Durrr!!! I meant to reply to Vhyrus’ momentous achievement above.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 3:03 pm
That chainsaw looks sweet
Grumbletarian
on November 8, 2017 at 6:05 pm
A chainsaw bayonet? Surprised they didn’t mention the bullet button.
F. Stupidity Jr.
on November 8, 2017 at 3:05 pm
NOBODY outside of our military and police departments needs to own a weapon like this.
And if Chelly Black AKA aggiebabe1 doesn’t know best what people’s needs are, who does?
Rufus the Monocled
on November 8, 2017 at 3:09 pm
It’s people like her that make me want to have one.
Because that’s PRECISELY why you should. The minute they know where the guns are….CAPUT.
They call this paranoia but it’s human nature as thousands of history shows all too depressingly well.
wdalasio
on November 8, 2017 at 3:19 pm
Maybe somebody can answer something for me? What the hell does need have to do with rights anyway? I keep hearing people use it like it’s some kind of trump card. But, I can’t see why people need to worship or not worship as they see fit, petition the government for redress of grievances. or be secure in their homes or effects from search and seizure.
I’d always assumed that we had those rights, not because we need them, but because, like the right to self-defense that the Second Amendment is an expression of, they’re inherent to humanity. A society that curtails those rights is morally wrong, not because it’s denying people things they need, but because it is demanding people deny what it fundamentally means to be human.
Is there some sort of need argument I’m unfamiliar with?
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 3:25 pm
You haven’t heard of the bill of needs, bro?
Rufus the Monocled
on November 8, 2017 at 3:31 pm
Was that before or after the ‘Bill of wants”? Or was it the ‘Bill of entitled shit?’
In theory (and in the minds of the authors of the Bill of Rights), you’re pretty much correct. Unfortunately for some reason the prevailing view came to be not that, but that the Bill of Rights is what gives us those rights, and they can be curtailed from there at the whim of the government.
I’ve come along to the belief that Alexander Hamilton was correct in Federalist 84. The bill of rights shouldn’t have existed, because it’s led us to where we are today.
Nah, we would have lost our rights even faster. The people who believe the way you describe are engaged in “motivated reasoning”. They would have found some other excuse for power.
Mad Scientist
on November 8, 2017 at 3:51 pm
Agreed. They’ve already whittled the BoR down to almost nothing. Without it blocking their way, they would have taken their bullshit much further.
A Leap at the Wheel
on November 8, 2017 at 3:58 pm
I think so. its pretty unfamiliar to me too, but listening to one of those coastal cosmotarian podcasts gave me a little insight because the coastal cosmotarian knew intellectually that this argument is right, but he clearly didn’t know it in his heart. As such, he was able to articulate the anti-RKBA position.
First off, you have to set aside the historically accurate view that the premise of the 2nd amendment is a recognition of a law of nature and understand the ahistorical position of the anti-RKBA crowd. They think that the bill of rights are decisions about various cost benefit analyses. Its better, all things considered, to have free speech. So we do. Its better, all things considered, to have a prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. So we have it.
But is it better, all things considered, to have a RKBA? Well, obviously there are costs. I don’t think I need to turn in my RKBA card to say that there are some terrible incidents that would not have happened if there was no RKBA. Therefore, there is some cost to the keeping and bearing of arms.
This is a “all things considered” analysis, so we need to look the total cost, which is all benefits – all costs. As a pro RKBA, I can give you a list of benefits. But consider the kind of person that that has 0 experience with firearms. 0 understanding of the way they work. 0 understanding of how they’ve been used for self protection by oppressed minority populations. To them, the “all benefits” variable is literally 0. They have no conception of the benefits of this tool any more than they have a conception of the benefits of, say knowing how to change your own tire (they take the subway everywhere), or the importance of water rights out west (they live on the east coast and if you want rain just wait a few days).
So since the bill of rights is a list of things that have a value > 0 when you subtract the costs from the merits, and since 0 merits – any cost is <0, they see the RKBA in the second amendment as a mathematically incorrect statement. Its constitutional cognitive dissonance for them.
So they do what everyone does in the face of cognitive dissonance, they try to reduce the paradox. If they had an appreciation for the rule of law, they would lobby to get the 2nd amendment stricken from the constitution. But because they don't have an appreciation for the rule of law, any regulation that infringes the RKBA reduces that dissonance for them.
Gustave Lytton
on November 8, 2017 at 3:21 pm
So why do police departments need anything more than a six shooter? Particularly if no other civilians are armed.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 3:28 pm
Time for my favorite (probably apocryphal) story again!
So it goes that there was a Texas Ranger who carried a six-shooter, with five bullets and the hammer resting on the empty cylinder. He was asked why, and said that the hammer resting on an empty cylinder. He was then asked whether he was endangering his own position with only five bullets instead of six. He responded that if he couldn’t hit his target with 5 bullets, the sixth wouldn’t do him much good.
(I say we limit police to what Barney Fife had: One bullet, in his pocket, gun empty.)
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 3:34 pm
In the old west they did leave one chamber empty because there was no half cock on the old revolvers and if you didn’t leave one empty the hammer would rest on a live primer and could go off if the gun was dropped or hit.
mexican sharpshooter
on November 8, 2017 at 6:21 pm
If you have ever seen Young Guns. The scene where Billy asks to see the TX Ranger’s pistol actually did happen with the exception that Billy set the cylinder to the empty chamber rather than emptying all the chambers. Which gave him a chance to mock the guy before he shot him.
dbleagle
on November 8, 2017 at 7:59 pm
I own an old style Ruger Blackhawk .357 and keep an empty cylinder for just that reason. Load 1, skip 1 load 4.
mexican sharpshooter
on November 8, 2017 at 4:19 pm
I dont care what you all say. That chick is a winner.
Did Harriet Tubman need to own a weapon like the military and police?
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 3:05 pm
Are they going for some record on how wrong a single tweet can be?
Michael
on November 8, 2017 at 3:11 pm
Don’t you mean how AWESOMELY wrong? It has a fucking CHAINSAW ATTACHMENT!!!
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 3:14 pm
Except it doesn’t. One guy made one as a proof of concept and never sold it. Same with the underbarrel shotgun. That would immediately make the weapon a short barreled shotgun and subject to NFA restrictions. Not that anyone at USA actually did any real research into that fucking abomination.
Michael
on November 8, 2017 at 3:17 pm
Fuck your facts! I want the awesome assaultchainsawshotgun thing!
…and also the thing that goes up.
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 3:21 pm
Okay so apparently someone did actually start selling chainsaw bayonets. They cost 800, which is more than most ARs, and they weigh 6 pounds, which is about as much as the average AR.
bacon-magic
on November 8, 2017 at 3:41 pm
*orders chainsaw bayonet*
Gears of War dream realized!
*starts cutting desk, saw binds up and gets tossed over desk*
Zunalter
on November 8, 2017 at 3:10 pm
To clarify, the video shows both the shooter’s modifications, as well as other possible modifications. The shooter did not use a chainsaw bayonet.
…Well okay then.
Chipwooder
on November 8, 2017 at 3:19 pm
WHEW! Glad they set the record straight.
CPRM
on November 8, 2017 at 3:13 pm
That flashlight add-on makes it so much deadlier.
mexican sharpshooter
on November 8, 2017 at 4:24 pm
IT MEANS YOU CAN GO ON A KILLING SPREE…AT NIGHT!!!
commodious spittoon
on November 8, 2017 at 3:30 pm
The fundamental unfairness of civil forfeiture laws has created a strange bedfellows coalition of advocates in recent years. In Alabama, for example, the SPLC is working alongside groups like the conservative Institute for Justice and the Charles Koch Institute to seek legislative reforms. The SPLC believes the state must protect the rights of innocent property owners and bring transparency to the process.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 3:04 pm
These groups should not work with the SPLC. They should be ostracized as the frauds that they are.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 3:05 pm
I’d think the SPLC’s presence would hurt their efforts in Alabama.
I can see why IJ would work with them, but I wish they wouldn’t.
Zunalter
on November 8, 2017 at 3:12 pm
The SPLC believes the state must protect the rights of innocent guilty property owners
I would say that guilty property owners are also in need of protection.
Years ago I knew a guy whose microwave would stay on when he opened the door. He non-nonchalantly opened the door to turn his food with his hand while I stared, eyes bugged out like Wile Coyote, backing towards the door as quickly as I could.
Some electrical connection which permitted the control board to well, run, came loose. Someone with more gumption could chase down the fault and probably fix it, but the screen had aged to nigh unreadable, and other similar bits of “character” that amke old appliances a bit of a hassle.
My Sears Kenmore microwave/convection oven was purchased 1985 and it still works like new. My then wife and I bought it from her boss in about 1992. I still have her bosses original receipt. The thing cost him over $800.00. That would be about $1,800.00 in 2017 dollars. Wow!
MikeS
on November 8, 2017 at 4:27 pm
Yes, yes. Nice microwave.
What I want to know is what is happening with Akira’s Crock Pot situation?
jesse.in.mb
on November 8, 2017 at 4:34 pm
Akira’s Crock Pot situation
KAAAAANNNNNEEEEEEEEDDAAAAAAAAAAAA
Juan-Baptiste Emmanuel Seguin
on November 8, 2017 at 8:19 pm
Kaneda brand Crock Pots ™ we tower over the competition. Also, Neo Tokyo
Juan-Baptiste Emmanuel Seguin
on November 8, 2017 at 8:20 pm
Ooops…i meant Tetsuo
Akira
on November 8, 2017 at 8:35 pm
Nothing much… It’s just sitting in the same spot. I guess I’ll go buy a new one this weekend. I’m paranoid about shit like that, and a crock pot is cheaper than the hassle of my house burning down (even with homeowners insurance).
We tried to offer you pizza, but you just slathered katchup on the box and started chowing down. I think all that casserole has rotted your brain.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 3:22 pm
People from New York are a disgrace to this country
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 3:23 pm
New Yorkers are worse than CANADIANS!
But Enough About Me
on November 8, 2017 at 3:54 pm
Them’s fightin’ words.
NOBODY’S worse than us Canadians.
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 4:17 pm
New Yorkers are the white people of Americans.
mexican sharpshooter
on November 8, 2017 at 6:24 pm
Stop it. All of you! Just order from Papa Johns like the racist rethuglicans you are.
Michael
on November 8, 2017 at 3:10 pm
A short while ago some reporter asked him about this. He replied that he wasn’t willing to entertain any of the groups’ demands because once you concede to even just one then everybody else comes out of the woodwork with their own demands. Takes a grifter to know a grifter, I guess.
invisible finger
on November 8, 2017 at 3:42 pm
I think it’s great Obama is the excuse to create a DMZ between Hyde Park and the hell hole just to the south.
Rufus the Monocled
on November 8, 2017 at 3:07 pm
DON’T ANY OF YOU WORK?
GDP NEEDS UPPING!
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 3:11 pm
Does whipping my orphan slaves when their monocle production slows count as “work”?
Rufus the Monocled
on November 8, 2017 at 3:14 pm
That’s more like pleasure.
But fine.
Keeping civilization proper is a labour of love.
bacon-magic
on November 8, 2017 at 3:32 pm
You’re one sick puppet.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 3:54 pm
Dude it’s like 5pm, I started at 8am. What kind of slaver are you?, I’m having a beer.
CPRM
on November 8, 2017 at 3:08 pm
Commods, the government stock foods the local Indians used to get. My mom like the canned beef. I hated the spanish peanuts.
So basically we need TOP MEN to rule us and how European Welfare States are totes awesome.
Any here defended Wilkinson while he was at Reason?
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 3:12 pm
Anyone defend Reason recently? These people are not libertarians. I know no true libertarians, etc, but if nothing else this thing should be about reducing the size and scope of the state. Every one of the 20th Century libertarian thinkers agreed on this point, even if they hated one another. Reason and Niskanen do not believe that reducing the size and scope of the state is important or even central to what they believe.
F. Stupidity Jr.
on November 8, 2017 at 3:14 pm
The rule here being – people with the initials WW are complete and total assholes:
Woodrow Wilson – check
Wil Wheaton – check. Bonus asshole points for spelling Will with one “L”
Wade Wilson – failed to take the Vikings to even one Super Bowl. Check
Walter White – forget all the murder and deception; dude drove an Aztek. Check
Willy Wonka – slave labor at his factory, exposed children to danger, allowed himself to be portrayed by Johnny Depp. Check
There is a science fiction writer named Walter Williams, too (well, Walter Jon Williams).
We graduated high school together and we even crossed paths at UNM.
… Hobbit
wdalasio
on November 8, 2017 at 3:24 pm
People often ask me how the Niskanen Center’s philosophy differs from standard-issue libertarianism. Usually I say something substantive and policy-related like, “We think the welfare state and free markets work better together, and that hostility to ‘big government’ can actually be counterproductive and leave us with less freedom,” or something in that vein.
So, in other words, you’re not fucking libertarian in the least and just a standard issue proglodyte.
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 3:26 pm
Skin suits, aisle 3.
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 3:36 pm
Niskanen was never libertarian. Reason and Cato on the other hand…
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 3:38 pm
No but they try to tell people they are. They’re less skinsuits and more bad crossdressers.
Juan-Baptiste Emmanuel Seguin
on November 8, 2017 at 8:32 pm
Skinvelopes.
Mad Scientist
on November 8, 2017 at 3:36 pm
In other words, “we know the free market is way more efficient than anything run by the government. And that means people will be more prosperous, which in turn means there’s more money for us to steal for our pet projects.”
I keep thinking about the Lebron one. How come no one – not even the cops – have said anything?
It stunk then, and it stinks now.
B.P.
on November 8, 2017 at 3:44 pm
I had never heard of the Lebron James racist graffiti situation. So, someone at Lebron’s LA house claims there is racist graffiti outside. The police show up, but the site of the alleged graffiti is painted over. They’re shown a picture of the graffiti. And the NAACP demands that Donald Trump apologize.
*pinches bridge of nose between eyes*
Chipwooder
on November 8, 2017 at 3:46 pm
The graffiti is painted over at 6 o’clock in the morning, no less.
RBS
on November 8, 2017 at 4:26 pm
It seems like Lebron has a lot of pent up rage. I look forward to his coming meltdown, via twitter of course.
Certified Public Asshat
on November 8, 2017 at 3:10 pm
The election itself reached into a different memory: that of being abused while others in their life told them everything was fine. Even after Trump leaves office, Koenig thinks the effects on her clients’ psyches will remain: the fact that he was ever elected indicates that many Americans accept his behavior. “It’s very hard for [these clients] to have a sense of safety in the world, anyway. They really see the world as ‘These people always get away with it and I have to be scared and hypervigilant.’”
Stinky Wizzleteats
on November 8, 2017 at 3:21 pm
We should pass out free vodka and barbiturates to these unfortunate, traumatized souls.
Rufus the Monocled
on November 8, 2017 at 3:29 pm
Lord the comments.
What a cesspool of nonsense. I see there’s one guy trying to snap people out of it but they’re doubling down.
Imagine having to let your mental health be affected by a fucken lousy politician. Alas, apparently telling people to smarten up is ‘white privilege’.
That term is potentially more destructive than we think.
Stinky Wizzleteats
on November 8, 2017 at 3:37 pm
They’re a bunch of whiny bitches. If they want to stick their heads in the oven over this they can be my guests.
Michael
on November 8, 2017 at 3:53 pm
Then she got a call from a shelter for LGBT youth. “Kids were literally under their beds hiding from Donald Trump.”
I’ll take THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED for $500, Alex.
A trove of millions of leaked documents from a Bermuda-based law firm, Appleby, reflects some of the tax wizardry used by American colleges and universities. Schools have increasingly turned to secretive offshore investments, the files show, which let them swell their endowments with blocker corporations, and avoid scrutiny of ventures involving fossil fuels or other issues that could set off campus controversy.
Buoyed by lucrative tax breaks, college endowments have amassed more than $500 billion nationwide. The wealth is concentrated in a small group of schools, tilting toward private institutions like those in the Ivy League and other highly selective colleges. About 11 percent of higher-education institutions in the United States hold 74 percent of the money, according to an analysis in 2015 by the Congressional Research Service.
These assholes legally shield their investments from taxes. How shocking.
The Other Kevin
on November 8, 2017 at 3:11 pm
Looks like Trump is in Asia embarrassing himself in front of foreign leaders just as predicted. (Or maybe not.)
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 3:11 pm
But fish food!
The Other Kevin
on November 8, 2017 at 3:47 pm
I had to look up the fish food thing. It was debunked by Snopes already. People really are insane over this guy.
Tundra
on November 8, 2017 at 4:12 pm
I wonder if he’s getting tired of the standing ovations?
THIS IS NOT A DRILL, UCS IS AIRBORNE, I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A DRILL
REPORT TO THE NEAREST MOROCCAN RESTAURANT TO GET TESTED
*begins foaming at the mouth while looking at a recipe for garlic toast*
NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo
*drinks tepid tap water and snacks on stale Wonderbread contentedly*
RAHeinlein
on November 8, 2017 at 3:23 pm
Wonderbread doesn’t stale, so I think this is sarc?
bacon-magic
on November 8, 2017 at 3:37 pm
*sizzling sound then a pop and Bacon-Magic appears*
In a world of bland, only one food item has the savory stuff to squash the bland…that’s BACON!
*starts flinging bacon at everyone including patient zero*
CPRM
on November 8, 2017 at 3:39 pm
Are you Hickory or Apple smoked?
bacon-magic
on November 8, 2017 at 3:42 pm
I am the Alpha and the Omega. But not turkey.
Gadfly
on November 8, 2017 at 6:33 pm
But not turkey.
Amen.
Accept no substitutes for true bacon.
Michael
on November 8, 2017 at 3:55 pm
Flinging sounds inefficient. Shouldn’t you have like a bacon cannon or something?
jesse.in.mb
on November 8, 2017 at 3:58 pm
He could show you his bacon cannon, but you’re gonna need to sign some consent forms first and promise not to complain to HR.
bacon-magic
on November 8, 2017 at 4:04 pm
^^^
Been burnt too many times.
*stares at Code of Conduct binder on desk*
jesse.in.mb
on November 8, 2017 at 4:14 pm
Nobody likes burnt bacon.
Chipwooder
on November 8, 2017 at 3:28 pm
Sans Nom? As if some frou-frou French brand could possibly be the gold standard of genericity.
Well, it’s official. Trump’s going to be a one term president. CNN polls are always accurate, right?
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 3:19 pm
They undersampled Trump’s support pretty excessively in 2016. Then they went the other way this year and missed on the VA & NJ governor’s races (margins were larger than predicted). So… yeah, they mean absolutely nothing.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 4:03 pm
The media is nauseating today. Well everyday, but today is over the top. Time, I think it was, are already predicting the same 1000 year Democrat reign, after VA last night. I mean the same 1000 year reign they predicted in 20009. That went rather badly for them, but not as badly as it will this time. Oh, and which one is it that is saying… I can’t even bother to look, that Trump is just a hair from impeachment after VA last night. For what reason, they didn’t say, but it’s true because they said so.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 4:05 pm
If the Dems take Congress in 2018 (not unlikely), I could see him getting impeached. He wouldn’t get convicted, but nobody seems to know how the impeachment process works.
RBS
on November 8, 2017 at 4:32 pm
Or who takes over when if he is removed from office.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 4:40 pm
Straightforward from here:
1. Impeach Trump and Pence (we’ll ignore that she missed the conviction part of it)
2. Constitutional crisis (no, because we have a line of succession)
3. Special election (sure, why not)
4. Ryan v. Clinton
5. President Hillary Clinton
6. Impeach President Clinton
7. Another special election
8. A tired electorate somehow elects ZARDOZ as President, with STEVE SMITH as VP
9. The world is doomed. And raped.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 4:46 pm
Well. It’s a SugarFree story after 1 because it means Eddie Munster is POTUS. And the rest of it:
3 President pro tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch (R)
4 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R)
5 Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin (R)
6 Secretary of Defense James Mattis (I)
7 Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R)
8 Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke (R)
9 Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue (R)
10 Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross (R)
11 Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta (R)
12 Secretary of Health and Human Services Eric Hargan (R)[a]
Acting
13 Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson (R)
– Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao (R)[b]
14 Secretary of Energy Rick Perry (R)
15 Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos (R)
16 Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin (I)
17 Secretary of Homeland Security
Oh shit, Jeff Sessions will be president! We’re truly fucked.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 5:05 pm
I was referring to that infamous tweet from Sally Kohn that became a meme.
1. All of those wins last night were in Blue of Deep purple states. All except for VA, there were no surprises at all.
2. An analysis of the races in 2018 show the GOP set to actually make gains.
3. The Democrats have overreacted again and will now get really bold and not only double, but triple down on their identity politics and moving leftward. They are once again going to overplay their hand.
The other good thing that might happen though, is that the GOP might actually get scared and repeal the ACA and pass real tax cuts. Oh, who am I kidding?
Gadfly
on November 8, 2017 at 6:47 pm
Congress is extremely unlikely. The Senate map is too favorable for the Rs for them to lose unless there’s a massive wave against them…I can only see that happening if there’s an economic crash. The House is a maybe, depending on how things shake out, as it’s not uncommon for the President’s party to lose seats. The Virginia and New Jersey elections aren’t too informative for the midterms, as the R governor candidates got 45% and 42% of the vote, respectively, in states that Trump got 44% and 41% of the vote.
The Elite Elite
on November 8, 2017 at 3:18 pm
Lauren Southern is now on a SPLC hatewatch list. This is your fault, John Titor. Letting this dog whistling racist out of your country and into ours!
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 3:19 pm
How do I get on that list? They’re putting everyone to the right of Lenin there nowadays.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 4:05 pm
You post here. There’s already not a list you’re not on.
Good think the Kochs are pairing up with the responsible people at SPLC
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 3:33 pm
I just read through that entire thing and I didn’t find a single thing they said that showed she was an actual, you know, racist. Instead everything’s covered with “DOG WHISTLE! DOG WHISTLE!”
It’s pretty much the left-wing SJW version of a cop’s “STOP RESISTING!”
Heroic Mulatto
on November 8, 2017 at 4:04 pm
Still, hand-waving away the fact that the Crusaders were responsible for shit like the Rhineland massacres comes from a noxious place and is deserving of contempt.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 4:09 pm
When you have to examine someone’s opinion of a historical figure and historical events to deem them a bigot- you’re stretching it a bit. Especially when it is something as complicated as the Crusades. Should we deem all people who respect Muhammad as bigots because of his military conquests or how historical Hebrew characters?
Chipwooder
on November 8, 2017 at 4:13 pm
A fair point, but I think you’re probably giving her too much credit. I wouldn’t expect her knowledge of the Crusades to go that in-depth.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 4:14 pm
Not defending Southern, personally. I’m talking about labeling someone a bigot for not having an overall negative view on complicated historical topics.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 4:07 pm
Well, neither can they tell us why Trump is going to be impeached any minute now or what for, or why everyone right of Mao is a racist, or how Bernie’s healthcare plan is going to be paid for. You got to have faith.
But Enough About Me
on November 8, 2017 at 4:16 pm
Lauren Southern is now on a SPLC hatewatch list.
Damn, she makes me proud to be a Canuck.
Brett L
on November 8, 2017 at 6:05 pm
And I’m proud to be a Canadian
Where at least we have Mounteeees
Grumbletarian
on November 8, 2017 at 6:32 pm
Being on an SPLC hatewatch list is the political equivalent of getting a video game achievement for finishing the tutorial.
Juan-Baptiste Emmanuel Seguin
on November 8, 2017 at 8:42 pm
Poor Dean Takahashi.
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 3:19 pm
Cosmotarianism seems to be basically a call for a technocratic ruling elite to save the welfare state from populists, racists and socialists. Since the first two like the welfare state and the latter is increasing gly influence on the left how this is supposed to work I have no idea. Seems Bill Clinton and Macon are the ideal Cosmotarians.
jesse.in.mb
on November 8, 2017 at 3:23 pm
Do you have manatees constructing your posts?
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 3:25 pm
I don’t get the reference. Is manatee code for something?
Chipwooder
on November 8, 2017 at 3:41 pm
The South Park episode where the writers of Family Guy were revealed to be a group of manatees in a tank nosing up balls with random people and things written on them. The balls were then combined to make a joke involving a group of people/things that had absolutely nothing to do with each other.
jesse.in.mb
on November 8, 2017 at 3:42 pm
South Park making fun of Family Guy being 100% non-sequiturs had the boys find the writing room of Family Guy and it was a tank of manatees randomly selecting balls with words on them and feeding them into a tube.
We’ve lost the thread here. The point is you took a bunch of words and threw them into a sentence together to mean very little. Non-sequitur only came up because I had to explain the South Park episode.
At least P Brooks is on the same page even if he refuses to thread.
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 4:03 pm
I was trying to build on the two Wilkinson links I posted. Admittedly replying to him can’t help but sound like random words since that is what his articles are full of.
jesse.in.mb
on November 8, 2017 at 4:13 pm
Eh, I’ll buy it. Carry on.
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 3:23 pm
Also the only way to get this “ideal welfare state” is to cut back when things aren’t working and the left is extremely hostile to even the most mild libertarianish reforms and willingness of Republicans to back them is suspect.
Gustave Lytton
on November 8, 2017 at 3:22 pm
Haven’t seen Beer beer around in a long time.
BakedPenguin
on November 8, 2017 at 3:41 pm
Yeah, generic products have become ‘supermarket’ branded products instead of the plain generic ones. I remember in the early 80’s going to a ‘generic’ store. (I think it’s name was ‘Food’) and seeing white boxes with plain text descriptions (as displayed in the Repo Man links Gilmore & I posted above.) I remember looking at a jar of peanut butter and reading the ingredients: Peanuts, Sugar, Cottonseed Oil, Vodka.
