but he went to Harvard, so it’s probably over my head, so I’ll laugh so people don’t think I missed the joke.”
There are very few people I dislike as much as Franken. He’s the consummate asshole.
Dennis Miller sometimes leave me in the dust.
http://www.barstoolsports.com/dmv/alexis-ren-coming-out-swinging/
The answer is: model
Has a PhD in a real science:
Kate Fehlhaber
Unlike Dr Science.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/upshot/why-single-payer-health-care-saves-money.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&mtrref=t.co
“…suppose that your state’s government took over road maintenance from the county governments within it, in the process reducing total maintenance costs by 30 percent. Your state taxes would obviously have to go up under this arrangement.
But if roads would be as well maintained as before, would that be a reason to oppose the move? Clearly not, since the resulting cost savings would reduce your county taxes by more than your state taxes went up. Likewise, it makes no sense to oppose single-payer on the grounds that it would require additional tax revenue. In each case, the resulting gains in efficiency would leave you with greater effective purchasing power than before.”
Clearly not, since the resulting cost savings would reduce your county taxes by more than your state taxes went up.
Uh-huh. Sure they would.
Yeh, I’m gonna have to go ahead and give a big raised eyebrow on that as well as those TPS reports.
I’ve always asked, how can a group of bureaucrats and politicians in DC make medical decisions for 300 million individuals without screwing someone over?
The response I’ve always gotten was that, yeah people would be screwed over but universal healthcare is for the greater good.
Because everybody would be screwed equally?
Like camping with STEVE SMITH?
Everyone would not be screwed over equally. The middle class would be hit the hardest because of the ultra high taxes (think 50% payroll taxes). The poor would also get screwed because of rationing and death panels. The wealthiest, although also getting screwed, would come out best because they would be able to avoid some of the taxes that cannot be avoided when your income is all on payroll, and they’d be able to afford avoiding the system and getting private healthcare.
Since i joined the middle class, about 11 years ago, it seems just about everything the government has done has screwed the shit out of me.
“The greater good” /chorus
Until it happens to THEM personally.
Suddenly the greater good wouldn’t hold the same cache.
The ones who advocate for these sort of polices always imagine themselves to be exempted…..until they are not.
It’s like when Warren Buffet get on his ivory soap box and lectures us peons that we should force the well off to pay higher taxes but yet hire accountants to find tax breaks and make friends with the politically connected so he can use the regulatory state for his benefit.
“I’ve always asked, how can a group of bureaucrats and politicians in DC make medical decisions for 300 million individuals without screwing someone over?”
Well, they’re not going to screw someone over. There going to screw everyone over.
Everyone except congress themselves and a handful of cronies.
“…suppose that your state’s government took over road maintenance from the county governments within it, in the process reducing total maintenance costs by 30 percent.
Consider a spherical cow…
I never hope to see one.
Here ya go.
Yea, how does that cost-cutting wizardry happen?
Why would maintenance costs go down because the state?
Also ignore the rationing and wait times of “free healthcare” as demand goes up
If there were all these savings to be had why didn’t Colorado, vt and cali go thru with it?
+1 Charlie Gard
-1 Charlie Gard 🙁
Wow.
Wow. I thought the doctors had already pulled him off life support.
Because Americans are not willing to pay the taxes that Europeans do and subsequently accept the lower standard of living that comes with it. It’s all pie in the sky bullshit.
I think you need to apologize to Mr. Pie in the sky. He seems far more reasonable than that.
As well maintained as before…assumes facts not in evidence
Here’s the money quote:
“Polls consistently show that large majorities want people with pre-existing conditions to be able to obtain health coverage at affordable rates. But that goal cannot be achieved unless healthy people are required to join the insured pool. Officials in the Obama administration tried, largely in vain, to explain why the program’s insurance exchanges would collapse in the absence of the participation mandate”
They don’t that the reason why people were pissed at the ACA was because despite being healthy, they still had to pay a shit ton of money in premiums or penalties just so they could pay for people who are less healthier insurance. I can’t for the life or me understand how anyone can see that as moral.
Leaving the question of morality aside, it would orders of magnitude cheaper and simpler to just slap a 3% federal sales tax on everything and use that money to provide direct treatment to those whose conditions preclude coverage by conventional insurance while leaving a private market in place for the other 95% or so of the population.
A point 003 percent tax would be adequate.
I wonder how much cheaper my car insurance would be if I wasn’t subsidizing my fellow Florida Men and Women.
I don’t think Florida Man gets his drugs through insurance.
“insurance”
Extortion and robbery?
How hard is it for them to grasp that health insurance =/= health care? I can at least understand how in warped prog wonderland everyone should get healthcare, but the whole point of insurance is to protect against something with a low chance of happening but would screw you over if it did happen. “Insurance” for people who are guaranteed to have the problem “insured” against makes absolutely no sense for anyone.
Polls also show that people want high government spending and low taxes: polls that ask peoples’ opinions about something, without first mentioning the tradeoffs inherent in making a policy workable, are worthless. Of course everyone wishes that money grew on trees: given that it doesn’t, asking people if they’d like a money-tree is counterproductive.
Political polls are always full of loaded questions, anyway. Or the pollsters will make very far-fetched conclusions based on the answers they get.
Example 1: Remember Obama and company touting the “90 percent of Americans” who support the post-Newtown gun control bill, which included “universal” background checks, assault weapons ban, and mag limits? The actual poll asked the question, “do you support background checks for all gun buyers”. Ninety percent of people answered yes to that question. Notice that it doesn’t say “do you support the universal background checks bill currently being proposed in Congress?” Over the coming weeks, Obama began using the 90 percent figure when talking about all three of the proposed 2A violations without making it clear that it was only in reference to “universal” background checks.
Example 2: I saw one of these online “where do you stand politically” polls, and one of the questions was, “Do you believe that every person should be able to pursue an education?” Well shit, what does that even mean? I believe that every person should be free to purchase educational services from a provider of their choice, and I believe that the government should actively avoid placing obstacles in their path or creating market distortions… But if I answered yes to that question, it would probably be counted as support for even more government involvement in education. (I know this wasn’t really an official “poll” and the results probably weren’t aggregated and studied anywhere, but it’s just an example of how a vaguely worded question can mean anything the pollster wants.)
if everyone has shitty healthcare, then we’re all equal.
Yup. All of this is driven by the idea that someone, somewhere, has better health care than somebody else, and that just isn’t fair! Bill Gates should have to stand in the same line to wait for a doctor as the rest of us!
And the best part is that he is so rich, he can get concierge care or fly to a place that offers great health care.
Which is exactly what everyone will do, who can afford it. So in effect, you have not reduced inequality, you’re made it worse.
Looks to me you see egalitarianism in the least regulated markets. A billionaire will buy the same smartphone as a relatively poor person.
It’s magic!
Pay no attention to what the other hand is doing.
i just sat here for 2 minutes trying to think of a reply here, snarky or not, and I just can’t.
I’ll try, Juvie.
“Fringe groups” – the implication that very, very few people think this way. Presumably, then, the vast majority think taxation is not theft.
So we move to a totally voluntary tax system. By this person’s logic, hardly anything would change because the vast majority think “Hey, taxation is NOT theft – taxation provides all the great stuff we enjoy like schools and ROADZ and parks and ROADZ and airports and ROADZ and sports arenas and ROADZ.” In other words, when you’re getting value for the transaction it ceases to be theft.
So why on earth should we expect that a voluntary tax system would bring about a collapse? I mean, again, only a few nutjobs think taxation is theft, so when we go to a voluntary system, virtually everyone will just keep right on paying.
Progs are teh smart.
It’s because they know that if individuals could get out of paying taxes they would.
Free riders!
“So why on earth should we expect that a voluntary tax system would bring about a collapse?”
Well, according to every prog I’ve ever known, the exact opposite would happen, since all them want to pay more, but are somehow being stopped from doing so. Once it’s voluntary, they can just pay their 90% or whatever they want and the government will never run out of money.
Whenever I hear the ol’ “I’d be glad to pay more taxes” line, I send them to
This site.
stolen for future use and mockery.
having to pay taxes is itself a mandate of a sort
But not, you know, a mandate-mandate.
most people understand that our entire system would collapse if tax payments were purely voluntary
And there’s your strawman – he’s arguing that since we need some taxes, objecting to any taxation at any level is just cray-cray.
I’m still trying to figure out if I pay any county taxes.
Most places, those are in the form of property taxes.
Does the NYT ever write anyting that is even remotely true these days? They’re a left wing propaganda rag at this point, nothing more.
I think what bothers me about the media today is that they will swear up and down that they are objective when in reality, they have become the propaganda arm of the DNC. At least have the integrity to admit that your newspaper is a lefty rag.
The NYT reminds me of an acquaintance (a raging statist) I know who got angry when I called him a partisan. He then proceeded to post a Reason article ripping Republicans as a way to signal that he isn’t a partisan. That was when I knew to stop talking politics with that guy.
No, not at all. I don’t block many “news” sites because I know who is full of shit and who isn’t. I make a special exception for the NYT, WaPo and CNN. The NYT (to name but one example) is arguably more responsible for the existence of the Castro regime than Castro himself is. The WaPo is literally a CIA misinformation racket and CNN is a brazenly leftist outfit that has successfully masqueraded as unbiased news for far too long, but those days are over finally.
masqueraded as unbiased news for far too long
Weren’t they being called the Clinton News Network back during Bill’s time as Potus?
Those critics are just partisan extremists that don’t know the meaning of ‘unbiased’! /what I’ve heard for the last 15ish years about CNN. They don’t have many defenders left.
