I’m back! What a last few days. But I got through holding my first auction without a disgruntled seller trying to bash my head in or a disgruntled buyer trying to do the same. I can’t ask for much more than that. A quick sports update (straight from the scores without any knowledge of how the games went) and then down to business.:
A ten game slate on the ice yesterday…wow! Devils top the Blue Jackets. Rangers take down the Pens. Blues beat Les Canadiens. The Red Wings rolled over the Jets. Lightning strike six times in beating the Islanders. The Weinsteins Predators beat the Stars. The Sabres top the Avalanche. Canucks blank the Hurricanes. The Kings beat the MINNESOOOOOODA WIIIIIIIIIIILLLLDDD. And the Mighty Duck Fucks fall to the Army, er Las Vegas, Golden Knights.
Over in Europe, they played some UCL games yesterday. Roma won. Barca won. Bayern beat PSG 3-1 in a game that only would have matter had the score been 10-1. Chelsea drew with Athletico, which will come to haunt them. ManUre won. And Juventus won. The remaining games are played today, which means Liverpool! YNWA.
On the hardcourt, Notre Dame fell to Ball State (yikes!). Michigan State keeps rolling. Villanova drilled Gonzaga. UVA fell to WVU. Minnesoda fell to Nebraska. Wichita State was better than SDSU. Duke won. aTm lost to Arizona. And some other games were played. Oh, and Ohio State came from 20 points down on Monday night to beat Michigan and further humiliate that school up north.
I know you guys are probably ready to get down to business. But I want to say thanks to Swissy for bailing me out these last couple of days. Monday was unplanned, and I had to bug out at the last minute. I didn’t mean to put him on the spot like that, but he saved my ass. And yesterday’s links were awesome, as usual. Thanks, Swissy. Let me see if I can do equally well with…the links!
CFPB: Under New Management. Rejoice, businesses. You have a government that wants to work with you. Lament, left-wing non-profits that make massive political donations to Team Blue. You no longer have a government that will force companies to make donations to you in lieu of fines or restitution so you can funnel them to the political campaigns of the people in government that forced the companies to pay you in the first place. I can only hope he takes a metaphorical wrecking ball to the whole, stinking, corrupt agency.
I had no idea this was happening until this morning. Stay safe, SoCal Glibs. That looks like a devastating fire.
Now THAT’S ironic! Finally, a government official doing something skeezy that at least has the good taste to be ironic enough that he will live forever in the minds of 4chan.
The Feds have charged Kate Steinle’s killer with a slew of legitimate charges. I was afraid they were going to try and charge him for the murder again, which would have been very bad. But the charges all seem legit. The DA who failed to present a compelling case blasted Trump and the charges as a travesty of justice. If only he were wearing a clever t-shirt while doing so.
John Conyers announces his retirement as wave after wave after wave of sexual harassment complaints pour in. He also conveniently endorsed his son to continue the family business. Because that’s what our nation has come to: political dynasties and lifelong jobs to elected office.
Expect more judicial activism as opposed to adherence to the Constitution. I just wish the Trump admin would simply say “we are doing exactly what the Obama admin did, what the Bush admin did and what the Carter admin did and if you don’t like it, win the next election for President.” Because that’s the only defense they really need to make of the travel “ban” that he put in place and has been upheld every time it gets sent to the high court.
I needed to find something mellow. It’s been a long week already. And its just Wednesday.
I’m gonna try to make the best of it. Hope you can do the same.
Comments
628 responses to “Wednesday Morning Links”
So brave to Hand his seat to his or great-nephew.
His son.
Now I’ve got the impression of a family tree where the son and great-nephew are the same guy.
I think it might be his great-great nephew actually.
His great nephew plans to run for the seat. But Conyers has endorsed his son for the seat. So there’s possibly a civil war in the family brewing. Or perhaps we can ask someone to come over from England and decide which family member has the greatest claim to what I’m left to describe as some form of hereditary position.
Simple, we quietly dissappear all three and let someone unrelated run.
Disappear, or cleanse?
Its Detroit. There are only like 3-4 families in that city who are allowed to hold political office. IIRC Conyers’s wife was in jail while he was harassing some of these women for graft while an Alderman or City Council member or whatever they have there. And the seat was won by a relative when she was forced out.
I think it’s time to just Nuke Detroit from orbit. Claim it was a NorK op.
Why would we need to nuke them? It’s already a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Just wall it off and let the residents have their shithole.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONE. ZARDOZ LIKES THE WAY YOU THINK. ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.
According to the story Chipperbot linked last night, the great-nephew (Ian? Really?) is a State Senator in MI. The anointed son’s only experience with public service is apparently misuse of daddy’s Escalade, for which Conyers had to repay the Feds ~5200 clams.
Sounds like House leadership material to me.
The Ghost of Dan Rostenkowski smiles.
I’m sure the Brit will do it with a kind heart. And perhaps some coronets, too.
While we’d far prefer Arsenic and Old Lace.
How about some drawing and quartering?
And thus began the War of the Detroit Succession.
Would you wanna sit in that seat? Those stripes weren’t factory.
I can’t wait for you to take over your mom’s business Winston.
Second? Third?
Whatever, I’m just happy that I’ve Officially paid off my student loans
Yay.
Those cunts owe you $0.03. Are you just gonna let them keep that?
I’m going to figure out if it’s going to cost me more than $0.03 to get that back.
First thing is to see if they refund it on their own.
The trick there, when they send you a check for 3 cents is to dispute the repayment, and send them a check for 54 cents in order to rectify the problem.
It’s a low-effort tactic that you know will appear on printouts every.fucking.day until they send you a check for 71 cents.
Why the hell would you do that. Shoulda just waited a few years till Bernie pays them off. Or passes a law that says loan holders are out of luck. It would serve them right taking advantage of dumbass 18yr olds.
The maintenence payments and/or potential damage to my credit in the interim would be more expensive than just paying them off.
Nice UCS!
My wife has another 2 years before we pay off hers and am looking forward to it. Unfortunately, despite being formerly student loan free, I am now in the process of loading myself up with loan debt in the pursuit of fancy titles at work. Credentialism for the win /sarc!
It also frees up $700/mo to pay down other debts. *glances at credit card balance*
Yes, my student loans rivaled my rent for many years.
Congrats!! I’m in the process of refinancing mine. Hopefully the Lower interest rate will save some cash over the next few years.
Shoulda bought more crypto!
https://mises.org/blog/neo-liberalism-laissez-faire-interventionist-state
Sums up what neoliberalusm truly. Since it acknowledges there are limits to spending and size of government the profs hate it while the cosmos live it.
The cosmos’ mistake was to assume that Bill Clinton was the End of History or that it reflected actual adoption of libertarian concepts as opposed to just plain political expediency.
“Progs hate it while cosmos love it.”
Profs = Progs so we are all good.
Because that’s what our nation has come to: political dynasties and lifelong jobs to elected office.
Some jobs are too important to be done by just anybody.
Yay.
*applauds*
https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/how-laissez-faire-made-sweden-rich#.an2p6l:XePw
https://mises.org/library/how-modern-sweden-profits-success-its-free-market-history
Will Wilkinson has a sad.
Not to mention that the Nordic states are subsidized by what OMWC called the “US Death Machine” or that their history and smallness leads to self-reliance in times of crises that the US does not have.
The entire nation of Sweden has a population about the size of New York City, and other than the recent influx of “migrants” is very homogeneous both genetically and culturally. Yet that model somehow must apply to a vast nation of 330 million diverse inhabitants.
Yes. By history I mean that they have experienced serious disorder and foreign rule on their past so they know when their economy is fucked they have to deal with it themselves rather asking for more free shit or blaming foreign bankers.
I mean do you seriously think that the political elites will care about spending until a collapse and likely not even then?
I always liked that Milton Friedman anecdote about – Sweden, I think – that when confronted by some critic noting that Sweden as a quasi-socialist ‘welfare’ state had no poor people, Friedman remarked that very few of the Swedes in the US were poor either.
By today’s standards, of course, this would expose Friedman as a Nazi shitlord.
That is an excellent quote.
Per Cato, the full quote went like this:
Thanks for that. I had problems tracking it down.
I use that same method when describing Japanese American murder rates compared to murder rates in Japan. Now tell me more about gun control.
Andy Garcia and Michael Douglas would like to discuss this.
“Theft is theft. There is no grey area.”
“New York is one big grey area.”
I make no apologies for loving that movie, even down to the late 80s synth score.
From that report on the skeezy State pol in Oklahoma –
Shortey answered the door in a white t-shirt with the words Ephesians 5:22, a bible verse, written on it, as well as “now go make me a sandwich” written below an image of a sandwich. The bible verse is in reference to women submitting to their husband’s will, as they do to the Lord.
This young man presents a conundrum for ENB, doesn’t he?
Doh, wrong close tag. Needs more coffee and Edit Faerie.
What’s the age of consent in OK? That would be entirely legal in most of the US.
Google says 16.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Versus_the_State
So way too late to bring back “liberalism”…
Also Spencer, Cobden and Bright didn’t buy into the notion of a “liberal moment” which is funny considering how Reason’s libertarian moment sounds awfully like a caricature of a Victorian Liberal at times.
By caricature I mean the assumption that the status quo is the epitome of civilization thanks to industrialism, technology and classical liberalism. Also the assumption that no one could possibly be dissatisfied with the status quo and the Labour Party and WWI were not happening
This is what EU bureaucrats call a video game.
The one review I read pointed out that the winning strategy was to set taxes at 50% then proceed to do jack shit, as any other actions make the game decide things get worse. It was concluded to be an excellent argument against the EU.
I had to leave work today with severe abdominal pain. Boss took me to a few clinics. Blood work/x-rays/CT scan/sonogram.
Apparently I have some form of colitis. They wanted me to go to the hospital. I asked for how long and I got a straight-up Larry David “eeeeeeeeeeeh about a week.”
I couldn’t go today. Just couldn’t. Am going in the morning. My medical write-up is very scary and way above my pay grade. Was very frightened about what they would find. The symptoms were identical to appendicitis but they’re waving that off for now. Abscess in my colon, apparently. Cysts.
At least this time I presumably will be able to move around the hospital, as opposed to the last time when I was chained to my bed for two weeks for a hip replacement. I hope tonight goes well. I kept thinking “please not cancer please not cancer please not cancer” during my evaluations. So I’m actually a bit relieved.
Hopefully tomorrow will be busy and we can get a bead on what is going on. Scary day. I’ve long lived a rough-and-tumble life and have always thought about when the day would come when I have to atone for it. Apparently Dec 6, 2017 was that day. Hopefully, I can flip it into something positive. I’ve been going through a big existential crisis ever since I turned 30 in April. This new beginning will begin with a trial-by-fire–which is where I suppose the best new beginnings have to be wrought.
I guess this will give me further fodder for my piece(s) on Korean v. US healthcare.
Thanks, glibs. The last time I was in hospital I took solace and strength from 6-1030pm where I’d have baseball games to distract me. I’m gonna lean on y’all this time.
“A hospital?! What is it?!”
“It’s a big building with patients, but that’s not important now.”
Holy shit dude, may you come out of this ok and get it all figured out.
Existential crises are a bitch; I’ve been dealing with a couple on and off myself recently. Hope we can cheer you up while hanging out here.
Get better, man.
Oh, the whole 30 thing? That decade is like a second adolescence. Your body starts going through changes, you start questioning everything, you feel lost and confused. Like being a teenager and giving up your toys (well, at least many of them) you do the same thing with the baggage and joy of your twenties. You can’t play the same games as when you’re younger, but the more adult games don’t feel right for you either.
Give it a decade. Your forties are much better.
If you’d have waited until tomorrow, we could have written an “a day which will live in infamy” about it. As it stands, I’ll instead say a prayer for you and for the doctors working to make sure you’re with us for a long, long time to come.
Keep us posted. You’re gonna be just fine, I’m sure. Those Koreans aren’t dumb. They’ll get you right.
I was thinking the same. But AHA! I’m going TO the hospital tomorrow! That WILL be the day of infamy!
More seriously, thanks sloops. Means much.
Q’s posts will sustain you. I will offer up a sacrifice to the Yeti gods on your behalf.
Good luck, brother.
Thanks, man.
Much like Q….I will make sure to keep everyone…abreast.
*SWISH*
*gently narrows gaze*
I shan’t be too hard on you….yet.
ZING! I’m sure you’re fine. As someone who’s had more than his share of “premature old-age” health problems, you’ll do fine. It always seems scarier than it turns out to be.