Chipwooder
on November 8, 2017 at 3:42 pm
The Repo Man generics were the early ’80s Ralph’s store products.
BakedPenguin
on November 8, 2017 at 4:04 pm
Alex Cox tried to get some company to give him money to display their products. No one bit (at least, no one with enough cash), so he went with (Ralph’s, apparently) generics instead. It’s funny for me, because the generic foods are a small part of what makes that such a great movie. I crack up when Otto (Emilio Estevez) opens a can of ‘Food’ and starts eating from the can.
“Put it on a plate son, you’ll enjoy it more.”
“Couldn’t get any better than this, Mom.”
Chipwooder
on November 8, 2017 at 4:09 pm
Yes. Twas a sad day when I discovered that the generics weren’t the plan all along.
Chipwooder
on November 8, 2017 at 3:48 pm
Oh, and…. “Put it on a plate, son. It will taste better.”
“Couldn’t taste better than this, mom. Mmm-mmm, this is swell.”
BakedPenguin
on November 8, 2017 at 4:05 pm
Ha ha ha. Your quote’s better.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 4:09 pm
I haven’t either. My dad bought me a 6 pack of it once as a joke. That was around 1985.
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 3:30 pm
Lot of talk in the laSt post about government employees turn a state leftward and how immigrants for those states turn them leftward. How does that fit in with open borders? Along with the Free State Project diesn’t that suggest that libertarian government needs libertarian people?
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 3:32 pm
I’m of two minds. On one hand on borders strikes me as like the classical liberal support for universal suffrage which backfired disastrously. On the other border controls might work as well as the classical support for public schools…
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 3:33 pm
“Open borders”.
bacon-magic
on November 8, 2017 at 3:40 pm
“Open borders boarders”.
ftfyaym
(fixed that for you and your mom)
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 4:11 pm
The problem isn’t open borders, it’s open borders AND a generous welfare state where even illegal aliens are qualified to receive benefits.
Heroic Mulatto
on November 8, 2017 at 3:53 pm
like the classical liberal support for universal suffrage which backfired disastrously
Or in France where it lead to the election of Napoleon III
Or in Germany where it lead to the BismarkIan Welfare State.
Any rebuttals? Interested to see. No sarc.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 4:02 pm
I don’t think that is the fault of universal suffrage. I think that is the fault of simple democracy (ie 50 plus percent to win). Cumulative voting (one election and three winners), which they use to have in the Illinois legislature, is actually good at protecting minority voting preference along with assuring the majority’s voice.
Also, Napoleon III was not that bad of guy, in comparison to other figures in French history
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 4:06 pm
Why Was cumulative voting replaced? One man one vote?
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 4:11 pm
No cumulative voting is still legal. They got rid of it in Illinois in the early 80’s for stupid reasons. But, Peoria, IL is required to have cumulative voting elections, do to its history of disenfranchising minorities during elections
Heroic Mulatto
on November 8, 2017 at 4:08 pm
No doubt elections aren’t authoritarian-proof, but in the long run, I would say those are the exceptions and not the rule. With universal suffrage, at the very least, the dueling interests of the Optimates and the Populares usually ensure some balance. From the classically liberal point-of-view, limited franchises too often devolve to oligarchy.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 4:11 pm
Right. The argument shouldn’t be against universal voting, but rather the method of voting.
antisthenes
on November 8, 2017 at 6:19 pm
I think the chief problem with our elections system is the notion of having elections. Tens of thousands of people choosing between two candidates they have no relationship with or knowledge of, both of whom were hand-picked by political elites in a process most people have no connection to, and both of whom are beholden to whoever can dump massive amounts of money in to help them message other people. That’s to say nothing of the entire wicked campaign and consultancy industry.
At least as regards state or Congressional representatives, I think selection works better. It would require a much larger pool of Reps to blunt the outliers, and that means tweaking the EC to reduce the power shift toward populous states. But I think it would solve the Paul Ryan problem.
Florida Man
on November 8, 2017 at 4:00 pm
POOr people shouldn’t be allowed to vote and should say “thank you” when they’re drafted into a pointless war.
jesse.in.mb
on November 8, 2017 at 4:01 pm
POOr
Intentional? Early stages of RSI?
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 4:04 pm
I think he meant (((POOr))).
Florida Man is notoriously anti-semitic
Florida Man
on November 8, 2017 at 4:06 pm
Have them invade YOUR state and see how you feel. I can’t even go to boca and hunt gators no more.
Heroic Mulatto
on November 8, 2017 at 4:10 pm
Not our fault gator isn’t kosher.
Blame Ha-Shem
Chipwooder
on November 8, 2017 at 4:16 pm
Hashem doesn’t owe us an answer, Larry.
Florida Man
on November 8, 2017 at 4:05 pm
My phone is aging and makes me look foolish. I’m tired of fixing the errors it produces.
jesse.in.mb
on November 8, 2017 at 4:23 pm
technoageism rears its ugly head once again.
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 4:08 pm
Well Cytotoxic opposed poor peopke voting cause Trump.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 4:00 pm
When I woke-up today, I said to myself: “today, I will not be drawn into an argument about universal suffrage. This isn’t 1890, there is no need for such a conversation”
I think the attacks on universal suffrage are bunk. I think the arguments against expanded democratization (ie. Senators being elected directly by the people versus state legislatures) are fair. The voters should have a say, but pure democracy (simply majority rule) is barbaric
Chipwooder
on November 8, 2017 at 4:08 pm
Arguments against the 17th Amendment are something else. I don’t really see them as being linked to arguments against universal suffrage.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 4:12 pm
I agree. I do think there are good arguments against simple majority elections, though. I think cumulative voting would be a good alternative
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 4:12 pm
Didn’t John Titor say some anti-universal suffrage things or am I mistaken?
Anyway I didn’t neccesarrily mean that universal suffrage killed classical liberalism (though it did kill what was left in the UK) but it wasn’t the bulwark of classical liberalism like they thought it was going to be.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 4:17 pm
John Titor is a bad character. I wouldn’t use him as a reference to defend your argument.
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 4:20 pm
Well I wanted to see what he had to say. Might make things interesting.
Just Say'n
on November 8, 2017 at 4:22 pm
He writes in Canadian. We need translators to gauge what he is saying
Tundra
on November 8, 2017 at 4:25 pm
Oh stewardess! I speak Canadian, eh!
wdalasio
on November 8, 2017 at 4:35 pm
The voters should have a say, but pure democracy (simply majority rule) is barbaric
I’ve thought of the answer to the problem of direct democracy this morning. It strikes me that one of the key problems of democracy is that it fails to account for intensity of preference. Every vote carries equal weight whether it is passionate and well researched or simply a mild preference arrived at on cursory inspection. It really makes no sense. A suburban housewife might enjoy the marginal protection afforded by giving the police carte blanche. But, should she really be afforded the same influence as, say, a kid in the ghetto who would bear the consequences of police abuse?
So, here’s my answer: give everyone some fixed number of votes per year, say 20. The votes can be utilized multiple times in one vote. And they expire at the end of the year. That way, people only vote on the issues they particularly care about and can have an outsized say on issues they are willing to forego say on other issues.
kbolino
on November 8, 2017 at 4:40 pm
I think universal suffrage is superior to the alternatives, but there remains the sheep-wolf problem. An expensive system built on the support of people who don’t pay for it is not sustainable.
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 5:02 pm
That is the real clinch isn’t it? In theory universal suffrage was supposed to ensure that the masses would not tolerate this but the welfare state and pubsec unions show this didn’t work.
kbolino
on November 8, 2017 at 5:39 pm
I think public sector unions have to be one of the dumbest inventions to coexist with universal suffrage.
But it does make it really obvious that “the government is us” is a bald-faced lie.
kbolino
on November 8, 2017 at 5:41 pm
That… was not my best use of the English language.
antisthenes
on November 8, 2017 at 5:52 pm
I suppose the alternative would be to replace taxation with unpaid national service obligations for citizens (and replace a great deal of professional gov’t work accordingly), and auction off immunity from service to raise funds.
Theoretically, the richest people would buy these indulgences, in order their time making even more $$$, so it would still result in a progressive tax system, more or less, but everyone would have skin in the game.
It would also make clearer the connection between taxation and slavery mandatory volunteerism.
“Like most great art, Benton’s murals require context and history,” said Lauren Robel, the school’s executive vice president and provost, in a statement, calling the works a national treasure. “Many well-meaning people, without having the opportunity to do that work, wrongly condemn the mural as racist simply because it depicts a racist organization and a hateful symbol.”
“It does not glorify or celebrate this particular dark episode of the KKK in Indiana, but instead shows that the state’s past has shameful moments the likes of which we do not want to see again, ever,” added James Wimbush, the university’s vice president for diversity, equity, and multicultural affairs, speaking to USA Today. “It’s important to understand the state’s history—the good and the bad.”
The petition acknowledges that Benton intended to denounce the Klan, but points out that the KKK is still active in the state today, claiming that “these are in fact modern depictions and not just depictions of a historical time in Indiana.” It calls the classroom housing the artwork “an environment that promotes a group known for discriminating against people of color, homosexuals, non Christians, and various other marginalized groups of people.”
Context is for chumps. We don’t need no larnin’.
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 3:39 pm
So ban all anti-Trump art?
grrizzly
on November 8, 2017 at 3:51 pm
Interesting fact: Benton was Jackson Pollock’s mentor.
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 3:54 pm
His great uncle and namesake was a senator who owned slaves.
Gustave Lytton
on November 8, 2017 at 4:06 pm
Which is probably why they’re going after him. Turned upside while googling the senator most likely.
These people are completely into original sin.
Trigger Hippie
on November 8, 2017 at 5:27 pm
Thomas Hart Benton: Born April 15, 1889
Neosho, Missouri.
Huh. I fought in a boxing tournament there in ’94. Also knew a guy who was murdered there in ’98-’99ish during a drug deal gone wrong.
The Late P Brooks
on November 8, 2017 at 3:32 pm
Do you have manatees constructing your posts?
Salad spinners.
Pan Zagloba
on November 8, 2017 at 3:34 pm
France stumbles into the ultimate anti-Trump strategy!
France’s parliament has stripped Marine Le Pen of immunity from prosecution over a series of grisly images she published on Twitter in 2015.
…
In theory, if found guilty she could face a heavy fine or even imprisonment according to French law, but Ms Le Pen has always been protected by her status as an elected official.
Ms Le Pen reacted caustically to Wednesday’s decision on Twitter, saying: “Better to be a jihadist returning [to France] from Syria than an MP who denounces the abasement of Islamic State: one takes fewer judicial risks”.
This is only the latest attempt by an elected body to pave the way to legal action.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 3:37 pm
Reddit seems to have shut down /r/incels, which was by far the worst place on the internet. Mein gött.
(Bunch of sexless losers who blame everybody but themselves for being sexless losers, with an addition of glorification of Elliot Rodger and Marc Lépine, and a belief that rape (like rape rape) should be legal because women shouldn’t be allowed to turn down nice guys like them)
~~~your comment has been kissed gently by the wings of a low-fi Edit Faerie~~~
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 3:42 pm
I think you mean they think rape should be legal?
bacon-magic
on November 8, 2017 at 3:44 pm
If there’s anything all those men visiting your mom should’ve taught you: rape is bad, consensual is good.
Mad Scientist
on November 8, 2017 at 3:47 pm
Oh, she consents all right.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 3:45 pm
That is what I meant. Me dum. Me not deserve edit faerie.
~~~Edit Faerie pats JB on head patronizingly~~~
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:02 pm
STEVE SMITH AGREE!
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 3:53 pm
Since I’m bored, a copy and paste of some of their greatest hits.
Well, I’m not talking about beating a woman to the brink of death with a rock and going to town on her. I’m talking about vanilla rape.
A slut into casual sex cannot ever be traumatized by rape for she thinks of sex as a casual thing already! She puts no value in it. Her consent is as shallow as “I find you attractive, let us go fuck”. Worthless. May as well do some good once in her life by fucking an incel.
As I said, “I am more like a rape victim because society forced me to fuck that passed out woman and lose my virginity from all the virgin shaming they subjected me to. I would not have done it if I knew I could get into a lifetime marriage with another virgin.” I will never be able to feel the same about sex, though, of course.
I turn on tgm, download the rape mod and get to work on all the major cities. Stalking your prey to their houses, murdering everyone inside except your target, then going to town on them… It is great.
[Ed note: He’s talking about a video game (Skyrim mod). I’m not sure if that makes it less or more disturbing.]
being raped is not a big deal especially for ugly/below average women.
they should be thanking the rapist for giving her dick that chad wont give.
Vanilla Rape was a great early ’90s punk-rock band, but they got too commercial.
As I said, “I am more like a rape victim because society forced me to fuck that passed out woman and lose my virginity from all the virgin shaming they subjected me to. I would not have done it if I knew I could get into a lifetime marriage with another virgin.” I will never be able to feel the same about sex, though, of course.
Is chemical castration still a thing? Because maybe it should still be a thing.
This sounds like something you’d see on Criminal Minds. Wow.
Rufus the Monocled
on November 8, 2017 at 3:55 pm
“…In this conclusion essay, I weave together the different voices in this special issue to voice the role of autoethnography as a method for radicalizing knowledge production as decolonial academic-activist solidarities.”
A few years ago I wouldn’t have known what that means. What am I doing with my life?
Gilmore
on November 8, 2017 at 3:58 pm
While i have been entertained by the Brazile-bus-throwing-Clinton drama so far…
….i think this claim is way off the mark:
Brazile “noticed her face was puffy,” “her skin looked pale and papery,” and “her eyes were glazed.” She approached Clinton about her health before the speech and observed her to be “wobbly on her feet” with a “rattled cough” so bad Brazile suggested medical attention.
It was after this conversation that Clinton labeled Trump supporters “deplorables”—Brazile says the comment came because of her health.
“A short time later, I was seated in the audience at the Cipriani when [Clinton] strode up to the stage with her usual strong steps,” Brazile wrote. “Then she said something that, had she been in better health, I don’t think she would have said.”
Brazile slams the comment in her book, questioning whether Clinton realized she was speaking at a public event.
“When she said ‘basket of deplorables’ I knew that no matter what she said in the rest of her remarks, this would be the comment that made it on to the evening news,” she wrote. “Did she not understand where she was? This was a public event … not one of those cozy little backyard fundraisers where I’d heard her speak freely knowing that her statements were not likely to leak outside that gathering.
No one who has actually heard the speech she gave could possibly believe it was anything other than a tightly-scripted remark, one which her team of writers probably cooked up the evening before, and thought was a real zinger.
no one just says, “basket of deplorables” off the cuff. For fucks sake, she even *says* that its some term which she specifically contrived to describe Trump voters. she’s not nearly imaginative enough to actually say something like that spontaneously.
I think I read in Shattered that the “deplorables” slur had been used by Clinton at private events for some time before she used it in public. Perhaps they got desensitized to how offensive it would sound to the general public.
Gilmore
on November 8, 2017 at 4:25 pm
“”Perhaps they got desensitized to how offensive it would sound to the general public.””
more than that: as i said, they probably thought it was a memorable zinger, and that it would have exactly the opposite effect – resonating with people and making GOP voters ashamed of their association with hordes of yokel rubes
basically, its the sort of shit that you can only believe when you live in a bubble. and Clinton’s world is like the fucking Biosphere 2 of bubbles.
mexican sharpshooter
on November 8, 2017 at 6:40 pm
Her bubble seems toghter than that. Technically, a species of rabid ants managed to survive being locked in the Biodome. Hillary seems to want to take down everything around her.
‘Pistol Packin’ Pastor’ encourages congregation to carry guns in church
The tragic news of a deadly mass shooting in a Texas trickled across the country, and sent an Albuquerque pastor Larry Allen into a roller coaster of emotions.
“My first reaction was brokenhearted, sadness. It makes me very angry,” Allen said.
He also couldn’t help but think one thing, “Were they prepared?”
Allen is known as the “Pistol Packin’ Pastor.”
He’s armed when he stands at the pulpit every Sunday, and many members of his congregation are, too.
“Our prayer is praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,’” Allen said.
antisthenes
on November 8, 2017 at 5:23 pm
A shepherd protects his flock from wolves, and not by trying to gently convince the wolves to be less canine.
Enough About Palin
on November 8, 2017 at 4:04 pm
Incredible photos tell the sad story of China’s ‘bicycle graveyards’
Whoa, kind of a bummer, but I could see that many bikes suddenly needing to be locked up, pell-mell, being a problem.
Gilmore
on November 8, 2017 at 4:12 pm
Watch how news media take story which should be classic example of govt policy generating massive waste and market distortion, and twists it to blame “private companies”
Dizzying photos taken above the graveyard show thousands of perfectly good bicycles left to rust in an empty field outside of the busy city.
The unloved bikes were seized by police after a popular government bike-sharing program was overrun by private tech companies.
Usually bike-sharing is a boon for eco-conscious cities, but for Hangzhou, population 9 million, the concept created more problems than it solved.
It was smooth riding when the city first launched its $24 million program in 2008 to cut air pollution. Locals would leave the car at home, pick-up their free bike, ride to their destination and leave it at one of 3000 designated drop-off zones.
The program became a big success for the city, winning transport awards and eliminating more than 110,000 tonnes of air pollution, but it all went downhill when private businesses tried to get in on the trend with ‘dockless’ bikes.
I find it hard to believe that private companies tried competing with a ‘free’ govt service. I’d bet dollars to pork-buns that these private companies were given lucrative contracts by crony pols.
Gustave Lytton
on November 8, 2017 at 4:13 pm
The story inside is even better.
How dare private enterprises offer a more convenient solution and attempt to compete with government!
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 4:30 pm
“Dizzying photos taken above the graveyard show thousands of perfectly good bicycles left to rust in an empty field outside of the busy city.”
Reminiscent of Obama’s hair brained ‘Cash for Clunker’s’ scheme. Leftist of a feather, flock together.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 4:37 pm
Wait a minute… I just actually read the article. The author is actually agreeing with the Chicom government? WTF?
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 4:39 pm
Servile leftists always side with government. I’d have been thoroughly surprised if he’d reacted inn favor of free enterprise.
AlmightyJB
on November 8, 2017 at 4:08 pm
Sexton is fucking idiot. Cyber crime is a far greater threat to all of our security then retreiving some dead assholes phone records. It’s not even fucking close. The more bomb proof our info, the better for everyone. Does he really think the phone records are going to tell them why he shot babies?
A recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program who was deported earlier this year has dropped his lawsuit against the Trump administration to get back into the U.S.
Juan Manuel Montes, a 23-year-old Mexican national, previously claimed he was improperly removed from the U.S. in February despite having protected status under the now-cancelled DACA program. Border Patrol agents detained him in Calexico, Calif., where he lived with his family, and deported him across the border to Mexico when he was unable to produce identification, Montes said.
The only known ‘Dreamer’ to have claimed wrongful deportation, Montes sued the Trump administration in April, asking a federal court to review legality of his removal. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel presided over hearings on the case in August and planned to allow Montes to return to the U.S. so he could testify on his own behalf.
Montes’ lawyers filed a notice on Wednesday with the judge explaining he had elected to drop the case and remain in Mexico.
LOS ANGELES—A Mexican man who earlier this year sued the Trump administration, alleging he had been unlawfully deported, was arrested this week and charged with illegally re-entering the U.S.
Why go to court when you can just walk back across the border, right?
I maintain that rallying public support for “open borders” will remain problematic so long as we have no means to keep out the people we deport–for whatever reason.
Gustave Lytton
on November 8, 2017 at 11:22 pm
$5 says the reason why his lawyers requested a dismissal is they were told he had already crossed back over.
MikeS
on November 8, 2017 at 4:28 pm
Oooh! Alt-text! We’ve been a little short on alt-text around here. I hope this is the beginning of…a new beginning…or something.
bacon-magic
on November 8, 2017 at 4:29 pm
*hovers over MikeS’s avatar*
Nobody’s told him yet?!
“Chicago close to recording 600th homicide for only second time since 2003
hicago is close to recording its 600th homicide for the year, only the second time the city will have reached the grim milestone since 2003, according to data kept by the Tribune.
After a weekend when 30 were people shot, five of them fatally, the number of homicides stands at 593 this year, according to the Tribune’s database.
That’s below the 681 homicides this time last year but substantially above other recent years.”
—————-
REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT!~!!11!1111!!! *Rabid foaming.*
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 4:38 pm
I bet the NRA actually provided every one of those gang members with their weapons. We have to do something!
There’s an extensive network of Klansmen, libertarians, and other Republicans working day and night to smuggle death-bringer street-sweeper machine-gun blood-spilling hand cannons into the Democratic People’s Utopia of Chicago from the unknown wastes, like Indiana and Texas, in a nefarious plot to eliminate blacks, gays, and transgender toddlers.
/CNN.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 4:51 pm
Damn, you really DO work for CNN, don’t you?
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 4:54 pm
I hear the perks are good, so I’m angling for a job with them by creating a reputation for myself as a woke millennial. Did I miss anything?
Oh, yeah.
HATE SPEECH ISN’T FREE SPEECH. *Intentionally soils underwear in protest of patriarchal microaggressions.*
Michael
on November 8, 2017 at 4:58 pm
I still have no idea what to make of that headline.
“We’ve had almost 600 homicides this year, but it’s not all bad! It’s only happened once before!”
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:04 pm
“We’re a cabal of disingenuous, morally bankrupt leftists whose worldview is demonstrably retarded and harmful, and to make some sense of the destruction our politics cause, we’ll try to frame societal disasters in cesspits like Chicago as tragic, incomprehensible, aberrant events.”
Asked about long-leveled allegations that Mr. Paul had disregarded neighborhood regulations, Mr. Skaggs, who is also a former leader of the county Republican Party, said that the senator “certainly believes in stronger property rights than exist in America.”
“Who said you could do that?”
grrizzly
on November 8, 2017 at 4:48 pm
A coworker was crying bloody murder because the Republicans are going to make tuition waivers taxable. His wife is a PhD student.
One of my colleagues has a daughter who insists on getting a doctorate in some bullshit social science, and she’s already in massive debt, and unemployed. I laughed openly when she told me about it. She wasn’t amused.
antisthenes
on November 8, 2017 at 5:17 pm
You know else who extracted ludicrous amounts of money from vulnerable, alienated young people in exchange for providing them with useless bullshit knowledge primarily intended to reinforce the influence of group leaders?
Microaggressor
on November 8, 2017 at 5:26 pm
L. Ron Hubbard?
A Leap at the Wheel
on November 8, 2017 at 5:29 pm
Celean Dion?
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:36 pm
The Southern Poverty Law Center?
Spartan Dad
on November 8, 2017 at 5:10 pm
I’m actually in agreement on this. If it’s not income (e.g., cash on the table or deposited into account), the income tax should not apply. To do so opens the door for taxing barter and anything else that value can be assigned to. For example, if they are going to tax free tuition given in return for work provided, it’s only logical to expand that to the value of all scholarships and public school tuition minus the parent’s share of local property taxes.
The principal part of me is very much enjoying the shrieking of academia, but the principle part of me does like the income tax being applied to non-income.
Spartan Dad
on November 8, 2017 at 5:15 pm
*does not like
R C Dean
on November 8, 2017 at 5:21 pm
So, if I loan someone money, that’s not taxable because its a loan.
Then, if I forgive the loan, that’s not taxable, because no money is changing hands.
I like this “its only income if it is a transfer of cash”.
My employer pays my bills (mortgage, etc.) – not taxable.
My employer gives me a house, car, etc. – not taxable.
My employer pays my kid’s tuition to college – not taxable.
Hell, my employer gives me stock, any stock – not taxable.
My employer pays me in commodities, not cash. You know, like gold and silver.
I’m liking this more and more.
A Leap at the Wheel
on November 8, 2017 at 5:31 pm
Yeah, this should totally minimize distortions on the economy, leading to great efficiency compliance costs (the true life blood of any bar member)!!
Spartan Dad
on November 8, 2017 at 5:36 pm
Yes, I do not think those things should be taxable, except maybe things which are essentially cash like stocks and gold/silver. I believe an income tax is pure theft and should not exist. Therefore I would seek to reduce what can be taxed rather than expand. You made an argument before why all benefits should be assigned a value and taxed. I agree it could be done that way to not distort the marketplace, but would greatly prefer to see tax rates drastically reduced before they expand what’s taxed.
If we are going this route, then educational scholarships absolutely need to be taxed. Otherwise, the schools can just restructure these waivers as scholarships. You picked executive level perks, but let’s extend it down to those who have very little. An 18 year old girl who gets free room and board as part of her nanny position should also have to pay tax on the value on that. An employee in a shop should have to pay income tax on the value of the equipment if the boss lets him use it for his own projects.
A Leap at the Wheel
on November 8, 2017 at 5:41 pm
Low tax rates and no deductions go together like nachos and beer because the minimize the damage that the tax collection does.
If you think there should be no tax, argue for that. Don’t argue for a fucked up tax system that brings in less revenue and does more damage than it needs to.
Spartan Dad
on November 8, 2017 at 5:48 pm
My argument for no tax is to cut the budget by 95%. Virtually every government service should be fee-based and pay for itself. At most, a very small tariff. Absolutely no internal taxes. Very simple.
I disagree that arguing against expanding the reach of the income tax is “fucked up”. There’s certainly valid points to be made for taxing people more, but I hardly think arguing against it is such a radical position.
kbolino
on November 8, 2017 at 5:41 pm
greatly prefer to see tax rates drastically reduced before they expand what’s taxed
How did we lose this thread? It’s like, overnight, we went from “lower tax rates and cut deductions” to just “cut deductions” which paradoxically makes the “tax cuts”… not.