To pay for highway projects in cities and areas you never visit. Instead of keeping costs local to the consumers, they’re spreading the costs out over the whole population irrespective of location or the utility that a certain road offers to a particular population. That and you’re now concentrating decision-making power into fewer hands which makes all the problems of central planning just that much worse.
Not to mention that in the first place savings are as likely as Moonbeam Railways revolutionizing transport in the cancer causing state of California. It’s an impossible counterfactual.
Screw it, I’ll click the link but I can already tell it’s written by a moron. First off, what in then hell makes this person think that in their grossly oversimplified scenario, that the county taxes would go down in any meaningful way?
Total costs are lower under single-payer systems for several reasons. One is that administrative costs average only about 2 percent of total expenses under a single-payer program like Medicare.
Well yeah, if you only have one payer and one process as defined by the state to get paid you won’t have to pay legions of administrative personnel to file the paperwork.
The most important source of cost savings under single-payer is that large government entities are able to negotiate much more favorable terms with service providers.
If there is only one way to get paid, there is no other choice but to negotiate a shitty deal….with the those people with guns.
In 2012, for example, the average cost of coronary bypass surgery was more than $73,000 in the United States but less than $23,000 in France
Assuming they get around to performing said bypass before the patient dies.
Despite this evidence, respected commentators continue to cite costs as a reason to doubt that single-payer can succeed in the United States
I know I’ve already argued there is no way to precisely scale this up, but this is a comment section, not a dissertation. VHA Proposed 2018 Budget is linked here, totaling $186.5 Billion This includes $70.7 Billion for discretionary medical care, for 9 million enrolled Veterans works out to $7855.55/Veteran. Lets scale that to 300 Million Americans. Assuming my arithmetic is correct, this works out to $2,356,665,000,000. That’s about 2.3 trillion more reasons for me to continue to respect these commentators that cite costs as a reason to doubt single payer.
But this comparison is misleading. In most other countries, single-payer covers the whole population, most of which has only minimal health needs. In contrast, single-payer components of the United States system disproportionately cover population subgroups with the heaviest medical needs: older people (Medicare), the poor and disabled (Medicaid) and returned service personnel (Department of Veterans Affairs).
You mean to tell me there are no old or disabled people in Europe or should I look forward to a business opportunity for at home euthanasia kits?
“Total costs are lower under single-payer systems for several reasons.”
Unfortunately, the number one reason is that this is a lie. When they do the math, they conveniently leave out the huge increase in taxes levied on businesses and individuals to pay for it. When you start out with a lie that huge, you have no argument.
Good call. Businesses don’t pay taxes, their customers do.
And why is France given as an example of a single-payer system? Not according to all my French rellies! Public health care in France is, at best, “single-payer + private top-ups,” which is quite good, actually. Want the minimum? Take what the State offers. Want more? Pony up extra cash, and get as many optional extras as you want.
If I can’t get rid of Canada’s provincial health care systems, I’d settle for France’s system as a replacement that’s at least more humane.
Sounds similar to the Dutch system. A mandatory minimum policy (which can be subsidized), with the ability to buy up if you want.
That’s what they have in Brazil. And the private is quite good. The public is of course, shit.
How many people can afford the extras after being forced to spend most of their paycheck on the lowest tier?
{shrug} If my French rellies — who, by and large, are comfortable but by no means “rich” in the context of France — are any indication, apparently quite a few of ’em can.
Why is the bottom part in blue?
Total costs are lower under single-payer systems for several reasons.
The biggest one reason, of course, is that these systems deliver less health care.
Exactly. And that probably DOES bring the cost down. The overwhelming majority of healthcare dollars – for any country – are spent during the last few years of life. It certainly saves money if the state lets grand-pere die instead of paying for an operation plus a decade or so of medications and home healthcare services. It’s just that it comes with a staggering moral cost: letting bureaucrats decide whether or not your aged parent (or baby) will get the plug pulled.
We shouldn’t even accept that total or average costs are meaningful in anyway.
Total costs are lower because total healthcare quality is lower. The argument that “Americans spend more on healthcare than Cuba, Russia, Canada, etc.”” is exactly like the argument that “Americans spend more on cars than Cuba, Russia, Canada, etc.”
Russia’s state made cars probably meant they paid less for cars on average. They just got shitty cars nobody wanted. I’m sure they loved telling citizens if it wasn’t for them they wouldn’t have any car. If the average Cuban spends less for a “cell phone” it doesn’t mean shit if it’s Nokias and tin cans.
It fucking irks me how no-one is talking about the quality of healthcare delivered. Somehow, magically, a hospital in Havana performs as well as one in Miami to these people.
Efficient healthcare is more than extorting money from people based on feelz, it’s also about innovation, competence, and the cost benefits of competition. All things that cannot be provided by diktat.
Political witch hunt!
A spokesman for the couple, Jeff Weaver, denied wrongdoing late last week. Weaver told The Post Jane Sanders hired a D.C. law firm this spring because she and her husband fear President Trump’s Justice Department could use the investigation as a way to derail a potential 2020 challenger.
“While the Obama administration was in office, I don’t think anyone thought that these baseless allegations warranted hiring a lawyer,” Weaver said. “But with Trump and [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions at the helm, that’s a very different situation.”
Yeah, it’s a total nothingburger. With bacon and cheeze.
She’s being railroaded, just like Billy Sol Estes. “Things were going great, until some asshole decided to inspect the collateral.”
While the Obama administration was in office, I don’t think anyone thought that these baseless allegations warranted hiring a lawyer
She doesn’t even realize she just admitted that the Right People were insulated from criminal prosecution by the Lynch DOJ.
Yeah. Many a lawyer has told me, that baseless accusations always deserve at least a once I’ve from a lawyer, and always deserve response if they are formalized.
HAHAHAHAHA.
Uh wasn’t she under investigation before trump?
I can’t remember who recommended it here, but I’ve started listening to the hardcore history podcast and it is great. So, thanks for the recommendation.
Mr. Riven is a big fan of that podcast, as well. Not sure who recommended it to you, but make sure you listen to the stuff about Genghis Khan. So great.
Unfortunately, I can’t read any book about war or battle without reverting to “Dan Carlin Voice”.
This seems like complete BS.
Any of you smart Glibertarian cooks ever heard of lime juice and sunlight combining into some sort of caustic skin burning agent?
as a
n alcoholictequila enthusiast irishman living in a very sunny stateI’ve noticed no change based on lime juice. still very red.
I’ve never heard that although lemon juice was supposed to rapidly accelerate lightening your hair in the sun, so maybe?
Yes. It happens fairly often in the south when people use lemon or lime juice to highlight their hair.
Current local temperature is 105 Fahrenheit. I just went outside and squeezed 1/2 of a ripe Persian lime into an approximately 16 fl. oz. glass. No reaction so far. I may continue the experiment by adding 2 fl. oz. of Caribbean rum and 6 fl. oz. of imported Coca Cola.
A single experiment doesn’t prove anything. You need to repeat the experiment several times to make sure that the results don’t change.
You’re such a silly woman!
Put the lime in the coconut and mix ’em both together.
Put the lime in the coconut and then you’ll feel better!
Put the lime in the coconut and mix em’ both up.
Put the lime in the coconut and call me in the morning.
Hah! Now I know what the secret ingredients in the skin lotion are!!!
That’s dangerous, put a little umbrella on it.
No, but I guess it’s about time for Schmuber to call on the FDA to DO SOMETHING.
Yes. You can end up with nasty burns if you are a bartender working outside in the sun making lots of mojitos. But not from making one or two at home.
Lime is a psoralen. So is celery.
Survey says: story is true.
currently unfolding
Burlington might become famous for something other than ben and jerrys or Sanders!
repost from (late) this morning.
Potentially misleading headline: Shark bites both legs of swimmer off south Florida beach
But only months after the college closed on the property purchase, trustees sensed problems.
“Things did not add up,” Dantzscher said. “The donations were not coming in.”
Trustee David V. Dunn said the college collected only about $125,000 through the summer of 2011. The trustees asked other college administrators to get in touch with donors, he said.
“What they were finding was different than what was represented,” he said. “Multiple donors were saying they had never committed to those amounts.”
It was obvious they truly wanted to give even more generously. So, well, you know.
http://www.salon.com/2017/07/09/cnn-hired-top-al-qaeda-propagandist-for-award-winning-syria-documentary-and-wants-to-cover-its-tracks_partner/
From Salon (?): Actually, CNN kind of is ISIS
What the what?
There’s blood in the water around CNN now. New Media has its chance to go after Old Media and it’s not going to miss it, even for ideological reasons.
When Salon jumps on top of dogpile shoulder to shoulder with Fox, you know you are right and proper fucked.
Proper fucked?
Another reason to keep drinking:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4682930/True-Blood-actor-going-alcohol-withdrawal.html
It’s my day off, that’s the only reason I need.
I mean, if this guy had been drinking heavily for a long time, who the hell told him to cold turkey instead of gradually cutting down?
Every teatotaller ever?
Great. Just fucking great.
Various govt agencies are hard at work spending tax money deciding where to put rapid charging stations along rural Minnesoda highways.
Remind me again, how much money the govt invested in building gas stations?
They didn’t build that either.
They have a good amount here in Columbus, but guess what? They were all installed by retail centers. I’m sure there were kickbacks or tax breaks involved, but the government didn’t technically build them.
How pick up a Victoria”s Secret model with a used Toyota:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4682900/Kristen-Stewart-Stella-Maxwell-drive-old-blue-truck.html
I thew she was a ‘yota girl.
knew.
who am I, John?
who am I, John?
Terminal existential crisis on aisle three!
KStew is way too skinny for John.
Both them girls mashed together is too skinny for John.
And both too plump for Sarc.