I’m sorry to hear that Evan. Too many of my family have Crohn’s which is very similar to Colitis. Assuming it is Colitis, the diagnosis part is hard but will get better. Treatments today are another world from just 15 years ago. If you can find the right meds that work for you, you’ll feel back to your old-self. Individuals react differently to the different meds, so don’t be discouraged if it takes a little time to find the best ones for you.
And when you’re not feeling as fragile, I’ll regale you with stories of a good buddy of mine, and his interactions with 3 bottles of rioja and a discount-warehouse colostomy bag.
Get well, bruh. Cyst seem to be the go to diagnosis here. Not sure how common or harmful they usually are.
Damn. That’s, like, a real bummer, man. The royal We will be rooting for you to pull through quickly.
Thanks, guys. Anyone here with any medical training? Our dear, departed/MIA Groovus, obviously excluded.
I’m looking at this chart and it’s freaking me out. I’d love to send it privately to someone for advice/consultation. It’s been to scary to actually really do too much research on.
They wanted me to go to the hospital tonight and I’m probably being stupid for not going now. But it’s my mom’s bday and we already made a skype appt. I couldn’t call her and tell her that her youngest is in the hospital. *Big sad face as I realize that I’m actually just lying to her by omission.*
I’m doing well so far on my own. Pain pills kicked in nicely.
I’d rely on the local docs. And whatever you do, stay away from WebMD. That place is enough to turn anyone into a hypochondriac.
Take a deep breath, keep on the happy pills, stay hydrated, and check in to hospital tomorrow as untroubled as possible. You’re in a nation with advanced medical care that’s objectively better than most of Europe’s.
OMWC hardest hit.
I fully intend to, but care is weird here. The first doc I went to was convinced that somehow an unrelated (?) allergy that I had been scratching had somehow gotten into my stomach.
I had to convince her to poke and prod me until she realized that it was much more serious than that.
I almost just posted a bunch of scary phrases used in my sheet. I decided against it, as information right now probably would be anathema to sleep.
Possibly a stupid question – have you had any symptoms previously, or did this just hit you out of nowhere?
Out of straight-up-nowhere.
Ate some Subway for breakfast and my stomach started feeling weird. Thought I had ate too fast. But it didn’t go away and just kept getting worse.
I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on television, but this doesn’t sound like something that’s been developing over time (i.e: cancer). Occam’s Razor implicates the Subway meal as a potential suspect. I once found shards of glass in a burrito. Luckily for me the unusual crunch tipped me off, but I tend to eat fast and was very fortunate to not have swallowed any. My point is to keep a cool head because there’s a strong possibility what you’re experiencing is temporary.
What Michael said. Nasty case of food poisoning?
Note to self: don’t eat at Subway.
Again, not a doctor, but a former sufferer of cholecystitis. That can come on quick and last quite a while. Hurts like hell too.
“Both kidneys and liver definite abnormal enhancing mass lesion.”
Yes, it is safe to say that I’m freaking the fuck out right now.
Medical latin is pretty much guaranteed to freak anyone the fuck out. My recommendation – to the extent you’re able to do it – stands.
Find something else to focus on, stay hydrated, and particularly, try not to self-diagnose. That’s what (real) doctors are for.
This certainly doesn’t sound good, but correlation doesn’t always equal causation and whatnot. Are or were you a big drinker?
You haven’t been hanging out in the JSA sharing a meal with a Nork guard have you? Best of luck Evan.
Also, that sounds like a fancy (and slightly lost-in-translation) way of stating that the liver and kidneys are inflamed.
Let me break my own rule. As usual.
I presume your abnormal enhancing mass lesion was on an MRI report? let me assuage your concern a little.
That’s language that describes that the uptake of the reagent you took, and all it really presages is that what has been detected is *likely* – based on the take-up of the reagent – a new injury/site of infection. It says nothing about the nature or severity of the condition, although obviously, you’re not disclosing whatever else is on your paperwork.
But again, I’m not a doctor. But that language merely identifies an anomaly in your kidneys and liver’s nature which is likely to be recent.
Subway…
I’m not a doctor or play one on TV either, but if I eat fast food from anywhere, I have about a 50/50 chance of being bent over with severe stomach cramps for hours. Not so much from Subway as with places like McDonald’s or Burger King, but it has happened. Like someone else just said, this sounds acute to me.
That’s the plan, Number 6.
Documentary on Gen. Grant right now. Sleep soon-ish. Doc asap in the morning.
Trying to not get flustered, and am mostly succeeding. Found a sub for work. Have to go in alone tomorrow.
If I’m focused on anything it’s how to use this to better myself, which I’ve been needing to do for a long time. This is the signal, Jerry! This is the signal!
I hope it amounts to nothing more than an antibiotic treatment. Big wake-up call today. And yes. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
At Michael: I’m a straight up, no-shit high-functioning alcoholic.
This is that change I’m talking about.
Ah, I spent many years suckling at the warm teat of the booze beast. I’m not one to proselytize to anyone, but you should do whatever makes you enjoy life most. If that thing at this point means no longer drinking, then all the power to you. I haven’t drank in just a hair past one year now (funny story for another time there) and I feel fucking great. At this point my hunch is leaning more toward a nasty case of food poisoning with the liver’n’beans thing discovered incidentally. In any case, take good care of yourself and get well soon. You’re still needed here and don’t have our permission to leave.
Well, that could definitely explain inflammation of the liver. Typically that’s a sign to reduce your consumption now. I was drinking way too much and what happened with me instead of that is that I got 45 lbs overweight, which led to high blood pressure and swelling in my ankles and other not too pleasant symptoms and worrisome symptoms. I cut down and completely changed my diet, now 26 lbs less after 3 months, blood pressure is down, no more ankle swelling, and luckily for me maybe, no problems with liver or kidneys.
^^This^^. You’ll determine you either have cancer, flesh eating bacteria or that you are pregnant.
stay away from WebMD
oh god this. I’m paranoid/OCD enough – don’t fuel the worry engine. Assume the best, but prepare for the worst.
Related story: good friend of mine found a growth on one of his testicles. He had multiple tests done, along with visits to different doctors and specialists. He spent weeks and weeks panicking, thinking it was cancer. It turned out to be a normal, nay common, thing – sub-something-or-another skin growth.
My doctor told me there was something troubling attached to both my testicles.
Me.
Hey Evan,
I have colitis, and I am a new(ish) nurse. Not sure what med info you have. I wouldn’t be able to sort through the potential aliments they are suspecting and make a diagnosis. I might be able to clarify the information.
If it is UC I can speak to my experiences (take the pills on time) and a close friends’
I just got off night shift and I’m headed to bed, but I assume the magic of the moderators could connect us via email
Be well. I pray it’s something minor with a easy remedy.
I would love to get in touch. Scary. Scary words. Cancer-sounding words.
Yes, please if it’s not too much trouble. Let’s stay in touch.
I hate it when doctors throw a bunch of charts at you and don’t attempt any sort of explanation. Poor bedside manners if you ask me. I typically do my own research online to calm myself down when that happens. Of course, sometimes winds up making it worse.
OMG. My tumor has inoperable rabies!
My entire family is cursed with intestinal issues, which has forced all of us to learn way more about ’em than we’ve ever wanted. Most such difficulties are neither life- nor health-threatening, but they can certainly change your lifestyle and make you re-think your diet etc. The odds are on your side! Try not to be too discouraged by it all.
Damn dude, I hope you get better soon. Hate to see a fellow Glib in pain.
Also, if I were in your position – I’d have a family member bring me a whole lot of good sci-fi books while I stayed at the hospital. Nothing passes the time like a good book.
Always good advice! But alas I’m the only one over here in Korea.
My friends will hook me up, though!
Likely completely treatable. I shall entreat Yahweh on your behalf- he listens to (((us))) more.
Don’t flout your (((privilege))) around here, shitlord.
Prayers for you.
Sounds like you caught it in time. Best of luck, and stay positive.
Best wishes and keep us posted, Evan.
Best wishes. I hope you get well soon.
I needed to find something mellow.
One of my high school pals swore that RM and weed got him more action than any other music/chemical combination. I believe him.
Nice choice and welcome back.
I really like Roxy Music. I especially like when I hear a really early song (pre-New Wave) that I forgot about on the classic rock XM station and it sets me off down a rabbit hole.
I also like their formation story (from Wiki):
In November 1970, Bryan Ferry, who had recently lost his job teaching ceramics at a girls’ school for holding impromptu record listening sessions,[14] advertised for a keyboard player to collaborate with him and Graham Simpson, a bass player he knew from his Newcastle art college band, the Gas Board, and with whom he collaborated on his first songs.
Make me want to watch Flashbacks of a Fool…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f09xX7-Kos
Eating Cheese Every Day May Actually Be Good for You
So my pizza diet wasn’t a bad idea after all?
Mad Scientist hardest hit.
Yesterday, I was so ravenously hungry I went to McDonald’s. Blech. While I was eating my “fish” sammich, a very nice looking young mom and her two children, one m, one f, went by. There are a few wildlife photos on the wall, it being Montana and all. One of the photos is a bull elk. The mom asked the little boy (6 or 7, maybe?) what it was, et c. When they got to the “Bull” part, she asked, “Is a bull a boy or a girl?”
Ugh, so heteronormatively triggersome.
#SOFARTOGO
Who’s Ogo, and why are they being told to be flatulent?
“Mommy, what is LGBTQueef?”
The DA who failed to present a compelling case blasted Trump and the charges as a travesty of justice.
Nope. No reason whatsoever to think he might not have presented his case in good faith. None whatsoever. He complains about people using this case to attack “San Francisco values” (his term, not mine). And then proceeds to provide Exhibit A on why people might think they’re not consistent with the rest of the country’s.
That certainly gives more credence to my theory that he tanked the case, because Trump!
I came to make this correction to the article:
“The prosecution ended up arguing a first-degree, even though initially they said it was a second-degree,” Adachi said after the verdict. “I’ve never seen that. I think it speaks volumes for the fact that this case was
overchargedthrown.”If I were the Defense and actually working for my client’s interest, I’d not be saying shit like this to the paper.
To paraphrase, “my client was guilty of manslaughter, at the very least, but the prosecution completely fucked it up. I look forward to earning more government compensation for defending this shitbird against federal charges that I’m helping to get him charged with.”
Sorry people of Portland, looks like you’re losing access to some great beer.
HA ha! /Nelson Munz
It’s Time to Rethink Crony Capitalism
Well, duh.
The article is fine, but the comment from ‘nobody’ is sublime. If it was one of you – kudos. If it’s real – all the better!
The comments there never load for me (might be the work proxy, might be browser add-ons), what did they say?
But I thought they wouldn’t have a road to die beside!
Toll road, natch. You will have paid for the privilege to die there.
The foolproof method to business success – kill off your customers.
As Lindsey and Teles argue, the administrative regulations that progressives believe check the power and abuses of big business serve (as an empirical matter) to consolidate market power among the largest, most entrenched corporations. Even a beginner’s understanding of economic thinking — attempting to comprehend and predict rational responses to financial incentives — suggests the inevitability of this result, however counterintuitive the political left may find it. Compliance with the reams of new agency rules promulgated every year comes at a cost to U.S. businesses; many cannot endure the impact of this cost and must exit the marketplace.
This right here is what is killing the industry I’ve been in my whole life.
More on that later. 😉
Link that podcast again, G.
Fucking awesome stories.
/jealous
Glad you dug it.
I’ve put a few miles on, eh.
?!
For those who ignored it yesterday, I’ll post it this afternoon.
One of Thing I agree with the left-libertarians on is the tendency for libertarians to come across as apologists for corporate welfare.
Problem is the “libertarian moment” and technophilia don’t really address this. Nor the mealy-mouthed reformism of the LP.
Also what do they mean by “land reform” here? What is to prevent a commie or Mugabe sort of “reform”?
[CITATION NEEDED]
the tendency for
libertariansRepublicans to come across as apologists for corporate welfare.FTFY
*EDIT FAIRY REPAIR!*
the tendency for
libertariansRepublicans to come across as apologists for corporate welfare.FTF(Me)
Republicans were the mercantilist party after all.
Mercantalism is the application of sensible individual financial management to a nation-state. As an individual or a company you are better off when you have more money coming in than going out – so why not the same as a nation?
I didn’t take you for a high-tariff man.
I’m not.
I’m not sure where you got that from a description of my analysis of Mercantilism.
The fact that I think it is better to be a net exporter than a net importer is unrelated.
Pointing out that mercanilism is traditionally associated with high tariffs after you seemed to defend it.