Spartan Dad
on November 8, 2017 at 6:25 pm
That comment was partially about a theoretical expansion of what’s taxable and partially about what’s being expanded in the bill.
At least as far as I can tell, the tax reform provides very little direct benefit to the average person other than making it easier to take the standard deduction. The benefit to doubling the standard deduction has essentially been eliminated by removing personal exemptions.
There are tax cuts for businesses and the AMT & estate tax are being repealed. That’s awesome and something I’m very much in favor of. For everyone else, I think the tax cuts are not going to materialize over a few hundred dollars. I think a lot of families, even those who don’t itemize, are going to end up paying more because of the personal exemption elimination. The fact I can’t easily tell is a problem with the bill. The tax reform should be crystal clear, % tax cut across the board and these deductions eliminated. Instead, it’s got some great stuff, some bad stuff, and is still filled with complex gimmicks.
R C Dean
on November 8, 2017 at 5:54 pm
except maybe things which are essentially cash like stocks and gold/silver
Already with the exceptions . . . .
Yanking your chain, mostly. My point really was that exempting in-kind compensation and taxing only cash compensation introduces all kinds of shenanigans and (more importantly) economic distortions. Look what not taxing health insurance premiums paid on your behalf by your employer has wrought in the health care/health care finance world.
You picked executive level perks, but let’s extend it down to those who have very little.
History tells us that’s exactly where the tax-free compensation will be paid. As for your nanny, she’s not going to pay income tax anyway unless we eliminate all deductions, including the standard deduction. Which is exactly why, BTW, nobody will be arsed to offer tax-free compensation to people in the lower quintile or two.
As for the free use of shop equipment, that’s probably already technically taxable, but nobody cares because there’s no way to find out about it – it creates no paper trail.
In general, the broader the base for a tax, the lower the rate can be to raise the same amount of money and the fewer economic distortions are created. The exceptions and carve-outs for things like tuition waivers, student loan waivers, etc. are all the product of crony lobbying to benefit well-connected businesses and industries. A complex tax code is an engine of corruption.
Spartan Dad
on November 8, 2017 at 6:11 pm
I understand what you are saying. I can see the advantages of taxing all employee benefits to not distort the market. I would argue that this is very much a more complex tax code though than simply taxing directly paid income. Only taxing income would eliminate all waivers, exemptions, etc. There would be no lobbying. I think the advantages of a much simpler tax code and elimination of all lobbying offsets the disadvantage of a greater shift towards compensation being paid in benefits.
As for the class argument that only the rich pay income tax on employer benefits, I think taxes should be felt equally. It’s wrong to target the rich or the poor for specific taxes. Let Barb the admin assistant making $25k a year pay income tax on the 30% Verizon discount she gets through her company for her personal cell phone. I’m against it, but that’s taxing employee benefits fairly across the board.
R C Dean
on November 8, 2017 at 6:26 pm
I would argue that this is very much a more complex tax code though than simply taxing directly paid income.
Entirely possible, although you might be able to do it pretty simply – “all compensation, in cash or in kind, transferred in exchange for goods and services, excepting only the following in-kind compensation:
de minimis, less than $___ annual value
bartered services that are not available to the public (your machine shop, for example)
etc.
Even a list of 20 exceptions is incredibly simple compared to the current tax code.
As we have seen, even a “only cash transferred in exchange for goods and services” rule would leave so many avenues for untaxed income that even a hardliner would want to start roping in some kinds of non-cash income, and would create allow so many forms of economically equivalent in-kind income that I think the pressure to shut down the unfairness of taxing somebody on $20K cash, but not the $20K car their employer gave them. Now you’re coming at the other way – not defining exceptions, but trying to capture an unending list of in-kind compensation.
Spartan Dad
on November 8, 2017 at 6:56 pm
My concern is where the taxing of benefits ends. It is easier to make a clear dividing line when the company pays $X as a benefit, that you pay income tax on $X. They are taxing benefits that don’t involve a transfer of money as income, such as the value of room and board for a nanny.
Let me throw this out here, in all seriousness. I am the only employee at my company who is allowed to work from home. Some other employees are resentful because they have to pay for daycare and see my working from home as a company benefit. At some point in the future, I could entirely see it being demanded by progs that I pay income tax on the value of daycare since working from home could be construed as an employer provided benefit. If the value of free room and board can be taxed, why not for the value of daycare? The slippery slope is what concerns me.
What they are doing is removing exceptions. Quid Pro Quo == Income taxable. You should read the FAA’s umbrella of “compensation”
Spartan Dad
on November 8, 2017 at 5:50 pm
And I disagree with taxing barter as income. I disagree with taxing debt as income. I’m surprised this view is so unpopular, but I will still stand consistent in believing that taxes shouldn’t be all encompassing.
R C Dean
on November 8, 2017 at 6:02 pm
I disagree with taxing debt as income.
Its not taxed as income. If you have debt that is forgiven, that’s income, because its the equivalent in every way of income.
Honestly, here’s where I am on all this:
(1) Until we drastically cut spending and have a real path to reducing the debt, I don’t think its wise at all to reduce tax collections. Doing so lays the groundwork for a massive economic collapse when the currency fails.
(2) I’m not sold on any alternative to income tax, so I assume we’re going to be working with that.
(3) If we have an income tax, it should be as flat and simple as possible with as broad a base as possible (including in-kind compensation). It would be pretty catastrophic for my financial engineering to have the charitable deduction eliminated, but I would have a hard time coming up with a principled argument for keeping it.
For practical purposes, I could see putting in some limits on taxable in-kind compensation, but those would be based mostly on de minimis (I know, slippery slope) and hard-to-value in-kind compensation.
Spartan Dad
on November 8, 2017 at 6:37 pm
RC, I’ll add that I’ve enjoyed having this round 2 of discussion with you on this. I’m glad the trolls get kept out, but it has the effect of creating an echo chamber at times.
R C Dean
on November 8, 2017 at 7:19 pm
Same here, Pops.
Dr Mossy Lawn
on November 8, 2017 at 6:07 pm
It is what it is.. Taxes aren’t just, Taxes just are. At best they can be efficient, and distort the market place as little as possible.
If you didn’t tax barter, then wouldn’t you accept food + lodging + clothing, + company car +movies+ vacations as part of your compensation? Just like we accept the pre tax, pre-paid medical.
For the longest time, corporate benefits were “untaxed”… and then redefined as loopholes of the rich.. and then removed… this is just more removal.
Tulip
on November 8, 2017 at 6:10 pm
Barter is taxable, as groups that have tried to create barter clubs have learned to their horror.
The Last American Hero
on November 8, 2017 at 5:11 pm
Tell him congrats on finally being able to pay his fair share.
Mustang
on November 8, 2017 at 4:56 pm
So this opioid epidemic…when do we get to turn it back on them by asking why the nannies don’t want people to get the healthcare they need?
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 4:58 pm
“Nobody needs more than four pills per pack. This message is sponsored by Everytown for Opium Safety.”
mexican sharpshooter
on November 8, 2017 at 6:50 pm
They’ll just say its the wrong kind of healthcare because big pharm something something corporate greed something something.
But the law’s leniency toward Paul’s alleged assailant is just one of the mysteries surrounding the incident, including this: Why was a U.S. Senator — a physician whose net worth is estimated to exceed $2 million and who continues to maintain a surgical practice on the side — mowing his own lawn?
————
But cynicism inclines me toward another explanation, which is that Paul is the sort of fellow who wants to be known as a self-mower, and to be seen driving a John Deere around his own yard.
—————–
Piloting a riding mower around a big yard combines the virile self-reliance of mowing with the aspirational elements of horsepower and real estate acquisition.
“The true test of a man’s character,” UCLA basketball coach John Wooden observed, “is what he does when no one is watching.” But what is character in an age when someone is always watching — especially if you are an elected official with presidential ambitions?
I hope Paul’s lawnmower has S S Potemkin on the side.
B.P.
on November 8, 2017 at 5:04 pm
So….
1) Net worth of $2 million is supposed to be an astronomical, gluttonous amount of wealth? If that net worth includes real estate and retirement accounts and such, it’s not exactly Scrooge McDuck territory.
2) Mowing one’s own yard constitutes a manly pursuit these days?
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:07 pm
That he’s a successful man in every measurable way perplexes some people, mostly because they’re useless sacks of shit and permanent infants who’d struggle to change the tires on their Priuses.
F. Stupidity Jr.
on November 8, 2017 at 5:11 pm
who’d struggle to change the tires on their Priuses.
I figured for sure it would be a Renault or one of those pea pod Smartcars.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:21 pm
To be fair, he’ll probably buy a Barbie-pink hoverboard instead of a car next time.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 5:13 pm
I used to drive a John Deere tractor around my lawn all of the fucking time when no one was looking. You know why? The fucking lawn needed mowing and all of my neighbors had lawns that needed a tractor to mow, so no one would even notice it. These people are so far detached from reality. You know what else Paul does when no one is watching? Provides free eye care for poor people. It’s no wonder leftists hate him so much, it’s because he’s an actual decent human being. An extreme rarity in politics.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:17 pm
He’s also’s demonstrably intelligent, made his wealth on authentic merit, and doesn’t act like he’s some sort of victim for any reason. Parasites hate him doubly.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 5:26 pm
Yep. Also, how clueless are these people to actually believe that no one can possibly enjoy mowing the lawn on a tractor? I know, they’ve lived in the city all their life and cannot possibly comprehend that anyone else can have a different perspective on things. That, even though all they do is preach diversity. Fucking hypocrites.
R C Dean
on November 8, 2017 at 5:31 pm
No kidding. Back when I had a big lawn, I had a Cub Cadet with Kohler engine – the mower was nearly as old as I was. I loved using that beast to mow the lawn. It took some experimenting, but I eventually found a cigar (a 6 x 50 Hoyo, if memory serves) that took exactly as long to finish as the lawn.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 5:46 pm
I was mowing 10 acres with a John Deere tractor. It did start to get old because it took like 6 hours. My neighbor bought one of those zero turn mowers, I forget which make, but it wasn’t Cub. It was really high end. That thing was fucking amazing, his son mowed my entire lawn in 2 hours. I think it was 11k he paid for that. Almost as much as my Deere, not including all the attachments, like a plow for the driveway in winter, a front end loader, a tiller, etc. But I was definitely going to buy one of the zero turns. Then I sold most of my property. Still 6 acres to mow, but I don’t live there now, my daughter does. The neighbor had a huge pole barn full of equipment. I’ve never seen anyone have that much equipment. But he owns a construction company and about 400 acres. The guy built him home and did a geothermal system himself. Yeah, flyover people are all really dumb hicks. People who have lived in East Coast urban bubbles all their life really do not have a clue about the people they like to make fun of in fly over. I once tried to explain it to a guy who has lived here in MD all his life. I told him ‘I know those people, I lived around them for years, you don’t understand them, they do not think the way you do’. I really couldn’t go any further because it was clear the guy’s mind was not open for the conversation.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:56 pm
Rugged, versatile people build civilization, and the security and prosperity of civilization in turn allows the existence of urban elites and other hapless malcontents of the sort you mentioned. Without skillful, industrious individuals like your daughter’s neighbor, the lifestyles of smug, functionally retarded big-city hipsters wouldn’t be possible.
commodious spittoon
on November 8, 2017 at 5:34 pm
Hell, I don’t mind running the push-mower. It’s half an hour in the sun smelling spent gasoline and freshly-decapitated grass and listening to a podcast. Why would I pay someone to do it for me?
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:35 pm
The only type of diversity they’re interested in is diversity of skin color – wholly superficial, meaningless diversity, on the same level as diversity of hair color, or diversity in the length of fingernails. They’re subservient, compliant, nondescript drones by every meaningful measure.
A variety of this particular expression of stupidity I experience personally is when pussies in tight jeans and pink sneakers comment on how awful, dirty, and brash my cars are (typically big, gas-guzzling American vehicles). They’re sincerely amazed that anybody would be interested in driving and fixing old cars.
75 photos? you expect me to look at 75 phot….ohhh banjo…where was I? oh yeah..What happened to 35 or 40 that’s reasonab…huh? whats with the goldfish in a mason jar t-shirt, is that suppose to mean summat, am I missing…..anyway 75 photos is way too many.
Facebook reminded me of my status at 9:40 PM, one year ago tonight:
This is entirely the fault of the Democratic Party. Entirely. They nominated the one person in the party terrible enough to possibly lose to Donald Trump.
Also, this is fucking hilarious.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 5:16 pm
That’s funny, because right before she lost they said she’s the most qualified candidate ever and that it was unpossible for her to lose.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:22 pm
I often find myself literally thanking God that that treasonous, flaming bag of shit lost the election.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 5:27 pm
It was glorious. I stayed up all night watching it, drinking, and laughing. I think I’ve replayed the entire night of CNN coverage like 100 times, lol.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:42 pm
I think CNN’s entire staff spent the month after the election on suicide watch.
R C Dean
on November 8, 2017 at 5:25 pm
What I positively love about that election is that Trump was just about the only Republican who could beat Hillary, and Hillary was just about the only Democrat who could lose to Trump.
Truly, the parties switched roles, and it was Dems who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
B.P.
on November 8, 2017 at 5:29 pm
On election night, I was in my secret hidey hole, bourbon in hand, watching the election returns late into the night. Laughing my ass off.
Trigger Hippie
on November 8, 2017 at 5:53 pm
Ah, The Night Before TOS officially went to shit. That was a glorious thread. 2k plus comments if I remember correctly. I didn’t get to sleep until 3am.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 6:08 pm
Have you read any of Gillespie’s recent articles? He’s insane.
grrizzly
on November 8, 2017 at 6:00 pm
I think at that time I was opening the second bottle of champagne. Plus I was in LA, so I had three extra hours over the East coast to enjoy the election results.
mexican sharpshooter
on November 8, 2017 at 6:57 pm
I remember gping to the gym that day. I checked a TV and saw that FL was still up for grabs. I said “Hmm” and went back to what I was doing. Later I found out my sister made tacos and I kept stuffing my face full of tacos to keep myself from laughing.
GSL in E
on November 8, 2017 at 10:48 pm
I had to travel for work very early the morning after Election Day, and I didn’t care, so I paid no attention to the news that night and went to bed early. I had no idea Trump had won until someone mentioned it to me at around 10am the following day.
Tulip
on November 8, 2017 at 5:25 pm
My furnace went out last night. I got a tech appt for between 12 and 4. At 2, they called and said about 1 hour. At 4 I called and they said 1/2 hour. Now they say 1/2 hour. It is 62 in here.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:27 pm
I live in England. The weather’s mild, and very easy to bear, even at its extremes. I miss snow.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 5:28 pm
Either get some electric space heaters, or turn your oven on and leave it on for a while, open. Just not when you’re asleep and cannot watch it.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 5:30 pm
I’ve actually done this several times when the furnace malfunctioned, it works really well. You can get the areas near your kitchen warmed up pretty quickly.
Tulip
on November 8, 2017 at 6:42 pm
I have a radiator style space heater that I just moved up from the basement. My bathrooms have electric baseboard s (no heat vents) so I turned those up and opened the doors. I keep the doors closed because of the pets. I’ll be baking this weekend. He was here, and they have to order a part. It’s supposed to get down to 25 tomorrow and he said it could take several days.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 5:30 pm
I’ll trade. My a/c is still running most of the time to keep my house at 76.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 5:56 pm
I haven’t had to use the AC except at night sometimes for around the last month. Looks like we’re going to get our first frost of the year tomorrow night, actually sounds like a freeze. I think I’d better move the houseplant back under the overhang, maybe a few more delicate I have to bring in, and we might actually need heat for the first time. Bummer.
R C Dean
on November 8, 2017 at 5:32 pm
Out of orphans to burn? Tut, tut, old chap.
A Leap at the Wheel
on November 8, 2017 at 5:35 pm
Call three competitors. Tell them if they can get here first, they have a new customer for life. When the first one shows up, call the other two and tell them no thanks. Don’t call the original guy. When he show up, curse him out.
kbolino
on November 8, 2017 at 5:44 pm
It is 62 in here.
While undoubtedly it will get colder, my initial thought was “that’s it?”. My heat is set at 64 and I hate the cold. Either I have an irrational hatred of energy bills or I’m paying out the ass for energy.
robc
on November 8, 2017 at 6:12 pm
Last time my furnace went out, it was in the 40s inside before I got it back.
I’ve had this problem a couple times – cleaned it the first time, replaced it the second.
Furnaces are really simple machines.
Tulip
on November 8, 2017 at 9:27 pm
Needs a new gas valve.
Suthenboy
on November 8, 2017 at 5:41 pm
Last night three armed thugs walked into Lee J’s convenience store in pineville La and ordered everyone into the back. Lee J grabbed his pistol from under the counter and smoked two of them. The third ran away.
I know the guy and he is absolutely sterling. No further comment needed.
A Leap at the Wheel
on November 8, 2017 at 5:44 pm
Fuck me. I wouldn’t have the balls to stand up to a thug with three arms. Glad your friend is safe.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:45 pm
Lee J sounds like an irresponsible, Bible-thumping white supremacist. What if that pistol loses its mind and attacks his customers in a fit of fury? What then, smart guy? Huh?
There’s BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS.
/Some fuckhead on MSNBC.
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:47 pm
Armed or not, if you are anywhere on earth and a group of armed men orders you into the back room, you fight like it’s your last night on earth, because if they get you into the back room it surely will be.
commodious spittoon
on November 8, 2017 at 5:56 pm
Yeah, reminiscent of the Hi Fi murderers. Kill the motherfuckers before they kill you.
Empirical work generally shows that voters would support different policies if they were better informed.
Different != Better
For instance, a board of economic advisors might have the right to veto rent-control laws, just as the Supreme Court can veto laws that violate the Constitution.
And, just like SCOTUS, said board of “economic advisors” could just as well debase property rights, distort economic incentives, and otherwise muck about in pursuit of whatever ideology the board members hold.
An epistocracy might then instantiate the public’s enlightened preferences rather than their actual, unenlightened preferences.
Oh yeah, that’s not ripe for abuse, no sirree.
These questions – who is the current president? Which item is the largest part of the federal budget? – are easily verifiable and uncontroversial, plus an ability to answer them correctly is strongly correlated with the kind of political knowledge that does matter in an election.
What does that last part even mean? “The kind of political knowledge that matters in an election” depends entirely on who you ask, no? And no, the answers to questions like those are often not “easily verifiable” or “uncontroversial”. Take the budget question. How do you group expenses? Do we go by the official budget, or do we include “emergency” appropriations? For which fiscal year? etc.
But we could instead view the franchise as no more significant than a plumbing or medical licence. The US government denies me such licences, but I don’t regard that as expressing I’m inferior, all things considered, to others.
Plumbing, while a valuable skill, does not result in changes to the law that get enforced at gunpoint.
In the end, it’s a mistake to picture epistocracy as being the rule of an elite band of technocrats or ‘philosopher kings’.
Indeed, it could also be the rule of an elite band of “educated” thugs.
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 6:01 pm
Wow, I didn’t know anyone read Republic and actually thought it was a good idea.
Trevor Burrus: So the question now I think obviously – I think probably you’ve been asked this before. You’ve done a lot of – discussing this book anyway. Why do you leave any amount of democracy? It’s purely instrumental. So if it’s epistocracy, it seems like allowing any amount of democracy is putting a little bit too much error in there. We should just have one really, really smart guy who knows all these things.
Aaron Ross Powell: Or at least a panel of technocrats.
Trevor Burrus: Yeah, something like that.
Jason Brennan: Yeah. So in principle, I am trying to get – people who read this to be quite instrumentalist about politics. So I personally would say that if making you dictator happens to lead to – like come up – whatever the correct theory of justice is, just outcomes. If it turned out that making you dictator led to that, then I would be happy with making you dictator.
Suthenboy
on November 8, 2017 at 6:27 pm
These fuckers get paid to shit out that steaming pile?
Thousands of years of history lesson wasted
The Elite Elite
on November 8, 2017 at 6:38 pm
Well, universal suffrage is bad, cancerous actually. However, restricting voting based on one’s knowledge? Yeah, I’m sure that’s a system that won’t be abused. *eye-roll* Base it on how much skin in the game you have. Things like military service or how much you pay in taxes versus how much you take out of the system. There was a reason voting rights were tied to responsibilities. Ditching that for universal suffrage was the nail in the coffin that guaranteed the death of the country.
That’s awesome. Too bad he didn’t kill all three of ’em, the world would be better off.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 6:01 pm
The NYT and CNN have an upcoming story on why people defending themselves and/or their property, is bad.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 5:59 pm
This is how free men defend themselves and their property. Naturally, it won’t teach a single hoplophobe anything of value, because there’s no cure for stupidity.
commodious spittoon
on November 8, 2017 at 6:01 pm
We spoke with Sheriff William Earl Hilton, he told us one victim is still in the hospital, and the other was treated and has been released to his parents.
Even if so, they should be in jail awaiting trial, no?
CS, good catch on the ‘victim’ narrative. What the actual fuck?
Badolph Hilter
on November 8, 2017 at 6:10 pm
He meant victim of society. It’s your fault.
commodious spittoon
on November 8, 2017 at 6:12 pm
Klaus: It’s a fair cop, but society’s to blame.
Detective: Agreed. We’ll be charging them too.
antisthenes
on November 8, 2017 at 8:44 pm
Apparently someone didn’t learn shit from Texas.
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 6:05 pm
Nice work, too bad he didn’t put ’em 6 feet under.
Suthenboy
on November 8, 2017 at 6:14 pm
True. Hitting a target full of Adrenalin actively trying to avoid you when you are full of Adrenalin is very difficult. You get tunnel vision and the sights disappear. He did pretty well.
Clinton said so many insulting things and told so many whoppers that I lost count. Never the less no matter what else she said or did the basket of deplorable remark would’ve lost the election for her
So classical liberalism was killed by its own success: people were so wealthy there was tons of free shit to hand out so the entire population could be bought. Also by showing that “the government is us” people are not as hostile to the taxman, the bureaucrat or the regulator.
People are submissive. We no longer have a critical mass of moral, courageous patriots to enforce the precepts of the Founding by believably threatening revolt.
How many Americans in today’s world would be willing to relinquish the comfort of their lives to conduct an armed insurrection against their governments on the basis of principle?
KibbledKristen
on November 8, 2017 at 6:06 pm
Doing ye Olde scrum master training tomorrow & Friday. My introverted ASD ass is slightly terrified.
She attends Anchorage School District, which is a special school built to cater to the needs of those with an introverted ass. One can only hope that they will eventually find a cure.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 6:16 pm
Oh, that’s fine then. I thought she was trying out for a professional rugby team.
Badolph Hilter
on November 8, 2017 at 6:24 pm
How you gonna play rugby with an inverted ass? Come on, man, think!
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 6:29 pm
Concave asses are the new craze in contact sports.
Drake
on November 8, 2017 at 7:26 pm
I’m the scrum master! And hooker.
commodious spittoon
on November 8, 2017 at 8:01 pm
Look at me. Look at me. I’m the scrum captain now.
Let me just make a Kung Pao chicken burrito with a side of hummus and garlic naan.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 6:21 pm
Somewhere, a college student’s head literally exploded. Well done, sir.
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 6:13 pm
Just found out my niece is in the hospital.
Probably another suicide attempt. Its sad because she is a really nice, good girl who does well in school on top of it. Waiting on more news from my brother, sucks feeling helpless.
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 6:13 pm
Is that a Gilmore? Sorry meant this to be a new post.
*Another* suicide attempt? Damn, that sucks. Does she have some kind of mental illness other than depression? I have a family friend whose husband and both daughters committed suicide. Terrible what it does to a family.
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 6:19 pm
No, I think it is just depression. My wife suspects an eating disorder, but we’re too polite to ask I guess. My brother is also a fuckhead who apparently has been cheating on his wife for several years and they’re finally headed towards divorce, so that isn’t making anything better for the poor kid I assume.
Depression and suicide run in my family to some extent.
I ask because it sounds like getting her out of her parents house might help
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 6:35 pm
Me and the wife have talked about it, but not really sure how to broach that subject. Plus she’s got 3 sisters and we’ve got our own child on the way now in 3 months. .. helping people is never easy I guess and not something I’m good at typically anyway.
Suthenboy
on November 8, 2017 at 6:42 pm
Well Lack that would be a serious commitment
Going at it half hearted would probably do more damage. It doesn’t sound like you are in a position to do that
What a shame
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 6:33 pm
13.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 6:34 pm
Ouch.
Suthenboy
on November 8, 2017 at 6:39 pm
Been there. I took one in when she was thirteen . The suicide attempts stopped but the legal troubles got started. It was a rough ride but in the end she turned out ok. She’s 27 now and doing alright.
I don’t think I could do it again I am too old for that now
Suthenboy
on November 8, 2017 at 6:18 pm
Sorry to hear that. Wish I had some wisdom for you but have a relative like that and nothing I do helps
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 6:27 pm
Yeah, I think you just have to get sad enough long enough that you reach something inside you that can pull your sorry ass out of it.
At least that worked for me. She is doing therapy, but apparently it isn’t working very well.