Um, maybe it’s the pics but my needle is sitting firmly under ‘would not’.
So you’re not a big fan of the narrow gays?
Just saw a poll where 76% of Quebecers and 45% of Canadians favour phasing out all coal-generated electricity by 2030.
That’s remarkably troubling. In 10 years? Quebec is ESPECIALLY beyond retarded given our hydro-electricity which is a huge cash cow for one of the least productive and wealthy province.
Canada’s economic essence is pretty much tied to natural resources but somehow we’re gonna go solar, wind and electric?
I don’t think people also considered this would likely translate into slower growth.
I dunno, living as I do in another hydro-generating province, fucking everyone over by banning coal burning strikes me as very good business deal for us. Quebecers might be making the same calculation….
Of course, Greens and Lefties here want no part of Hydro development, because here it makes economic sense and actually produces energy. It’ll be hilarious to see our minority Commie government thread the needle between their Woke part, who wants the latest project cancelled, and the Union part, who wants it to go through.
Taking lessons from ze Germans?
Quebec probably wants The Rest of Canada to stop using coal so they’ll have to use more of Quebec’s hydroelectric.
(“Hydro” means water, not electric.)
My definition of “hydro” comes from this fine cinematic piece of art
GIFs substituting for video are not art.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Quebeckers could rub two brain cells together and realize that hydroelectric is one of the few ways they still have relevancy in the Canadian economy, and that if coal is phased out they’ll have the country by the balls to some extent.
That’s the thing that always makes me wonder about Quebecers. They’ve always been suspicious of the profit motive and business. They don’t seem to realize when you make such a bed you leave yourself vulnerable. That is, relying on the government to *grow* the economy and natural resources. In other words, they have a perverse view that the government drives the market.
Then they wonder why by most metrics, the province lags. Badly.
Just don’t tell nationalists that. They’ve managed to make 2+2 =5 with all their ‘it’s not true we’re a have-not’ and because we give so much we’re entitled to the money when we separate.
Don’t they blow other Canadians up if you make fun of them?
Not since the 1960s, and that was because they were commies, not because they were French.
You forgot about the Second Cup firebombing.
I would think they like the idea of global warming.
Human Rights Tribunal rules Brampton landlord must pay Muslim couple $12,000
My ruling: woodchipper.
How often do you need to make entry to a rental? Once a year to check on the overall condition and maybe once or twice for repairs/maintenance work, IF it needed it? I think I can count on one hand the number of times I had a landlord come in when I rented as a youngster.
Even then, landlord knocks on the door. Answer, tell to wait a couple of minutes, either outside or invite him in, and that’s that. What the fuck do they do if JW show up at the front door?
My guess is that they were moving out and he was showing the unit to prospective future tenants.
Note to self: never rent to Arabs again.
/Landlord
What a load of crap.
I agree. Down with this sort of thing.
people = shit
Careful, now.
For those of you wondering what that Minnesoda gal used to catch that big muskie, maybe it was a big northern pike?
Considering that you could make a horror movie about northern pike, the fact that something eat those makes me never want to go near a natural body of water again.
Takes me back to my childhood, fishing for walleye…
You could always tell if you’d hooked a walleye or a northern by how much they would fight once you started reeling. It’s almost like walleye want you to eat them* compared to pulling in a northern.
*In that regard, we are united.
^This
I am constantly amazed at how many of my friends will only fish walleyes. Even when they have caught as many as they are going to eat, they will still keep fishing walleyes.
Go catch smallies or even carp if you want to catch fish that will fight you. Have fun reeling a fish in. A little hammer handle northern will out fight a 30″ walleye any day.
I’m also a heretic in believing that panfish are just as tasty as walleyes. Yes, walleyes are very tasty and bigger than bluegills and crappies, but they aren’t orders of magnitude tastier (if even at all).
Peacock bass. They’re like smallies on steroids.
Bluegills are really one of the tastiest freshwater fish in my opinion. I also like those little yellow perch.
croppy is my favorite game fish. Battered and deep fried filets are fantastic.
Crappie is good. I still think Bluegill and those little Perch are better.
My dad’s brother moved to South Carolina for about 15 years before returning to Arkansas. We relentlessly made fun of him for saying crappie until he finally quit.
Yeah, outside of the south, everyone pronounces it ‘crop-ee’, but it’s still spelled crappie.
I’m Croppy
You’re not croppy. I’m croppy.
I’m not in a school.
I’m not in a school.
I’m not in a school.
Another followup from this morning’s story from Minnesoda.
Police report said that officer was charged by two large pitbulls.
On a positive note, a gofundme campaign has already raised more than $20K for the dogs’ vet bills. The Mpls police chief has also said that they will “help the family with vet bills”.
You know this will end with the family getting a large paycheck from us taxpayers. The coward who shot a dog that was wagging its tail will not face any consequences despite shooting two harmless dogs and then lying about it on a police report.
Something about the video not telling the whole story, and the officer’s subjective perception being enough to mean this isn’t a false police report.
I really doubt you meant to link back to the top of this page, right?
Believe this is it
http://www.startribune.com/money-pouring-in-for-vet-bills-for-2-dogs-shot-by-police-in-n-mpls-yard/433637483/
See what you jumping my Minnesoda claim has done, JB? I’m trying to be sure to beat you, and fuck up a simple link.
Uffdaaaa.
Comment I saw on the Minneapolis PD’s Facebook page:
Pretty much, yeah.
“for the thrill of it” — no
“because they have no sense of professionalism and their training encourages them to” — yes
Hell, I think shooting defenseless things (and getting away with it) is a large part of why many choose the profession in the first place.
I take it this person is not familiar with the daily nut punch?
“charged by two large pitbulls”
In Police-ese, doesn’t Pitbull mean teacup size Yorkie?
Two semi-talented snaggle-toothed neckless bald guys in sunglasses charged him?
They were actually cats.
If someone told me that my cat charged them, I would believe it. He is territorial. But, he also weighs 10 pounds. If someone shot him, they better look over their shoulder for the rest of their life.
This article may have been linked before, as it’s over a week old, but I don’t check every post here and I just read it so…
For your consideration: Aztec tower of human skulls uncovered in Mexico City
An excerpt:
I think they didn’t have very knowledgeable historians on this dig if this shocked them. There’s a reason Cortez’s native allies treated the Aztecs so viciously during the conquest of Tenochtitlan. But what I really think is interesting is that there’s still so much to discover buried underneath Mexico City. It’s not remote like some of those cities that have been swallowed by the jungle, yet there’s still things like a tower of skulls that was just sitting there for 500 years.
Unpossible. All native cultures were peaceful and lived in harmony with nature and each other, and would have all the Americas living in utopia had not the evil Europeans arrived and ruined everything.
Isn’t revisionist history just swell?
Yeah I like Dan Carlin but episode today tried to pretend the natives of Guam looting Magellan’s ship were really just confused because their culture shared everything and you could take whatever. Yeah, I guess the Spanish could take their stuff and call it sharing too.
I predict within a few weeks a bunch of articles will be circulating about how woke the Aztecs were for letting women be warriors too, probably inspiring a few books or shows with women Aztec warriors prominently featured and the writers being quick to signal how this is totes historically accurate. Likely followed by angry cries from other progs about cultural appropriation.
And they were just as fierce and deadly as their male counterparts, if not more so! Remember, they can birth a nine-pound child – can MEN do that??
oh god, like that Viking women warriors!!! one from two years ago? That was such a willful misunderstanding of what the evidence actually was, it was pathetic, and then it spread in the “feministosphere” and I was constantly rolling my eyes with how bad it was.
I’ve read a lot on the history of Mexico and I never once read anything about women being warriors, or the Aztecs or any other highly advanced cultures being peaceful. Maybe I just missed it.
But sports were more interesting. Apparently, if you lost a friendly game of Tlachtli, someone might end up losing their head.
I thought the losing team was put to death in this manner.
I didn’t think it was the whole team, but maybe the team captain? Maybe different leagues had different rules. Being in that ‘kill em all’ league made for short careers.
Make slaves from captured tribes play if you run out of Aztec Tlachtli-ballers.
My first thought was that those were the virgin sacrifices.
Most of the other tribes hated the Aztecs because they were made to pay tributes. Or else. So they gladly joined Cortez in helping to destroy most of Tenochtitlan. The Spanish also destroyed all the writings they could find as well as lots of ceremonial stuff because it was of the devil. And sure there’s still plenty of stuff to find, but having a city of top of it means most of it never will be. Considering all of that, most of the history is lost forever. It’s a real shame.
-1 burning of the library at Alexandria.
Speaking of interesting history that gets distorted in favor of comforting myths.
Fun hating atheist historian had a timely blog post about the old library.
https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-the-great-library-of-alexandria/
I remember reading for the first time about the deliberate destruction of the Mayan and Aztec codices, and being absolutely horrified. Thousands and thousands of books, and very few remaining. There are only a handful of Mayan books left.
Yeah, it really pisses me off too.
But the lack of Mayan texts means we get entertaining shows speculating about aliens.
The Mayans had wireless technology. They excavated an entire site and found no wires. Wireless technology!
The wired pyramids are the ones they hopped into whnlen they achieved their higher planes of consciousness. #science
They find stuff under London all the time.
London’s more than a thousand years old, so yeah.
Two thousand years old, in fact. (OK, a quarter century short of 2000.)
There’s stuff found under cities a lot less old than that. There’s a labyrinth of tunnels underneath Baltimore City. I know this because I’ve seen part of them. I’m honestly more than a little scared of what you might find down there. I have no plans of going on an expedition to find out.
people are paying $25,000 to have their browneyes botoxed.