I mentioned what I meant in the next paragraph. Talking about how the things are basically fine does imply that corporate welfare is no big deal. Not all libertarians adopt the “things are basically fine” mindset.
Do any?
I suppose you didn’t read any “libertarian moment is upon us” articles or see Johnson/Weld ads?
I am not sure the LP has any libertarians. And the libertarian moment crowd is the left-libertarians you were claiming to agree with.
I don’t think the cosmos and left-libertarians are the same. When I think of the
Posted too early.
When I think of left libertarian I think of self described ones like Sheldon Richman.
The problem is that when people talk about corporations or the rich almost everyone, including libertarians, tend to collectivize the conversations. People talk about them like they’re each one thing that, maybe with a few exceptions, the same general principle applies. There are some people who get rich and some corporations who thrive through honestly meeting a consumer demand for goods and services. Others do so through cronyism and connections. And still others abandon the former for the latter, either out of greed or even simple self-preservation. Talking about the topic without recognizing the different situations doesn’t arrive at a meaningful conclusions.
There is also a “statistical” collectivism trend that is extremely disturbing. Simply say “most” related to any topic and those people/activities not in the majority are rendered null.
Problem is that libertarians want to end governmentry handouts and regulation. Populists might want some sort of regulation and handouts to benefit small business while the leftists want industries to be nationalized. All different responses to the same problem.
It’s real.
I occasionally comment on A.T. He’s a long-time commenter/troll. That’s about average-ridiculous on his scale.
So I find the prog and cosmo embracing of sjws and environmentalism to be interesting.
Progressive and libertarianism traditional both embraced the glories of Western civilization and it’s industrialist and technology yet sjws think western values are evil and the environmentalists (especially CAGW believers) think that industry and technology are destroying Gaia.
I think the big difference is that progressive only embraced Western civilization and technology to the extent that it yielded them and their preferences. They don’t see the rest of Western civilization as particularly worthwhile or valuable. Traditional libertarians value Western civilization as this tradition that gave us the notion of liberty. Beyond that, the details are sort of up to you. The progressive view and the SJW view are a lot more similar than they seem. SJWs consider Western civilization bad. But, they consider it bad with the exception of them. And that becomes, effectively, indistinguishable from progressive vies.
SJWs are a subset of progressives that cry loudly and often about race/gender issues. SJWs are progressives.
Part of this is that you are conflating technology with science (and Science!) In broad strokes, libertarians glorify technology. Rand wrote about choo choos. Cyberpunk is possibly the most libertarian scifi subgenre, and it has nothing to do with science and everything to do with technology. Swing a dead cat at a coder and you more are likely to hit a libertarian.
Progs glorify science. The entire progressive movement was started by the application of scientific principals to business and government. Carl Sagan and NdT are sainted among the IFLS types. Progressive scifi has always been social science fiction, from Azamov forward. Swing a dead cat at a geologist or an astronomer, and you’ll hit a progressive.
Must you insist on swinging my dead brethren around at your fellow humans? Are you unaware that after the 9th expiration of our bodies we are to be buried in the sacred backyard litter box after being encased in the ceremonial box of shoes?
Have you no dignity?
Weren’t you around for the animal rights thread? Cats and dead bodies don’t have rights.
No, but all Glibs are degenerates, so I’m not surprised you’d come to that conclusion.
HEY! AS A GEOLOGIST, I RESENT THAT.
Want to watch a SJW mayor get triggered?
It’s five minutes of watching a mayor get reduced to tears when she has to listen to someone who dares to have a different opinion. The salty ham tears went really well with my coffee this morning.
That was something to behold, the inarticulate rage on the mayor’s part was really pathetic.
I love how the men in the room look bored out of their minds.
Dude at the top right especially. He exhibits the same mannerisms my son does when we’re at church.
Three dipshits in bad ties.
Lol. The mayor was so upset she couldn’t even articulate what she was upset about. I especially like when she said she wanted to hear all sides but that she couldn’t because the one member refused to accept the fact that she had privilege and wouldn’t stop giving her side.
The mental instability of leftists will eventually be their undoing. Normies are finally realizing that these people are batshit crazy.
[CITATION NEEDED]
All my evidence is anecdotal, but more and more of my “lefty” friends are totally sick of progressives. A friend of mine, someone I’d say is firmly liberal said “I swear to god if I hear one more thing about feminism I’m going to flip a shit.” I’ve never once talked to her about cultural issues and I’m almost certain that I am the most conservative friend she has.
I think people are starting to wake up a little bit. But like I said, its all anecdotal experience. This also has nothing to do with public policy or economics, people are still retarded when it comes to that stuff.
Jonah Goldberg’s interviewee this week, a conservative professor at Berkeley, had something to say about this. According to him, grievance academics are tolerated by the wider left, but not taken especially seriously. And there’s a growing desire to root out the militancy and persecution complex and invite in more conservative voices.
Of course, until they start standing up to the snowflakes, that’s and a quarter will buy you a cup of coffee.
Batshit crazy is a prerequisite for elected office though.
That was an impressively bad performance by that mayor, and a very good point by the other woman. The mayor is using white privilege an a way to build barriers between herself and her constituents. The other woman was making human connections between herself and other human being that happened to differ along an orthogonal parameter (not that she would put it that way).
Constitutional arguments aside, I don’t see how needlessly moving the embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is in the best interests of U.S. security.
I know Trump made a campaign promise to do this, and I hate to get all Machiavellian, but sometimes keeping promises is a bad idea if it’s bad for American security.
As far as the Constitution goes, yeah, Trump is merely following the Jerusalem Embassy Act . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Embassy_Act#Presidential_Waiver
. . . but 1) I don’t see how that act has any constitutional standing and 2) even with constitutional standing, he could sign the waiver every six months like Clinton, Bush Jr., and Obama did.
The Jerusalem Embassy Act was massively bipartisan, and Trump would be correct to say that congress can repeal the Jerusalem Embassy Act whenever they want.
That being said, . . .
One of my pet peeves against the Clinton administration was that whenever someone asked them if what they did was ethical, they’d respond with the observation that it was legal–which is a cop out. Whenever someone asked the Bush administration whether what they did was smart, likewise, they’d respond that it was legal–as if that were the anser to the question.
Trump campaigned on putting America’s interests first, and he’s been good at that so far, especially in relation to his willingness to collaborate with Putin on Syria when it was in our best interests to do so. However, if we ask Trump whether what he’s doing is in America;s best interests, and he responds that he promised to do it during his campaign, I’m gonna cry foul.
Because you promised to do something foolish is no excuse for selling America’s security interests short. Here’s to hoping no Americans die in a terrorist attack because Trump foolishly kept a purely symbolic campaign promise.
Moving the embassy to Jerusalem is pandering for evangelical votes, is a net negative for the US, and fucks over Israel. I don’t get it.
Evangelicals may have been on board, but Trump made that campaign promise to a group of Jewish leaders.
I think it’s just about keeping that campaign promise in the hopes of it helping him win reelection.
Israel is not acting as if they’re fucked over. Reading JPost, the reaction there seems to be quite positive, given that their capital has been there for 70 years or so.
What I’m hoping and praying for is that this isn’t Step One in “get even more involved in a Middle East shithole,” but rather the recognition that when a sovereign country says, “My capital is in XXX,” we put our embassy in XXX, and after that, it’s their worry, not ours.
Why should it be Tel Aviv?
Because Tel Aviv doesn’t include east Jerusalem, which is disputed territory on the West Bank.
So you’re saying anywhere other than the most important city to the Jews?
You asked what the difference was, and I answered.
Three different presidents have signed the waiver every six months for 22 years out of concern for the consequences of recognizing Jerusalem as the capitol, and nothing has changed since Trump was elected.
The concern for those consequences to U.S. security are just as legitimate now as they’ve ever been.
Do you think capitulating to Palestinian wishes out of fear of possible attack sends a message that actually enhances American security?
You’re assuming that doing what it’s in our interests is capitulation.
Pulling out of Lebanon after the Marines were attacked was not capitulation. It was realizing that if we invaded Lebanon in 1982, we might still be fighting a ground war over there today–and for what benefit to the U.S.? Any at all?
Hezbollah isn’t much of a security threat to the U.S.–because we didn’t invade Lebanon.
Doing what’s in your own best interests because the potential rewards don’t justify the costs or the risks is not capitulation.
Capitulation is giving up something of value despite the rewards far outweighing the costs or the risks.
What’s the upside of recognizing a city? Isn’t it just necessarily symbolic?
Pulling out of Lebanon after the Marines were attacked was capitulation. The risks were different at the time due to cold war alliances and considerations which do not exist now. In 1982 there were far fewer Islamic terrorist attacks on the US than we have had since that time. Much of that may be due to perceived weakness on the part of the US due to failure to retaliate strongly. See Bin Laden’s “strong horse” comments for reference.
Ken,
The only “Strong Horse” response to the Lebanon attack would have been to rebuild the embassy and barracks in Lebanon, fight a guerrilla war there against Hezbollah, and figure out where Khomeini was, then bomb the shit out of it (likely Qom, the holy city in Iran). That would have easily ended up embroiling the U.S. in the Iran-Iraq war, which would have made a already messy Middle East even messier.
The question isn’t whether there were less terrorist attacks. The question is whether there would have been more if we’d invaded Lebanon and engaged in a war with what eventually coalesced into Hezbollah.
Once again, Hezbollah has not specifically targeted Americans since 1982–and they only coalesced into a unified group after the Marine barracks attacks. If we’d invaded Lebanon, that would probably be different.
There may be worse reasons to go to war and stay at war than because we don’t want people to think we’re weak or that we capitulated, but I think the only one is probably genocide. Have you ever read “Shooting an Elephant”? Wasting yourself and your resources chasing rogue elephants through the jungle because you feel compelled to demonstrate your resolve and strength is the very stuff that quagmires are made of.
Avoid!
We are not worse off today because we didn’t make a direct enemy of Hezbollah for no good reason and with no clear benefit to U.S. security.
I agree with spqr2008.
Pulling out of Lebanon after the Marines were attacked was…
…the single worst analogy I’ve seen today, but admittedly, it’s early.
“The single worst analogy I’ve seen today, but admittedly, it’s early.”
It wasn’t an analogy. It was an example.
It was an example of how doing what’s in your own best interests isn’t capitulation.
Regardless, if waging a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon without any clear purpose, chance of success, or clear benefit is the opposite of capitulation, I’ll take capitulation.
Israel didn’t even sustain their own incursion into Lebanon (and they’ve been in and out since then, too), so why would it be in our interests if it wasn’t even in theirs to fight Hezbollah to the finish?
Then don’t have an official embassy at all in Israel. Refusing to move it to Jerusalem only postpones what eventually is going to happen.
Israel is a strategic ally.
Alliances are an effective means of self-defense.
Of course, we should have an embassy.
My point is that if the Israelis want the embassy in Jerusalem and we believe they have a legitimate right to host an embassy on that land, we should put it there. Keeping it in Tel Aviv, against the host country’s desire is a bigger insult than not having one at all.
Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is still in dispute by the people who live there.
I don’t understand why you guys are having such a hard time understanding that we should do what’s in our own best security interests regardless of what Israel wants.
Whether it’s right or wrong or just or unjust or whatever else that isn’t a question of whether it’s in our interests is missing the point.
We should only do things that are in our interests to do.
Don’t tell me what’s legal or illegal.
Don’t tell me about something else.
Tell me why it’s in our interests to make a symbolic gesture that puts us in direct conflict with terrorist organizations fighting for that territory. who have mostly ignored us as specific targets for decades?
Al Qaeda and ISIS weren’t bad enough, you gotta pick a fight with Hamas and Hezbollah, too?!
And for what benefit?
From what I can tell, most of you just want to give Palestinian terrorists the finger.
That’s not a good reason to open ourselves up to more of a security risk.
Except how much “security” has trying to appease the Palestinians bought us? They’ve sided against us in every war we’ve fought for the last seventy years.
Hezbollah and Hamas generally avoid hitting U.S. targets specifically.
That is neither because they like us nor because they’re nice people.
Partially, it’s because they fear U.S. retaliation.
Partially it’s because we work through our proxy, rather than engage them directly, and because we don’t needlessly provoke them.
There’s a benefit to not being targeted, specifically, by Hezbollah and Hamas.
Hezbollah and Hamas generally avoid hitting U.S. targets specifically.
That is neither because they like us nor because they’re nice people.
Partially, it’s because they fear U.S. retaliation.