The daughter of one of my managers at work keeps cutting herself. He’s had to leave mid-shift several times in the last three months to attend meetings with police and doctors. She’s also anorexic. It saddens me to see the emotional impact of these instances.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 6:45 pm
I’ve seen this. I mean in teens.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 6:48 pm
It basically means not enough attention got, and it should be looked into seriously. Teens have a very volatile set of hormones going on that can lead to overreactions to the least thing. I’m sure the intertoobz and smart phones are not helping as they lead to stimuli overload. Teens are not well suited to deal with that. I mean look at the adult children leftists, they’re in a constant state of freak out and overreaction to everything.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 6:51 pm
The truth of the matter is that it’s easy to kill yourself. If she were truly determined to die, she could have effectively slit her wrists on the first attempt. The cuts are always relatively superficial. Me and my fiancee both agree she’s simply seeking attention.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 6:56 pm
That’s what I’m saying. She wants attention. Being a child who is used to getting all the attention in the world and suddenly becoming an adult child with raging hormones is not an easy transition. And in this day of information overload at the speed of light, I’m not sure that evolution has had time to adjust to it. She probably just needs some more attention. Family should take care of that while being careful to allow her to grow up. And I’m assuming it’s a teen we’re talking about, if not, never mind.
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 7:17 pm
I think it is potentially a similar situation here.
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 6:41 pm
Is she a teen? Just curious. Hard to speculate on it without that info.
antisthenes
on November 8, 2017 at 8:29 pm
Sorry to hear about it. In the past couple of years, one of my nieces had an semi-suicide attempt (swallowed some pills, then said oh shit and tried to get help) and an even younger one has issues with cutting and depression. Part of me wonders if the internet plays an exacerbating role in stress and mental illness these days. All drama and narcissism and manufactured hysteria, all the time. It’s bad enough for adults, but it has to be brutal for teenagers.
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 8:36 pm
I’m not sure as to why, honestly, but I wouldn’t rule those out as factors.
I’m not sure all of these people live in the same timeline.
KibbledKristen
on November 8, 2017 at 6:41 pm
The good news is, there are two packets of cheesy poofs in my house. Soon to be zero packets of cheesy poofs.
Suthenboy
on November 8, 2017 at 6:44 pm
I hate those things. I eat one and I can’t quit until they are gone and my pants shrink another size
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 6:51 pm
I don’t snack at all and never touch junk food of any type. Now if I could just stop drinking beer all of the time. I mean I do manage to do that when I’m drinking Bourbon or Scotch instead.
commodious spittoon
on November 8, 2017 at 6:55 pm
Not one of each?
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 7:03 pm
Sometimes.
straffinrun
on November 8, 2017 at 7:31 pm
Liberachi?
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 6:52 pm
So apparently there was a security camera at the Sutherland Springs church and it was rolling on Sunday.
mexican sharpshooter
on November 8, 2017 at 7:02 pm
I’d say I hope they never show whats on it, but they will.
Someone was asking if there is any derp on the right.*
Dennis Miller
Yesterday at 10:38am ·
When lawmakers say “We must provide tax relief for hard working Americans”, is it verboten to mention that many of the wealthiest people I’ve met have been the hardest workers?…or do we now just have to insist that they’re all evil?
*I’m assuming huge leaps in logic are derp.
quincy
on November 8, 2017 at 6:59 pm
Why does Instapundit promote “damaged screw extractor sets” on Amazon so often? Are Instapundit readers especially prone to having damaged screws? Should Amazon have such detailed knowledge of our screwing preferences, and so willing to offer help when our screwing goes wrong?
Hyperion
on November 8, 2017 at 7:01 pm
I just long for a day when the inventor of the slot head screw can be brought back to life and fed slowly into a certain infamous mulching device.
Suthenboy
on November 8, 2017 at 7:47 pm
Seconded.
mindyourbusiness
on November 8, 2017 at 7:58 pm
I hear ya. Square drive or torx for the win!
But Enough About Me
on November 9, 2017 at 12:38 am
Square drive (properly known as the Robertson head) rocks. Invented by a Canadian, which is probably why they’re relatively little-known in the US.
mexican sharpshooter
on November 8, 2017 at 7:04 pm
Damnit. I knew it would be in KS.
Vhyrus
on November 8, 2017 at 7:12 pm
We got prescott. That’s not bad, right?
mexican sharpshooter
on November 8, 2017 at 7:21 pm
Its very bad. Theyll know were from Phoenix and kill us both. Yes, they have guns too. They have a fucking factory that makes guns.
*frantically loads magazines*
Not an Economist
on November 8, 2017 at 7:17 pm
If a real nuclear war ever happened all I would be able to do is go outside and see if I could see the warhead before it explodes. I’m in a high value target area.
I was reading some of Keegan’s Face of Battle today. There was an interesting bit about the Battle of the Somme. A British company commander sent a message higher up. He and the remainder of his unit were desperately fighting to hold on to a recently captured German trench. The message he sent was basically: I have 3 options: surrender, fight til the end, or retreat. The first 2 options are distasteful to me. Request permission for the latter.
There have been many cases in history where units have been wiped out while waiting for orders from higher up. It appears that central planning in war is about as successful as it is in an economy. It’s impossible for an army to fight effectively if the low level commanders are not given the freedom to act on their own initiative.
I am reminded of the famous story of the British general who went to consult with Wellington before Waterloo. He asked Wellington what his plans were so he could coordinate with him. Wellington paused and asked him if he knew what Napoleon’s plans were. The general said no. So Wellington said “well, my plans depend on his, and since he hasn’t told me anything, how can I tell you anything?”
***
“The enemy we’re fighting is a bit different from the one we had war-gamed against,” said General William Wallace after the first week of fighting in Iraq had not gone as planned. The comment speaks to a truth of which we are reminded in wartime: the military is a government operation that undertakes its activities according to a plan cooked up by nonmarket actors. The bureaucrats are denied access to prices, the signaling devices that serve as the basis for assessing the success or failure of any particular project on the market.
As such, even the best military plans, even those that lead to a declared victory, will partake of features similar to that of any form of central planning. The reason wars can tend to appear successful whereas socialism never does is due to the goal of the war plan (destruction rather than wealth creation) and the means (firepower proving more accomplished at destruction than efficiency), both of which can be accomplished by governments with enough resources at their disposal.
War gaming may be the newest term for the static trial runs that government officials use as proxies for a real world that always surprises them. If we want to call war planning a “social science”—that’s how the Pentagon thinks of it—what we have here is a classic error: the belief that government policy and its effects can be modeled in the same way as the physical sciences.
…
Central planners who attempt to replicate this process within the structure of an equation or a static game simulation are fooling themselves. They are merely playing a game called “market,” and not truly engaging the real world. The game called “war” is no better at preparing central planners for real-life economizing than the game called “market.” What’s especially interesting is how attempts at central planning display a series of highly typical features.
First, they overutilize resources. At the outset, the war planners anticipated that Iraq could be won with a few strategically placed bombs, and a massive display of human will combined with plenty of psychological operations. Faced with the sudden reality that the first round of plans didn’t work, the response is wholly predictable: more of the same.
***
Winston
on November 8, 2017 at 7:23 pm
Let us not forget how both world wars convinced a lot of people that centrally planned economies could work.
Derpetologist
on November 8, 2017 at 7:24 pm
random note
I wonder why there were no attempts to outflank on the western front during WW1. I guess the beaches of France and Germany were too easy to defend.
Also neither side had much experience with amphibious landings and wanted to avoid big naval battles.
peachy rex
on November 8, 2017 at 8:56 pm
There was a major amphibious assault planned for the Flanders coast in 1917, but things just never quite cohered. And FIsher had proposed various ideas for landings in the Baltic early on which were rubbished by every one (though it’s possible that the Baltic scheme was just his excuse for implementing certain parts of his building program.)
straffinrun
on November 8, 2017 at 7:37 pm
So the guy I had a scheduled meeting with was a no show. I go all the way to his office and they say, “Sorry, he’s at a training session.” He knew about it last time I saw him, but didn’t say anything. 3 times he has done this. I’m a private contractor so I get paid either way, but I hate wasting work time. Welcome to government work.
commodious spittoon
on November 8, 2017 at 7:47 pm
“I’m sorry, I just hate disappointing people.”
“I’m disappointed now!”
“I hate disappointing people to their faces.”
quincy
on November 8, 2017 at 8:07 pm
“Sorry, he’s at a training session.”
“Is he training for a civil defense scenario involving a nuclear attack and amphibious landings of North Korean Ninja Zombies?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry for wasting your time, Ma’am.”
***
“Sorry, he’s at a training session.”
“Is he training for a civil defense scenario involving nuclear attack and amphibious landings of North Korean Ninja Zombies?”
“No.”
“Tell him, I’m here, and I have a schedule to meet.”
Gustave Lytton
on November 8, 2017 at 9:57 pm
Next time go in pigtails, short skirt with thigh high stockings. I bet he’d make time for you then.
Not an Economist
on November 8, 2017 at 8:00 pm
The Rand Paul attack because of landscaping is getting pushback.
commodious spittoon
on November 8, 2017 at 8:08 pm
God, I hope that jackass ends up under house arrest and on probation at the very least. What a douchebag.
commodious spittoon
on November 8, 2017 at 8:11 pm
I wouldn’t mind seeing him clad in orange for awhile, but the chance seems remote.
R C Dean
on November 8, 2017 at 8:32 pm
How can somebody who breaks 5 ribs on a US Senator not do time?
Heroic Mulatto
on November 8, 2017 at 8:33 pm
When the Senator is a White, male Republican.
antisthenes
on November 8, 2017 at 8:35 pm
When their target is an enemy of the Kreml, er, swamp.
Not an Economist
on November 8, 2017 at 8:41 pm
Latest I heard is 6 ribs plus some extra fluid … but hey that happens all the time doesn’t it?
Heroic Mulatto
on November 8, 2017 at 8:24 pm
And even if it were about landscaping, what kind of psycho physically assaults a man over poorly trimmed bushes?
Normal people poison their neighbors’ dogs with antifreeze.
Those quotes sounds like total bullshit. The first reads like a statement prepared by a lawyer, and second involves the use of “one’s” where pretty much anyone speaking colloquially would say “your”.
Heroic Mulatto
on November 8, 2017 at 8:38 pm
The first reads like a statement prepared by a lawyer,
second involves the use of “one’s” where pretty much anyone speaking colloquially would say “your”.
Eh, I’ve said “one’s” in everyday speech, and I’ve heard my peers have as well. I’m too lazy to research it now, but it’s probably an upper middle class sociolect marker.
antisthenes
on November 8, 2017 at 8:59 pm
I haven’t noticed lawyers actually talking in legalese, though. I mean, maybe they got the quotes via email instead of over the phone, so people tried to polish it up.
Heroic Mulatto
on November 8, 2017 at 9:02 pm
maybe they got the quotes via email instead of over the phone, so people tried to polish it up.
That’s probably it.
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 8:39 pm
I’m with you, they’re too polished and took too long to come out for them to be at all organic.
Not to say the neighbors don’t have similar feelings, but the statements are overwrought.
wdalasio
on November 8, 2017 at 9:42 pm
The more I read about it, the more my earlier assessment rings true. I think there’s a lot of jealousy. This guy feels like he’s played by the rules of the game all his life. Never made any waves. Went along with the program. And where is he? He’s got the money from his earlier invention, but his wife left him and he hasn’t worked steady in years.
Now along comes this Paul guy. Just a couple of years younger than him. But, walking around like he own the place. Quits the national medical association for ophthalmologists and starts his own in a fit of pique. And, as a neighbor, always skirts around the rules to do what he wants. And what happens to him? He winds up a U.S. Senator with a beautiful wife. He gets invited around the world to do charity work. A bunch of the neighbors get along great with him because what he wants to do (what he skirted the rules to do) winds up fun, or at least pretty cool.
It’s leftover bullshit from high school. Boucher was the hall monitor and student council member who nobody really paid much attention to, and if they did, mostly tolerated. Paul is the honor roll kid on the swim team, dating, if not a cheerleader, at least the girl who was the lead in the student play, and is friendly with the nerds, the heads and of course the jocks. Just not Boucher.
It’s not so much that Paul has anything against Boucher. It’s more, if you asked him, he’d respond “Rene who?”. Boucher, on the other hand, detests Paul. On one hand, he’s everything he wants to be, everything (he thinks) he deserves to be – liked, respected, having fun. On the other hand, where Boucher strives and obeys and honors the rules, and gets none of those things, Paul plays fast and loose with the rules, never gets put in his place and gets to enjoy the good life.
On a certain level, Boucher could deal with it more easily if Paul hated him as well. But, again, he doesn’t. For Paul, Boucher doesn’t really even figure into the equation. And, for Boucher, that’s the one sin that is truly unforgivable.
Derpetologist
on November 8, 2017 at 8:24 pm
3k more troops being sent to Afghanistan. The Taliban have about 60k. The British didn’t win the 2nd Boer War until they outnumbered the Boers 10 to 1, herded the civilian population into camps, scorched the earth, and covered the country with blockhouses all within firing range of each other.
I don’t think there is any chance of defeating the Taliban without adopting similar tactics. That at a minimum would require sending 300k or more troops there.
The Soviets thought they could make up for lack of infantry with firepower. They were wrong. Artillery conquers, but infantry occupies.
Heroic Mulatto
on November 8, 2017 at 8:31 pm
A punitive expedition would have been correct and just.
Derpetologist
on November 8, 2017 at 8:40 pm
I like that idea, but it is about 16 years too late. If the choice is made to withdraw, the result will be the same, regardless of whether it is done quickly or slowly. If troop levels are kept constant, the Taliban will continue their strategy of death by a thousand cuts.
The Soviets attempted to save face by blasting everything beside the road they retreated on. They did not want to leave as the Americans had left Vietnam- frantically scrambling into helicopters.
If limited war is not enough, the only alternatives are defeat, endless war, and total war.
Lackadaisical
on November 8, 2017 at 8:43 pm
All three options you present are defeats, just a question of how bad we want to make it for ourselves.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 8:52 pm
The United States are a relatively benevolent power. We could prevail absolutely and indisputably in any conflict, anywhere in the world, if we waged total war on our enemies, but we refrain from doing so and taking annihilative action because we’re not murderous sociopaths.
The only way to make Afghanistan truly safe is to exterminate its population and fully annex the country, which is a barbarous course of action no sane individual would advocate.
wdalasio
on November 8, 2017 at 10:05 pm
No, the U.S. could prevail in total or limited war. It would just be wildly immoral on a level we’re not prepared to accept. Make an example of the country for the country. Show them the full scale and scope of our killing power. Put the fear, not of a just and loving God, but a vengeful and malevolent God into them. Let them learn for multiple generations that attacking the U.S. is a sure way to invite wrath on a biblical scale. I guarantee you’ll see them refrain from any arrangement threatening to the U.S. But then what does that make us?
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 10:11 pm
Like I said, we’re not murderous sociopaths, which makes us less effective in geopolitical conflicts, ironically.
wdalasio
on November 8, 2017 at 11:18 pm
I was agreeing.
Thymirus
on November 9, 2017 at 10:37 am
I know. Sorry, I didn’t meant to imply otherwise.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 8:47 pm
Wholesale annihilation and depopulation of Afghan territory is the only way to guarantee that there will be no insurrections after withdrawal. Leave, and let them slaughter each other.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 10:01 pm
This. Wash our hands of it. We fucked up bad, and we’re not going to fix it by continuing to do the same thing. Rip the band aid off, walk away.
Heroic Mulatto
on November 8, 2017 at 8:48 pm
I like that idea, but it is about 16 years too late.
That was my point. Sometime after WW2, we decided that punitive expeditions were somehow wrong. This was an extremely foolish decision. On 9/12/01, we had candlelight vigils in Tehran, for crying out loud. The international community half-expected us to use a tactical nuke on Kabul and be done with it, and there would have been begrudging acceptance.
Instead, we decided that we could remake the Afghans in our own image.
For a few years. Until the U.S. no longer seemed interested in it. Then the retired U.S. President would be taken to a European jail.
kbolino
on November 9, 2017 at 3:01 am
Then the retired U.S. President would be taken to a European jail.
By what army? Even if the former U.S. President was wanted in European courts, all he would have to do to avoid them is stay in the U.S.
kbolino
on November 9, 2017 at 3:00 am
Instead, we decided that we could remake the Afghans in our own image.
I don’t know how much it matters to the actual state of affairs in Afghanistan, but this is not really true.
Their Constitution looks nothing like ours (neither does Iraq’s, for that matter). An attempt was made to remake Afghanistan In some image, but it wasn’t an American one.
Cut your losses, get out while you can and keep a close eye on any signs of more plots to attack the US mainland. As you said the “war” could be “won” if we were willing to wage total war and stop trying to make killing politically correct. It would be quite ugly. I don’t think anyone (except for maybe McCain and Graham) wants that, so just get the F out.
Derpetologist
on November 8, 2017 at 9:10 pm
Yes. Make the country a hard target. Forget about nation building. Even with our most successful efforts in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, we *still* have troops there.
On a side note, the emphasis on technology is wrong. There have been many times when an army kept fighting despite facing superior weapons: Zulus, Mahdi rebels, Moro tribesmen, etc.
It wasn’t the mere use of the weapons that defeated them. It was the extent of the losses.
Lachowsky
on November 8, 2017 at 9:34 pm
Alexander the great had to marry Roxana to semi pacify the afgans. Anything the U.S. does there is not going to work. QED.
peachy rex
on November 8, 2017 at 9:49 pm
“I have an idea!” /Trump
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 10:14 pm
My cousin, by the way, is among the troops being sent (he’s been there a couple of weeks). He’s not happy. I should probably send him another care package.
He’s there til March or April. Which is more time away from his kids for this bullshit.
I worry that posting nude images will lead to very unwanted negative attention for the site.
I don’t really know how the internet works, just kind of over having to scroll past strings of NSFW images to read the types of discussions that brought me to sites like this.
The Chive reposts are fine, but I think we know you love boobs.
Hey, don’t let me stop you. Just concerned about the site. The Preet thing left me looking over my online shoulder a lot.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 9:46 pm
1) There’s no rational cause to view nudity negatively.
2) Buy a mouse with a sensitive wheel at its center.
Mustang
on November 8, 2017 at 10:36 pm
1.) I never said there was. Other people feel differently.
2.) He’s free to continue posting as he likes. He and others can fill an entire comments section with nothing but pictures of tits, as it doesn’t actually harm anyone. It just doesn’t strike me as the point of the site. I suppose I can find others to read instead that have the same kinds of discussions. Any recommendations?
Q Continuum
on November 8, 2017 at 10:41 pm
No worries no worries. I have a couple scotches and get off the rails, thanks for bringing me back.
Mustang
on November 8, 2017 at 10:47 pm
Booze, tits, and politics. A more winning combination is hard to find.
They’re links, not embedded images. Don’t click the links.
creech
on November 8, 2017 at 9:43 pm
I had to look twice as the one on the left looked like my ex (except she had a head of black hair). True story: we are motoring down the Pa Turnpike to Pittsburgh in my Mustang Convertible with top down. As we passed trucks, she pulled down her tube top and flashed the driver. This was late 70s so the word got out on c-b to bolo. Anyway, we pull off at Breezewood for gas and lunch. As we are leaving, a state trooper pulls up next to us and says, “Both of you, keep your tops up. It’s all over the radio.” So I put up the convertible top, and we get in. Ex says to trooper, “Want to see what you missed?” He says looks around and says, “Sure.” She flashes her tits, he grins, and tells us to beat it and behave ourselves. Another perk was getting to wield the Lady Shick every couple of days. Damn fine times!
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 9:49 pm
I hate convertibles. My Trans Am had T-tops. I removed them on only one occasion, and I hated it.
Derpetologist
on November 8, 2017 at 9:01 pm
Perhaps an ancient ancestor of SugarFree was the author of Iranian mythology:
***
Jaan Puhvel notes similarities between the Norse myth in which the god Týr inserts his hand into the wolf Fenrir’s mouth while the other gods bind him with Gleipnir, only for Fenrir to bite off Týr’s hand when he discovers he cannot break his bindings,[106] and the Iranian myth in which Jamshid rescues his brother’s corpse from Ahriman’s bowels by shoving his hand up Ahriman’s anus and pulling out his brother’s corpse, only for his hand to become infected with leprosy.[107] In both accounts, an authority figure forces the evil entity into submission by inserting his hand into the being’s orifice (in Fenrir’s case the mouth, in Ahriman’s the anus) and losing it.[107] Fenrir and Ahriman fulfill different roles in their own mythological traditions and are unlikely to be remnants of a Proto-Indo-European “evil god”;[108] nonetheless, it is clear that the “binding myth” is of Proto-Indo-European origin.
***
So, review will be posted on schedule tomorrow morning, but a quickie video on the Virginia Film Festival. Got 4 flicks in the hopper and now that I’ve seen the trailer for Blade of the Immortal, I’m stoked.
And that’s after I watch Thor tomorrow afternoon AND write a couple more DVD reviews ;p Should be a nice long weekend (Taking paid time off tomorrow and Friday).
We are taking rt 36 as far as we can. Beautiful road. Nothing to see in Kansas. Some astronaut birthplace for Apollo 17. I wrote it down. We’re almost through Kansas, but we got a late start. Tomorrow out at 5am.
AlmightyJB
on November 8, 2017 at 9:07 pm
When did USA Today get in the business of selling ARs? Pretty nice ad.
“You are worfress, Repubricans!” Can the Norks stop flirting around and just nuke D.C. already? It’s the only way to be sure, God will know his own (party), and all that.
Lachowsky
on November 8, 2017 at 9:31 pm
honestly, for purely selfish reasons, I hope it fails. The new tax plan would push me into the 25 percent bracket. I pay enoigh fucking taxed already.
#taxation is theft
antisthenes
on November 8, 2017 at 9:53 pm
My tax plan: cut corporate taxes at least down to 15%, cut individual taxes substantially enough across the board so that almost no one sees an increase, shut down the AMT and pretty much every special gimmick, whether for interest or whatever.
Pay for it by shutting down all government funding for cult brainwashinghigher education, most military bases outside of US territory, a thorough culling of the officer class and military bureaucracy, a freeze on military hiring and recalling soldiers from every front where Congress has not formally declared war and explicitly allocated the funds to fight it. Terminate BATFE and DEA and roll any legitimate functions of the former (mainly, as regards the E) into the feebs. Eliminate any payment to any private sector actor which is not i) an entitlement or similar sort of voucher (save that fight for another day) or ii) payment for services rendered to the state.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 10:03 pm
I would save a decent amount of money with the new tax plan. But it’s still stupid.
Which is what I expect from the GOP, and it’s what I expect from Trump, and it’s what I expect from government.
RAHeinlein
on November 8, 2017 at 10:06 pm
I agree that taxation is theft. Based-on income levels you have previously reported, it would seem you are already in the 25% tax bracket for the coming year. I don’t see anyone in the lower brackets being pushed-up.
Suthenboy
on November 8, 2017 at 9:43 pm
It really is incredible. They were very clear in their promises and we were very clear on our instructions. They refuse to do the fucking job we hired them for all to spite Trump. They are going to start making the same promises for the mid-terms. I hope they all get pelted with rotten eggs and fired. Those stupid motherfuckers should probably go ahead and start cleaning out their desks now.
Lachowsky
on November 8, 2017 at 9:55 pm
Politicians all deserve our worst derision. The are all liars. Every fucking one of them. I think it’s SP (the creator of this sight) whose moniker says, “all politicians are weiners.) She is correct.
Gilmore
on November 8, 2017 at 9:53 pm
Something i just noticed, probably interesting to no one except me….
American Gangster was shot in my neighborhood a few years back. I was impressed by the way they used a number of spots in the same area to make it seem like very different parts of 1970s NYT.
(e.g. Well done: the way they used the elevated J/M/Z train to look like the old elevated 4/5 tracks in harlem, etc… Less well done: when they pretend they’re in NJ when they show a shot of the WBurg bridge, but whatever)
basically, same building down the street. I can’t remember what it was. i don’t think it reads quite as “1920s” as it did “1970s” (the brick building next to it with the airconditioner on the roof doesn’t help) but its still interesting that set designers think that building works so well on camera
Creosote Achilles
on November 8, 2017 at 9:59 pm
So, since I was busily packaging about 20lbs of weed today to sell to a medical dispensary, I wasn’t around for the posting of my article. Totally willing to answer questions/discuss further either here or there.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 10:08 pm
…do you deliver?
Nah. I had no idea what was involved in the legal marijuana biz. Just as a question, with all that 24/7 monitoring, how long are you required to keep the tapes (yes I know it’s all on hard drives but I’ll still call them tapes)? Or does the po po have access to the live feed?
Creosote Achilles
on November 8, 2017 at 10:25 pm
90 Days, and the OLCC (the agency that handles the regulating) can view them at any time. Po-po has no access at all. Only the OLCC.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 10:40 pm
Real-time access, or “Show us Tuesday the 17th between 9 PM and 1 AM”?
Creosote Achilles
on November 8, 2017 at 11:01 pm
The later.
Thymirus
on November 8, 2017 at 10:14 pm
“Just one marijuana is enough to cause brain cancer. Imagine what two, or even more, marijuanas would do to your family! BAN EVERYTHING.”
Q Continuum
on November 8, 2017 at 10:43 pm
We could all be 100% safe if they’d just put us in prison.
CPRM
on November 8, 2017 at 10:17 pm
I’m waiting on the overlords to publish the ongoing adventures of Harvey Weinstein and Ted Nugent; but I figured I give you late nighters a little gift. So I wrote a little prologue:
INT-PRODUCTION OFFICE—NIGHT
SUPER: 1996
MATT and BEN bring break through the door, carrying SALLY. Sally is bound and gagged.
MATT
Harvey, we got her. Get your ass out here!
A toilet flushes and HARVEY emerges from the bathroom. Ben kicks the door to the office shut behind them.