Some people have dream jobs. *sighs*
I have the sudden urge to club you to death EAP, you and your dumb seal face.
You ARE Canadian! *hands John Titor a shiny new club*
Clearly you know nothing of our Canadian ways. I will use the club that my father, and his father, and his father before that used, responsible for the deaths of over six hundred of the seal menace, the Club of Woes.
I have Irish heritage…shillelagh or nuttin’.
Are you humming this tune?
More Zappa? (clicks link) nope . well here
A guy told me a story once about when he found out his girlfriend was cheating on him. He said he took her toothbrush and polished his bung hole and then dropped it back in the cup by the bathroom sink. Had he done that with some tooth whitening paste, I wonder if it would not achieve similar results as the more expensive procedure. Surely there is someone here that can try that and get back to us. I would do it, but I don’t have a girlfriend right now.
Went up to the mountains to go shooting with some friends.
The Walther did great. Everyone thought it shot well.
My roommate is now curious about an AR. Having never built one, I’m out hunting for a few insights or brands for him. It’d be a starter.
I thought since it will most likely be a target and fun gun, I might try to get him into a .22
5.56x45mm is a high powered .22 so learning on the standard caliber shouldnt be difficult. I havent bought .22lr in years, is it still impossible to find?
If its just a plinker, nearly any rifle will do. Get a good lower and a basic upper. That way if you want a “fighter” you can just swap out the upper.
I’m sure he can handle 5.56. We should try to fire a few together, figure out what he needs.
http://5newsonline.com/2017/07/07/no-charges-for-man-who-shot-killed-neighbor-trying-to-drown-twin-babies/
Nice when a story has a happy ending.
There was no way there were going to be charges here. Regardless of whether this qualified as justifiable homicide as a defense of others (it clearly does), the chances of a jury convicting the guy were approximately zero. Or negative, if such a thing was possible.
I still say this dude was banging the woman and they concocted this scheme to off the old guy for insurance money. Of course I read a lot of noir/crime novels so there’s that.
Not impossible but they would have to coopt the 12 year old as well and it is very hard keep a 12 year old from folding under repeated questioning.
So the old guy was a willing participant in drowning 3 month olds?
I’m not comprehending it.
Aaahhh you’re saying the drowning never happened because there are no other witnesses
I’m not saying that , Dashiell Hammett ,Raymond Chandler, David Goodis, Jim Thompson, George Higgins, et al, said that.
We should be wondering aloud when he’s going to receive his medal of honor. The fact that there was ever a question about the legitimacy of the shooting shows how fucked up we are as a society.
Speaking of women warriors, today’s Great War special is on Maria Bokchareva and her all-female Battalion of Death.
She’s not well-known, possibly because she was executed by Bolsheviks, making the affair embarrassing for the feminists.
Incidentally, upcoming Battlefield 1 “Name of the Tsar” expansion will allow female characters, in the honor of the battalion.
Battlefield 1 was released with French or Russian troops, but had Australians and black colonial Germans.
Fuck DICE/EA.
Was released *without, goddammit.
No argument here, but I’m glad it’s slowly coming together to what it should have been at release. It’ll be sad if Russian maps are as empty as French ones though 🙁
The lack of character customization is totally weird, though – you’d think they’d want to sell helmet customization, cammo patterns, special uniforms (Cavalry, French 1914, pith helmets).
See, when they dump the Canadians into the expansion I don’t complain. But I don’t think it’s asking too much for the major Entente and Triple Alliance nations to be the base game and DLC to be everything else, rather than have people who didn’t join until 1917 (” BUT MUH MURICANS”) and stories about ahistorical female Arabic freedom fighters.
Oh I agree, but some of it is just reasonable.
You want 1918 so you can have storm trooper tactics and shit (even though Brusilov 1916 invented them but blah).
You want Americans so Americans will buy it.
You want Italian front because fucking hell, do Alps look gorgeous in latest Frostbite. I mean, DAAAAAYM.
And for the same reason, you want Arabs, because desert.
So Russians are out, and that leaves the question of French or British. I don’t think it’s even a contest that British will sell more.
Yes, you could put both in but gotta save something for Premium Pass.
Meh. I don’t know about that. Relic seemed to do perfectly well selling an Eastern Front German-Russian only game and then throwing the Americans and British in as DLC later. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea to go with the base powers, then release the American expansion for the moneys and follow up with some kind of ‘Desert Storm’ one. But I’m not an absolute whore like EA and have a moderate amount of artistic standard, so *shrugs*.
Oh no, you can’t compare CoH2 sales to BF1 – there seems to be an order of magnitude between them. EA needed millions upon millions of sales, not just because they are corporate whores, but because you need a huge playerbase or CoD is gonna get it. Especially after poor reception of SW Battlefront, a boutique release that does “OK” in the States is a no-go.
I consider British in WW1 to be what Americans were in WW2 (yes you did stuff, no, you didn’t do ALL THE STUFF!), just like British in WW2 are what Americans were in WW1 (no, you didn’t win the whole war, shit ,you were barely a sideshow. And is there a battle whose outcome was more irrelevant than Second Alamain that got more spilled ink?) and yet, I understand why they had to have both.
I’m less forgiving of Subscription DLC model, but EA gotta EA.
How about a Central Powers DLC where we play some battles from their side?
No single player content in any DLC so far – I think they did a bit of SP mostly as a reaction to criticism that SW Battlefront suffered. I mean campaigns aren’t bad, you just have to assume that what’s going on screen has absolutely nothing with the reality and everything is told by an extremely unreliable narrator. Hell, guy in second campaign pretty much says it.
DICE games have single player? Get out.
BF1 is still clunky. I stopped putting time into it. I’ll still play 4 or BC2.
They got the jumping over walls thing down, though. I do like that.
EA also really fucked up with the new server settings. It more or less killed off the PC HC side.
And here’s the previous special they did on the highest-decorated woman soldier in WW1.
Which doesn’t sound impressive, but her medal collection would be impressive regardless of gender:
She must have given legendary happy endings…
/shitlord
Fatty make a funny.
You guys can do better than this, Lachowsky!
Oh Brett.
I have kinda given up defending him. It looked like he was going to get things going for arkansas several times the past few seasons. We had some spectacular wins, but also some absolutely baffling (like how the fuck couod this possibly happen) losses. I’m pretty sure we rehired Houston Nutt. sigh.
You can say that again!
Oh Brett.
I’very kinda given up defending him. He has had moments where he looks like he is going to get the hogs back on track. He’s had some great wins that he has followed up with baffling (like how is that even possible) losses. I’m afraid we rehired Houston Nutt.
CNN, 1990 – Fake News
the smirk at the guy off camera is great.
No ripping off the mike and storming out of there? Even walking away, Trump manages to be gracious with the parting handshake as opposed to his supposed boorish public persona.
Assuming the reporter was trying to discuss things that Trump didn’t previously agree to, I am inclined to see it this way as well.
Today at work we took a rolling mill stand gearbox out of service to do some work on it. If anyone has ever wondered what the guys of a big ass gearbox look like, here you go
http://imgur.com/SPKsuJR
Holy crap.
Damn, those are big bearings. What are you doing to the box?
There was play in the input shaft of the gearbox. This was causing vibration and an indication of bearing wear. We pulled it out and will mic all the bearings and journals and replace/repair where needed.
I feel like I can’t complain when I rebuild my gearbox now.
Thanks, Latchowsky!
No kidding huh? I have always been afraid of gear boxes. Unbolt…. buy replacement…bolt back on has always been my route. I could always pick up the transmission/gear box though. Not that craziness.
I’m curious how many gallons of oil you have to lube that thing with.
I’m not sure on the total volume. There is an external reservoir with redundant pumps that pump oil in the gearbox through nozzles that spray directly onto the bearings. There is another set of pumps that come on and pump oil from the bottom of the gear box back into the reservoir and are kicked on and off based on the level of oil in the bottom of the gearbox.
Holy cow. Very cool.
Wow. That is a massive gear box. You guys may be able to maintain a steel mill, but can you write an article for Salon explaining how middle America is killing this nation? I think not. Shitlords.
I’ll go spend a day at the Salon offices if they agree to come to work with me for a day. In August preferably. I bet not a one of them would take me up. A shame too. They might learn something,
If they do will any of them have an accident where they fall into the machinery?
Fuck, I think most of us would enjoy learning about a mill.
Its actually pretty cool. I have been here a little over 4 years. I’m probably going to stay a long time. Good money, Neat equipment. All the electrical controls are in need of updating, so i have limitless opportunities for improvement projects (which i enjoy)
Is it a gay steel mill?
Sometime i wonder. I work in a 98% male environment and its pretty much gay jokes all day around here.
Do you work hard and play hard?
Well, shit.
I loled. I remember seeing that as a kid but had totally forgotten about it. I’ll be sending that to my buddies I work with.
“Geez Homer, where you been? Whole steel industry’s been gay for years…and aerospace…and the railroads. They even got Broadway!”
Gotta love the fake lisps the straight actors attempt to pull off.
Footage of their annual summer outing.
Lachowsky at work.
So close.
You know else had a massive gearbox?
The Titanic?
Yummy
what the guys of a big ass gearbox look like,
Now you’ve got Jesse all hot and bothered.
It was supposed to be guts, Ted. And you know that and so does hot and bothered Jesse.
Paging straffinrun; straffinrun to the white courtesy telephone.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-sex-problem-demographic-time-bomb-birth-rates-sex-robots-fertility-crisis-virgins-romance-porn-a7831041.html
Dude, I need to just take a few weeks off and fly to Japan. They will have a fucking statue of me in 50 years.
Um, I think the statue would be a normal one, where you gaze off into the distance. I’m sure the plaque would make mention that the reason for you being memorialized is because of your prowess at fucking.