Are they gonna fear us less after we sign a piece of paper? If not, then explain how this increases the security threat.
sloopyinca,
They’re fighting over territory.
According to them and everyone else but Israel, east Jerusalem in The West Bank is occupied territory.
“Everyone else”
[citation required]
Here’s a good place to start:
That’s from the introduction. Read about the legal status and the political status starting here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank#Legal_status
However, all that being said, I hope my point isn’t getting lost in the shuffle here.
I’m not interested in in sorting out the legal status of the West Bank.
My claim is that recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving our embassy to Jerusalem isn’t in our security interests right now.
I maintain that regardless of whether the West Bank is occupied, illegal, or unoccupied and totally legal.
There are millions of things we could do that are both perfectly constitutional and legal–that are also NOT in our best interests.
Then again (via twitter)
“From the river to the sea…”
Because it’s already there. Just because a country decides to move its official capitol doesn’t obligate the US taxpayer to build a big, new and very expensive embassy.
https://br.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/embassy/
I’m much more sympathetic to this argument than the ones regarding not offending the sensibilities of the death cult. I honestly couldn’t care less where the embassy in Israel is located, but I don’t think our decision should be held hostage to the wishes of Hamas.
It is the ONLY valid argument for not moving it.
“We will move when we decide to upgrade and rebuild” is a valid decision. But that makes it clear that the NEXT embassy will be in Jerusalem when it makes financial sense to move.
When did they decide to move their capital? AFAIK, it’s been Jerusalem since the founding of the state.
The actual driver of these discussions is the possible US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capitAl of Israel.
Capital is the most important city in an area, region, country, etc., and generally refers to a governmental seat. Capitol is building where legislators meet and have session.
The more you know…
I don’t see how this is adverse to US security interests.
If the argument is “it might trigger the palistinians to violence” my reaction is “they’re triggered to violence by the mere existance and recognition of Israel, letting them dictate our actions by threatening to do what they already do anyway is foolish.”
Being cognizant of the wisdom of not needlessly provoking violence against us in a dispute we don’t need to fight and shouldn’t want to fight is not letting them dictate our actions. It’s being aware of our own interests and acting accordingly.
^This.
There’s being cognizant of not provoking violence and there’s being a sucker. The Palestinians seem to know they can tell us to go fuck ourselves and the result will be that we’ll worry about how to diplomatically get them to be more cooperative. Telling us to go fuck ourselves has no downside.
Telling us to go fuck ourselves doesn’t have any downside for them, and it doesn’t have any downside for us either.
The biggest problem is “our own interests” doesn’t actually mean anything concrete. Every department will give you a different answer. Go to the Pentagon and most of the people there will tell you privately that war is their interest.
Absolutely, you’re right. Just like in real life, determining what’s in our best interests is thorny and disputed and the facts change all the time, and so does the analysis.
Still, that’s the way the world works, and that’s the way I judge the president.
Donald Trump is highly superior to our last two presidents for one reason–he’s actually taken our interests into account.
Obama didn’t care whether working with Putin in Syria was in our interests–not so much as Obama cared about the interests of LGBTQI+ in Moscow and how Putin was treating them.
Bush had the same problem. Can’t tell you how many times I got sick at hearing about what was in the best interests of the Iraqis. I hope they all live long and prosper, but if Bush wanted to take the interests of the Iraqis ahead of our own, then he should have run for president of Iraq.
Which policies we should pursue should be determined by what’s in our best interests. Doing things that are illegal are rarely in our interests–for that reason–and doing things that are unconstitutional are undermine the interests of justice and freedom.
However, when it comes to a decision that impacts American security, I want the discussion to be in terms of the interests of the United States of America.
The Paris Accord was not in the interests of the United States–and that’s why Obama liked it. He thought that caring about our own interests was selfish and racist. Thank goodness for Trump in that one regard.
He may be wrong about what our interests are on various issues, but at least he’s thinking about policy and decisions in those terms.
What’s the point of arguing with a president about what our interests are–if the president doesn’t care?
Countries have a right to determine where their capital is located. We don’t say the capital of England is Manchester, or the capital of Mexico is Cancun just because we feel like that’s what it should be. Israel says their capital is Jerusalem, and that should be the end of it as far as America is concerned.
To do anything else is engaging in interventionism, something I for one would like to see American doing a lot less of in the Middle East.
Countries have a right to determine where their capital is located, and our country has a right to recognize it or not–depending on whether it’s in our interests to do so.
Once again, the question is not whether we have the right to act foolishly.
The question is whether we’re acting foolishly.
On the risk reward analysis, I’m seeing a bunch of risk and not a lot of upside for the U.S.
How can you recognize an entity as a sovereign nation without also recognizing their capital? You can’t, which is the entire purpose… to delegitimize Israel as a sovereign nation. If we don’t want to recognize Israel as a country, then we should say that, instead of this interventionism bullshit of saying your only partially a country because we’re afraid of a large tribe of medieval goat fuckers.
True de-escalation of America’s footprint in the region comes from treating Israel as any other country… cutoff funding, recognize their capital, and stay out of what happens over there.
We’ve done it every day for 50 years–since 1967, right?
I am glad to see an argument for why this is in the best interests of the U.S.–even if I’m not sure I buy it.
Israel isn’t just an ally that’s surrounded by enemies–it’s an ally that’s surrounded by enemies of the U.S. One of the reasons why Hezbollah has been so reluctant to target the U.S. specifically is because they’re afraid of what might happen if we ever let Israel off its leash. There are those who imagine that if the U.S. walked away from Israel, that Israel would capitulate to the demands of the Palestinians, Syrians, Iranians, Lebanese, et. al. If Israel were no linger concerned about their relationship with the U.S., they would not capitulate to the demands of the Palestinians or the terrorists. They’d be free to go on the offensive, and that’s what they’d do.
They might drive the Palestinian people into the sea and nuke Tehran.
Very rarely in history has one country been so much more militarily powerful than their enemies and not used that power against them. It’s because that’s what Americans do. They restrain themselves because of their relationship with the U.S.
We’ve done it every day for 50 years–since 1967, right?
Translation: we’ve kowtowed to those crazy Islamist fuckers for 50 years and look what it’s gotten us in return. May as well keep kowtowing or they’ll get even more bomb-y.
We’ve remained more or less neutral on the question of territory because it was in our interests to do so.
We should continue to pursue our interests–even if it means not going out of our way to provoke terrorist attacks over purely symbolic issues.
We’re increasing the security threat to the U.S. over something that offers nothing of value to the U.S.
I think there is a benefit to the US.
Overall, confidence in the US’ and just how much bottom it has is coming out of a protracted ‘low’. Its allies don’t trust what we say anymore, and our regional rivals would like to maintain that low confidence.
Just about the only real risk of moving the embassy is in a terror threat that we’re already subject to. The upside is that while we may think that a muscular FYTW is a provocation, Israel *and other countries* may well interpret it another way.
We’ve remained more or less neutral on the question of territory because it was in our interests to do so.
And we should remain neutral since it’s not part of our country.
We should continue to pursue our interests–even if it means not going out of our way to provoke terrorist attacks over purely symbolic issues.
Symbolic issues? Maybe to you, but not to the sovereign nation of Israel. They call Jerusalem their capital. If we are to recognize them as a sovereign nation, we must respect that. Period, full stop.
We’re increasing the security threat to the U.S. over something that offers nothing of value to the U.S.
Talk about victim-blaming. We would be doing nothing but signing a piece of paper. The security threat is the crazy group of fuckers willing to blow us up for signing a piece of paper and little more. This is akin to blaming the rape victim because she dared wear a shirt with a racy slogan on it.
Increasing the security threat? You really think the Islamist nutters are going to try to attack us even harder than they already are because the Embassy gets moved to Israel’s actual capitol? You really think they are not already trying to hit us any way they possibly can?
That’s where we’re differing right there.
Yes, merely symbolic to us. And guess whose interests I’m interested in primarily?
I’ll give you a hint: It isn’t Israel’s.
What do we get out of this symbolic gesture–to us?
We open ourselves up to an even greater risk of terrorism from groups that haven’t really targeted us directly in the past. That’s one downside.
What’s the upside–to us–of this largely symbolic gesture–to us?
They’d be free to go on the offensive, and that’s what they’d do.
They might drive the Palestinian people into the sea and nuke Tehran.
Very rarely in history has one country been so much more militarily powerful than their enemies and not used that power against them. It’s because that’s what Americans do. They restrain themselves because of their relationship with the U.S.
And what’s the problem with this? Any country but Israel would have already done that. We certainly would have. To use a Hungarian proverb, “Not my circus, not my monkeys”.
If Israel wants to turn the surrounding Middle Eastern countries into sheets of glass, I fail to see why America should intervene to stop them. We are not the World’s Policeman.
It’s not a problem. I was just pointing out the fact in response to another argument.
We’ve had that effect in a lot of places. Pinochet didn’t hold a referendum on his own rule and respect the results out of the goodness of his heart. It was he was afraid of jeopardizing his relationship with the United States.
It is a common belief among South Koreans that the only reason they haven’t already invaded the North is because the U.S. won’t let them. If Mexico shelled the U.S. the way North Korea shelled the South, we’d have invaded in a heartbeat.
Not 1967, but 1948 (founding of the state).
I was going for the date when east Jerusalem was occupied along with the rest of the West Bank.
The question was how we can recognize a state without recognizing its capital. We didn’t recognize east Jerusalem as the capital of Israel before 1967.
Now that we’re recognizing Jerusalem as the capital, I suppose we’re recognizing east Jerusalem as part of it, too.
Regardless, the point was that we can do so and have done so since before many of the people in this thread were born.
We’re not telling them anything. They are, for some reason, desperate for us to recognize that. This is exactly the same as fanciful pronouns – call yourself whatever you want but don’t expect others to change how they operate because of your whims.
It’s needlessly antagonistic but a lot of them already want to kill us so I’m not so sure it’ll actually lead to more terrorism.
I hope you’re right.
It’s the right thing to do. If the US moved our capital to Kansas City, should we expect other nations to respect that and act accordingly? Even if a bunch of people from Washington said it hurt their feelings?
I’m not concerned about hurt feelings.
I’m concerned about security threats to the U.S.
It’s a hell of a dilemma:
Pander to the psychopaths who lob bombs into Israel at the smallest perceived slight and who say they want to wipe it off the face of the earth.
-or-
Pander to the lone stable democracy in the entire region by recognizing the capital they’ve designated because it really, really is important to them.
Gee, that sure is a tough decision. What should we do?
Kick the can down the road for another six months. of course!
Or once it becomes in our interests to do so.
Maybe that’s next year. Maybe that’s another 22 years.
I just don’t think it’s today.
Do any countries still have their embassy in NYC or Philadelphia or have they all moved it to DC?
Any embassies in Rio?
I don’t know. But I wasn’t talking about where an embassy sat. I was talking about recognizing a sovereign nation’s declared capital.
We can keep our embassy wherever we want, based on the safety of our staff. Or for financial reasons. But that’s a totally different conversation based on different factors that whether or not we should recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
Aside from the expense issue, where the embassy is sends a message. What message do we want to send?
Another question: what benefits have we reaped from having it in Tel Aviv? Giving this concession to Hamas & Co. doesn’t seem to have made them any happier or more amenable to a permanent cessation of hostilities. You might even ask – why keep it there? The peace process is a bad joke, and at a minimum needs to be shaken up. This might just have consequences that are for the best – who knows? Not doing anything different will probably lead to no change; this is different, so if nothing else it has that going for it.
What risks do we really run? If Hamas is both evil and stupid enough to attack the US embassy, well, another mask being dropped seems like a . . . good thing?
“Giving this concession to Hamas & Co. doesn’t seem to have made them any happier or more amenable to a permanent cessation of hostilities.
I don’t see it as a concession so much as a decision not to provoke.
And the risk of chucking the status quo is are greater than you seem to appreciate.
Like I keep saying, Hezbollah, for instance, hasn’t deliberately targeted Americans since 1982.
Of more than 170 suicide attacks since the Marine barracks, how many times have Hamas, Hezbollah, and others targeted the U.S. specifically?
That’s the status quo.
You risk giving that up. What are we getting in return for that risk?
Anything?
Has anyone linked, or seen this?
I’d love to get one. I still want an M1 Garand as well. Holding – and firing! – something that has the history of these firearms would be damn cool. The process for the 1911 is a bit more involved though, not to mention they won’t be cheap surplus. They expect prices to be $800-$1000.