BEN
This bitch was hawd to get. She’s wicked strong.
Harvey wipes his hands on his pants and approaches.
HARVEY
Were you seen?
MATT
Naw.
BEN
We’re wicked good at dis.
Ben and Matt set Sally down in a chair. Harvey drops his pants and grabs his cock.
MATT
Hey, we don’t gotta see dis.
HARVEY
You want your movie made? That fucking piece of shit about a fucking janitor who thinks he’s smart because he has a good memory?
BEN
Absofuckinloutly.
MATT
Fuckin A.
HARVEY
Then you gotta watch.
MATT
Hey, dat wasn’t paht ah the deal.
HARVEY
I can get you Robin Williams. Robin fucking Williams.
BEN
Matt, hold her down.
MATT
But…I don’t want cum ta git on my clothes.
BEN
Then take em off.
MATT
OK.
Matt and Ben hold sally down and cheer Harvey on as the crime begins.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 10:24 pm
A+, if only for Matt Damon’s horrible Boston accent.
I always knew that something weird had to be going on for the two of them, who were nobodies at the time (though Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms, yo) to get that movie made.
CPRM
on November 8, 2017 at 10:40 pm
You seem to be the biggest fan of this series. I wish I could give you an Oprah type prize. But this being glibs, I’ll give you this instead.
Juvenile Bluster
on November 8, 2017 at 10:43 pm
It’s simple. I hate every single person you’ve mentioned in the series so far. So it’s fucking hilarious.
CPRM
on November 8, 2017 at 10:46 pm
Even the the Nuge?! (easter egg for the next part whenever the overlords publish it)
So Rand had a pleural effusion? WTF? That can be life threatening. The guy who attacked him should *absolutely* get nipped for a felony. Seems like aggravated assault and battery. I knew a guy in college who hit someone over the head with a beer bottle and his victim didn’t have nearly that bad of an injury and he got a felony.
Mustang
on November 8, 2017 at 10:53 pm
Yeah, it seems like there’s a big chunk of this story missing. That sort of assault should have resulted in some very serious charges and a long investigation, especially against a senator.
CPRM
on November 8, 2017 at 10:55 pm
Maybe he’s a rule of law guy? doesn’t matter the victim? doesn’t matter the outcome? Only matters the actual deed? Naw, that doesn’t sound libertarian at all.
Mustang
on November 8, 2017 at 11:04 pm
If that’s all the law requires, then sure. I’m not suggesting that because he’s a senator the charges should be more serious. I’m suggesting that because he’s a senator you would think there’d be federal charges and federal law enforcement officers all over it and the news, because king’s men and all that.
I’m having a hard time grasping the idea that physically beating someone to the point of breaking six ribs and causing fluid to build up around his lungs only results in an overnight stay with $7500 bail. I guess you could break six ribs with one tackle off the back of a lawn mower, but this seems more like “kicking him repeatedly after he’s down” kind of injury.
CPRM
on November 8, 2017 at 11:12 pm
I dunno, my dad fell on the ice when he was younger than Rand and ended up with two broken ribs, a broken shoulder and an embolism. Sometimes your body just breaks, no conspiracy needed.
Mustang
on November 8, 2017 at 11:14 pm
Absolutely. I’ve had random injuries as well. No conspiracy, but as Q points out, similar assaults usually result in higher charges.
CPRM
on November 8, 2017 at 11:19 pm
and I’m saying, judging solely by the outcome, we can’t know the severity of the assault. Maybe the guy just ‘bro’ pushed him and rand fell awkwardly. We don’t know.
Mustang
on November 8, 2017 at 11:47 pm
That is a fair point.
Q Continuum
on November 8, 2017 at 11:10 pm
I can see Rand not wanting special treatment for being a Senator; they are, after all, supposed to be just citizens like everyone else. However, these injuries are consistent with a serious assault that would warrant a felony against anyone.
Mustang
on November 8, 2017 at 11:16 pm
I can almost imagine him brushing it off and insisting on lesser charges, despite protestations from law enforcement. I’d also bet they’d listen…because senator.
Q Continuum
on November 8, 2017 at 11:24 pm
Funny how the guy who shot up the baseball game has essentially been memory holed. Now this. Dems keep talking about Trump causing violence and I guess they’re right, he is causing violence; from them.
CPRM
on November 8, 2017 at 11:28 pm
C’mon, we’re supposed to be the one’s who don’t use the ‘Jump to Conclusions Mat‘ for our decisions.
FIRST GOD DAMMIT!
*WATCH TAKING MY NAME IN VAIN!*
*BUT YOU ARE, TECHNICALLY, FIRST*
How many Dancing First GIFs do they have?
Just two? That’s all?
You’re just jealous that I got a first and you didn’t.
I see were doing communist style links today.
also second.
Da comrade. It’s a bit bland for me. I bet a certain poster will be in bland heaven.
I think the style is awesome. Too bad these products are not on sale in the neighborhood grocery store.
Once in Pamida I saw a case of beer that was just white and simply labeled beer for $8.
You obviously are young, as in, not of shopping age during the 1980’s. (See my link below)
They were, for a while.
It was popular around the mid 1970’s. Repo Man spoofed it.
… Hobbit
Congratulations. Here is your prize:
https://twitter.com/USATODAY/status/928343873000054784
Durrr!!! I meant to reply to Vhyrus’ momentous achievement above.
That chainsaw looks sweet
A chainsaw bayonet? Surprised they didn’t mention the bullet button.
And if Chelly Black AKA aggiebabe1 doesn’t know best what people’s needs are, who does?
It’s people like her that make me want to have one.
Because that’s PRECISELY why you should. The minute they know where the guns are….CAPUT.
They call this paranoia but it’s human nature as thousands of history shows all too depressingly well.
Maybe somebody can answer something for me? What the hell does need have to do with rights anyway? I keep hearing people use it like it’s some kind of trump card. But, I can’t see why people need to worship or not worship as they see fit, petition the government for redress of grievances. or be secure in their homes or effects from search and seizure.
I’d always assumed that we had those rights, not because we need them, but because, like the right to self-defense that the Second Amendment is an expression of, they’re inherent to humanity. A society that curtails those rights is morally wrong, not because it’s denying people things they need, but because it is demanding people deny what it fundamentally means to be human.
Is there some sort of need argument I’m unfamiliar with?
You haven’t heard of the bill of needs, bro?
Was that before or after the ‘Bill of wants”? Or was it the ‘Bill of entitled shit?’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms
… Hobbit
In theory (and in the minds of the authors of the Bill of Rights), you’re pretty much correct. Unfortunately for some reason the prevailing view came to be not that, but that the Bill of Rights is what gives us those rights, and they can be curtailed from there at the whim of the government.
I’ve come along to the belief that Alexander Hamilton was correct in Federalist 84. The bill of rights shouldn’t have existed, because it’s led us to where we are today.
https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-84
Nah, we would have lost our rights even faster. The people who believe the way you describe are engaged in “motivated reasoning”. They would have found some other excuse for power.
Agreed. They’ve already whittled the BoR down to almost nothing. Without it blocking their way, they would have taken their bullshit much further.
I think so. its pretty unfamiliar to me too, but listening to one of those coastal cosmotarian podcasts gave me a little insight because the coastal cosmotarian knew intellectually that this argument is right, but he clearly didn’t know it in his heart. As such, he was able to articulate the anti-RKBA position.
First off, you have to set aside the historically accurate view that the premise of the 2nd amendment is a recognition of a law of nature and understand the ahistorical position of the anti-RKBA crowd. They think that the bill of rights are decisions about various cost benefit analyses. Its better, all things considered, to have free speech. So we do. Its better, all things considered, to have a prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. So we have it.
But is it better, all things considered, to have a RKBA? Well, obviously there are costs. I don’t think I need to turn in my RKBA card to say that there are some terrible incidents that would not have happened if there was no RKBA. Therefore, there is some cost to the keeping and bearing of arms.
This is a “all things considered” analysis, so we need to look the total cost, which is all benefits – all costs. As a pro RKBA, I can give you a list of benefits. But consider the kind of person that that has 0 experience with firearms. 0 understanding of the way they work. 0 understanding of how they’ve been used for self protection by oppressed minority populations. To them, the “all benefits” variable is literally 0. They have no conception of the benefits of this tool any more than they have a conception of the benefits of, say knowing how to change your own tire (they take the subway everywhere), or the importance of water rights out west (they live on the east coast and if you want rain just wait a few days).
So since the bill of rights is a list of things that have a value > 0 when you subtract the costs from the merits, and since 0 merits – any cost is <0, they see the RKBA in the second amendment as a mathematically incorrect statement. Its constitutional cognitive dissonance for them.
So they do what everyone does in the face of cognitive dissonance, they try to reduce the paradox. If they had an appreciation for the rule of law, they would lobby to get the 2nd amendment stricken from the constitution. But because they don't have an appreciation for the rule of law, any regulation that infringes the RKBA reduces that dissonance for them.
So why do police departments need anything more than a six shooter? Particularly if no other civilians are armed.
Time for my favorite (probably apocryphal) story again!
So it goes that there was a Texas Ranger who carried a six-shooter, with five bullets and the hammer resting on the empty cylinder. He was asked why, and said that the hammer resting on an empty cylinder. He was then asked whether he was endangering his own position with only five bullets instead of six. He responded that if he couldn’t hit his target with 5 bullets, the sixth wouldn’t do him much good.
(I say we limit police to what Barney Fife had: One bullet, in his pocket, gun empty.)
In the old west they did leave one chamber empty because there was no half cock on the old revolvers and if you didn’t leave one empty the hammer would rest on a live primer and could go off if the gun was dropped or hit.
If you have ever seen Young Guns. The scene where Billy asks to see the TX Ranger’s pistol actually did happen with the exception that Billy set the cylinder to the empty chamber rather than emptying all the chambers. Which gave him a chance to mock the guy before he shot him.
I own an old style Ruger Blackhawk .357 and keep an empty cylinder for just that reason. Load 1, skip 1 load 4.
I dont care what you all say. That chick is a winner.
Did Harriet Tubman need to own a weapon like the military and police?
Are they going for some record on how wrong a single tweet can be?
Don’t you mean how AWESOMELY wrong? It has a fucking CHAINSAW ATTACHMENT!!!
Except it doesn’t. One guy made one as a proof of concept and never sold it. Same with the underbarrel shotgun. That would immediately make the weapon a short barreled shotgun and subject to NFA restrictions. Not that anyone at USA actually did any real research into that fucking abomination.
Fuck your facts! I want the awesome assaultchainsawshotgun thing!
…and also the thing that goes up.
Okay so apparently someone did actually start selling chainsaw bayonets. They cost 800, which is more than most ARs, and they weigh 6 pounds, which is about as much as the average AR.
*orders chainsaw bayonet*
Gears of War dream realized!
*starts cutting desk, saw binds up and gets tossed over desk*
…Well okay then.
WHEW! Glad they set the record straight.
That flashlight add-on makes it so much deadlier.
IT MEANS YOU CAN GO ON A KILLING SPREE…AT NIGHT!!!
Winner!
I like this one
(there are a lot of great replies, actually)
I love people like that. They make me proud!
OMG.
I need the shark attachment. Do you think it’s compatible with M-lok rails?
Scott Greenfield found a similar gun for me!
Why is the SPLC working with these racist groups?
These groups should not work with the SPLC. They should be ostracized as the frauds that they are.
I’d think the SPLC’s presence would hurt their efforts in Alabama.
I can see why IJ would work with them, but I wish they wouldn’t.
The SPLC believes the state must protect the rights of innocent guilty property owners
I would say that guilty property owners are also in need of protection.
Relevant.
Ooo, shiny new microwave. (My old one died after nine and a half years)
I have a relative that won’t stand near a microwave when it’s running. Afraid of radiation.
The key element from the old microwave still works (other key components failed) want a ray gun?
Yeah. Always wanted to do this. Lichtenberg Figures.
Years ago I knew a guy whose microwave would stay on when he opened the door. He non-nonchalantly opened the door to turn his food with his hand while I stared, eyes bugged out like Wile Coyote, backing towards the door as quickly as I could.
… Hobbit
I am sorry for your loss. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
I bet you like the luncheon loaf, too.
My microwave is older than me I think. It came with the house.
How does a micro wave die exactly?
Hopefully with quiet dignity, at home.
Some electrical connection which permitted the control board to well, run, came loose. Someone with more gumption could chase down the fault and probably fix it, but the screen had aged to nigh unreadable, and other similar bits of “character” that amke old appliances a bit of a hassle.
So, a stroke?
“In the dark” – Washington Post
My girlfriend killed one by setting it on fire.
More quickly than an oven?
… Hobbit
My Sears Kenmore microwave/convection oven was purchased 1985 and it still works like new. My then wife and I bought it from her boss in about 1992. I still have her bosses original receipt. The thing cost him over $800.00. That would be about $1,800.00 in 2017 dollars. Wow!
Yes, yes. Nice microwave.
What I want to know is what is happening with Akira’s Crock Pot situation?
Akira’s Crock Pot situation
KAAAAANNNNNEEEEEEEEDDAAAAAAAAAAAA
Kaneda brand Crock Pots ™ we tower over the competition. Also, Neo Tokyo
Ooops…i meant Tetsuo
Nothing much… It’s just sitting in the same spot. I guess I’ll go buy a new one this weekend. I’m paranoid about shit like that, and a crock pot is cheaper than the hassle of my house burning down (even with homeowners insurance).
“Chicago”
This link is delicious
TO HELL WITH YOUR DEEP DISH LINKS
I swear, by Lou Malnati, that if I can ever get a cat shaped deep dish, I will start catbutting people with it!!!!!!!!!!!!
Better than your cardboard with ketchup
You’re the one who’s putting ketchup on the box.
What?
I think all that cardboard has made you damn near retarded
We tried to offer you pizza, but you just slathered katchup on the box and started chowing down. I think all that casserole has rotted your brain.
People from New York are a disgrace to this country
New Yorkers are worse than CANADIANS!
Them’s fightin’ words.
NOBODY’S worse than us Canadians.
New Yorkers are the white people of Americans.
Stop it. All of you! Just order from Papa Johns like the racist rethuglicans you are.
A short while ago some reporter asked him about this. He replied that he wasn’t willing to entertain any of the groups’ demands because once you concede to even just one then everybody else comes out of the woodwork with their own demands. Takes a grifter to know a grifter, I guess.
I think it’s great Obama is the excuse to create a DMZ between Hyde Park and the hell hole just to the south.
DON’T ANY OF YOU WORK?
GDP NEEDS UPPING!
Does whipping my orphan slaves when their monocle production slows count as “work”?
That’s more like pleasure.
But fine.
Keeping civilization proper is a labour of love.
You’re one sick puppet.
Dude it’s like 5pm, I started at 8am. What kind of slaver are you?, I’m having a beer.
Commods, the government stock foods the local Indians used to get. My mom like the canned beef. I hated the spanish peanuts.
Reasy for some Will Wilkinson top man fellating
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/public-policy-utopia/
So basically we need TOP MEN to rule us and how European Welfare States are totes awesome.
Any here defended Wilkinson while he was at Reason?
Anyone defend Reason recently? These people are not libertarians. I know no true libertarians, etc, but if nothing else this thing should be about reducing the size and scope of the state. Every one of the 20th Century libertarian thinkers agreed on this point, even if they hated one another. Reason and Niskanen do not believe that reducing the size and scope of the state is important or even central to what they believe.
The rule here being – people with the initials WW are complete and total assholes:
Woodrow Wilson – check
Wil Wheaton – check. Bonus asshole points for spelling Will with one “L”
Wade Wilson – failed to take the Vikings to even one Super Bowl. Check
Walter White – forget all the murder and deception; dude drove an Aztek. Check
Willy Wonka – slave labor at his factory, exposed children to danger, allowed himself to be portrayed by Johnny Depp. Check
What about Walt Whitman?
LEAVES OF GRASS MY ASS
Now I’m howling in front of parents. Thanks.
I … Hate … You … Walt … Freaking … Whitman!!!
My precious germs! They never hurt a soul! They never had a chance to!
Willie Williams? Yeah, check.
Wojtek Wolski, massively talented yet underachieving left wing
Ooof. I remember drafting him and made it a point to learn how to swear in Polish.
That is, drafting him in our hockey pool.
Sure thing sport. Looking for some polish sausage, eh?
Very good in the shootout, if I remember correctly.
He had moves alright.
Dude should have been a star. On any given night, he’d look like one. The other 6 nights of the week, he played like Alexandre Daigle.
Even fictional WWs are assholes. Like Wade Wilson, Deadpool. Cool, but an asshole of the highest order.
Wade Wilson was fictional? I swear I saw him QB some weak Raiders teams.
Walter White was a pretty solid guy
William Wallace too.
Except to the English.
Does Wally World count?
Walter White was a megalomaniacal asshole.
Wendy O. Williams was bad ass.
Wesley Willis?
Whip the donkey’s ass with a belt!
My friend’s band opened for the Wesley Willis Fiasco in 1999. A crazy time was had by all.
*harrumph*
Willie Wilson was a god among men in the 80’s and I’ll hear nothing less.
Even Walter Williams? Why you gotta be so racist?
There is a science fiction writer named Walter Williams, too (well, Walter Jon Williams).
We graduated high school together and we even crossed paths at UNM.
… Hobbit
People often ask me how the Niskanen Center’s philosophy differs from standard-issue libertarianism. Usually I say something substantive and policy-related like, “We think the welfare state and free markets work better together, and that hostility to ‘big government’ can actually be counterproductive and leave us with less freedom,” or something in that vein.
So, in other words, you’re not fucking libertarian in the least and just a standard issue proglodyte.
Skin suits, aisle 3.
Niskanen was never libertarian. Reason and Cato on the other hand…
No but they try to tell people they are. They’re less skinsuits and more bad crossdressers.
Skinvelopes.
In other words, “we know the free market is way more efficient than anything run by the government. And that means people will be more prosperous, which in turn means there’s more money for us to steal for our pet projects.”
https://www.mediaite.com/online/the-media-ignores-it-but-we-just-learned-two-more-major-racism-episodes-were-fake/
Not surprising
I keep thinking about the Lebron one. How come no one – not even the cops – have said anything?
It stunk then, and it stinks now.
I had never heard of the Lebron James racist graffiti situation. So, someone at Lebron’s LA house claims there is racist graffiti outside. The police show up, but the site of the alleged graffiti is painted over. They’re shown a picture of the graffiti. And the NAACP demands that Donald Trump apologize.
*pinches bridge of nose between eyes*
The graffiti is painted over at 6 o’clock in the morning, no less.
It seems like Lebron has a lot of pent up rage. I look forward to his coming meltdown, via twitter of course.
Will you click?
Therapists Tell Us How the Trump Era Has Messed With Our Mental Health
The election itself reached into a different memory: that of being abused while others in their life told them everything was fine. Even after Trump leaves office, Koenig thinks the effects on her clients’ psyches will remain: the fact that he was ever elected indicates that many Americans accept his behavior. “It’s very hard for [these clients] to have a sense of safety in the world, anyway. They really see the world as ‘These people always get away with it and I have to be scared and hypervigilant.’”
We should pass out free vodka and barbiturates to these unfortunate, traumatized souls.
Lord the comments.
What a cesspool of nonsense. I see there’s one guy trying to snap people out of it but they’re doubling down.
Imagine having to let your mental health be affected by a fucken lousy politician. Alas, apparently telling people to smarten up is ‘white privilege’.
That term is potentially more destructive than we think.
They’re a bunch of whiny bitches. If they want to stick their heads in the oven over this they can be my guests.
I’ll take THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED for $500, Alex.
Pay no attention to that endowment behind the curtain
A trove of millions of leaked documents from a Bermuda-based law firm, Appleby, reflects some of the tax wizardry used by American colleges and universities. Schools have increasingly turned to secretive offshore investments, the files show, which let them swell their endowments with blocker corporations, and avoid scrutiny of ventures involving fossil fuels or other issues that could set off campus controversy.
Buoyed by lucrative tax breaks, college endowments have amassed more than $500 billion nationwide. The wealth is concentrated in a small group of schools, tilting toward private institutions like those in the Ivy League and other highly selective colleges. About 11 percent of higher-education institutions in the United States hold 74 percent of the money, according to an analysis in 2015 by the Congressional Research Service.
These assholes legally shield their investments from taxes. How shocking.
Looks like Trump is in Asia embarrassing himself in front of foreign leaders just as predicted. (Or maybe not.)
But fish food!
I had to look up the fish food thing. It was debunked by Snopes already. People really are insane over this guy.
I wonder if he’s getting tired of the standing ovations?
Pffft. I prefer Sans Nom brand for genericity.
Too colorful.
*puts on biohazard rebreather mask*
THIS IS NOT A DRILL, UCS IS AIRBORNE, I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A DRILL
REPORT TO THE NEAREST MOROCCAN RESTAURANT TO GET TESTED
*begins foaming at the mouth while looking at a recipe for garlic toast*
NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo
*drinks tepid tap water and snacks on stale Wonderbread contentedly*
Wonderbread doesn’t stale, so I think this is sarc?
*sizzling sound then a pop and Bacon-Magic appears*
In a world of bland, only one food item has the savory stuff to squash the bland…that’s BACON!
*starts flinging bacon at everyone including patient zero*
Are you Hickory or Apple smoked?
I am the Alpha and the Omega. But not turkey.
But not turkey.
Amen.
Accept no substitutes for true bacon.
Flinging sounds inefficient. Shouldn’t you have like a bacon cannon or something?
He could show you his bacon cannon, but you’re gonna need to sign some consent forms first and promise not to complain to HR.
^^^
Been burnt too many times.
*stares at Code of Conduct binder on desk*
Nobody likes burnt bacon.
Sans Nom? As if some frou-frou French brand could possibly be the gold standard of genericity.
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/libertarian-democracy-skepticism-infected-american-right/
Top Man fellator bemoans anti-Democracy libertarians and How Republicans are too damn libertarian.
Ilya Somin responds and points out that Republicans aren’t particularly libertarian.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/11/05/will-wilkinson-on-libertarian-democracy-skepticism/?utm_term=.42426fa2f5f0
Somin should have responded how the Niskanen people aren’t all that libertarian
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGJEkVxUoAAJ0uy.png
Well, it’s official. Trump’s going to be a one term president. CNN polls are always accurate, right?
They undersampled Trump’s support pretty excessively in 2016. Then they went the other way this year and missed on the VA & NJ governor’s races (margins were larger than predicted). So… yeah, they mean absolutely nothing.
The media is nauseating today. Well everyday, but today is over the top. Time, I think it was, are already predicting the same 1000 year Democrat reign, after VA last night. I mean the same 1000 year reign they predicted in 20009. That went rather badly for them, but not as badly as it will this time. Oh, and which one is it that is saying… I can’t even bother to look, that Trump is just a hair from impeachment after VA last night. For what reason, they didn’t say, but it’s true because they said so.
If the Dems take Congress in 2018 (not unlikely), I could see him getting impeached. He wouldn’t get convicted, but nobody seems to know how the impeachment process works.
Or who takes over when if he is removed from office.
Straightforward from here:
1. Impeach Trump and Pence (we’ll ignore that she missed the conviction part of it)
2. Constitutional crisis (no, because we have a line of succession)
3. Special election (sure, why not)
4. Ryan v. Clinton
5. President Hillary Clinton
6. Impeach President Clinton
7. Another special election
8. A tired electorate somehow elects ZARDOZ as President, with STEVE SMITH as VP
9. The world is doomed. And raped.
Well. It’s a SugarFree story after 1 because it means Eddie Munster is POTUS. And the rest of it:
3 President pro tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch (R)
4 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R)
5 Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin (R)
6 Secretary of Defense James Mattis (I)
7 Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R)
8 Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke (R)
9 Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue (R)
10 Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross (R)
11 Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta (R)
12 Secretary of Health and Human Services Eric Hargan (R)[a]
Acting
13 Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson (R)
– Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao (R)[b]
14 Secretary of Energy Rick Perry (R)
15 Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos (R)
16 Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin (I)
17 Secretary of Homeland Security
Oh shit, Jeff Sessions will be president! We’re truly fucked.
I was referring to that infamous tweet from Sally Kohn that became a meme.
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/straightforward-from-here-meme/
I would say it’s extremely unlikely. Why?
1. All of those wins last night were in Blue of Deep purple states. All except for VA, there were no surprises at all.
2. An analysis of the races in 2018 show the GOP set to actually make gains.
3. The Democrats have overreacted again and will now get really bold and not only double, but triple down on their identity politics and moving leftward. They are once again going to overplay their hand.
The other good thing that might happen though, is that the GOP might actually get scared and repeal the ACA and pass real tax cuts. Oh, who am I kidding?
Congress is extremely unlikely. The Senate map is too favorable for the Rs for them to lose unless there’s a massive wave against them…I can only see that happening if there’s an economic crash. The House is a maybe, depending on how things shake out, as it’s not uncommon for the President’s party to lose seats. The Virginia and New Jersey elections aren’t too informative for the midterms, as the R governor candidates got 45% and 42% of the vote, respectively, in states that Trump got 44% and 41% of the vote.
Lauren Southern is now on a SPLC hatewatch list. This is your fault, John Titor. Letting this dog whistling racist out of your country and into ours!
How do I get on that list? They’re putting everyone to the right of Lenin there nowadays.
You post here. There’s already not a list you’re not on.
Let me try that one more time. It doesn’t go directly to her page, even though as copied from that page. (Guess it’s not just Townhall that does that to me) https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/11/07/lauren-southern-alt-right’s-canadian-dog-whistler
Good think the Kochs are pairing up with the responsible people at SPLC
I just read through that entire thing and I didn’t find a single thing they said that showed she was an actual, you know, racist. Instead everything’s covered with “DOG WHISTLE! DOG WHISTLE!”