As zany as the Japanese are, I doubt they’d actually sculpt a memorial to you in mid-coitus. If for no other reason, who would be your partner? What position would be shown?
He’d be riding a Geisha.
Traditionally, if Vhyrus dies of natural causes, both her feet would be on the ground. Should he die from resulting circumstances, one of her feet will be elevated. Shoud he die in the act of procreating, both her feet will be in the air.
Vhyrus: desperately trying to become a harem anime protagonist.
Um, no. I would actually fuck them.
That might not work out so good.
Oh come on now.. how many of them can do that? 5, maybe 10%? I’ll take my chances.
This is old, but was linked in the comments and is pure perfection.
http://www.laweekly.com/news/japanese-man-wins-masturbation-championship-after-10-hour-jerk-session-2530574
#RelationshipGoals
What a waste
*sigh* So needy the Canadians.
Good to hear Corpus is picking up. I have spent a lot of time down there, almost moved there but changed my mind.
That empty bullet point is still there.
Let’s try and fill it in.
i aM A femiNist #9: Zachary, 19. Seattle, Washington
Part of a photojournalist’s series of interviews with male feminists
“I think most of the reason that I’m a feminist has to do with the fact that I’m gay. Growing up, I was aware of different stereotypes between the two genders so I was aware of misogyny at a very early age. My mom always tells me that when we would go through the McDonald’s Drive-Thru and they’d ask if I wanted a girl-toy or a boy-toy, I would always want the Polly Pocket and my mom would yell at them and say: “That is so sexist and discriminatory. Why should they be labeled either way? You should just say the name of the toy and not if it’s for a boy or a girl.” Seeing that obviously put into my mind that there are destructive stereotypes around both genders so I think I was aware of it from a very early age.”
Aw, hon… no it’s not.
they’d ask if I wanted a girl-toy or a boy-toy
Unless he already came out to them, it’s pretty progressive. I mean, I didn’t know ‘sexual gratification’ was on the menu at McD drive through, I should check that out…
Now if she knew he was gay by then, obviously he’d want a boytoy.
I had to get my daughter Transformers toys there all the time. Not sure if she’s a lesbo yet, but she has a bigtime crush on Eddie Redmayne.
Who was The Danish Girl.
Hmmm …
Who was … The … Danish … Girl.
Hmmmm.
That is so sexist and discriminatory. Why should they be labeled either way
Because people working minimum wage jobs give a shit about your pet causes?
I just need to ask this question. What is the difference between a male feminist and a pussy? Mangina, if you will?
A pussy can be fun to spend some time with (say 20-30 minutes) and it doesn’t complain incessantly. What that pussy is attached to however…
“Liberals like Moulitsas have almost become caricatures of the smug and unsympathetic liberal elite that right-wingers have long depicted; it’s as if liberals have gradually come to adopt the ridiculous qualities that Republicans have assigned to them over the years. Which brings us to an important point: Leftists haven’t suddenly jumped on the liberal-bashing bandwagon because it’s the hip thing to do in the age of Trump, but because many self-described liberals have become the obnoxious and out-of-touch liberal elite that conservatives have long claimed them to be, while simultaneously shifting toward the right on various economic issues. (To be fair, obviously the right doesn’t see it this way.)”
“while simultaneously shifting toward the right on various economic issues.”
Which economic issues? healthcare? welfare? military (ok probably on this one)
Adding fuel to the fire
“Masked loyalists break court order to extend Eleventh night bonfire…
“Belfast City Council secured a High Court injunction on Friday preventing more materials being added to four loyalist bonfires in Belfast amid health and safety concerns.
“However, on Monday at Inverary playing fields – one of the sites covered by the injunction – pallets were being added to the bonfire. Video and photographs taken by the Press Association shows piles of wooden pallets being lifted onto the bonfire and then stacked on top by two masked men.
“Loyalists in east Belfast have been left angry by the court injunction.”
Gotta love strolling season.
“’I hope that we, when we stand up to those who oppress our communities, that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad,’ [Linda Sarsour] said. ‘That we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or in the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House.’”
A personal struggle. “My Struggle.”
I hope she writes a book on the topic!
From jail.
They need to get together and form some kind of group. A ‘Kampfgruppe’ if you will.
Well then Linda, let’s just see what actual fascists had to say about Islam, shall we?
TL, DR; Heavy weights with fewer reps build strength more efficiently. Something that’s been known for a while…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4681956/Strength-comes-nerves-muscles.html
I was just about to say that was taught to me in the 90’s.
“Members of BlackLivesMatter757, along with other activist organizations, plan to shut down streets around Hampton Roads tonight.
“The peace marches are scheduled to start at 7:57 p.m….”
Why 7:57?
I get it, area code.
“In my day, we got our protests started in the first third of the hour, not the last! Lazy millennials!”
They changed up the area codes in my state about 10 years ago. Little Rock went from 501 to 479.
That really screwed up the tattoos for a lot of the local gangs.
They should stick to airport codes.
LOLOL what a clown he was
Area code of the Hampton Roads region
I suppose I should refresh more ofteb
That’s great. They’re no longer contained to Portsmouth.
Hope they run into the Piece March.
Now this is what I call journalism!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/3970708/reporter-strips-naked-quiz-nude-swingers-wife-swapping-bizarre-telly-segment/
Is BakedPenguin paying attention?
I am outraged by the pixelation.
There is a whole lot of would in that article.
US soldier caught aiding ISIS.
video at the top from CBS.looking for another link
The soldier’s name is Ikaika Kang. Lolwut?
HE
WUZIZ KANG?Kodos could not be reached for comment.
Can’t believe I voted for him…
What were you going to do, vote third party and throw your vote away?
That guy got made fun of in basic.
Is it trollish if I try to stirrup some discussion?
“A PAIR of iron stirrups that King William of Orange wore at the Battle of the Boyne have been left on the shelf after they failed to sell at auction….
“The stirrups were worn by King William III – King Billy to his admirers in Northern Ireland – at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690….
“Given that Orangemen are currently preparing for their annual Twelfth of July celebration of that victory over Catholic King James II, it was thought the sale was impeccably timed – but that was obviously not the case….
“A manuscript written by William Blacker records that a horse wearing the stirrups – at the head of a parade of Orangemen in 1837 – required a team of men to beat back the crowds, as “there was a multitude, particularly of old people, both men and women, who strove to kiss or touch the relics as they passed along”.”
I guess they belatedly realized that they were Protestants and were embarrassed about making a fuss over some old relics.
It wouldn’t bother me terribly if they started called Trump ‘king Donald the Orange’, only because I would lol.
No German will wear the royal name of the Dutch, a line must be drawn here, no further!
Better known as “Donald the Small-Handed”
Donald the Coiffed. Just because I want to hear averyone mispronounce the word coiffed.
I don’t think anyone can one up Darth Cheeto.
Grand Moff Cheeto?
Doesn’t say what the reserve was at auction. Pretty much any time something doesn’t sell at auction, its because the reserve wasn’t met.
Now, if it was an absolute auction, and nobody bid so much as a farthing (or whatever the Brits use these days), that would be news. As it is, its a big nothing – “Owner of antique overestimates value, item doesn’t sell” is pure dog-bites-man.
This says “the lot – auctioned at Christie’s on Thursday – failed to meet the reserve price of £40,000-£60,000.”
“Way to recognize an untapped market.”
Uh…I think if it were untapped there wouldn’t be a problem.
*I haven’t read through yet and I am sure I am not the first one to make that joke.
*repeats victory dance*
Not sure if satire…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/glanton/ct-soda-tax-addiction-dahleen-glanton-met-20170708-column.html
“You have reached your monthly limit”
“I have no self control!”
“But the lure of that dark, fizzy liquid going down my throat was just too hard to overcome.”
That’s not Coke Zero in those two cups, Lady.
EDIT FAIRY: “Ok.”
Hey, edit fairy, can I get a link for this?
The Edit Fairy can Oxford my comma anytime, IYKWIMAITYD.
She’s hot.
Someone quite a while back posted a long cartoon about how people want the government to basically beat them out of a habit because they can’t do it themselves. It was apparently spot on.
There should be a law. Or a tax, or, a something.
Actually, I bet it is quite uncommon, even with the backwoods inbred snakehandlers who live in Georgia.
Yeah, it sounds like an anecdote they pulled out of their ass.
More likely fruit juice, which isn’t always that much better than soda.
Statist bitch. How about they make up their city budget by taxing your stupid. I fucking hate big governments little propagandist bitches.
The thing is it doesn’t matter how high they make the tax. She admits she has a problem, she would just be broke with the same problem, and bitching 3 times as hard.
My biggest problem with her is that she can’t fathom the idea that maybe they could solve their budget problem by cutting spending instead of taxing every damn thing. Oh noes, we have to get the money somewhere! smack.
Maybe they should outlaw soda so that the market value rises 1000%, violent criminal elements become the primary suppliers, an enormous and ever expanding government agency can be formed to combat soda proloferation, and soda quality and strength can become iffy. That sounds like a good idea.
TL;DR
“I have a bad habit, and I’ve decided to get rid of it. It’s really hard to give up, so someone needs to hold a gun to my head to make me give it up. Since I don’t approve of my own weakness, anyone else with the same habit should be forced to give it up as well.”
if you ever read Jack London’s book John Barleycorn, it’s the same attitude. He literally makes the case that he’s going to vote for alcohol prohibition because he has struggled with alcohol all his life. He was a great novelist, but he did suffer from the “progressive” mindset. It’s probably also why he was an out-and-out socialist (although he became disillusioned with that ideology later in life).