There’s been a lot of traffic about these 1911s on a mailing list I follow (curio & relic collectors). The consensus thinking there is that these guns are going to be armory rebuilds, completely clapped out and without much collectable value. CMP will grade and price them according to condition, so if there are any gems, they won’t be bargains.
Most of the grousing on the C&R list is about the expected terms of sale. CMP wants a clear NICS check before they’ll even put your name in the lottery, and the way it reads currently, they want the guns to transfer through an 01 FFL, who will perform a second NICS check at time of transfer. This, despite the fact that an 03 (C&R) FFL can directly receive C&R guns (which these 1911s probably are, based on age). CMP says these extra hoops are at the request of ATF and DOD.
I guess the DOD doesn’t want to be in the news as having sold a 1911 to a nutjob.
It’s hard to imagine as a non-com, just how shot out and fucked up US service sidearms can be, until you get your hands on one. It’s almost at the other end of the spectrum from every CMP Garand I’ve ever played with.
I’ve literally (traditional, not millennial connotation) fired an ex-US military 1911 that got out into the wild in an informal way, and the damn thing nearly went full auto, the sear was so worn. I’m not saying the CMP ones will be dangerous, but they will – even once worked over – be more an ornament than a working gun.
Oh I wasn’t planning on it being my EDC or anything. But there is no way I would own one without firing it at least once in a while.
$1000 will buy you a very nice, much more modern (and tighter) used 1911 if that’s your thing.
One of the great things about 1911s is that they’re largely an emotional purchase. You might see beaten up and abused Glocks and SiGs, but people who buy a 1911 will usually pamper it. Except people who were issued them, of course.
Disclosure. I was looking at entering the lottery – I’ve discovered that ‘service pistols’ is my ‘thing’ – but my Scots heritage andlearned parsimony has been tweaking me hard about the probable price of what is in objective terms, a heavily used slide, frame and trigger.
No. It’s a total sentimental purchase, that’s why getting one is unlikely for me (Garand too). But if I came into some cash I’d jump at it. Even though I don’t have military experience, my dad, uncle, and their father served, along with most of the men on that side of my family. My grandfather will turn 96 in January (and he’s still pretty spry!). He served a full career in the Army from about 1940 to 1965 and obviously served in WW2. If I bought one I would think about what that gun has been through, who used it, where it has traveled, and ‘sense’ the terrible things it must have seen, so I don’t forget what war means and all the sacrifices that have been made for us.
I’m surprised that Swiss of all people didn’t think to mention Repeal Day yesterday.
Too drunk… *hic*
Me, last week after visiting friend in hospital one last time (after receiving news that he was brain dead): “I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but I hope she does the right thing and takes him off life support soon. Donate the organs they can donate, save some lives, and begin going forward. I don’t think it’s a good idea to drag this into the holidays.”
1 day passes… two days pass… four days… seven days pass… hospital says “you don’t have to take him off life support, but he can’t stay in the MICU. There’s a facility that will accommodate him… for a price”… she finally takes him off of life support Monday at 1:20 PM.
And what do you know… visitation Friday… mass, burial, and celebration of life Saturday….. Saturday would be the day I invited the whole family out to the Santa brunch at my club. Nice big brunch. Arts and crafts. Santa. Petting zoo. The kids are going to love it. It’s literally the one time in my life I organized any sort of holiday event for our family to all do together. And my wife and I won’t even fucking be there. Instead, the whole family will be there running up my tab in my absence.
Honestly pissed. Because my buddy would have been pissed that his wife let it drag on too long, and now it’s interfering with peoples holiday plans.
Dude died. I’d chalk it up to a roll with it experience.
Yeh, she made her choice. Couldn’t have been easy. Roll with it. You have no choice.
Me and other members of my family had to make several of those types of shit decisions last year. They are brutal and at a time when it’s really hard to think straight.
I’ve redone my health care directive a couple times. I don’t want to put my family in that position if I can help it.
I know. And we’ll do the right thing and be there for his wife both Friday and Saturday.
I just needed to vent a little. Seeing as how he was an addict and I’m a recovering alcoholic very active in AA, he confided in me a lot, we occasionally went to meetings together, and I knew him a lot better than most people will ever know (possibly even better than his wife). It’s not my place to offer my opinion, but I do feel like someone should have asked for it at some point.
I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Just everything about it sucks. But I promised to be there for his wife and his little girl, both now and in the future. And that’s exactly what I’ll do.
You were being honest. It’s cool. Nearing the big five oh myself and have been to enough funerals to understand that life goes on despite the pain that comes with them.
As noted elsewhere, I’m being forced to reflect on my own mortality at the moment, with the rewriting of my Last Will and Testament. It puts ones ‘objectivity’ and agnosticism to the test.
Sorry to hear about your pal.
It’s hard for some people to let go.
One of my parent’s friends – an old lady in her 80s – was diagnosed with some aggressive cancer. She opted not to have it treated. A few weeks ago she was mobile… now she’s so weak she’s mostly confined to the bed. But she’s facing her death with dignity, something I know I would have a hard time doing.
(hoping for the heart attack – while I’m sleeping)
I know an Indian that’ll smother you with a pillow.
(hoping for the heart attack – while I’m
sleepingfucking)But, yeah.
That must be a weird experience for the lucky lady/whoever.
Tundra won’t care, he’ll be dead!
Eh…..I’m not trying to criticize you here, but it comes off as a bit insensitive when your gripe about a woman keeping her husband alive a bit longer than perhaps she should have involves arts and crafts and Santa Claus.
Yeah, like I said above just a few minutes ago, I really don’t even know why I’m so upset. The whole thing just sucks. I’ve had too many young friends die, and I guess I just don’t like the whole “dragging it out” thing. I feel like in a way, I already grieved. When I found out he was brain dead, it really messed me up for a couple days. I took off work the rest of that Monday and the whole day Tuesday. Went to his church. Went to a few AA meetings he used to frequent. Pulled myself together and went back to work on Wednesday.
I’m at peace now. I’ll be a rock for his wife, and especially for his daughter. I’m guessing I’ll no doubt be at plenty of “daddy/daughter” activities with her during her life seeing as how she has no uncles here and only one grandfather who travels a lot. I’m ready for it.
“…I’ll be a rock for his wife, and especially for his daughter.”
/Opens mouth to speak. Thinks better of it.
CAN YOU SMELL WHAT FUGGIN’ WHITE MALE IS COOKING??!??!!?
This illustrates the point of talking about and documenting your medical / end of life desires with your spouse and getting it to the hospital.
A DNR tattoo doesn’t count…
As of Jan 1, LSD will be given the power to switch off the machine if Mrs. #6 and I are simultaneously incapacitated. I was kinda surprised at myself with the nonchalance with which I signed my life off to a punkass kid who not so many years ago threw up all over me while she had a tantrum.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Sorry.
I complained last week about Everton hiring Allardyce. It is only an 18 month contract, so I am less concerned now.
Big Sam has 6 points from two games. At this pace, you guys can start looking up the table to see how far back of Europa League qualification you are rather than how far above the drop, which you were doing a week ago.
I’d be happy he’s there.
3 from 1. The previous game was still Unsworth. I wanted Unsworth to get to January to see if he could be the long term manager. He has done a great job with the under 23s.
And Sam went with the same lineup that Unsworth used in the previous game.
Oh, my bad. I thought he was there for both. I don’t regularly get news from the other team in town. I got the hire date wrong.
I think the paperwork had been signed, but he hadn’t started yet. Maybe they were waiting on results from his drug test or something.
I hear he has some bold ideas for the upcoming transfer window, especially as they pertain to transfer fees.
Lol, I couldn’t resist.
“Some employees, including a few of the bureau’s top officials, have welcomed their new leader. Others, pointing to Mr. Mulvaney’s earlier hostility toward the agency and its mission, are quietly resisting.”
Fuck. You. Find out who they are and ‘DEHORS!’
What is this shit of ‘resisting’? You’re effen BUREAUCRATS. Shut up and do you your JOBS!.
Speaking of which…
DON’T ANY OF YOU WORK?!?!
Some of us are waiting in line at the barber shop, listening to the local commentariat yell at clouds.
Thank fuck for smartphones.
I originally read that as “local commissariat”…
Given my location, both work.
One of the barbers didn’t show up this morning. Getting here early did nothing for me.
Rivers of BLOOD
The bill could go to a floor vote this week. It would require each state to recognize the “concealed carry” gun permits of all other states, no matter how weak. The permit of a gun owner from Georgia, where weak standards allow even abusive partners to carry hidden guns, would be legally valid in New York, which strictly restricts gun sales and does not recognize any other state’s concealed-carry permits. In other words, Georgia and other states would have more say than New York in determining how many guns are safe to have on the streets of Manhattan. The inflow of weapons that could then be carried around secretly would threaten law and order.
—————-
Genuine self-defense episodes, however, are scarce. Deaths caused by concealed-carry gun owners are not. Research shows that far from stopping mayhem, concealed-carry gun owners have been doing more harm to themselves, their family members and other innocent victims. Since May 2007, they have been responsible for at least 1,119 deaths not involving self-defense, including in 31 mass shootings and the killing of 21 law enforcement officers, according to the Violence Policy Center, a gun safety group.
Threaten law and order, just as they do in their home states, which are indistinguishable from third world free fire hellholes.
Also, those “they have been responsible” numbers- [citation needed] I find it… unconvincing. Permit-holding concealed carriers are by definition pretty law-abiding.
I’m gonna call bullshit on that, too. As a group, CCW holders statistically commit less crime than cops. And considering how rare it is for a cop to even be charged, that’s saying a lot. Ah, the Violence Policy Center, a well-known group of liars.
Of course it is complete horseshit. They say the same thing every time gun laws are relaxed. Afterwards there is no river of blood and crime goes down so they scream it isnt because of the increased presence of law abiding citizens carrying. Gun grabbers are liars. None of their arguments are made in good faith.
Using gross numbers, rather than rates, is utterly dishonest of course. The true tell that this is complete horseshit comes right away, though – “Since May 2007 . . .”. Why pick that utterly arbitrary date?
One other thought – how many of those shootings happened while the shooter was actually carrying concealed, as opposed to at home or on is own property, or even carrying his gun in his car?
Even if we are to assume the numbers presented are valid, what percentage of the total number of permit holders are that 1119 since 2007?
According to this article here. There are:
Which is (carry the one)…. .0001%. I’m shaking.
So the “Time Person of the Year” ends up being the #metoo movement.
ENB actually makes a funny in response.
https://twitter.com/ENBrown/status/938401854110732288
Should have retired it after “You” won.
They put that kook Judd on the cover?
#metoo another Arab Spring?
Let’s make 2018 the year of #Would
Q has been taking care of that, right?
Time person of the year? The only time people I know are Warty and John Titor.
All hail the sulcus intermammarius!
http://archive.is/qDZXx
1, 2, 11, 24.
1,25, 32 can rock my dance floor any day, provided I browse her music collection first.
Are you kidding me? Too many!
1,2,3,7,11,13,14,14,14,14,…er…25,28,30,32 and 37.
Whew.
pssst…. I think Tundra likes 14…
Him and Roy Moore.
Can’t click considering where I am at the moment. I’ll go random. 16. How’d I do?
Pretty good. Probably even worth the chigger bites.
And where might that be?
Train. Packed, stinky commuter train.
4 can work on my plumbing any day!
Had more coffee and looked them over again. Why did I think 4 had a tool belt on?
I would prefer to see her without a belt…or anything, frankly.
First time I have said this…all.
Swiss gets it.
24. Gimme.
Hopefully, like with DeVos leading the Department of Education, this leads enough of the left to call for the banishment of the CFPB, which shouldn’t exist in the first place.
I don’t want the government “working with” businesses.
By “work with”, I mean create an environment where businesses can flourish through reduced regulation.
And I most definitely want a Fed gov that works with businesses if they’re acting as a stop from local and state governments restricting property rights or free association rights of companies and employers as it pertains to wage and compensation schemes being forced on them.
Flynn may have a get out of jail free – and fuck you Mueller – card.
Comment on the article (bolding mine):
It is absolutely stunning to me that Flynn took a meeting with any of them without a lawyer. The meeting itself was clearly a set-up – they already had all his conversations via wire-tap thanks to Obama.
When the FBI wants to talk to you, they already know all the answers and are hoping you screw up and lie.
Popehat has a really good writeup on it. https://www.popehat.com/2017/12/04/everybody-lies-fbi-edition/
Flynn must not be very bright. He’s a spook – he KNEW that there would be recordings of his conversations with the ambassador!
It doesn’t look like it, but maybe he and the Oval Office are playing 4D chess.