It’s pretty much the left-wing SJW version of a cop’s “STOP RESISTING!”
Still, hand-waving away the fact that the Crusaders were responsible for shit like the Rhineland massacres comes from a noxious place and is deserving of contempt.
When you have to examine someone’s opinion of a historical figure and historical events to deem them a bigot- you’re stretching it a bit. Especially when it is something as complicated as the Crusades. Should we deem all people who respect Muhammad as bigots because of his military conquests or how historical Hebrew characters?
A fair point, but I think you’re probably giving her too much credit. I wouldn’t expect her knowledge of the Crusades to go that in-depth.
Not defending Southern, personally. I’m talking about labeling someone a bigot for not having an overall negative view on complicated historical topics.
Well, neither can they tell us why Trump is going to be impeached any minute now or what for, or why everyone right of Mao is a racist, or how Bernie’s healthcare plan is going to be paid for. You got to have faith.
Lauren Southern is now on a SPLC hatewatch list.
Damn, she makes me proud to be a Canuck.
And I’m proud to be a Canadian
Where at least we have Mounteeees
Being on an SPLC hatewatch list is the political equivalent of getting a video game achievement for finishing the tutorial.
Poor Dean Takahashi.
Cosmotarianism seems to be basically a call for a technocratic ruling elite to save the welfare state from populists, racists and socialists. Since the first two like the welfare state and the latter is increasing gly influence on the left how this is supposed to work I have no idea. Seems Bill Clinton and Macon are the ideal Cosmotarians.
Do you have manatees constructing your posts?
I don’t get the reference. Is manatee code for something?
The South Park episode where the writers of Family Guy were revealed to be a group of manatees in a tank nosing up balls with random people and things written on them. The balls were then combined to make a joke involving a group of people/things that had absolutely nothing to do with each other.
South Park making fun of Family Guy being 100% non-sequiturs had the boys find the writing room of Family Guy and it was a tank of manatees randomly selecting balls with words on them and feeding them into a tube.
Let me enact some labor for you, yo.
How is what I said a non-sequitur?
We’ve lost the thread here. The point is you took a bunch of words and threw them into a sentence together to mean very little. Non-sequitur only came up because I had to explain the South Park episode.
At least P Brooks is on the same page even if he refuses to thread.
I was trying to build on the two Wilkinson links I posted. Admittedly replying to him can’t help but sound like random words since that is what his articles are full of.
Eh, I’ll buy it. Carry on.
Also the only way to get this “ideal welfare state” is to cut back when things aren’t working and the left is extremely hostile to even the most mild libertarianish reforms and willingness of Republicans to back them is suspect.
Haven’t seen Beer beer around in a long time.
Yeah, generic products have become ‘supermarket’ branded products instead of the plain generic ones. I remember in the early 80’s going to a ‘generic’ store. (I think it’s name was ‘Food’) and seeing white boxes with plain text descriptions (as displayed in the Repo Man links Gilmore & I posted above.) I remember looking at a jar of peanut butter and reading the ingredients: Peanuts, Sugar, Cottonseed Oil, Vodka.
The Repo Man generics were the early ’80s Ralph’s store products.
Alex Cox tried to get some company to give him money to display their products. No one bit (at least, no one with enough cash), so he went with (Ralph’s, apparently) generics instead. It’s funny for me, because the generic foods are a small part of what makes that such a great movie. I crack up when Otto (Emilio Estevez) opens a can of ‘Food’ and starts eating from the can.
“Put it on a plate son, you’ll enjoy it more.”
“Couldn’t get any better than this, Mom.”
Yes. Twas a sad day when I discovered that the generics weren’t the plan all along.
Oh, and…. “Put it on a plate, son. It will taste better.”
“Couldn’t taste better than this, mom. Mmm-mmm, this is swell.”
Ha ha ha. Your quote’s better.
I haven’t either. My dad bought me a 6 pack of it once as a joke. That was around 1985.
Lot of talk in the laSt post about government employees turn a state leftward and how immigrants for those states turn them leftward. How does that fit in with open borders? Along with the Free State Project diesn’t that suggest that libertarian government needs libertarian people?
I’m of two minds. On one hand on borders strikes me as like the classical liberal support for universal suffrage which backfired disastrously. On the other border controls might work as well as the classical support for public schools…
“Open borders”.
ftfyaym
(fixed that for you and your mom)
The problem isn’t open borders, it’s open borders AND a generous welfare state where even illegal aliens are qualified to receive benefits.
Wait, what?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1918
The main beneficiaries where Labour.
Or in France where it lead to the election of Napoleon III
Or in Germany where it lead to the BismarkIan Welfare State.
Any rebuttals? Interested to see. No sarc.
I don’t think that is the fault of universal suffrage. I think that is the fault of simple democracy (ie 50 plus percent to win). Cumulative voting (one election and three winners), which they use to have in the Illinois legislature, is actually good at protecting minority voting preference along with assuring the majority’s voice.
Also, Napoleon III was not that bad of guy, in comparison to other figures in French history
Why Was cumulative voting replaced? One man one vote?
No cumulative voting is still legal. They got rid of it in Illinois in the early 80’s for stupid reasons. But, Peoria, IL is required to have cumulative voting elections, do to its history of disenfranchising minorities during elections
No doubt elections aren’t authoritarian-proof, but in the long run, I would say those are the exceptions and not the rule. With universal suffrage, at the very least, the dueling interests of the Optimates and the Populares usually ensure some balance. From the classically liberal point-of-view, limited franchises too often devolve to oligarchy.
Right. The argument shouldn’t be against universal voting, but rather the method of voting.
I think the chief problem with our elections system is the notion of having elections. Tens of thousands of people choosing between two candidates they have no relationship with or knowledge of, both of whom were hand-picked by political elites in a process most people have no connection to, and both of whom are beholden to whoever can dump massive amounts of money in to help them message other people. That’s to say nothing of the entire wicked campaign and consultancy industry.
At least as regards state or Congressional representatives, I think selection works better. It would require a much larger pool of Reps to blunt the outliers, and that means tweaking the EC to reduce the power shift toward populous states. But I think it would solve the Paul Ryan problem.
POOr people shouldn’t be allowed to vote and should say “thank you” when they’re drafted into a pointless war.
POOr
Intentional? Early stages of RSI?
I think he meant (((POOr))).
Florida Man is notoriously anti-semitic
Have them invade YOUR state and see how you feel. I can’t even go to boca and hunt gators no more.
Not our fault gator isn’t kosher.
Blame Ha-Shem
Hashem doesn’t owe us an answer, Larry.
My phone is aging and makes me look foolish. I’m tired of fixing the errors it produces.
technoageism rears its ugly head once again.
Well Cytotoxic opposed poor peopke voting cause Trump.
When I woke-up today, I said to myself: “today, I will not be drawn into an argument about universal suffrage. This isn’t 1890, there is no need for such a conversation”
I think the attacks on universal suffrage are bunk. I think the arguments against expanded democratization (ie. Senators being elected directly by the people versus state legislatures) are fair. The voters should have a say, but pure democracy (simply majority rule) is barbaric
Arguments against the 17th Amendment are something else. I don’t really see them as being linked to arguments against universal suffrage.
I agree. I do think there are good arguments against simple majority elections, though. I think cumulative voting would be a good alternative
Didn’t John Titor say some anti-universal suffrage things or am I mistaken?
Anyway I didn’t neccesarrily mean that universal suffrage killed classical liberalism (though it did kill what was left in the UK) but it wasn’t the bulwark of classical liberalism like they thought it was going to be.
John Titor is a bad character. I wouldn’t use him as a reference to defend your argument.
Well I wanted to see what he had to say. Might make things interesting.
He writes in Canadian. We need translators to gauge what he is saying
Oh stewardess! I speak Canadian, eh!
The voters should have a say, but pure democracy (simply majority rule) is barbaric
I’ve thought of the answer to the problem of direct democracy this morning. It strikes me that one of the key problems of democracy is that it fails to account for intensity of preference. Every vote carries equal weight whether it is passionate and well researched or simply a mild preference arrived at on cursory inspection. It really makes no sense. A suburban housewife might enjoy the marginal protection afforded by giving the police carte blanche. But, should she really be afforded the same influence as, say, a kid in the ghetto who would bear the consequences of police abuse?
So, here’s my answer: give everyone some fixed number of votes per year, say 20. The votes can be utilized multiple times in one vote. And they expire at the end of the year. That way, people only vote on the issues they particularly care about and can have an outsized say on issues they are willing to forego say on other issues.
I think universal suffrage is superior to the alternatives, but there remains the sheep-wolf problem. An expensive system built on the support of people who don’t pay for it is not sustainable.
That is the real clinch isn’t it? In theory universal suffrage was supposed to ensure that the masses would not tolerate this but the welfare state and pubsec unions show this didn’t work.
I think public sector unions have to be one of the dumbest inventions to coexist with universal suffrage.
But it does make it really obvious that “the government is us” is a bald-faced lie.
That… was not my best use of the English language.
I suppose the alternative would be to replace taxation with unpaid national service obligations for citizens (and replace a great deal of professional gov’t work accordingly), and auction off immunity from service to raise funds.
Theoretically, the richest people would buy these indulgences, in order their time making even more $$$, so it would still result in a progressive tax system, more or less, but everyone would have skin in the game.
It would also make clearer the connection between taxation and
slaverymandatory volunteerism.Tear down that
wallmural!“Like most great art, Benton’s murals require context and history,” said Lauren Robel, the school’s executive vice president and provost, in a statement, calling the works a national treasure. “Many well-meaning people, without having the opportunity to do that work, wrongly condemn the mural as racist simply because it depicts a racist organization and a hateful symbol.”
“It does not glorify or celebrate this particular dark episode of the KKK in Indiana, but instead shows that the state’s past has shameful moments the likes of which we do not want to see again, ever,” added James Wimbush, the university’s vice president for diversity, equity, and multicultural affairs, speaking to USA Today. “It’s important to understand the state’s history—the good and the bad.”
The petition acknowledges that Benton intended to denounce the Klan, but points out that the KKK is still active in the state today, claiming that “these are in fact modern depictions and not just depictions of a historical time in Indiana.” It calls the classroom housing the artwork “an environment that promotes a group known for discriminating against people of color, homosexuals, non Christians, and various other marginalized groups of people.”
Context is for chumps. We don’t need no larnin’.
So ban all anti-Trump art?
Interesting fact: Benton was Jackson Pollock’s mentor.
His great uncle and namesake was a senator who owned slaves.
Which is probably why they’re going after him. Turned upside while googling the senator most likely.
These people are completely into original sin.
Thomas Hart Benton: Born April 15, 1889
Neosho, Missouri.
Huh. I fought in a boxing tournament there in ’94. Also knew a guy who was murdered there in ’98-’99ish during a drug deal gone wrong.
Do you have manatees constructing your posts?
Salad spinners.
France stumbles into the ultimate anti-Trump strategy!
Marine Le Pen loses immunity over Twitter IS images
Reddit seems to have shut down /r/incels, which was by far the worst place on the internet. Mein gött.
(Bunch of sexless losers who blame everybody but themselves for being sexless losers, with an addition of glorification of Elliot Rodger and Marc Lépine, and a belief that rape (like rape rape) should be legal because women shouldn’t be allowed to turn down nice guys like them)
~~~your comment has been kissed gently by the wings of a low-fi Edit Faerie~~~
I think you mean they think rape should be legal?
If there’s anything all those men visiting your mom should’ve taught you: rape is bad, consensual is good.
Oh, she consents all right.
That is what I meant. Me dum. Me not deserve edit faerie.
~~~Edit Faerie pats JB on head patronizingly~~~
STEVE SMITH AGREE!
Since I’m bored, a copy and paste of some of their greatest hits.
[Ed note: He’s talking about a video game (Skyrim mod). I’m not sure if that makes it less or more disturbing.]
And finally, this disturbing question (just words, but it’s NSFL)
I’m talking about vanilla rape.
Vanilla Rape was a great early ’90s punk-rock band, but they got too commercial.
As I said, “I am more like a rape victim because society forced me to fuck that passed out woman and lose my virginity from all the virgin shaming they subjected me to. I would not have done it if I knew I could get into a lifetime marriage with another virgin.” I will never be able to feel the same about sex, though, of course.
Is chemical castration still a thing? Because maybe it should still be a thing.
Rapeman never sold out, though!
Is this the toxic masculinity we hear so much about?
Seriously, though, WTF?
Or maybe this one, on how to deal with your roommate who’s in a happy relationship
Actually, here’s a whole damn subreddit of their greatest hits, if you dare
This sounds like something you’d see on Criminal Minds. Wow.
“…In this conclusion essay, I weave together the different voices in this special issue to voice the role of autoethnography as a method for radicalizing knowledge production as decolonial academic-activist solidarities.”
lol.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532708617735637?journalCode=csca
Source:
https://twitter.com/realpeerreview?lang=en
That’s pure inanity.
A few years ago I wouldn’t have known what that means. What am I doing with my life?
While i have been entertained by the Brazile-bus-throwing-Clinton drama so far…
….i think this claim is way off the mark:
No one who has actually heard the speech she gave could possibly believe it was anything other than a tightly-scripted remark, one which her team of writers probably cooked up the evening before, and thought was a real zinger.
no one just says, “basket of deplorables” off the cuff. For fucks sake, she even *says* that its some term which she specifically contrived to describe Trump voters. she’s not nearly imaginative enough to actually say something like that spontaneously.
sorry – links
http://freebeacon.com/politics/donna-brazile-blames-clintons-health-for-basket-of-deplorables-remark/
I think I read in Shattered that the “deplorables” slur had been used by Clinton at private events for some time before she used it in public. Perhaps they got desensitized to how offensive it would sound to the general public.
more than that: as i said, they probably thought it was a memorable zinger, and that it would have exactly the opposite effect – resonating with people and making GOP voters ashamed of their association with hordes of yokel rubes
basically, its the sort of shit that you can only believe when you live in a bubble. and Clinton’s world is like the fucking Biosphere 2 of bubbles.
Her bubble seems toghter than that. Technically, a species of rabid ants managed to survive being locked in the Biodome. Hillary seems to want to take down everything around her.
http://www.koat.com/article/pistol-packin-pastor-encourages-congregation-to-carry-guns-in-church/13440388
‘Pistol Packin’ Pastor’ encourages congregation to carry guns in church
The tragic news of a deadly mass shooting in a Texas trickled across the country, and sent an Albuquerque pastor Larry Allen into a roller coaster of emotions.
“My first reaction was brokenhearted, sadness. It makes me very angry,” Allen said.
He also couldn’t help but think one thing, “Were they prepared?”
Allen is known as the “Pistol Packin’ Pastor.”
He’s armed when he stands at the pulpit every Sunday, and many members of his congregation are, too.
“Our prayer is praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,’” Allen said.
A shepherd protects his flock from wolves, and not by trying to gently convince the wolves to be less canine.
Incredible photos tell the sad story of China’s ‘bicycle graveyards’
http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/incredible-photos-tell-the-sad-story-of-chinas-bicycle-graveyards/news-story/46417351a2e829facb5b672ec1da8fcc
Whoa, kind of a bummer, but I could see that many bikes suddenly needing to be locked up, pell-mell, being a problem.
Watch how news media take story which should be classic example of govt policy generating massive waste and market distortion, and twists it to blame “private companies”
I find it hard to believe that private companies tried competing with a ‘free’ govt service. I’d bet dollars to pork-buns that these private companies were given lucrative contracts by crony pols.
The story inside is even better.
How dare private enterprises offer a more convenient solution and attempt to compete with government!
“Dizzying photos taken above the graveyard show thousands of perfectly good bicycles left to rust in an empty field outside of the busy city.”
Reminiscent of Obama’s hair brained ‘Cash for Clunker’s’ scheme. Leftist of a feather, flock together.
Wait a minute… I just actually read the article. The author is actually agreeing with the Chicom government? WTF?
Servile leftists always side with government. I’d have been thoroughly surprised if he’d reacted inn favor of free enterprise.
Sexton is fucking idiot. Cyber crime is a far greater threat to all of our security then retreiving some dead assholes phone records. It’s not even fucking close. The more bomb proof our info, the better for everyone. Does he really think the phone records are going to tell them why he shot babies?
https://hotair.com/archives/2017/11/07/fbi-cant-unlock-church-shooters-phone/
I don’t see him making a strong argument for the idea of giving the gov backdoors on our phones. Maybe I am not reading into it enough.
Hey Q C: someone on TOS says there are no hot looking Australian girls. I’ll bet you can find a few for our perusal.
It’s Aussieland, they’ve probably been banned.
Killed by the drop bears. Every single one. SAD!
Yeah, that’s retarded.
Me want
I’m not sure you could catch her. You’ll have to be cunning.
being a linguist helps.
Is it just the lighting or is that chick sporting pit hair?
Kylie Minogue and her sister.
Yes, on Kyle.
Oh?
NTTAWWT
to be fair, most of the people who still comment there are dumb as dogshit
Also: Naomi Brockwell in a mickey mouse hat
New fetish.
OMG I FELT LIKE A DIRTY OLD MAN AND I LIKED IT
she appeals to me on some deep, genetic level. I would make very attractive and witty babies with her.
There’s only one comment there and I think it’s you.
SHES MINE!!! STOP LOOKING AT HER
TOO LATE!!
*hits replay*
ceounicorn?
No, but it does sound like one of us.
Stupidest thing ever said,or most stupid thing
Challenge accepted:
https://i.imgur.com/i9U0ZGV.jpg
Angela White. You can find (very, very) NSFW stuff on your own.
Berenger Rose.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6LTP_0MoMjE/S_v4E_B73WI/AAAAAAAAIGs/BgsJYyMGRtY/s1600/Berenger-Rose-Zoo-2.jpg
Bianca Daniella.
https://snusercontent.global.ssl.fastly.net/member-profile-full/37/612537_3534526.jpg
Christie Fleming.
http://media.surfshot.s3.amazonaws.com/media/1/3/1355464-large.jpg
I mean, you only needed one counter example, but go rub it in those TOS-sers’ faces.
Needs more Angela White.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/df/2d/23/df2d236f60115d8d4d377ff29a78a009–lush-beauty-curvy-women.jpg
https://images2.alphacoders.com/866/thumb-1920-866466.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XrJYJTi.jpg
Ahem.
Two stories about the same person.
Story Uno:
—-Daily Caller, October 19, 2017
http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/19/dreamer-who-claims-he-was-wrongly-deported-drops-lawsuit-against-trump/
Thought was the end of the story?
Story Dos:
—-Wall Street Journal, November 8, 2017
https://www.wsj.com/articles/daca-recipient-charged-with-illegally-re-entering-the-u-s-1510175844
Why go to court when you can just walk back across the border, right?
I maintain that rallying public support for “open borders” will remain problematic so long as we have no means to keep out the people we deport–for whatever reason.
$5 says the reason why his lawyers requested a dismissal is they were told he had already crossed back over.
Oooh! Alt-text! We’ve been a little short on alt-text around here. I hope this is the beginning of…a new beginning…or something.
*hovers over MikeS’s avatar*
Nobody’s told him yet?!
*hovers over bacon-magic’s avatar*
*gets hungry*
What were we talking about?
Idk
*wanders into kitchen*
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-weekend-gun-violence-20171106-story.html
“Chicago close to recording 600th homicide for only second time since 2003
hicago is close to recording its 600th homicide for the year, only the second time the city will have reached the grim milestone since 2003, according to data kept by the Tribune.
After a weekend when 30 were people shot, five of them fatally, the number of homicides stands at 593 this year, according to the Tribune’s database.
That’s below the 681 homicides this time last year but substantially above other recent years.”
—————-
REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT!~!!11!1111!!! *Rabid foaming.*
I bet the NRA actually provided every one of those gang members with their weapons. We have to do something!
I liked James Woods’ response:
https://s1.postimg.org/5qw5lw933j/James_Woods.jpg
(SFW).
Goddamn Indiana guns!
There’s an extensive network of Klansmen, libertarians, and other Republicans working day and night to smuggle death-bringer street-sweeper machine-gun blood-spilling hand cannons into the Democratic People’s Utopia of Chicago from the unknown wastes, like Indiana and Texas, in a nefarious plot to eliminate blacks, gays, and transgender toddlers.
/CNN.
Damn, you really DO work for CNN, don’t you?
I hear the perks are good, so I’m angling for a job with them by creating a reputation for myself as a woke millennial. Did I miss anything?
Oh, yeah.
HATE SPEECH ISN’T FREE SPEECH. *Intentionally soils underwear in protest of patriarchal microaggressions.*
I still have no idea what to make of that headline.
“We’ve had almost 600 homicides this year, but it’s not all bad! It’s only happened once before!”
“We’re a cabal of disingenuous, morally bankrupt leftists whose worldview is demonstrably retarded and harmful, and to make some sense of the destruction our politics cause, we’ll try to frame societal disasters in cesspits like Chicago as tragic, incomprehensible, aberrant events.”
From the Annals of the Institute for Study of Unintentional Forthrightness
Asked about long-leveled allegations that Mr. Paul had disregarded neighborhood regulations, Mr. Skaggs, who is also a former leader of the county Republican Party, said that the senator “certainly believes in stronger property rights than exist in America.”
“Who said you could do that?”
A coworker was crying bloody murder because the Republicans are going to make tuition waivers taxable. His wife is a PhD student.
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/11/tuition-waivers-taxed.html
One of my colleagues has a daughter who insists on getting a doctorate in some bullshit social science, and she’s already in massive debt, and unemployed. I laughed openly when she told me about it. She wasn’t amused.
You know else who extracted ludicrous amounts of money from vulnerable, alienated young people in exchange for providing them with useless bullshit knowledge primarily intended to reinforce the influence of group leaders?
L. Ron Hubbard?
Celean Dion?
The Southern Poverty Law Center?
I’m actually in agreement on this. If it’s not income (e.g., cash on the table or deposited into account), the income tax should not apply. To do so opens the door for taxing barter and anything else that value can be assigned to. For example, if they are going to tax free tuition given in return for work provided, it’s only logical to expand that to the value of all scholarships and public school tuition minus the parent’s share of local property taxes.
The principal part of me is very much enjoying the shrieking of academia, but the principle part of me does like the income tax being applied to non-income.
*does not like
So, if I loan someone money, that’s not taxable because its a loan.
Then, if I forgive the loan, that’s not taxable, because no money is changing hands.
I like this “its only income if it is a transfer of cash”.
My employer pays my bills (mortgage, etc.) – not taxable.
My employer gives me a house, car, etc. – not taxable.
My employer pays my kid’s tuition to college – not taxable.
Hell, my employer gives me stock, any stock – not taxable.
My employer pays me in commodities, not cash. You know, like gold and silver.
I’m liking this more and more.
Yeah, this should totally minimize distortions on the economy, leading to great
efficiencycompliance costs (the true life blood of any bar member)!!Yes, I do not think those things should be taxable, except maybe things which are essentially cash like stocks and gold/silver. I believe an income tax is pure theft and should not exist. Therefore I would seek to reduce what can be taxed rather than expand. You made an argument before why all benefits should be assigned a value and taxed. I agree it could be done that way to not distort the marketplace, but would greatly prefer to see tax rates drastically reduced before they expand what’s taxed.
If we are going this route, then educational scholarships absolutely need to be taxed. Otherwise, the schools can just restructure these waivers as scholarships. You picked executive level perks, but let’s extend it down to those who have very little. An 18 year old girl who gets free room and board as part of her nanny position should also have to pay tax on the value on that. An employee in a shop should have to pay income tax on the value of the equipment if the boss lets him use it for his own projects.
Low tax rates and no deductions go together like nachos and beer because the minimize the damage that the tax collection does.
If you think there should be no tax, argue for that. Don’t argue for a fucked up tax system that brings in less revenue and does more damage than it needs to.
My argument for no tax is to cut the budget by 95%. Virtually every government service should be fee-based and pay for itself. At most, a very small tariff. Absolutely no internal taxes. Very simple.
I disagree that arguing against expanding the reach of the income tax is “fucked up”. There’s certainly valid points to be made for taxing people more, but I hardly think arguing against it is such a radical position.
greatly prefer to see tax rates drastically reduced before they expand what’s taxed
How did we lose this thread? It’s like, overnight, we went from “lower tax rates and cut deductions” to just “cut deductions” which paradoxically makes the “tax cuts”… not.
That comment was partially about a theoretical expansion of what’s taxable and partially about what’s being expanded in the bill.
At least as far as I can tell, the tax reform provides very little direct benefit to the average person other than making it easier to take the standard deduction. The benefit to doubling the standard deduction has essentially been eliminated by removing personal exemptions.
There are tax cuts for businesses and the AMT & estate tax are being repealed. That’s awesome and something I’m very much in favor of. For everyone else, I think the tax cuts are not going to materialize over a few hundred dollars. I think a lot of families, even those who don’t itemize, are going to end up paying more because of the personal exemption elimination. The fact I can’t easily tell is a problem with the bill. The tax reform should be crystal clear, % tax cut across the board and these deductions eliminated. Instead, it’s got some great stuff, some bad stuff, and is still filled with complex gimmicks.
except maybe things which are essentially cash like stocks and gold/silver
Already with the exceptions . . . .
Yanking your chain, mostly. My point really was that exempting in-kind compensation and taxing only cash compensation introduces all kinds of shenanigans and (more importantly) economic distortions. Look what not taxing health insurance premiums paid on your behalf by your employer has wrought in the health care/health care finance world.