Greenwald shows the rest of the media how to actually report on possible corruption.
https://theintercept.com/2017/07/10/jared-kushner-tried-and-failed-to-get-a-half-billion-dollar-bailout-from-qatar/
I keep hearing about some sort of “real estate bubble” but I look across the city from my NJ office and see dozens of new condo buildings going up at any given time. It’s unbelievable. And Jersey City… OMG. More dozens of new condo buildings.
Apparently Kushner paid double going rates for the 666 building in 2007 and they already sold off the valuable part of the building just to make payments. So now they’re a half billion in the hole on the building and the mortgage is due is 2019.
As it turns out he lost bailout funding from Qatar right before Daddy started supporting the Saudi efforts against them.
Looks pretty shitty just on the face of it. If nothing else, Kushner needs to go. It’s a bad idea to have someone in massive debt at those levels of power in any case.
Wait, you’re saying there’s some funny business associated with the number 666?
The fact that someone looked at a building legitimately numbered 666 and said “My god this is an EXCELLENT location to start my multi billion dollar real estate business!” is a bit shocking to me, and I am not even remotely religious.
We’re still waiting on confirmation of a thirteenth floor.
It’s obvious that Kushner was just thinking ahead and he found the perfect building for Trump’s throne once he ascends as anti-Christ.
SugarFree, please call your office….
You may be onto something…Wikipedia says tenants have included law firms, hedge funds and DC Comics.
Maybe they can find where they buried the body of DC’s movie division…
Paaaleeeese. When Trump ascends to antichrist status it will be on the roof of Trump tower under a blood moon and he will have already had the street numbering redone by executive order.
Well, maybe Kushner thinks since he has the little 666 building he can be mini-anti Christ. Sort of like mini-me, you know. The Bible was written thousands of years ago. Today, any super villain, I mean especially THE super villain of all super villains has to have a side kick.
Agree. WTF is he even there for?
But I have to say, if he’s not making bank on NYC real estate, he’s doing it wrong. Everyone else seems to be.
He’s apparently a very rich retard who pays double going rates per square foot. This was his big intro to NYC real estate.
Suggests to me that he’s a sheltered idiot.
The building is hideous. What he’s really buying is the land, I guess.
Do you know what might be hidden within a building numbered 666? No one knows what might be in there!
Like I said, law firms, hedge funds, and (formerly) DC Comics.
Hillary’s soul?
That is my take scruffy. I have not looked into it much, but what I read, the whole family is great at getting people to lend them money for shit. They get financing for a gold plated life and produce shit. Like I said elsewhere, I could be wrong, but that is the impression I get.
According to the article, they lost the bailout funding due to political criticism of a deal with a Chinese company, which pulled out. The Qatar money was contingent on finding another investor.
I look across the city from my NJ office and see dozens of new condo buildings going up at any given time
That’s pretty much what a bubble looks like.
I probably meant to say “signs of a bubble bursting” or something like that. Cuz those buildings all get completed and sold. Of course, nobody lives in them.
I remember that.
The whole group stinks. I am still glad we are not guessing what the Clinton posse is up to because the media would not touch it if the bearer of the vessel had won, but good god, the Kushners are slime of the first rate from what I can figure out. Maybe I am ignorant or being harsh, but I have never heard a redeeming quality of that clan.
I love baseball, but god-fucking-help-me, I’m about to watch the ASG Home Run Derby. Every year when I do this I feel like a cokehead picking through the carpet for chunks. ESPN2 has it in Spanish. Maybe that will suck less. (Probably not.)
Also, I’ve never heard of the “artist” Pitbull. Does he know he looks like a Latin Rob Halford?
At least one other individual has made the same conclusion.
https://twitter.com/smalltownmike/status/139839900093652993
Unless of course that’s your twitter, in which case enjoy your doxx.
“This is CNN”
I drink too much to have a twitter account. In my mind being on twitter would be about as safe as having a glass coffee table.
Call me when “Pitbull” has the chutzpah to wear this. Until then, he doesn’t have a down payment on looking like Rob Halfod.
No one ever said Pitbull would be anyone’s Turbo Lover.
People actually watch the Home Run Derby and the Some-Star Game?
Yes, Ted. Some of us do. Ain’t sayin’ I’m proud of it.
For what it’s worth, I don’t watch any of the all-star games, being glorified exhibitions.
And I hate how tennis players bitch about the length of the season, and then play moneymaking exhibitions in November and December.
Okja! Everybody in this movie is aggressively stupid! I can’t even root for the CGI super-pig!
Evergreen faculty are “terrified” after witch-hunted prof goes on Fox News.
Holy fuck, I read something sane on Huffington Post. They must be having snowball fights in hell right now.
First Salon attacks CNN, now this. What the Hell’s going on here?!!
The people who held their noses and voted for Hillary while fantasizing about Bernie are fighting the people who were With Her all the way?
/hypothesis
People with impeccably progressive credentials are being called racists and threatened, even if they’re tenured university professors who supposedly have a cushy gig?
/another hypothesis, which I call the “this time you’ve gone too far” hypothesis
Ah, the enablers are being attacked by those they’ve enabled. It was bound to happen eventually.
The medium-crazies, having enthusiastically participated in the purges of the not-crazies and kinda-sorta-crazies, have belatedly realised that they’re next.
You can always count on the NYT though. Missouri U’s fall into oblivion was the Nazis fault.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/university-of-missouri-enrollment-protests-fallout.html
“But, she said, she understands why black students might not apply to a campus where they are all but invisible. A friend’s boyfriend obliviously told her she looked like Aunt Jemima, and she was dismayed that her friend did not object.”
The horror, THE HORROR!
The best part is that Aunt Jemima actually looks waaaay better than her.
NSFW NSFW NSFW
Plus Aunt Jemima has pancakes and syrup.
Why does aunt jemima look frighteningly like Quagmire in that picture?
Here you go Vhyrus. Let that image go.
https://youtu.be/tY8Awgc8XlQ
Yes, banish that nightmarish image from your mind.
Nope. Not gonna happen.
OK, then, look at this picture with the totally non-suggestive caption
the original aunt Jemima was welch.
https://mises.org/library/aunt-jemima-redcoats-are-coming
I was about to say the same thing.
Obviously we will be struck by a meteor tonight. This is unheard of.
How is it that there are no comments on that story?
My guess is it is not allowed.
Take off and nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
I have a hard time believing that that asshole bullies are the majority at these campuses. It’s a shame that the administrators don’t have the balls to just start kicking people out who can’t act like adults on campus. With more and more online degrees available, I think there going to find themselves going extinct. It’s probably for the best.
They aren’t anywhere close to the majority, I’m sure, but if you whip a member of the “Security Committee’s” ass when they threaten you with a baseball bat you’d be the one who would be expelled and jailed. I’d imagine most of the other students loathe them but they’re too intimidated to even speak up.
They’re a very loud minority. And the administrators and the faculty are full on commies for the most part. Basically, they created these monsters and now they’ve lost control. So what happens? The faculty endures the wrath of the idiots while the administrators either encourage it or just basically give in to every loony demand that the students make. This cannot endure. It cannot endure anymore than the Democrat party can endure these idiots. I love watching the left implode.
“They’re a very loud minority.”
Way to stereotype Hyp.
Guess what the Seattle City council unanimously approved today?
100% Income Tax?
Well, there was an unkempt supporter there holding a sign that said tax unearned wealth, so I guess what she supports is taxing the city council members at 100%, but what she supports and what they passed are not the same. Or maybe they were the same, and her sign wasn’t very well-thought-out
“so I guess what she supports is taxing the city council members at 100%”
*waves hands in air* I’m with unkempt supporter!
Sounds like they may run afoul of the state constitution. We pay 2.5% income tax to Columbus. That’s in addition to Property Taxes.
Outlawing fossil fuels?
To appropriate all private property?
Rainbow Ponies?
Despite the excellent guesses JB has already taken, I got to get in on this…
1. Sugary drinks
2. Plastic bags
2. Cats
And by approved, I mean banned
I don’t know about cats. That may be the City Council’s only companionship
Well, I’m sure they’ll still allow properly licensed, regulated, and taxed cats. I mean as long as they’re not right wing cats.
$15 min wage is already in, right? You have bike sharing, too? And are a sanctuary city?
Er…some kind of light rail thing?
Calving off a good chunk of worker hours?
Behold
“The Council estimates that the tax would bring in an additional $140 million each year.”
Now all they have to do is pass an ordnance forbidding the rich to leave town. Also, 250K in Seattle ain’t rich.
If you’re single you can do fine on well less than $250,000 a year. I make well less than half of that, and I do fine,solidly middle class. But I also do something that most people don’t know how to do anymore which is called managing my fucking money. For instance I don’t buy artisinal everything.
Same here with me & NYC. I don’t make a spectacular salary but I have zero debt and a stellar credit rating. And that’s with being taxed up the ass.
No, but I’m guessing it’s above the pay of a Seattle council-critter.
Read my post below.
Wait a minute…
“$250,000”
Umm, rich? In Seattle? Ok, that’s it, folks. The middle class are now rich. Well, it’s all fitting because you can’t tax the actual rich that easily or enough. So as always, ‘we’re going to tax the rich’ means ‘bend over middle class, you ain’t had it hard enough, take this!’. Fucking assholes. They did the same thing in Maryland, only a lot better, since they started taxing the rich bastards making more than $100,000 a year, which barely gets you into the middle class in MD.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-council-to-vote-today-on-income-tax-on-the-wealthy/
And yet… you won’t be. Which makes your support for the tax rather suspect.
Is this her?
She’s not making $171,000 a year doing that, or I’m in the wrong fucking career.
I don’t know…moonlighting as a plumber? Trust fund?