Stake out a goat that looks like a ridiculously easy catch, rely on everyone in the prosecution side of the case leaking the information, and then release their information on how compromised the prosecution team is.
Let’s face it, Flynn could just have been set up as the ‘seed’ of a planned storm.
Considering that as President Trump would have access to NSA information, it could very well be that he knew the “Russia” investigation and spying on his campaign was triggered by the phony dossier and knew all about Strzok’s tweets and emails. Your scenario is not implausible.
Popehat covers the same thing again. And to tie it into #metoo:
Not for nothing, but one of the female local news-anchors in LA did a local appearance at a big auto auction in Newport Beach. She was rather pleasing looking in her on-air angle.
From the rear, when I walked around, she looked like the actor that played Rocky Balboa’s brother in law, complete with wife beater t-shirt untucked and pulled up, featuring love-handles and a good case of bacne.
14 year old me was scarred for life.
If he has any sense he’ll use this to his advantage. Then again, considering he spoke at length to the FBI at length with no lawyer present, he might not have any sense.
Another Mueller lawyer got exposed as a complete Clinton hack.
They aren’t even pretending to be impartial.
I am beginning to wonder if this whole investigation is going to blow up in their faces.
Maybe – if Mueller was really the bag man for the uranium deals / bribes.
https://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-robert-mueller-uranium/
For a partisan left-wing outfit like Snopes, that’s actually pretty damning.
Harvard student has shocking message for her peers – communism sucks.
But that wasn’t real communism.
Bonus points for linking to a Stossel video.
I had a friend in college whose family had escaped Romania. There family was openly Christian, so were regularly arrested and beat and tortured (and his uncle was “disappeared”) and had trouble holding jobs.
They escaped to Atlanta in the mid 80s.
A guy I went to high school with and keep in touch with on Derpbook came over from Vietnam with the boat people when he was a toddler in the late ’70s, and you will NEVER come across anyone who is more of a hardcore anticommunist than him.
Same. Also had a friend when I was young whose family was wiped out by Pol’s thugs.
The immigrants I know from former or current commie hell holes are the reason I know these silly fuckers will never prevail.
https://youtu.be/AJUSIWSaQX4
https://youtu.be/uMoSyk0rK9s
Guy compares his North Korea and South Korea trips. North Korea had a guided tour while on South Korea he was free to do what he wanted. Gee I wonder which one is an totalitarian shithole?
Interesting to think that North Korea used to be the more industrialized part and South Korea was ruled by dictators until 30 years ago.
It’s been over 70 years since the North Koreans enjoyed the relative freedom of Japanese occupation.
The horridness of Marxist “anti-colonial” leaders never ceases to astound me.
The north had all the raw resources and heavy industry. The south had all the agricultural lands.
You can make a case that the story would have been different if they had divided between east and west instead of north/south. On the other hand, China would have been having shit fits about having a border with a prosperous democracy.
Since BMI is a useless measure for anyone who has ever lifted over a 10 pound weight, here is an alternative that makes more sense.
http://www.absicalculator.eu/
So how is this supposed to help me figure out if the weight I gained recently was more muscle or fat?
You need to do a body fat test for that.
Who the fuck cares, though? How do you look? Can you lift more than you could before? Shirts getting tight across the shoulders and chest?
I’m trying to fine tune my food intake to get on the right path, and when the numbers on the scale are going up, I want to know what is pushing that. If I’m packing on fat again, I need to cut down on the food again, if it’s muscle, I do not.
I still look like a frumpy fat guy becuase I’m 288 pounds as of this morning. My shirts were fit for the even fatter guy I used to be, so they’re still loose all over, and probably will be until I replace them.
Keep your fat high, your carbs low and your protein somewhere in between. Don’t worry about fine tuning. Eat when you are hungry, stop when you are full. Walk every day as far as you have time for. Keep lifting.
You will still need to be in a caloric deficit to drop the rest of the weight, so just keep at it until you hit the weight you want. Lifting will help you burn fat, too.
Did you put on all the weight since two weeks ago Thursday?
If so, I might be able to offer a suggestion.
This seems just as useless as BMI for trained individuals.
“trained individuals”
You mean married guys?
Can we chip in and buy the shirt the OK State Senator had on and send it to ENB? That’s my second favorite bible verse after Ezekiel 23:20.
Ezekiel 25:17…the path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed are those who shepherd the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper, and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon on thee with great vengeance and furrrrrrrious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers, and you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
You know how many times I’ve wished I had useful talents?
Reading the link to the Steinle trial it sounds as if that DA wanted to lose the case. Also, fuck any style guide that forces writers to use the term “undocumented immigrant”; if ever there was a more transparently political attempt at milieu control I don’t know of one.
I could go with it if they would also call Franken, Conyers, et al. “undocumented boyfriends”.
Breakfast meeting – so I missed my chance to get in the early links.
What should Seattle’s (potential) NHL team be called?
The Seattle Hipsters.
Seattle 15ers?
Motto: What a rush!
The Seattle Fair Wagers?
The Seattle Socialists?
The Seattle Beatles? (pronounced in Abu dialect).
The Seattle Gender Neutrals?
The Seattle Socialists gets my 2nd and 3rd vote. For the alliteration value.
The Seattle Artisinals?
The Seattle Woke.
Seattle Sirens. Just repurpose the Starbucks logo.
Seattle Slew
Seattle STEVE SMITH
The Seattle Seven. It was Jeff Lebowski…..and six other guys.
The Seattle Suicides
No contest. The Mets. Go with history, and you already have a Stanley Cup banner before you play your first game.
Patagonia chooses sides.
Superficially reading about it at National Geographic:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/trump-shrinks-bears-ears-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monuments/
If they are referring to Obama, yes he did steal the land and Trump gave it back.
Is Patagonia’s customer base that left-wing? For them to go that route, they must have calculated it won’t impact their sale, right?
Pisses me off. I like their stuff, but now I feeled compelled to punish them for being such fucking morons, on at least two counts:
(1) They went political.
(2) They got it completely fucking wrong. Trump didn’t take anything, he reclassified land which is still fedgov land open to the public.
they smelly hippies do design strong gear.
I don’t have to be a hypocrite and stop buying their shit, fortunately. I pretty much stick to The North Face for my outdoorsy clothing.
This one pushes my ethics, though. So I’ll just say “Fuck Patagonia.”
From Adweek:
“As for North Face, the company also changed their landing page to highlight a message about Bears Ears; the page also included a link to a Kickstarter page to raise funds to create an education center, dubbed the Bears Ears Education Center, in Bluff, Utah.
North Face president Arne Arens also wrote an op-ed for Quartz: “What had been carefully protected so that all Americans could enjoy it is now likely to be put on the market for the highest bidder. It will be difficult but essential work to restore Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante to their former protected status, but we can work together to make sure that these incredible places are available to everyone.””
I’m going to have to not buy their overpriced crap even harder now.
I thought they’d choose Argentina, like they always do,
I work in advertising primarily. This was shared at one of our offices, and of course, everyone is gaga about it, not understanding that this is how businesses decide to slowly go out of business. I’ve kept mum.
I need a marketting person to help expand my audience. I keep forgetting to send you a message to find out if I can afford your rates.
Patagonia see themselves as an ‘activist company’. It’s hardly surprising they’d adopt this policy.
DRUMPF WANT DESTROY URTH AND KILL AMINULS!
at least they provide the map showing the before and after of Trump’s EO. maybe they can do us a favor and show the before and after or Obama’s EO too so we can see the real before and after.
disregard, O gave it protections that the sensitive areas already enjoyed at the state level… and then grabbed a whole hell of a lot more in the process.
As in the Bears Ears designation, the more tourist traffic resulted in vandalism of the land as well.
“The President stole your land”
I mentioned yesterday that Glenn Beck (hacks up phlegm) actually had a great piece on this. Apparently the national monuments aren’t even open to recreational use. That isn’t “our” land in any sense.
http://magicvalley.com/news/state-and-regional/locals-bitter-over-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument-creation/article_85a39fcd-f7fd-5b01-a7f7-dc7871698f3e.html
Huh. Back in 2014, the locals hated the idea of the monument, it killed coal exploration in the area, and increased the number of federal jobs. No wonder Obama made so many of the things.
He’s wrong, you know, unless Obama’s proclamations specifically banned recreational use. Maybe it did; haven’t looked them up.
Typical National Monument uses:
And as I mentioned, Glenn Beck is full of shit.
Look, they got a visitor center, hiking trails, and everything
Here:
http://mountsthelens.com/
or this one. Devoid of human activity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Monroe
or maybe this one. What’s that guy doing hiking in a national monument?:
https://www.nps.gov/jeca/index.htm
Protester: “The President stole your land!”
Me: “Fuck him! I was going to build a house on my land!
Protester: “Well…I didn’t mean your land in THAT way. I mean, it’s all our land, in that the government should protect it.”
Me: “If it’s my land I want to build a house on it and mine coal on it.”
Protester: “Wha…! You can’t do that! That’s our land and you can’t rape it.”
Me: “Then stop telling me it’s my land. If it’s my land I’ll do whatever I want with it. Fuck off, slaver!”
Holy Guacamole: Hawaii Woman Seeks Record for Huge Avocado ‘as Big as My Head’
*lights DOOMCo signal*
The stuff of culinary nightmares.
‘Come Meet a Black Person’ event held
Rufus (to agent): ‘Whoa! Can I touch it?”
Once you go black, Rufus…
So, essentially Michele Obama’s (Robinson) Princeton thesis?
https://www.politico.com/pdf/080222_MOPrincetonThesis_1-251.pdf
I always like to think the Catholic Scholastics in all their intellectual glory would read stuff like that and conclude, ‘WTF?’
In Georgia? I could see this kind of event being held in Littleton NH or northern Minnesota.
Had a buddy in college in Maine who was black – he used to joke about stuff like that all the time. We would go on road-trips and get lots of double-takes in the middle of nowhere stops.
When I was in radar school at NAS Pensacola, a group of us from our class went over to New Orleans when we had a 72 (3 day weekend for you non-jarheads). There was a girl from rural Minnesota in the group. When we got off the highway and cruised down Canal Street, her eyes were bugging out of her head – “Oh my god, everyone’s black! I’ve never seen so many black people.” It was kind of hilarious.
Growing up in NW Minnesoda in the early ’80s, I can’t dispute your assertions.
The closest black people to us were in Fargo/Moorhead (about 50 miles away). My family was pretty foreign because a) we weren’t Scandinavian and b) we had moved there and weren’t related to anyone. We did have a pretty good population of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong and Laotians because of the work of Lutherans to resettle refugees from that area.
On the other hand, we were right next to the White Earth Indian reservation. So we had lots of interactions with native americans. When I lived in the South, almost none of them had ever met a real Indian (and no, I’m not counting all the people who claim to be part Cherokee). So we had that going for us.
Nah, even the people who claim to be Indians around here have a fair amount of mixture in their ancestry. The chiefs of the two local tribes around Richmond, the Mattaponi and the Pamunkey, do the old tribute thing every year where they give a deer to governor as per an old treaty, and those guys look sorta-maybe Indian.
No one who lives in Ga hasn’t met a black person, they’re everywhere.
There are more of them than you could shake a stick at.
Remedial Kid: ‘Mommy, mommy! I saw a Samsquanch!’
Mother (looks over): Oh, son! That’s no Samquanch. That’s a black man.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL_SL73iNFE
I refuse to believe that is not parody.
So how is this supposed to help me figure out if the weight I gained recently was more muscle or fat?
I go with the “pinch test”. Thumb and forefinger pinch of subcutaneous fat on my outer abdomen. More = bad. Less = good. Also, how hard is your belly, beneath that layer, in response to a sharp jab of the fingertips? What is your heart rate after ten minutes of sustained steady (not frenzied) activity like climbing stairs, and how quickly does it fall when you rest?
It doesn’t have to be complicated.
So… any Glibs missing from the roll call?
‘Meth Doesn’t Make Me Crazy’: AK-47-Wielding Man Tells Cops President Trump Ordered Him to Fight ‘Lizard People’
To be fair, the Meth probably didn’t make them crazy – they were crazy all by themselves.
I disagree with that. Meth is a hell of a drug.
One of my best friends in the world can’t kick the meth habit. When he’s off it, he about the best guy in the world. When he’s on it, he turns into an actual voice hearing paranoid. When he’s clean, he’s welcome around me and family. When he’s not, I can’t let him around at all.
When you say them, you mean the Lizard People, right?