You picked executive level perks, but let’s extend it down to those who have very little.
History tells us that’s exactly where the tax-free compensation will be paid. As for your nanny, she’s not going to pay income tax anyway unless we eliminate all deductions, including the standard deduction. Which is exactly why, BTW, nobody will be arsed to offer tax-free compensation to people in the lower quintile or two.
As for the free use of shop equipment, that’s probably already technically taxable, but nobody cares because there’s no way to find out about it – it creates no paper trail.
In general, the broader the base for a tax, the lower the rate can be to raise the same amount of money and the fewer economic distortions are created. The exceptions and carve-outs for things like tuition waivers, student loan waivers, etc. are all the product of crony lobbying to benefit well-connected businesses and industries. A complex tax code is an engine of corruption.
I understand what you are saying. I can see the advantages of taxing all employee benefits to not distort the market. I would argue that this is very much a more complex tax code though than simply taxing directly paid income. Only taxing income would eliminate all waivers, exemptions, etc. There would be no lobbying. I think the advantages of a much simpler tax code and elimination of all lobbying offsets the disadvantage of a greater shift towards compensation being paid in benefits.
As for the class argument that only the rich pay income tax on employer benefits, I think taxes should be felt equally. It’s wrong to target the rich or the poor for specific taxes. Let Barb the admin assistant making $25k a year pay income tax on the 30% Verizon discount she gets through her company for her personal cell phone. I’m against it, but that’s taxing employee benefits fairly across the board.
I would argue that this is very much a more complex tax code though than simply taxing directly paid income.
Entirely possible, although you might be able to do it pretty simply – “all compensation, in cash or in kind, transferred in exchange for goods and services, excepting only the following in-kind compensation:
de minimis, less than $___ annual value
bartered services that are not available to the public (your machine shop, for example)
etc.
Even a list of 20 exceptions is incredibly simple compared to the current tax code.
As we have seen, even a “only cash transferred in exchange for goods and services” rule would leave so many avenues for untaxed income that even a hardliner would want to start roping in some kinds of non-cash income, and would create allow so many forms of economically equivalent in-kind income that I think the pressure to shut down the unfairness of taxing somebody on $20K cash, but not the $20K car their employer gave them. Now you’re coming at the other way – not defining exceptions, but trying to capture an unending list of in-kind compensation.
My concern is where the taxing of benefits ends. It is easier to make a clear dividing line when the company pays $X as a benefit, that you pay income tax on $X. They are taxing benefits that don’t involve a transfer of money as income, such as the value of room and board for a nanny.
Let me throw this out here, in all seriousness. I am the only employee at my company who is allowed to work from home. Some other employees are resentful because they have to pay for daycare and see my working from home as a company benefit. At some point in the future, I could entirely see it being demanded by progs that I pay income tax on the value of daycare since working from home could be construed as an employer provided benefit. If the value of free room and board can be taxed, why not for the value of daycare? The slippery slope is what concerns me.
Taxing barter has long been in the IRS code:
https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc400/tc420
What they are doing is removing exceptions. Quid Pro Quo == Income taxable. You should read the FAA’s umbrella of “compensation”
And I disagree with taxing barter as income. I disagree with taxing debt as income. I’m surprised this view is so unpopular, but I will still stand consistent in believing that taxes shouldn’t be all encompassing.
I disagree with taxing debt as income.
Its not taxed as income. If you have debt that is forgiven, that’s income, because its the equivalent in every way of income.
Honestly, here’s where I am on all this:
(1) Until we drastically cut spending and have a real path to reducing the debt, I don’t think its wise at all to reduce tax collections. Doing so lays the groundwork for a massive economic collapse when the currency fails.
(2) I’m not sold on any alternative to income tax, so I assume we’re going to be working with that.
(3) If we have an income tax, it should be as flat and simple as possible with as broad a base as possible (including in-kind compensation). It would be pretty catastrophic for my financial engineering to have the charitable deduction eliminated, but I would have a hard time coming up with a principled argument for keeping it.
For practical purposes, I could see putting in some limits on taxable in-kind compensation, but those would be based mostly on de minimis (I know, slippery slope) and hard-to-value in-kind compensation.
RC, I’ll add that I’ve enjoyed having this round 2 of discussion with you on this. I’m glad the trolls get kept out, but it has the effect of creating an echo chamber at times.
Same here, Pops.
It is what it is.. Taxes aren’t just, Taxes just are. At best they can be efficient, and distort the market place as little as possible.
If you didn’t tax barter, then wouldn’t you accept food + lodging + clothing, + company car +movies+ vacations as part of your compensation? Just like we accept the pre tax, pre-paid medical.
For the longest time, corporate benefits were “untaxed”… and then redefined as loopholes of the rich.. and then removed… this is just more removal.
Barter is taxable, as groups that have tried to create barter clubs have learned to their horror.
Tell him congrats on finally being able to pay his fair share.
So this opioid epidemic…when do we get to turn it back on them by asking why the nannies don’t want people to get the healthcare they need?
“Nobody needs more than four pills per pack. This message is sponsored by Everytown for Opium Safety.”
They’ll just say its the wrong kind of healthcare because big pharm something something corporate greed something something.
Wheels within wheels
But the law’s leniency toward Paul’s alleged assailant is just one of the mysteries surrounding the incident, including this: Why was a U.S. Senator — a physician whose net worth is estimated to exceed $2 million and who continues to maintain a surgical practice on the side — mowing his own lawn?
————
But cynicism inclines me toward another explanation, which is that Paul is the sort of fellow who wants to be known as a self-mower, and to be seen driving a John Deere around his own yard.
—————–
Piloting a riding mower around a big yard combines the virile self-reliance of mowing with the aspirational elements of horsepower and real estate acquisition.
“The true test of a man’s character,” UCLA basketball coach John Wooden observed, “is what he does when no one is watching.” But what is character in an age when someone is always watching — especially if you are an elected official with presidential ambitions?
I hope Paul’s lawnmower has S S Potemkin on the side.
So….
1) Net worth of $2 million is supposed to be an astronomical, gluttonous amount of wealth? If that net worth includes real estate and retirement accounts and such, it’s not exactly Scrooge McDuck territory.
2) Mowing one’s own yard constitutes a manly pursuit these days?
That he’s a successful man in every measurable way perplexes some people, mostly because they’re useless sacks of shit and permanent infants who’d struggle to change the tires on their Priuses.
LEAVE ROBBY ALONE!!
I’ve found Robby’s next car:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0dEzY-xld8
I figured for sure it would be a Renault or one of those pea pod Smartcars.
To be fair, he’ll probably buy a Barbie-pink hoverboard instead of a car next time.
I used to drive a John Deere tractor around my lawn all of the fucking time when no one was looking. You know why? The fucking lawn needed mowing and all of my neighbors had lawns that needed a tractor to mow, so no one would even notice it. These people are so far detached from reality. You know what else Paul does when no one is watching? Provides free eye care for poor people. It’s no wonder leftists hate him so much, it’s because he’s an actual decent human being. An extreme rarity in politics.
He’s also’s demonstrably intelligent, made his wealth on authentic merit, and doesn’t act like he’s some sort of victim for any reason. Parasites hate him doubly.
Yep. Also, how clueless are these people to actually believe that no one can possibly enjoy mowing the lawn on a tractor? I know, they’ve lived in the city all their life and cannot possibly comprehend that anyone else can have a different perspective on things. That, even though all they do is preach diversity. Fucking hypocrites.
No kidding. Back when I had a big lawn, I had a Cub Cadet with Kohler engine – the mower was nearly as old as I was. I loved using that beast to mow the lawn. It took some experimenting, but I eventually found a cigar (a 6 x 50 Hoyo, if memory serves) that took exactly as long to finish as the lawn.
I was mowing 10 acres with a John Deere tractor. It did start to get old because it took like 6 hours. My neighbor bought one of those zero turn mowers, I forget which make, but it wasn’t Cub. It was really high end. That thing was fucking amazing, his son mowed my entire lawn in 2 hours. I think it was 11k he paid for that. Almost as much as my Deere, not including all the attachments, like a plow for the driveway in winter, a front end loader, a tiller, etc. But I was definitely going to buy one of the zero turns. Then I sold most of my property. Still 6 acres to mow, but I don’t live there now, my daughter does. The neighbor had a huge pole barn full of equipment. I’ve never seen anyone have that much equipment. But he owns a construction company and about 400 acres. The guy built him home and did a geothermal system himself. Yeah, flyover people are all really dumb hicks. People who have lived in East Coast urban bubbles all their life really do not have a clue about the people they like to make fun of in fly over. I once tried to explain it to a guy who has lived here in MD all his life. I told him ‘I know those people, I lived around them for years, you don’t understand them, they do not think the way you do’. I really couldn’t go any further because it was clear the guy’s mind was not open for the conversation.
Rugged, versatile people build civilization, and the security and prosperity of civilization in turn allows the existence of urban elites and other hapless malcontents of the sort you mentioned. Without skillful, industrious individuals like your daughter’s neighbor, the lifestyles of smug, functionally retarded big-city hipsters wouldn’t be possible.
Hell, I don’t mind running the push-mower. It’s half an hour in the sun smelling spent gasoline and freshly-decapitated grass and listening to a podcast. Why would I pay someone to do it for me?
The only type of diversity they’re interested in is diversity of skin color – wholly superficial, meaningless diversity, on the same level as diversity of hair color, or diversity in the length of fingernails. They’re subservient, compliant, nondescript drones by every meaningful measure.
A variety of this particular expression of stupidity I experience personally is when pussies in tight jeans and pink sneakers comment on how awful, dirty, and brash my cars are (typically big, gas-guzzling American vehicles). They’re sincerely amazed that anybody would be interested in driving and fixing old cars.
LETELU: Looks exotic, thinks exactly like us.
Fear not, because their policies inevitably lead to societies like Mao’s China. They’ll all look identical eventually.
If Rand Paul’s net worth is only $2MM, I feel sorry for him.
While it’s unknown whether not looking at tits causes cancer, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
http://archive.is/V6Bmp
Great, now I can’t go out in public for a few hours, and there’s nothing to drink at my place. THANKS A LOT.
She sez “the outside world is for suckers!”
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5f/ac/c1/5facc18e492e92b802c30d37249c47bf.jpg
Her too:
https://scontent-sea1-1.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/s480x480/e35/20184532_284669642002576_1369300810223058944_n.jpg?ig_cache_key=MTU2NDc0NDk1NDMwNzQxNjg1OQ%3D%3D.2
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2b/5f/16/2b5f160c656a0ea726a54e181264ee12.jpg
That’s genuinely spectacular.
Here’s one of my favorites:
https://s1.postimg.org/9fw23x60ov/2461.jpg
(No nudity).
Nice.
One of my favs.
https://i0.wp.com/jobbiecrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/0sophia7c.jpg
Let’s expand beyond just breasts. Here’s a good one:
https://s1.postimg.org/5p86gi0pcf/2446.gif
(No nudity).
I can live with that, though I live on boobs.
https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e15/11240733_1653203764913999_347829612_n.jpg
https://www.lapatilla.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/flbp-38-449×600.x43795.jpg
https://i.redd.it/pq4w7elibhbx.png
Ya’ll be pervs.
I’d violate that redhead in unspeakable ways.
Here’s another tasty image:
https://s1.postimg.org/2sp3v1jdhb/2450.jpg
(No nudity).
Ahhhh yeah son.
https://s3media.247sports.com/Uploads/Assets/538/487/487538.jpg
10 wins it for me.
16 for me. *Pants tighten.*
75 photos? you expect me to look at 75 phot….ohhh banjo…where was I? oh yeah..What happened to 35 or 40 that’s reasonab…huh? whats with the goldfish in a mason jar t-shirt, is that suppose to mean summat, am I missing…..anyway 75 photos is way too many.
Lackluster face group. Left side 33.
Facebook reminded me of my status at 9:40 PM, one year ago tonight:
That’s funny, because right before she lost they said she’s the most qualified candidate ever and that it was unpossible for her to lose.
I often find myself literally thanking God that that treasonous, flaming bag of shit lost the election.
It was glorious. I stayed up all night watching it, drinking, and laughing. I think I’ve replayed the entire night of CNN coverage like 100 times, lol.
I think CNN’s entire staff spent the month after the election on suicide watch.
What I positively love about that election is that Trump was just about the only Republican who could beat Hillary, and Hillary was just about the only Democrat who could lose to Trump.
Truly, the parties switched roles, and it was Dems who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
On election night, I was in my secret hidey hole, bourbon in hand, watching the election returns late into the night. Laughing my ass off.
Ah, The Night Before TOS officially went to shit. That was a glorious thread. 2k plus comments if I remember correctly. I didn’t get to sleep until 3am.
Have you read any of Gillespie’s recent articles? He’s insane.
I think at that time I was opening the second bottle of champagne. Plus I was in LA, so I had three extra hours over the East coast to enjoy the election results.
I remember gping to the gym that day. I checked a TV and saw that FL was still up for grabs. I said “Hmm” and went back to what I was doing. Later I found out my sister made tacos and I kept stuffing my face full of tacos to keep myself from laughing.
I had to travel for work very early the morning after Election Day, and I didn’t care, so I paid no attention to the news that night and went to bed early. I had no idea Trump had won until someone mentioned it to me at around 10am the following day.
My furnace went out last night. I got a tech appt for between 12 and 4. At 2, they called and said about 1 hour. At 4 I called and they said 1/2 hour. Now they say 1/2 hour. It is 62 in here.
I live in England. The weather’s mild, and very easy to bear, even at its extremes. I miss snow.
Either get some electric space heaters, or turn your oven on and leave it on for a while, open. Just not when you’re asleep and cannot watch it.
I’ve actually done this several times when the furnace malfunctioned, it works really well. You can get the areas near your kitchen warmed up pretty quickly.
I have a radiator style space heater that I just moved up from the basement. My bathrooms have electric baseboard s (no heat vents) so I turned those up and opened the doors. I keep the doors closed because of the pets. I’ll be baking this weekend. He was here, and they have to order a part. It’s supposed to get down to 25 tomorrow and he said it could take several days.
I’ll trade. My a/c is still running most of the time to keep my house at 76.
I haven’t had to use the AC except at night sometimes for around the last month. Looks like we’re going to get our first frost of the year tomorrow night, actually sounds like a freeze. I think I’d better move the houseplant back under the overhang, maybe a few more delicate I have to bring in, and we might actually need heat for the first time. Bummer.
Out of orphans to burn? Tut, tut, old chap.
Call three competitors. Tell them if they can get here first, they have a new customer for life. When the first one shows up, call the other two and tell them no thanks. Don’t call the original guy. When he show up, curse him out.
It is 62 in here.
While undoubtedly it will get colder, my initial thought was “that’s it?”. My heat is set at 64 and I hate the cold. Either I have an irrational hatred of energy bills or I’m paying out the ass for energy.
Last time my furnace went out, it was in the 40s inside before I got it back.
I usually keep it at 68.
58
59 at night 65 during the day.
This is how hot we keep our house normally. Except overnight,when we put it lower.
This is the time of year I turn off the HVAC and open all the windows.
Tulip, what is it doing? A really common problem is the flame sensor.
This video might help.
I’ve had this problem a couple times – cleaned it the first time, replaced it the second.
Furnaces are really simple machines.
Needs a new gas valve.
Last night three armed thugs walked into Lee J’s convenience store in pineville La and ordered everyone into the back. Lee J grabbed his pistol from under the counter and smoked two of them. The third ran away.
I know the guy and he is absolutely sterling. No further comment needed.
Fuck me. I wouldn’t have the balls to stand up to a thug with three arms. Glad your friend is safe.
Lee J sounds like an irresponsible, Bible-thumping white supremacist. What if that pistol loses its mind and attacks his customers in a fit of fury? What then, smart guy? Huh?
There’s BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS.
/Some fuckhead on MSNBC.
Armed or not, if you are anywhere on earth and a group of armed men orders you into the back room, you fight like it’s your last night on earth, because if they get you into the back room it surely will be.
Yeah, reminiscent of the Hi Fi murderers. Kill the motherfuckers before they kill you.
Got a link?
I just heard it on the radio
Lemme look around
http://www.kalb.com/content/news/Exclusive-video-Lee-Rays-owner-releases-surveillance-video-of-attempted-robbery-455949883.html
And I see now Suthen already posted the same down below.
Libertarian Jason Brennan on the how universal suffrage is bad and we need top men…
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/aeon.co/amp/ideas/the-right-to-vote-should-be-restricted-to-those-with-knowledge
Different != Better
And, just like SCOTUS, said board of “economic advisors” could just as well debase property rights, distort economic incentives, and otherwise muck about in pursuit of whatever ideology the board members hold.
Oh yeah, that’s not ripe for abuse, no sirree.
What does that last part even mean? “The kind of political knowledge that matters in an election” depends entirely on who you ask, no? And no, the answers to questions like those are often not “easily verifiable” or “uncontroversial”. Take the budget question. How do you group expenses? Do we go by the official budget, or do we include “emergency” appropriations? For which fiscal year? etc.
Plumbing, while a valuable skill, does not result in changes to the law that get enforced at gunpoint.
Indeed, it could also be the rule of an elite band of “educated” thugs.
Wow, I didn’t know anyone read Republic and actually thought it was a good idea.
The Chinese have some less than positive experience in this area as well.
Well, I’m convinced
These fuckers get paid to shit out that steaming pile?
Thousands of years of history lesson wasted
Well, universal suffrage is bad, cancerous actually. However, restricting voting based on one’s knowledge? Yeah, I’m sure that’s a system that won’t be abused. *eye-roll* Base it on how much skin in the game you have. Things like military service or how much you pay in taxes versus how much you take out of the system. There was a reason voting rights were tied to responsibilities. Ditching that for universal suffrage was the nail in the coffin that guaranteed the death of the country.
Freedom toons pointing out how he predicted prog future yet again.
I would totes buy a chainsaw bayonet BTW.
they do actually sell them I found out.
https://www.panaceax.com/weaponized-chainsaw/copy-of-zxcs-chain-saw-in-coyote-brown
Looks like I’m gonna be saving my nickels and dimes.
He forgot the soft ice cream maker attachment.
I movie I might actually see.
http://www.hollywoodintoto.com/misogynists-review-denver-film-festival/
More insults for flyover people. That’s just fantastic
Keep it up shitheads
I love it! Trump’s reelection campaign and he isn’t spending a dime.
And the Hollywood producer in a state of bewildered shock asks the director what he wants to call the project. “The Misogynists!”
Hell yes. There is even video of the whole thing
http://www.kalb.com/content/news/Exclusive-video-Lee-Rays-owner-releases-surveillance-video-of-attempted-robbery-455949883.html
That’s awesome. Too bad he didn’t kill all three of ’em, the world would be better off.
The NYT and CNN have an upcoming story on why people defending themselves and/or their property, is bad.
This is how free men defend themselves and their property. Naturally, it won’t teach a single hoplophobe anything of value, because there’s no cure for stupidity.
We spoke with Sheriff William Earl Hilton, he told us one victim is still in the hospital, and the other was treated and has been released to his parents.
The actual fuck?
Juvenile? That seems odd.
Even if so, they should be in jail awaiting trial, no?
CS, good catch on the ‘victim’ narrative. What the actual fuck?
He meant victim of society. It’s your fault.
Klaus: It’s a fair cop, but society’s to blame.
Detective: Agreed. We’ll be charging them too.
Apparently someone didn’t learn shit from Texas.
Nice work, too bad he didn’t put ’em 6 feet under.
True. Hitting a target full of Adrenalin actively trying to avoid you when you are full of Adrenalin is very difficult. You get tunnel vision and the sights disappear. He did pretty well.
And, like the cops did with Sloopy’s mom, they basically make shit up. Issa wouldn’t be believed if it weren’t for the surveillance video.
Ready to start a dead pool on Brazile?
http://freebeacon.com/politics/donna-brazile-blames-clintons-health-for-basket-of-deplorables-remark/
Clinton said so many insulting things and told so many whoppers that I lost count. Never the less no matter what else she said or did the basket of deplorable remark would’ve lost the election for her
God I hate trying to post on an ipad
#ThankYouHillary
Nice.
So classical liberalism was killed by its own success: people were so wealthy there was tons of free shit to hand out so the entire population could be bought. Also by showing that “the government is us” people are not as hostile to the taxman, the bureaucrat or the regulator.
All leading to the eventual heat death of the universe.
Now that’s what I call getting right to the bottom line.
Hobnail boots tromping upstairs, silk slippers tiptoeing down.
People are submissive. We no longer have a critical mass of moral, courageous patriots to enforce the precepts of the Founding by believably threatening revolt.
How many Americans in today’s world would be willing to relinquish the comfort of their lives to conduct an armed insurrection against their governments on the basis of principle?
Doing ye Olde scrum master training tomorrow & Friday. My introverted ASD ass is slightly terrified.
You’ll do fine. Developers are all Aspies too.
Que?
She attends Anchorage School District, which is a special school built to cater to the needs of those with an introverted ass. One can only hope that they will eventually find a cure.
Oh, that’s fine then. I thought she was trying out for a professional rugby team.
How you gonna play rugby with an inverted ass? Come on, man, think!
Concave asses are the new craze in contact sports.
I’m the scrum master! And hooker.
Look at me. Look at me. I’m the scrum captain now.
BBQue!
Don’t appropriate my culture, gringo!
Let me just make a Kung Pao chicken burrito with a side of hummus and garlic naan.
Somewhere, a college student’s head literally exploded. Well done, sir.
Just found out my niece is in the hospital.
Probably another suicide attempt. Its sad because she is a really nice, good girl who does well in school on top of it. Waiting on more news from my brother, sucks feeling helpless.
Is that a Gilmore? Sorry meant this to be a new post.
Your first Gilmore. You get this:
http://amatuasiapor.club/pics/images/4/big%20breast%20nude%20pics/big%20breast%20nude%20pics_1084.jpg
(NSFW, Glibs after dark sort of, but this is a cheer up situation, so let’s bend the rules)
damn
Holy moly!
https://s1.postimg.org/180mte6kr3/2448.gif
(Partial nudity).
America’s girl in the flesh.
http://leakedpie.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Kate-Upton-nude-pic-in-leaked-fappening-photo.jpg
(NSFW)
https://s1.postimg.org/1s9a70424f/2313.jpg
(Nudity).
*Another* suicide attempt? Damn, that sucks. Does she have some kind of mental illness other than depression? I have a family friend whose husband and both daughters committed suicide. Terrible what it does to a family.
No, I think it is just depression. My wife suspects an eating disorder, but we’re too polite to ask I guess. My brother is also a fuckhead who apparently has been cheating on his wife for several years and they’re finally headed towards divorce, so that isn’t making anything better for the poor kid I assume.
Depression and suicide run in my family to some extent.
Sorry to hear it. Hope all turns out well.
How old is this kid?
I ask because it sounds like getting her out of her parents house might help
Me and the wife have talked about it, but not really sure how to broach that subject. Plus she’s got 3 sisters and we’ve got our own child on the way now in 3 months. .. helping people is never easy I guess and not something I’m good at typically anyway.
Well Lack that would be a serious commitment
Going at it half hearted would probably do more damage. It doesn’t sound like you are in a position to do that
What a shame
13.
Ouch.
Been there. I took one in when she was thirteen . The suicide attempts stopped but the legal troubles got started. It was a rough ride but in the end she turned out ok. She’s 27 now and doing alright.
I don’t think I could do it again I am too old for that now
Sorry to hear that. Wish I had some wisdom for you but have a relative like that and nothing I do helps
Yeah, I think you just have to get sad enough long enough that you reach something inside you that can pull your sorry ass out of it.
At least that worked for me. She is doing therapy, but apparently it isn’t working very well.
Medications?
That’s awful, sorry to hear it.
The daughter of one of my managers at work keeps cutting herself. He’s had to leave mid-shift several times in the last three months to attend meetings with police and doctors. She’s also anorexic. It saddens me to see the emotional impact of these instances.
I’ve seen this. I mean in teens.
It basically means not enough attention got, and it should be looked into seriously. Teens have a very volatile set of hormones going on that can lead to overreactions to the least thing. I’m sure the intertoobz and smart phones are not helping as they lead to stimuli overload. Teens are not well suited to deal with that. I mean look at the adult children leftists, they’re in a constant state of freak out and overreaction to everything.
The truth of the matter is that it’s easy to kill yourself. If she were truly determined to die, she could have effectively slit her wrists on the first attempt. The cuts are always relatively superficial. Me and my fiancee both agree she’s simply seeking attention.
That’s what I’m saying. She wants attention. Being a child who is used to getting all the attention in the world and suddenly becoming an adult child with raging hormones is not an easy transition. And in this day of information overload at the speed of light, I’m not sure that evolution has had time to adjust to it. She probably just needs some more attention. Family should take care of that while being careful to allow her to grow up. And I’m assuming it’s a teen we’re talking about, if not, never mind.
I think it is potentially a similar situation here.
Is she a teen? Just curious. Hard to speculate on it without that info.
Sorry to hear about it. In the past couple of years, one of my nieces had an semi-suicide attempt (swallowed some pills, then said oh shit and tried to get help) and an even younger one has issues with cutting and depression. Part of me wonders if the internet plays an exacerbating role in stress and mental illness these days. All drama and narcissism and manufactured hysteria, all the time. It’s bad enough for adults, but it has to be brutal for teenagers.
I’m not sure as to why, honestly, but I wouldn’t rule those out as factors.
Thanks to all for your kind words and advice.
I did it a few weeks ago, you will be fine.