Or a public sector union employee.
She can cut a check to the city of Seattle right now for 2.5% of her income. But I’m guessing she wouldn’t because it’s not about her it’s about bending others to her will.
I smell a complete fabrication on that one. Normal people don’t ask to be taxed more. In fact, the only people who say that are liars or they don’t owe any taxes. Some real journalism needs to be done on that one.
“Some real journalism needs to be done on that one.”
I’d say just look at her site above.
A little more digging suggests she works for Tableau Software. She does claim to have a degree in Comp Sci.
Social signaling with no consequences. A win-win for her.
“I would love to be taxes.”
Fuck you!
“I would love to be taxed”
Look if you’re into some sort of kinky shit, that’s your own affair, until you try to force it on me.
It’s a thinly disguised war against the middle class, as usual. Actual rich people aren’t going to pay any of this since it can’t be confiscated out of payroll. Typical douchebag politicians who are jealous of actually productive citizens who earn more than they do by not being parasites.
It’s way past time to put an end to career politics. Let these asshats serve one term in public office and then make them get REAL.FUCKING.JOBS.
It’s not thinly-disguised. It’s openly stated.
I posted this earlier on a post you made. Everything the government has done since i entered the middle class (11 years ago) has fucked me.
Yeah, I saw that. Same here. I can’t think of one single fucking thing they’ve done that has benefited me. Other than the Bush tax cuts, which is now completely lost because of the ACA.
Something that pisses me off, and since I’m home from work and and about 5 beers in I’ll share.
I live in the ruralist of rural fucking Arkansas. I can’t think of a single thing the federal government does for me, yet I give them 28% of my income every fucking year. WTF! FUCK THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS! I swear to god there are days I’m tempted to take my rifles and go, I better shut up. Fuck them. Fuck them with a rusty chain saw.
Someone stopped me whilst I was walking last week. Asked me if I was registered to vote. Told them yes, but I don’t vote. They asked me what they could do to get me to vote. I told them “drop a nuke on DC, whoever does that gets my vote.”
A city income tax? Ya, ok. Reading the arguments the city may make……..
Fuck the fuck off you muthafucking communist slaving muthafuckas. Go to hell you delusional evil fucks.
Calm down, dude, don’t you see, your income isn’t yours, it’s just what we’re nice enough to let you keep.
/your betters
Fuck my betters, also with a rusty chain saw.
So if income isn’t property you have no right to it and therefore no right to fairness or due process to be deprived of it. A bit of a dangerous precedent.
Ya, well, they are already kind of doing that. It is the upfront statement, which I guess would kind of be a breath of fresh air in the theft.
Enh, I’m used to a city income tax. It’s really just a “keep the underclass complacent” tax and they’re pretty upfront about it.
The Boys and Girls Club down in NYC used to run a summer camp up here in the Catskills where they’d send underprivileged kids for a week or two during the summer to get fresh air. Both of my sisters did light clerical work for the camp as their first summer jobs. Despite the camp being two hours north of the city, both of them had city income tax taken out of their checks.
The place is now an all-boys summer yeshiva.
What are the odds of this happening, rather than it leading to more spending? 0.0000000000000000000001%? Lower?
Regressive taxes like soda taxes?
Alright you glorious bastards, I’m out. I’ll be in Dublin for the next week or so, which means you won’t have to suffer my failed links, nor my commentary. I’ll be thinking of you all when I’m drinking far too much whiskey.
Say hi to the ghost of Yeats for us.
Have fun!
Alexa calls the cops.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/07/10/alexa-calls-cops-on-man-allegedly-beating-his-girlfriend.html
Vatican: ‘Body of Christ’ can’t be gluten-free
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2017/07/10/Vatican-Body-of-Christ-cant-be-gluten-free/5921499668968/?utm_source=sec&utm_campaign=sl&utm_medium=18
***
July 10 (UPI) — Pope Francis has decided that bread used to represent the Body of Christ in Eucharist ceremonies must have gluten.
A letter sent from Cardinal Robert Sarah of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on behalf of Pope Francis reminded bishops about the need to have wheat in the ceremonial bread.
“The bread used in the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharistic Sacrifice must be unleavened, purely of wheat, and recently made so that there is no danger of decomposition,” Sarah said. “It follows therefore that bread made from another substance, even if it is grain, or if it is mixed with another substance different from wheat to such an extent that it would not commonly be considered wheat bread, does not constitute valid matter for confecting the Sacrifice and the Eucharistic Sacrament.”
…
Catholics use wine to represent the Blood of Christ in their ceremonies, and the Vatican said it must be “natural, from the fruit of the grape, pure and incorrupt, not mixed with other substances.”
For those people who can’t drink wine, they can drink mustum, a thick, non-fermented grape juice.
***
[head desk]
The Body of Christ was so not woke.
The letter in question
Differing Latin Rite and Eastern Rite norms for whether the bread should be leavened
Oops –
Letter to the bishops
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/07/08/letter_to_bishops_on_the_bread_and_wine_for_the_eucharist/1323886
***
“Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist. Low-gluten hosts (partially gluten-free) are valid matter, provided they contain a sufficient amount of gluten to obtain the confection of bread without the addition of foreign materials and without the use of procedures that would alter the nature of bread” (A. 1-2).
***
[double face palm]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-FaxnVMWSE
If you can’t (or “can’t”) consume bread or wine is life really worth living anyway?
I don’t know about everywhere, but in Altus we were taking communion with real wine from first communion on.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Perpetual_Help_Church_(Altus,_Arkansas)&ved=0ahUKEwjQ3LXEl4DVAhUl3IMKHR6EDEMQFgiDAjAk&usg=AFQjCNG3-ddCw6VGiRBT6aRq2lZEGxYwQA
sorry for the long link. I’m on my phone.
it’s my home.church. built by German Cole miners in the oughts. Pretty cool and beautiful if you’re into that kind of thing.
I’m just surprised there are Catholics in Arkansas. :O
A lot of arkansas was settled by poles and Germans in the 1880s who were fleeing religious persecution from theor protestant overlords in Germany and poland. My earliest ancestor made his way way here from Elbrag, Germany in 1880. He settled on an 80 acre piece of land that is now the fairgrounds of conway, arkansas.
I did not know that – interesting!
Girl with digestive disease denied communion
8 year old cannot consume wheat wafers
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5762478/ns/health-allergies_and_asthma/t/girl-digestive-disease-denied-communion/
***
BRIELLE, N.J. — An 8-year-old girl who suffers from a serious digestive disorder and cannot eat wheat has had her first Holy Communion declared invalid because the wafer contained no wheat, violating Roman Catholic doctrine.
Now, Haley Waldman’s mother is pushing the Diocese of Trenton and the Vatican to make an exception, saying the girl’s condition should not exclude her from the sacrament, which commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ before his crucifixion. The mother believes a rice Communion wafer would suffice.
“It’s just not a viable option. How does it corrupt the tradition of the Last Supper? It’s just rice versus wheat,” said Elizabeth Pelly-Waldman.
Church doctrine holds that Communion wafers, like the bread served at the Last Supper, must have at least some unleavened wheat. Church leaders are reluctant to change anything about the sacrament.
“This is not an issue to be determined at the diocesan or parish level, but has already been decided for the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world by Vatican authority,” Trenton Bishop John M. Smith said in a statement last week.
***
[face palm]
That article was from 2004. Here is a statement from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2012, updated in 2016:
“The lay faithful who are not able to receive Holy Communion at all under the species of bread, even of low-gluten hosts, may receive Holy Communion under the species of wine only, regardless of whether the Precious Blood is offered to the rest of the faithful present at a given celebration of Mass….
“It is also worth recalling that, through the doctrine of concomitance, the Church teaches that under either species of bread or wine, the whole Christ is received (cf. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 282; Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1390). Thus, the faithful may be confident in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist they receive, even under only one or the other species.”
PS – Not minimizing the suffering of Celiac patients, but under the “rules” they can receive the body of Christ, and if necessary special accommodations must be made.
Even that 2004 article contains this sentence (expressed in journalese, not theological language):
“The diocese has told Haley’s mother that the girl can receive a low-gluten wafer, *or just drink wine at Communion,* [emphasis added] but that anything without gluten does not qualify. Pelly-Waldman rejected the offer, saying her child could be harmed by even a small amount of the substance.”
So they said at the time she could receive Holy Communion under the species of wine only and it would be quite OK. The article doesn’t explain why this is so awful, perhaps (I venture to suggest) because the author isn’t 100% on all the nuances.
Let me put it this way – should a soldier wear flip-flops, shorts, and a T-shirt while ceremonially folding the flag at a military funeral? Should he just scrunch up the flag into a ball before handing it to the widow?
Once you can laugh at that, you can laugh at concerns for the proper observance of the Eucharist.
I care very little about rules and rituals, particularly when the rules contradict themselves. The church already allows people to drink grape juice instead of wine, so why are they refusing to allow a gluten free host?
No one knew what gluten was when this ceremony was invented!
No, but they knew what wheat is. That said, they should offer an alternative for the wheat-challenged.
The faithful can take communion exclusively under one species, bread or wine (see above). Those who deny this are called Ultraquists, and their heresy has been duly condemned.
From the Council of Trent:
“neither can it by any means be doubted, without injury to faith, that communion under either species is sufficient for them unto salvation.”
SF’ed the link but I love the word “Ultraquists” – dayum.
Ultraquism:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15244b.htm
HA, the bloody Hussites. A term I never hear about outside of Czech history courses.
+1 (doctrinally, several) war wagon
To use your military analogy, soldiers are supposed to salute with their right hand. Suppose a soldier gets injured and has to use crutches. Should the military punish him for not being able to salute?