The fact that Trump is finally willing to take action against the lizard people is another mark in his favor. The whole #lizardlivesmatter movement has really turned me around on the issue.
Also, as a person who had to diet to drop the forty pounds I gained over the past few years, I just wish my doctor had prescribed meth for me instead.
In the long run, learning better habits will be healthier than learning a meth habit.
Mr. Lizard hardest hit.
Hardly, although someone is gonna get their tail shortened for letting that particular research project out. (We are trying to perfect the perfect FloridaMan
You mammals always ignore those amongst you who have a clue.
The trial pitted prosecutors who said the shooting was intentional against defense attorneys who contended Garcia Zarate had found the stolen gun on the waterfront before it accidentally discharged in his hands.
that was the defense’s argument?
When the charge is first degree murder and there’s no doubt the defendant is the one that fired the gun that killed the woman, that’s a pretty good argument for the defense to make.
All lesser included offenses, including manslaughter were available to the jury. Nice to have it confirmed that the prosecutor intentionally biffed the case, though. Trump should send that idiot a Christmas (not holiday, but Christmas) card.
I’m not sure he intentionally biffed the case. I liken it to the Casey Anthony case; the prosecutor was under political pressure to get the top charge, ignored actually proving the lesser included, and ended up with an acquittal.
I gave him the benefit of the doubt until he made this statement. A prosecutor who wanted to see this dirtbag behind bars wouldn’t be bitching about the feds throwing the book at him.
A true enforcer should just be shamed that a senior enforcer had to clean up his mess.
“The man went on to described how President Trump had called his house in Eatonville and warned him that the lizard people were coming and that the alpha dragon had already taken his family hostage,” the sheriff’s department said. “He said he had stopped in the intersection because he was surrounded by the lizard people and need to fight them as directed by the President. He said he was screaming and making a scene in the intersection in order to ‘attract the news vans’ and so ‘his story could be documented for history.’”
What kind of glasses was he wearing?
TW: Cosmopolitan
The Year Women Stopped Worrying About Being Nice
Third-wave feminism is a byproduct of being spoiled through being born in the greatest country in the history of human civilization for women’s rights, as well as the greatest time. I think that a lot of these writers could use a bit more perspective before they blabber about how hurt and oppressed they are.
That being said, I think that the biggest issue that the average leftist has about Trump is not really policy-related, but rather that he became president after Obama, who gave them everything that they could possibly want short of single-payer.
Who the fuck is we? These cunts don’t speak for my mother, sister, or wife, all of whom are rational, normal women.
I see a reboot:
‘NO Sex in the City’.
DRUMPF WANT MAKE WIMMIN BREEDING KATTUL!
AHA HA HA HA HA HA HA So, a giant megacorp makes a movie featuring an actress guaranteed to perpetuate the MALE GAZE, a bunch of rich white guys got richer off the whole project, AND YOU’RE CALLING THIS SOME KIND OF WIN FOR FEMINISM?? AHA HA HA HA HA
So the author thinks its impossible for social movements to fall into disfavor, to lose steam and support based on its member’s actions? That’s pretty dumb.
You don’t get it, TK. Angry temper-tantrums are going to win favor with the American public.
And yet they all still want the green goo…
Man that fire in Cali hit my cousins house. Greatfully the family is safe but out a house and threatening their Salon business.
Hope they had a Business Package policy, or at least a Business Interruption part!
Harry fucking Potter…..it’s always Harry Potter with these people. Pick up another fucking book occasionally, you juvenile shitsacks.
And stop demeaning the actual ‘resistance’ against the Nazis by calling yourself ‘the resistance’. YOU’RE RESISTING A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT. What a bunch of assholes. These people make Republicans look good- that’s how bad they look
You know what other books these people could use as their model?
Mein Kampf?
Hey, that isn’t how you play?!?!?!
I thought we just weren’t supposed to say Hitler? Nothing about not mentioning his book.
Penthouse forum?
Communist Manifesto with xeroxed and taped in Rules for Radicals?
Mao’s Little Red Book?
Ben Shapiro agrees with you. I have to say, I’m kinda happy that I haven’t read or watched a single Harry Potter with the amount of times it gets referenced in cringy ways.
I wish I could say the same. I did read one volume. It was some christmas when I was sitting out the drama, and the book was slated to be someone else’s gift. I can’t tell you which one – it was boring an unmemorable, with the only positive being that it was easy to burn through the bloated tome in a single afternoon. If I hadn’t been motivated to stay out of the events taking place, I’d probably have set it aside instead.
I really enjoyed the series. But I was a teenager. The idea of referencing an overlong, warmed-over resurrection parable seems pretty pathetic in light of, you know, the inspiration.
I haven’t either, but since my wife is a fan and has inflicted it on my children (daughter took to it, my boy made me proud by rejecting it) I’ve been exposed to the virus.
I read all the Harry Potter books when I was a young teenager. They were pretty good. I don’t know why the left latches onto them. The ministry of magic (aka the government) was portrayed in a bad light all through out the series.
Capacity for self-reflection is low, coupled with flaccid and superficial ideology.
“I don’t know why the left latches onto them.”
They seem to take pride in calling themselves “nerds” or “geeks” or whatever (probably stemming from social awkwardness in their youth) and the world of Harry Potter reflects an idealized future in which they are the ones with magical powers lording it over the “Muggles” that represent the deplorables. Republican politicians are the evil Voldemorts.
So, they’re basically secular gnostics.
It’s because pop culture has become so diverse with the advent of the internet and what-not that this is one of the few cross-cultural icons that most of them generally share.
Also, Harry Potter was one of those books that was pushed heavily in elementary schools to ‘get kids to read’, so even people who don’t really read anything now are familiar with it.
Because all they know is life as students. They’re shepherded from one institution to another until they’re in or freshly out of college in their mid-twenties and the student identity is still stamped on them. Harry Potter is how they imagine chipping out the first fragments in that eggshell existence and venturing out in the world to be.
I never read the books but I’ve seen all the movies, and my toddler daughter gets on “Hay Potta” binges from time to time. The story’s not exactly original, but I think it’s a pretty well-done bildungsroman where kids do heroic things and generally are portrayed positively for things like questioning authority, doing the right thing in the face of punishment, being loyal, being nice, traits I tend to think are positive and worth emulating. Plus, it’s entertaining.
Dang, hit Post too fast.
As to why the left latches on? I think because, as others have said, it shows the nerds and the outcasts winning, which means Pajama Boy has a chance. Also, and I think this may be more important, it feeds into the Progressive idea that there’s a superior, elite set of humanity that ought to be calling the shots, or at least not judged by the same rules as everyone else, and in this case it’s the magically-endowed vs. the muggles. In fact, if you think about it, they’re actually making the separation a matter of genetics and magic, almost like saying they’re a different, superior species. It’s not a far cry from saying that your Justin Trudeaus are the Harry Potters of the world, magical, if physically unimposing, beings who operate on a level far above the poor, dumb muggles, who can never understand a tenth of the most prosaic aspect of magical life.
OK, so they identify as ubermenschen then. What a surprise.
You know who else thought … etc etc …
Just my opinion of course, but that’s my bet. I’ve done a bit of reading on the Progressive movement, and it starts in the 19th century within the Evangelical community, then absorbs the notion of social Darwinism. So even before they started getting all excited about Jacques Derrida they had this frankly kind of scary blend of religious fervor and belief in being an elect group with the idea of society as an organism that could be improved–meaning driven towards Progressive ideals–through science.
Consider Albion Small, who studied theology before going to Germany to study social economics, and then went on to found and chair the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago as well as the American Journal of Sociology in the late 1800s. The next editor-in-chief of that journal was Ellsworth Faris, who was a missionary who subsequently chaired the sociology department at, yep, the University of Chicago.
Kinda creepy, no? Bunch of guys who study religion in order to go preach the Word wind up reading some Darwin and decide to teach people how to manipulate society towards better ends? At the same school?
Go check out the origins and ideology of the Fabian Society for shits and giggles.
Would that everyone as vile were also just as stupid.
Well, early in its existence, you had this.
in the words of someone else, read the whole thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_(Time_Person_of_the_Year)
Trump should win every year like how Tom Brady should win NFL MVP every year, but the Weinstein accusers are not a bad second choice. I would also bet that without the new right-wing alternative media, the MSM would’ve hid the story to protect their loyal Hollywood Democratic donors.
What’s the largest terrestrial organism?
Not only is it the largest living organism, in order to protect it, We need to violate the property rights of dozens of people and need to extract millions in taxes to make sure that it remains pristine.
Pando would like a word.
I already thought so, but damn fungus is disgusting.
Trump has swiftly dismantled much of Obama’s feminist legacy and seems determined to undo more, from workplace protections to contraception access to LGBT equality to fighting campus rape. We aren’t moving forward politically; instead, we are resisting this sickness emanating from the White House and threatening to infect more of America.
These people are a bunch of religious fanatics.
Paying protection money…
http://5newsonline.com/2017/12/05/fort-smith-board-of-directors-pass-first-reading-of-business-fee-ordinance/
If anyone can read this and tell me how it is any different than the mob shaking down businesses, I’d be glad to hear it.
If you pay protection money to the mob, you actually get protection?
So we have a women’s bathroom at work but no women. So, obviously, the women’s bathroom is the shittin’ bathroom. I have to say, there’s something delightfully decadent about shitting in the girls room. And to be posting on the Glibglobs about it while I’m doing it? Well, that pushes it into Late Rome territory. Let us cavort like the Greeks of old. You know the ones I mean.
So who’said Attila?
Who’s Attila?
Years ago I ran a cnc machine for a living. The are of the plant where my cnc was located had a men’s and a woman’s restroom. There were no women working in the cast iron cnc machining department. That restroom was cleaned everyday, despite the fact that I was the only person who ever used it. That was the cleanest work toilet I ever shat in.
Greeks of old?
Greeks of old?
Hercules the Theban?
Aristotle Onassis?
Not Greek but Caligula?
Let us cavort like the Greeks of old.
So it’s not just the shitting bathroom.
But it is using the same entry point?
Dude, that’s an exit.
This right here is why I refuse to ever handle someone else’s phone, let alone actually use it.
“Let us cavort like the Greeks of old”
There goes the stemware.
Hedonism Bot sends his envy.
Drivers keep hitting large rock in suburban Calgary parking lot
Keep the rock, chastize the drivers for being idiots.
Put up a board with pictures.
Is this an Asian neighborhood?
I was gonna say Somali…
…Canadians… shrug.
Clearly the solution is to install a larger warning rock next to it.
Maybe the rock is hitting them?
Harry fucking Potter…..it’s always Harry Potter with these people. Pick up another fucking book occasionally, you juvenile shitsacks.
It’s religion. Good vs Evil. Light vs Darkness.
One day, they’ll be Beatified; saints, revered and glorified in a great cathedral. They are Warriors of Righteousness.
Rowling is an admitted Democratic Socialist.
So she’s redistributing all her many millions to the masses?
Screw that, she’s not even housing the homeless in any of her 17(?) properties.
Unless you’re in the business of renting them out, how do you even manage to make use of seventeen residential properties?
I’m not saying she shouldn’t own them, but houses are an odd thing to collect.
At some point the property taxes are a smaller number than you lose to inflation holding cash. It is a way to protect value. The woman is a billionaire (?). Her wealth is better preserved held in real estate than in currency.
I’d rather invest billions in my private island paradise/fortress/evil scientist factory than spreading it around seventeen properties.
Hadn’t thought about that, but that’s a good point. As long as you can cover taxes and maintenance real estate is a more stable holder of value than currency or other investments.
I would think if I had billions, I would struggle to have more than 10 properties.
1. Western compound/ranch kind of thing. Very remote, fly in fly out.
2. Ski cabin somewhere in Colorado or Utah.
3. Tropical island compound somewhere with clear water and white sand.
I suppose if I was a billionaire I would discover I liked certain cities enough to keep a place there. Maybe. But I do think if I had 17 houses it would be more trouble then its worth just making sure you made the circuit.
If I were a billionaire I would have a cadre of full-time lackeys dedicated to finding the FLBP girls to populate my personal harem.
If you were a billionaire, they’d be beating a path to your door unassisted.
My life would be shallow, hedonistic, consumerist and deliriously happy.
Poor you. How sad.
So, you’d basically be Dan Bilzerian?
Pretty much. But not stupid.
What? Of course not! Only the *rich* have their money redistributed and with only $850 million she’s certainly not rich.