Coming after Lackadaisical’s comments, I thought for a second you were saying you attempted suicide a couple of weeks ago. 🙁
These people get paid to do this? I wish I had a job where I could be as wrong as I want all the time and get paid for it.
17 political watchers dissect the Virginia election results.
I’m not sure all of these people live in the same timeline.
The good news is, there are two packets of cheesy poofs in my house. Soon to be zero packets of cheesy poofs.
I hate those things. I eat one and I can’t quit until they are gone and my pants shrink another size
I don’t snack at all and never touch junk food of any type. Now if I could just stop drinking beer all of the time. I mean I do manage to do that when I’m drinking Bourbon or Scotch instead.
Not one of each?
Sometimes.
Liberachi?
So apparently there was a security camera at the Sutherland Springs church and it was rolling on Sunday.
I’d say I hope they never show whats on it, but they will.
Someone was asking if there is any derp on the right.*
Dennis Miller
Yesterday at 10:38am ·
When lawmakers say “We must provide tax relief for hard working Americans”, is it verboten to mention that many of the wealthiest people I’ve met have been the hardest workers?…or do we now just have to insist that they’re all evil?
*I’m assuming huge leaps in logic are derp.
Why does Instapundit promote “damaged screw extractor sets” on Amazon so often? Are Instapundit readers especially prone to having damaged screws? Should Amazon have such detailed knowledge of our screwing preferences, and so willing to offer help when our screwing goes wrong?
I just long for a day when the inventor of the slot head screw can be brought back to life and fed slowly into a certain infamous mulching device.
Seconded.
I hear ya. Square drive or torx for the win!
Square drive (properly known as the Robertson head) rocks. Invented by a Canadian, which is probably why they’re relatively little-known in the US.
Yeah! fuck him! Him and whoever invented the hammer. Go ahead and waste a metric shit ton of my time un-jamming your jammed up tool, mother fucker.
hammer = hammer tacker, god dammit. fucking beer. who invent that shit, miserable sons of a bitch..grumble grumble.
A fellow T50 user?
So… this is a real thing… that got written…
The Best and Worst Cities in America to Survive the Apocalypse
From realtor.com no less.
Damnit. I knew it would be in KS.
We got prescott. That’s not bad, right?
Its very bad. Theyll know were from Phoenix and kill us both. Yes, they have guns too. They have a fucking factory that makes guns.
*frantically loads magazines*
If a real nuclear war ever happened all I would be able to do is go outside and see if I could see the warhead before it explodes. I’m in a high value target area.
Lincoln? Really? With Stratcom 50 mile away?
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/08/tesla-buys-perbix-for-factory-automation.html
random thoughts
I was reading some of Keegan’s Face of Battle today. There was an interesting bit about the Battle of the Somme. A British company commander sent a message higher up. He and the remainder of his unit were desperately fighting to hold on to a recently captured German trench. The message he sent was basically: I have 3 options: surrender, fight til the end, or retreat. The first 2 options are distasteful to me. Request permission for the latter.
There have been many cases in history where units have been wiped out while waiting for orders from higher up. It appears that central planning in war is about as successful as it is in an economy. It’s impossible for an army to fight effectively if the low level commanders are not given the freedom to act on their own initiative.
I am reminded of the famous story of the British general who went to consult with Wellington before Waterloo. He asked Wellington what his plans were so he could coordinate with him. Wellington paused and asked him if he knew what Napoleon’s plans were. The general said no. So Wellington said “well, my plans depend on his, and since he hasn’t told me anything, how can I tell you anything?”
Here’s what Rockwell (boo, hiss) has to say: https://mises.org/library/war-and-central-planning
***
“The enemy we’re fighting is a bit different from the one we had war-gamed against,” said General William Wallace after the first week of fighting in Iraq had not gone as planned. The comment speaks to a truth of which we are reminded in wartime: the military is a government operation that undertakes its activities according to a plan cooked up by nonmarket actors. The bureaucrats are denied access to prices, the signaling devices that serve as the basis for assessing the success or failure of any particular project on the market.
As such, even the best military plans, even those that lead to a declared victory, will partake of features similar to that of any form of central planning. The reason wars can tend to appear successful whereas socialism never does is due to the goal of the war plan (destruction rather than wealth creation) and the means (firepower proving more accomplished at destruction than efficiency), both of which can be accomplished by governments with enough resources at their disposal.
War gaming may be the newest term for the static trial runs that government officials use as proxies for a real world that always surprises them. If we want to call war planning a “social science”—that’s how the Pentagon thinks of it—what we have here is a classic error: the belief that government policy and its effects can be modeled in the same way as the physical sciences.
…
Central planners who attempt to replicate this process within the structure of an equation or a static game simulation are fooling themselves. They are merely playing a game called “market,” and not truly engaging the real world. The game called “war” is no better at preparing central planners for real-life economizing than the game called “market.” What’s especially interesting is how attempts at central planning display a series of highly typical features.
First, they overutilize resources. At the outset, the war planners anticipated that Iraq could be won with a few strategically placed bombs, and a massive display of human will combined with plenty of psychological operations. Faced with the sudden reality that the first round of plans didn’t work, the response is wholly predictable: more of the same.
***
Let us not forget how both world wars convinced a lot of people that centrally planned economies could work.
random note
I wonder why there were no attempts to outflank on the western front during WW1. I guess the beaches of France and Germany were too easy to defend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Sea
Also neither side had much experience with amphibious landings and wanted to avoid big naval battles.
There was a major amphibious assault planned for the Flanders coast in 1917, but things just never quite cohered. And FIsher had proposed various ideas for landings in the Baltic early on which were rubbished by every one (though it’s possible that the Baltic scheme was just his excuse for implementing certain parts of his building program.)
So the guy I had a scheduled meeting with was a no show. I go all the way to his office and they say, “Sorry, he’s at a training session.” He knew about it last time I saw him, but didn’t say anything. 3 times he has done this. I’m a private contractor so I get paid either way, but I hate wasting work time. Welcome to government work.
“I’m sorry, I just hate disappointing people.”
“I’m disappointed now!”
“I hate disappointing people to their faces.”
“Sorry, he’s at a training session.”
“Is he training for a civil defense scenario involving a nuclear attack and amphibious landings of North Korean Ninja Zombies?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry for wasting your time, Ma’am.”
***
“Sorry, he’s at a training session.”
“Is he training for a civil defense scenario involving nuclear attack and amphibious landings of North Korean Ninja Zombies?”
“No.”
“Tell him, I’m here, and I have a schedule to meet.”
Next time go in pigtails, short skirt with thigh high stockings. I bet he’d make time for you then.
The Rand Paul attack because of landscaping is getting pushback.
God, I hope that jackass ends up under house arrest and on probation at the very least. What a douchebag.
I wouldn’t mind seeing him clad in orange for awhile, but the chance seems remote.
How can somebody who breaks 5 ribs on a US Senator not do time?
When the Senator is a White, male Republican.
When their target is an enemy of the Kreml, er, swamp.
Latest I heard is 6 ribs plus some extra fluid … but hey that happens all the time doesn’t it?
And even if it were about landscaping, what kind of psycho physically assaults a man over poorly trimmed bushes?
Normal people poison their neighbors’ dogs with antifreeze.
MUH PROPERTY VALL YOOS!
“Normal people poison their neighbors’ dogs with antifreeze.”
That’s just crazy. You do this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC1_tdnZq1A
Those quotes sounds like total bullshit. The first reads like a statement prepared by a lawyer, and second involves the use of “one’s” where pretty much anyone speaking colloquially would say “your”.
That’s because the first person quoted is a lawyer.
Eh, I’ve said “one’s” in everyday speech, and I’ve heard my peers have as well. I’m too lazy to research it now, but it’s probably an upper middle class sociolect marker.
I haven’t noticed lawyers actually talking in legalese, though. I mean, maybe they got the quotes via email instead of over the phone, so people tried to polish it up.
That’s probably it.
I’m with you, they’re too polished and took too long to come out for them to be at all organic.
Not to say the neighbors don’t have similar feelings, but the statements are overwrought.
The more I read about it, the more my earlier assessment rings true. I think there’s a lot of jealousy. This guy feels like he’s played by the rules of the game all his life. Never made any waves. Went along with the program. And where is he? He’s got the money from his earlier invention, but his wife left him and he hasn’t worked steady in years.
Now along comes this Paul guy. Just a couple of years younger than him. But, walking around like he own the place. Quits the national medical association for ophthalmologists and starts his own in a fit of pique. And, as a neighbor, always skirts around the rules to do what he wants. And what happens to him? He winds up a U.S. Senator with a beautiful wife. He gets invited around the world to do charity work. A bunch of the neighbors get along great with him because what he wants to do (what he skirted the rules to do) winds up fun, or at least pretty cool.
It’s leftover bullshit from high school. Boucher was the hall monitor and student council member who nobody really paid much attention to, and if they did, mostly tolerated. Paul is the honor roll kid on the swim team, dating, if not a cheerleader, at least the girl who was the lead in the student play, and is friendly with the nerds, the heads and of course the jocks. Just not Boucher.
It’s not so much that Paul has anything against Boucher. It’s more, if you asked him, he’d respond “Rene who?”. Boucher, on the other hand, detests Paul. On one hand, he’s everything he wants to be, everything (he thinks) he deserves to be – liked, respected, having fun. On the other hand, where Boucher strives and obeys and honors the rules, and gets none of those things, Paul plays fast and loose with the rules, never gets put in his place and gets to enjoy the good life.
On a certain level, Boucher could deal with it more easily if Paul hated him as well. But, again, he doesn’t. For Paul, Boucher doesn’t really even figure into the equation. And, for Boucher, that’s the one sin that is truly unforgivable.
3k more troops being sent to Afghanistan. The Taliban have about 60k. The British didn’t win the 2nd Boer War until they outnumbered the Boers 10 to 1, herded the civilian population into camps, scorched the earth, and covered the country with blockhouses all within firing range of each other.
I don’t think there is any chance of defeating the Taliban without adopting similar tactics. That at a minimum would require sending 300k or more troops there.
The Soviets thought they could make up for lack of infantry with firepower. They were wrong. Artillery conquers, but infantry occupies.
A punitive expedition would have been correct and just.
I like that idea, but it is about 16 years too late. If the choice is made to withdraw, the result will be the same, regardless of whether it is done quickly or slowly. If troop levels are kept constant, the Taliban will continue their strategy of death by a thousand cuts.
The Soviets attempted to save face by blasting everything beside the road they retreated on. They did not want to leave as the Americans had left Vietnam- frantically scrambling into helicopters.
If limited war is not enough, the only alternatives are defeat, endless war, and total war.
All three options you present are defeats, just a question of how bad we want to make it for ourselves.
The United States are a relatively benevolent power. We could prevail absolutely and indisputably in any conflict, anywhere in the world, if we waged total war on our enemies, but we refrain from doing so and taking annihilative action because we’re not murderous sociopaths.
The only way to make Afghanistan truly safe is to exterminate its population and fully annex the country, which is a barbarous course of action no sane individual would advocate.
No, the U.S. could prevail in total or limited war. It would just be wildly immoral on a level we’re not prepared to accept. Make an example of the country for the country. Show them the full scale and scope of our killing power. Put the fear, not of a just and loving God, but a vengeful and malevolent God into them. Let them learn for multiple generations that attacking the U.S. is a sure way to invite wrath on a biblical scale. I guarantee you’ll see them refrain from any arrangement threatening to the U.S. But then what does that make us?
Like I said, we’re not murderous sociopaths, which makes us less effective in geopolitical conflicts, ironically.
I was agreeing.
I know. Sorry, I didn’t meant to imply otherwise.
Wholesale annihilation and depopulation of Afghan territory is the only way to guarantee that there will be no insurrections after withdrawal. Leave, and let them slaughter each other.
This. Wash our hands of it. We fucked up bad, and we’re not going to fix it by continuing to do the same thing. Rip the band aid off, walk away.
That was my point. Sometime after WW2, we decided that punitive expeditions were somehow wrong. This was an extremely foolish decision. On 9/12/01, we had candlelight vigils in Tehran, for crying out loud. The international community half-expected us to use a tactical nuke on Kabul and be done with it, and there would have been begrudging acceptance.
Instead, we decided that we could remake the Afghans in our own image.
Hubris.
^^^Darn tootin.
and there would have been begrudging acceptance.
For a few years. Until the U.S. no longer seemed interested in it. Then the retired U.S. President would be taken to a European jail.
Then the retired U.S. President would be taken to a European jail.
By what army? Even if the former U.S. President was wanted in European courts, all he would have to do to avoid them is stay in the U.S.
Instead, we decided that we could remake the Afghans in our own image.
I don’t know how much it matters to the actual state of affairs in Afghanistan, but this is not really true.
Their Constitution looks nothing like ours (neither does Iraq’s, for that matter). An attempt was made to remake Afghanistan In some image, but it wasn’t an American one.
There. is. no. point. to. this.
Cut your losses, get out while you can and keep a close eye on any signs of more plots to attack the US mainland. As you said the “war” could be “won” if we were willing to wage total war and stop trying to make killing politically correct. It would be quite ugly. I don’t think anyone (except for maybe McCain and Graham) wants that, so just get the F out.
Yes. Make the country a hard target. Forget about nation building. Even with our most successful efforts in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, we *still* have troops there.
On a side note, the emphasis on technology is wrong. There have been many times when an army kept fighting despite facing superior weapons: Zulus, Mahdi rebels, Moro tribesmen, etc.
It wasn’t the mere use of the weapons that defeated them. It was the extent of the losses.
Alexander the great had to marry Roxana to semi pacify the afgans. Anything the U.S. does there is not going to work. QED.
“I have an idea!” /Trump
My cousin, by the way, is among the troops being sent (he’s been there a couple of weeks). He’s not happy. I should probably send him another care package.
He’s there til March or April. Which is more time away from his kids for this bullshit.
Definitely *not* from the last Glibs meetup.
http://img1.joyreactor.com/pics/post/photomontage-erotica-erotic-art-erotic-3602961.jpeg
(NSFW, Glibs after dark)
https://s1.postimg.org/36g8c3uhvj/657.jpg
(Nudity).
Nice.
Eeny meeny minee mo
I worry that posting nude images will lead to very unwanted negative attention for the site.
I don’t really know how the internet works, just kind of over having to scroll past strings of NSFW images to read the types of discussions that brought me to sites like this.
The Chive reposts are fine, but I think we know you love boobs.
OK, fine. No more NSFW. You get the blame.
Hey, don’t let me stop you. Just concerned about the site. The Preet thing left me looking over my online shoulder a lot.
1) There’s no rational cause to view nudity negatively.
2) Buy a mouse with a sensitive wheel at its center.
1.) I never said there was. Other people feel differently.
2.) He’s free to continue posting as he likes. He and others can fill an entire comments section with nothing but pictures of tits, as it doesn’t actually harm anyone. It just doesn’t strike me as the point of the site. I suppose I can find others to read instead that have the same kinds of discussions. Any recommendations?
No worries no worries. I have a couple scotches and get off the rails, thanks for bringing me back.
Booze, tits, and politics. A more winning combination is hard to find.
Agreed. Not my bag either.
They’re links, not embedded images. Don’t click the links.
I had to look twice as the one on the left looked like my ex (except she had a head of black hair). True story: we are motoring down the Pa Turnpike to Pittsburgh in my Mustang Convertible with top down. As we passed trucks, she pulled down her tube top and flashed the driver. This was late 70s so the word got out on c-b to bolo. Anyway, we pull off at Breezewood for gas and lunch. As we are leaving, a state trooper pulls up next to us and says, “Both of you, keep your tops up. It’s all over the radio.” So I put up the convertible top, and we get in. Ex says to trooper, “Want to see what you missed?” He says looks around and says, “Sure.” She flashes her tits, he grins, and tells us to beat it and behave ourselves. Another perk was getting to wield the Lady Shick every couple of days. Damn fine times!
I hate convertibles. My Trans Am had T-tops. I removed them on only one occasion, and I hated it.
Perhaps an ancient ancestor of SugarFree was the author of Iranian mythology:
***
Jaan Puhvel notes similarities between the Norse myth in which the god Týr inserts his hand into the wolf Fenrir’s mouth while the other gods bind him with Gleipnir, only for Fenrir to bite off Týr’s hand when he discovers he cannot break his bindings,[106] and the Iranian myth in which Jamshid rescues his brother’s corpse from Ahriman’s bowels by shoving his hand up Ahriman’s anus and pulling out his brother’s corpse, only for his hand to become infected with leprosy.[107] In both accounts, an authority figure forces the evil entity into submission by inserting his hand into the being’s orifice (in Fenrir’s case the mouth, in Ahriman’s the anus) and losing it.[107] Fenrir and Ahriman fulfill different roles in their own mythological traditions and are unlikely to be remnants of a Proto-Indo-European “evil god”;[108] nonetheless, it is clear that the “binding myth” is of Proto-Indo-European origin.
***
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion
So, review will be posted on schedule tomorrow morning, but a quickie video on the Virginia Film Festival. Got 4 flicks in the hopper and now that I’ve seen the trailer for Blade of the Immortal, I’m stoked.
And that’s after I watch Thor tomorrow afternoon AND write a couple more DVD reviews ;p Should be a nice long weekend (Taking paid time off tomorrow and Friday).
https://youtu.be/TWwUZurSNx4
We are taking rt 36 as far as we can. Beautiful road. Nothing to see in Kansas. Some astronaut birthplace for Apollo 17. I wrote it down. We’re almost through Kansas, but we got a late start. Tomorrow out at 5am.
When did USA Today get in the business of selling ARs? Pretty nice ad.
https://hotair.com/archives/2017/11/08/usa-today-know-can-add-chainsaw-bayonet-ar-15/
I’d love a chainsaw on the front!
You can cut a bunch of arrowslits in a building!
I prefer to stick with the tried and true — chainsaw prosthetic on one hand, boomstick in the other. Combining them is an affront to nature.
+1 S-Mart
Republicans fail at tax cuts too.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax/tax-cut-debate-in-u-s-congress-swings-to-senate-bill-idUSKBN1D82QL
“You are worfress, Repubricans!” Can the Norks stop flirting around and just nuke D.C. already? It’s the only way to be sure, God will know his own (party), and all that.
honestly, for purely selfish reasons, I hope it fails. The new tax plan would push me into the 25 percent bracket. I pay enoigh fucking taxed already.
#taxation is theft
My tax plan: cut corporate taxes at least down to 15%, cut individual taxes substantially enough across the board so that almost no one sees an increase, shut down the AMT and pretty much every special gimmick, whether for interest or whatever.
Pay for it by shutting down all government funding for
cult brainwashinghigher education, most military bases outside of US territory, a thorough culling of the officer class and military bureaucracy, a freeze on military hiring and recalling soldiers from every front where Congress has not formally declared war and explicitly allocated the funds to fight it. Terminate BATFE and DEA and roll any legitimate functions of the former (mainly, as regards the E) into the feebs. Eliminate any payment to any private sector actor which is not i) an entitlement or similar sort of voucher (save that fight for another day) or ii) payment for services rendered to the state.I would save a decent amount of money with the new tax plan. But it’s still stupid.
Which is what I expect from the GOP, and it’s what I expect from Trump, and it’s what I expect from government.
I agree that taxation is theft. Based-on income levels you have previously reported, it would seem you are already in the 25% tax bracket for the coming year. I don’t see anyone in the lower brackets being pushed-up.
It really is incredible. They were very clear in their promises and we were very clear on our instructions. They refuse to do the fucking job we hired them for all to spite Trump. They are going to start making the same promises for the mid-terms. I hope they all get pelted with rotten eggs and fired. Those stupid motherfuckers should probably go ahead and start cleaning out their desks now.
Politicians all deserve our worst derision. The are all liars. Every fucking one of them. I think it’s SP (the creator of this sight) whose moniker says, “all politicians are weiners.) She is correct.
Something i just noticed, probably interesting to no one except me….
American Gangster was shot in my neighborhood a few years back. I was impressed by the way they used a number of spots in the same area to make it seem like very different parts of 1970s NYT.
(e.g. Well done: the way they used the elevated J/M/Z train to look like the old elevated 4/5 tracks in harlem, etc… Less well done: when they pretend they’re in NJ when they show a shot of the WBurg bridge, but whatever)
… then i just noticed this in Boardwalk Empire
basically, same building down the street. I can’t remember what it was. i don’t think it reads quite as “1920s” as it did “1970s” (the brick building next to it with the airconditioner on the roof doesn’t help) but its still interesting that set designers think that building works so well on camera
So, since I was busily packaging about 20lbs of weed today to sell to a medical dispensary, I wasn’t around for the posting of my article. Totally willing to answer questions/discuss further either here or there.
…do you deliver?
Nah. I had no idea what was involved in the legal marijuana biz. Just as a question, with all that 24/7 monitoring, how long are you required to keep the tapes (yes I know it’s all on hard drives but I’ll still call them tapes)? Or does the po po have access to the live feed?
90 Days, and the OLCC (the agency that handles the regulating) can view them at any time. Po-po has no access at all. Only the OLCC.
Real-time access, or “Show us Tuesday the 17th between 9 PM and 1 AM”?
The later.
“Just one marijuana is enough to cause brain cancer. Imagine what two, or even more, marijuanas would do to your family! BAN EVERYTHING.”
We could all be 100% safe if they’d just put us in prison.
I’m waiting on the overlords to publish the ongoing adventures of Harvey Weinstein and Ted Nugent; but I figured I give you late nighters a little gift. So I wrote a little prologue:
INT-PRODUCTION OFFICE—NIGHT
SUPER: 1996
MATT and BEN bring break through the door, carrying SALLY. Sally is bound and gagged.
MATT
Harvey, we got her. Get your ass out here!
A toilet flushes and HARVEY emerges from the bathroom. Ben kicks the door to the office shut behind them.
BEN
This bitch was hawd to get. She’s wicked strong.
Harvey wipes his hands on his pants and approaches.
HARVEY
Were you seen?
MATT
Naw.
BEN
We’re wicked good at dis.
Ben and Matt set Sally down in a chair. Harvey drops his pants and grabs his cock.
MATT
Hey, we don’t gotta see dis.
HARVEY
You want your movie made? That fucking piece of shit about a fucking janitor who thinks he’s smart because he has a good memory?
BEN
Absofuckinloutly.
MATT
Fuckin A.
HARVEY
Then you gotta watch.
MATT
Hey, dat wasn’t paht ah the deal.
HARVEY
I can get you Robin Williams. Robin fucking Williams.
BEN
Matt, hold her down.
MATT
But…I don’t want cum ta git on my clothes.
BEN
Then take em off.
MATT
OK.
Matt and Ben hold sally down and cheer Harvey on as the crime begins.
A+, if only for Matt Damon’s horrible Boston accent.
I always knew that something weird had to be going on for the two of them, who were nobodies at the time (though Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms, yo) to get that movie made.
You seem to be the biggest fan of this series. I wish I could give you an Oprah type prize. But this being glibs, I’ll give you this instead.
It’s simple. I hate every single person you’ve mentioned in the series so far. So it’s fucking hilarious.
Even the the Nuge?! (easter egg for the next part whenever the overlords publish it)
Hey, do you like apples?
Sorry, that was unrelated to the scum that Weinstien and Damon are.
Affleck, too.
Applesauce, bitch.
They ah nawt smaht. They ah fackin retahded.
So Rand had a pleural effusion? WTF? That can be life threatening. The guy who attacked him should *absolutely* get nipped for a felony. Seems like aggravated assault and battery. I knew a guy in college who hit someone over the head with a beer bottle and his victim didn’t have nearly that bad of an injury and he got a felony.
Yeah, it seems like there’s a big chunk of this story missing. That sort of assault should have resulted in some very serious charges and a long investigation, especially against a senator.
Maybe he’s a rule of law guy? doesn’t matter the victim? doesn’t matter the outcome? Only matters the actual deed? Naw, that doesn’t sound libertarian at all.
If that’s all the law requires, then sure. I’m not suggesting that because he’s a senator the charges should be more serious. I’m suggesting that because he’s a senator you would think there’d be federal charges and federal law enforcement officers all over it and the news, because king’s men and all that.
I’m having a hard time grasping the idea that physically beating someone to the point of breaking six ribs and causing fluid to build up around his lungs only results in an overnight stay with $7500 bail. I guess you could break six ribs with one tackle off the back of a lawn mower, but this seems more like “kicking him repeatedly after he’s down” kind of injury.
I dunno, my dad fell on the ice when he was younger than Rand and ended up with two broken ribs, a broken shoulder and an embolism. Sometimes your body just breaks, no conspiracy needed.
Absolutely. I’ve had random injuries as well. No conspiracy, but as Q points out, similar assaults usually result in higher charges.
and I’m saying, judging solely by the outcome, we can’t know the severity of the assault. Maybe the guy just ‘bro’ pushed him and rand fell awkwardly. We don’t know.
That is a fair point.
I can see Rand not wanting special treatment for being a Senator; they are, after all, supposed to be just citizens like everyone else. However, these injuries are consistent with a serious assault that would warrant a felony against anyone.
I can almost imagine him brushing it off and insisting on lesser charges, despite protestations from law enforcement. I’d also bet they’d listen…because senator.
Funny how the guy who shot up the baseball game has essentially been memory holed. Now this. Dems keep talking about Trump causing violence and I guess they’re right, he is causing violence; from them.
C’mon, we’re supposed to be the one’s who don’t use the ‘Jump to Conclusions Mat‘ for our decisions.
There is a federal charge that can add 10 years.
Last!
… Hobbit
Not.
Don’t any of you people wake up?!
Occasionally
I’ve been up for 2 hours now.
But that don’t mean I’m woke