This isn’t hypothetical, by the way.
To use your military analogy, suppose a salute with the left hand was considered just as acceptable as a salute with the right hand? That is the situation with allowing the faithful to take communion under either species.
I should say “this is the relevant analogy.”
You’re not gonna like this eddie, but the girl with the allergy shouldn’t be affected by the raw raw material of the euharistic bread. During the ceLebanon of the eucharist, the bread is transformed into the body of christ. Every good catholic knows this.
She can’t be allergic to the the end product, because the end product is the corpus christi.
Phone English SMDH
Here you go
“3. When the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, why do they still look and taste like bread and wine?
“In the celebration of the Eucharist, the glorified Christ becomes present under the appearances of bread and wine in a way that is unique, a way that is uniquely suited to the Eucharist. In the Church’s traditional theological language, in the act of consecration during the Eucharist the “substance” of the bread and wine is changed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the “substance” of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. At the same time, the “accidents” or appearances of bread and wine remain. “Substance” and “accident” are here used as philosophical terms that have been adapted by great medieval theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas in their efforts to understand and explain the faith. Such terms are used to convey the fact that what appears to be bread and wine in every way (at the level of “accidents” or physical attributes – that is, what can be seen, touched, tasted, or measured) in fact is now the Body and Blood of Christ (at the level of “substance” or deepest reality). This change at the level of substance from bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is called “transubstantiation.” According to Catholic faith, we can speak of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist because this transubstantiation has occurred (cf. Catechism, no. 1376). This is a great mystery of our faith—we can only know it from Christ’s teaching given us in the Scriptures and in the Tradition of the Church. Every other change that occurs in the world involves a change in accidents or characteristics. Sometimes the accidents change while the substance remains the same. For example, when a child reaches adulthood, the characteristics of the human person change in many ways, but the adult remains the same person—the same substance. At other times, the substance and the accidents both change. For example, when a person eats an apple, the apple is incorporated into the body of that person—is changed into the body of that person. When this change of substance occurs, however, the accidents or characteristics of the apple do not remain. As the apple is changed into the body of the person, it takes on the accidents or characteristics of the body of that person. Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is unique in that, even though the consecrated bread and wine truly are in substance the Body and Blood of Christ, they have none of the accidents or characteristics of a human body, but only those of bread and wine.
“4. Does the bread cease to be bread and the wine cease to be wine?
“Yes. In order for the whole Christ to be present—body, blood, soul, and divinity—the bread and wine cannot remain, but must give way so that his glorified Body and Blood may be present. Thus in the Eucharist the bread ceases to be bread in substance, and becomes the Body of Christ, while the wine ceases to be wine in substance, and becomes the Blood of Christ. As St. Thomas Aquinas observed, Christ is not quoted as saying, ” This bread is my body,” but ” This is my body” ( Summa Theologiae, III q. 78, a. 5).
“5. Is it fitting that Christ’s Body and Blood become present in the Eucharist under the appearances of bread and wine?
“Yes, for this way of being present corresponds perfectly to the sacramental celebration of the Eucharist. Jesus Christ gives himself to us in a form that employs the symbolism inherent in eating bread and drinking wine. Furthermore, being present under the appearances of bread and wine, Christ gives himself to us in a form that is appropriate for human eating and drinking. Also, this kind of presence corresponds to the virtue of faith, for the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ cannot be detected or discerned by any way other than faith. That is why St. Bonaventure affirmed: “There is no difficulty over Christ’s being present in the sacrament as in a sign; the great difficulty is in the fact that He is really in the sacrament, as He is in heaven. And so believing this is especially meritorious” ( In IV Sent., dist. X, P. I, art. un., qu. I). On the authority of God who reveals himself to us, by faith we believe that which cannot be grasped by our human faculties (cf. Catechism, no. 1381).”
You are reminding me of my apologetics classes. Love you Eddie
you do good work on this site.
I am an agnostic who none the less raises my child in the Catholic Church because I believe tjere is value in it.
In all seriousness, much of what I learn about the Catholic faith is looking up links to post here.
(Although I had certainly heard of Ultraquism before)
I’m a non-believer who was raised Catholic for awhile* but I do find the discussion interesting.
*Due to mom’s boyfriend between the ages of 5 and 10. And in fact I was required to declare as such for Gymnasium in Germany one year!
‘Raised Catholic’ is very different based on the circumstances. There’s the Gilmore-esque ‘raised Catholic’ of ‘went to church on Easter and Christmas’ and the ‘raised Catholic’ of ‘learned about St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas in elementary school’.
I vaguely remember some religious instruction and lots of hanging out in the church even during off-hours. Mass was every Sunday morning.
Well clearly it worked, lest the sodomite continue his fowl achievements.
I thought we weren’t supposed to mention The SIV…
This is why, while I may not believe in God, I could be persuaded to believe in a Catholic (though more likely Eastern Rite one) Church.
Obligatory – I’d unironically want a priest like this over what most churches present.
Goddamn you. I miss the fire and brimstone preachers. I certainly respected them more than the current crop.
Two thousand years of bullshit reasoning is certainly superior to new age bullshit reasoning.
LOL
“we believe that which cannot be grasped by our human faculties”
If you don’t understand it, how can you be sure your belief about it is correct?
Getting back to my original post, here is a Sowell quote that sums up my thoughts on the subject:
***
In the summer of 1959, as in the summer of 1957, I worked as a clerk-typist in the headquarters of the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington. The people I worked for were very nice and I grew to like them.
One day, a man had a heart attack at around 5 PM, on the sidewalk outside the Public Health Service. He was taken inside to the nurse’s room, where he was asked if he was a government employee. If he were, he would have been eligible to be taken to a medical facility there. Unfortunately, he was not, so a phone call was made to a local hospital to send an ambulance. By the time this ambulance made its way through miles of Washington rush-hour traffic, the man was dead.
He died waiting for a doctor, in a building full of doctors.
Nothing so dramatized for me the nature of a bureaucracy and its emphasis on procedures, rather than results.
***
I’m sure the bureaucrats consoled themselves afterwards that they had done all they could do.
“We have rules! Procedures were followed! We can’t just let people use the hospital willy-nilly!”
But the man is still dead and the people who let him die rather than break the rules are scum. I have nothing but contempt for people who value rules over results.
But with all possible respect, this isn’t the case here, they offered that sick little girl the precious body and blood of the Lord under the species of wine, under which she’d receive the whole Christ.
Being cynical, I imagine there were cases where the Church authorities ignored the canonical rights of the Celiac sufferers – the fact that the bishops, etc., issued documents on the issue, indicated that there was need for guidance.
But the *rules themselves* provide that people like this girl have the right to the sacraments of the Church, including Holy Communion – even if they receive the Lord in one kind only.
In other words, following the rules strictly would mean *guaranteeing* Communion to Celiac sufferers (if properly disposed, etc.)
All this time I thought the Eucharist was made out of cardboard.
amusing: top 10 “islamophobes”
You can probably guess who number 1 is.
http://deovolentenl.nl/islamophobe-top-10/
Curtis LeMay?
On the other hand,
makes Baby Patton cry.
Hawaii: Muslim US soldier swore allegiance to Islamic State, tried to pass documents to it
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/07/hawaii-muslim-us-soldier-swore-allegiance-to-islamic-state-tried-to-pass-documents-to-it
Muslima blows herself and her baby up in effort to murder Iraqi soldiers
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/07/muslima-blows-herself-and-her-baby-up-in-effort-to-murder-iraqi-soldiers
Does she get 27 virgins? Are there bonus virgins for the baby?
“Muslima“? Muslimx?
Muslimx. Isn’t that the cold stuff that really clears up congestion?
I think it’s a Swiss-derived breakfast food.
Muslimx is made from people!
Contrary the
currentseveral centuries prevailing theory, English language should get serious about gendering nouns.Think of many shitty stories and novels whose point hinges on the unexpected gender of “The Boss”, “The Assassin,” “The Driver” etc that would never be written…
OTOH, think of all the woke BS we could have avoided by having non-gendered pronouns like such languages as Turkish.
on the unexpected gender of “The Boss”
You talkin’ shit about Metal Gear Solid 3 boy?
In case anyone else is interested, I just found out about this. I really didn’t think I would go for a first gen VR headset, but this is too good to pass up.
Oculus summer sale
Headset, 2 motion controllers, 2 sensors, xbox controller, and 7 games, $399. I hope you lose money on this, derpbook, because I totally hate you, but I’m buying this.
Supposedly, Star Trek Bridge Crew isn’t made of garbage.
Good luck with it – I tried Vive but it just doesn’t work with glasses. Tell us what the porns are like!
In contrast to Old Man Zagloba, I can confirm that Oculus is actually pretty good and enjoyable. Bear in mind my experiences are from a year ago but I saw clear potential.
To be fair, I have the same problem with 3D movies – I need to get over the ‘ick’ factor and try contacts already, but I’m useless without my glasses 🙁
I didn’t have much faith in 3D movies either, but my limited experiences with VR simulators at least show that there’s a clear potential in the ideas, they just need to be willing to define themselves with the VR experience, which, as Bridge Crew shows, they’re at least partially willing to.
According to what people are saying, it’s much improved by the touch controllers and the sensors. Similar FPS and screen resolution to VIVE. No doubt VIVE is still the best headset at this time, but it’s not 2x the price better. I’m just not willing to pay $800 for a first gen headset, but $399 and the freebies, I’m in. Will let ya’ll know how it turns out.
Thanks to Larry Correia linking, I found out Duffelblog interview with Gen Mathis
It would be awesome if even one of those was actually true.
I see no reason the last two wouldn’t be allowed.