“My queer studies lit teacher like, totally told me that socialism is the greatest and capitalism is, like the worst”
*checks Fackbook profile using iPhone while Netflix plays on Samsung TV in the background*
https://www.wsj.com/articles/socialism-capitalism-seen-in-new-light-by-younger-americans-1512561601
The fact that there is a college class called queen studies reaffirms my conviction that the government has to quit funding higher ed
Exactly this. I’d argue that the subsidization of higher education is one of the major factors driving this. America is over-colleged. As a result, we’re seeing increasingly marginal professors pushing intellectual rot on increasingly marginal students. They’re not going into STEM, or even the more rigorous non-STEM fields. They’re being shuffled off into the already-bastardized humanities where they’re taking classes on things like “queens studies” where the qualification for passing is closely enough adhering to the marginal professors’ political fantasies. Take away the subsidy and you see this fall away.
Going into the humanities was all the rage back in the sixties and seventies. Remember the early ’80s? Lots of bitching and whining about ‘nobody told me my humanities degree would be worthless now I cant feed myself’. That pushed people back into useful professions. We have been here before, but to be fair no one could have seen this coming…right?
The problem, I’d say is that, even beyond applicability to the labor market, the current iteration of the humanities doesn’t even teach students to think critically. The classics, history and philosophy have been replaced with identity studies, political dogma and pop culture radicalism in order to push through students who, quite often, are only marginally college material. The only thing they learn in that context, the only thing a lot of their professors wind up interested in them learning, is to parrot the same leftist talking points as their professors. But, the professors themselves are barely equipped to do much beyond repeat the Cultural Marxism that they’ve spent their careers with in vogue.
The entire higher Ed system is due for a “disruption” (I hate that word). However, it’s not the students who will be doing the disrupting, it’s the employers.
Once alternative forms of proving competence in a field are acceptable to employers, the entire racket will collapse in on itself.
It’s already started to happen.
Especially since certain college degrees can now be used to screen people out of a field.
I think it’s more of young dumb millennials don’t know what socialism is. They think socialism is “free” healthcare and education.
“They think socialism is “free” healthcare and education”
This has to be a result of miseducation/stupidity. When I was 12 years old I understood the concept of taxation and how things provided by the government weren’t “free”. This could be due to the fact that I have unusually libertarian-minded and engaged parents but I really don’t think the concepts are difficult to understand. It’s depressing that the Left’s march through the educational institution has been so successful.
No potential for corruption in socialism, nooooooosir!
Category error; socialism is corruption.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-free-speech-lost-in-charlottesville-1512519529
How Free Speech Lost in Charlottesville
An unflinching report on the failure of police to control ‘antifascist’ protesters.
A column about the Charlottesville report just released by city. I called out the media for being liars about this at the time and it’s now accepted that the militias were not involved with the white supremacists. The report notes that the militias essentially performed the role the police should have been doing but were ordered not to.
Dom Starsia’s idiot daughter-in-law, oh joy
Good to see the WSJ getting this out to broad audience.
I would have done the subhed a little different. “Failure” to control antifa sounds like they wanted to and tried to, but just botched it. Its pretty clear to me that the PD wanted violence so they could declare an unlawful assembly. They didn’t “fail” to control antifa – they refused to.
This plane landed in Sacramento yesterday to help with the fires. Not been deployed yet.
Consequences
In Boston, the leader of a businesswomen’s group said that some women were so angry about the wave of sexual harassment revelations that they no longer wanted to hire more men. In Kansas City, Mo., a women’s career center is urging women not to throw caution to the wind when making public allegations involving harassment. And in Silicon Valley, one of the best-known female executives in the technology industry is celebrating the moment while advising that accusations must be followed by a fair process of punishment.
A completely rational and reasonable response. Some men declining to hire women based on the risk of sexual harassment allegations? Nothing but the worst sort of misogyny and oppression.
accusations must be followed by a fair process of punishment
Note that punishment for the accused is a given. The idea that the “fair process” should first determine guilt or innocence before imposing punishment is apparently not in play.
+1 struggle session
Isn’t there a part missing from the middle?
I read through some of the top comments and they weren’t half bad. I don’t think people are so much behind this movement as the media makes it seem. First off, you have men in general, which are going to be skeptical because the majority of us are actually decent human beings… but then you’ll also have a large contingent of women that like the decent men in their lives and understand that women can be just as cruel and deceitful as men. This is another progressive movement that will collapse in on itself. It has no real aim, no defined goal.
It will eventually just stop and we’ll be in 2019 and we’ll say “hey, you remember that whole #metoo movement? Yeah, 2017 was crazy.”
And people in power will continue abusing their power (sometimes), and some men and women will (sometimes) be treated unfairly or get sexually harassed, sometimes assaulted… just like all of history. The comments that say “it’s not that hard, we just need a major cultural shift!” make me laugh, because they’re basically saying its not hard to change human nature and how biology interacts with concepts like power.
The Soviet New Man was such a huge success after all.
I think I read some commie screed the other day (Jacobin?) where the author stated “We refuse to believe that human nature is immutable.”
…and that is exactly how you end up with mass graves.
Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?
Oh Guardian, don’t stop being you.
WSJ has a calculator online to show tax reform impact per scenario. unfortunately for me, it’s paywalled.
https://www.wsj.com/graphics/republican-tax-plan-calculator/
I don’t think it works. It told me that my tax liability would rise by $5k, and I would need to itemize for 2018 instead of taking the standard deduction.
My total mortgage interest, property taxes, and state income taxes combined are about $7k/year. It’s never been advantageous for me to itemize in the past, so I fail to understand why I would itemize with a $24k standard deduction?
err, better add a couple thousand to that because I apparently can’t do simple math. Still well under the $26k threshold.
that does sound fishy. not sure if it says at WSJ but the calc was provided by Penn’s Wharton b-school. http://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/
i’m assuming based on their reputation that it’s a good model.
This calculator is worth a try with a good breakdown by tax bracket:
http://taxplancalculator.com/
It calculated the same 2018 tax liability as the WSJ one, but said my taxes due would go down by about $4k. I think the WSJ one is calculating 2018 correctly, but severely goofed on what I’m paying this year for 2017.
Based on that calculator, I’m part of the evil rich. It estimates I’ll be saving between $1,500 and $2,000 with the new tax plans. Both plans also put me under the standard deduction as well.
Same for me – I’m rich, biatch! *honk honk*
Holy crap according to that with the house plan I’d save more than $5500 and with the Senate plan I’d save more than $7k
#metoo
For me it’s a wash.
But then, at least I’ll smell more fragrant and that annoying itch might go away.
Goddamn. Stay safe, California glibs.
https://twitter.com/CoCo_Mayo76/status/938415902818689026
Obama manages to be wrong while being right. Correctly identifies Deep Dish as not being pizza, then promptly misclassifies it as “Lasagna with crust” failing to recognize the core component of Lasagna is layered pasta sheets.
You’re just like denying the legitimacy of his lived experience, man.
It’s a casserole and a damn good one.
You spelled “p-i-z-z-a” wrong.
Preposterous. Obviously the man’s never so much as boiled a noodle in his life. Deep dish pizza is a euphemism for an open, savory pie with a pastry crust, like a meat pie without a top, often including tomato sauce, cheese, and other fillings.
Meanwhile in Florida…
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-reg-python-everglades-catch-20171205-story.html
STEVE SMITH PRETTY MUCH KILL ANY FULL-GROWN MAN
AND MY KILL MEAN RAPE
South Florida Water Management District’s python elimination program pays hunters $8.10 an hour. It then pays an extra $50 for a 4-foot snake and $25 for each additional foot beyond that.
But do I get to pilot an airboat?
“$25 for each additional foot beyond that”
You know who else was paid by the foot?…
Jared Fogle?
Lovers of fruit rollups?
Every lumberyard owner ever?
Ted Bundy?
Peter North?
Grave robbers?
My podiatrist?
Mr. Millipede?
Oscar Pistorius?
Partisan hacks in Mueller Probe?
What? I mean, no way the fake Russian investigation is full of partisan Hillary supporter hacks! Unpossible!
Can’t Trump just fire all these clowns?
He could. But for some reason, he doesn’t. He may have a trap planned for them. He could be just using them for promoting his own reelection. Or him and Putin may be in their secret lair under a volcano right now, training the sharks with laser beams on their heads to go get Mueller and Hillary, bwahhahaahhaaahaaa.
As proles, we all fear the very threat of prosecution and would like to avoid the risks of incarceration. The state has done its work well, for the most part, to indoctrinate us thus. The prospect of being grilled by a bunch of FBI and other, shadier personnel fills us with dread and we’d find it hard to walk willingly into that as part of a grander, complex chess game.
But that’s exactly what this is, I think. No, I don’t think this is inherently a ‘conspiricy theory’, because whatever the result is will be largely revealed in the future, but I certainly think that what we are seeing is not an organically developing, simplistic procedure with actors, and acted-upon.
“No, I don’t think this is inherently a ‘conspiricy theory’, because whatever the result is will be largely revealed in the future, but I certainly think that what we are seeing is not an organically developing, simplistic procedure with actors, and acted-upon.”
I don’t think that either. I think it’s an attempted coup by Hillary and her henchmen to unseat a duly elected president.
Ditto. I am jusst not sure what they plan on replacing him with. A while back some TDS sufferer wrote an article outlining a plan to;
1.Impeach Trump
2.Toss out Pence because same tainted election
3. Convince President Ryan to appoint Hillary as VP.
4. Ryan resigns because it’s only fair.
That is the kind of delusion we are dealing with here.
It’s a little disturbing because a great many of the useful idiots on the left and even some of their dear leaders seem to feel that they can just interpret law in any way that they like. For instance, the leftist judges blocking Trump’s travel ban and the outrage that he fired Comey, which of course he is most definitely allowed to do, for any reason or none at all. Add to that they seem to have a very vague idea of what the law is in the first place. Like when they thought they could just undo the electoral college. They really do think that ‘it’s not fair!’ is a reason to be able to just do whatever they want, the law be damned. If they ever get in power again, God help us all.
I think that if you’re right, it’s suffered the same fate of everything Hillary has ever attempted. It’s failed due to overreach and its lack of credibility. It’ll play out the same way, except that all the collegiate ‘professional courtesy’ is out of the window.
We look out that window, and we’re seeing all the nobs are duking it out like a game of rollerball.
And I’m still lovin’ it.
Oh, and I can’t imagine that Mueller and his is going to be permitted to present any of this.
Drug cartels learning from the best.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/12/05/graphic-drug-cartels-spread-isis-style-beheading-videos-terrorizing-southern-mexico/
I’m looking forward to the Sicario sequel.
it’s for the childrunz
Does Portugal have violent drug cartels?
Portugal does have a government that regulates all sorts of drugs, yes
ZING!
Good new from the USDA just keeps coming:
The proposal – withdrawn after a comment period due to several companies and scientists voicing their opposition – would have changed APHIS’ current ‘regulate first, analyse later’ approach to one that would have required identifying a potential risk before regulating a crop
http://ofimagazine.com/news/usda-scraps-proposed-biotechnology-regulation-change
So the USDA actually proposed using the precautionary principle, and it just got slapped down? Excellent.
They have been using it. Purdue is trying to shit-can it.
accusations must be followed by a fair process of punishment
“Sentence first, trial afterward.”
The noble savage thing just wont die
How Neolithic farming sowed the seeds of modern inequality 10,000 years ago
The prehistoric shift towards cultivation began our preoccupation with hierarchy and growth – and even changed how we perceive the passage of time
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/dec/05/how-neolithic-farming-sowed-the-seeds-of-modern-inequality-10000-years-ago
Most people regard hierarchy in human societies as inevitable, a natural part of who we are. Yet this belief contradicts much of the 200,000-year history of Homo sapiens.
In fact, our ancestors have for the most part been “fiercely egalitarian”, intolerant of any form of inequality. While hunter-gatherers accepted that people had different skills, abilities and attributes, they aggressively rejected efforts to institutionalise them into any form of hierarchy.
So what happened to cause such a profound shift in the human psyche away from egalitarianism? The balance of archaeological, anthropological and genomic data suggests the answer lies in the agricultural revolution, which began roughly 10,000 years ago.
yes fiercely egalitarian I am sure they were …
As a result, hunter-gatherers considered their environments to be eternally provident, and only ever worked to meet their immediate needs. They never sought to create surpluses nor over-exploited any key resources
Yup paradise no scarcity to speak of. Good thing never to create a surplus
Yup Guardian, let’s go back to a Stone Age hunter-gatherer society in the name of equality! Our greenhouse gas emissions would go way down and the scourge of overpopulation would disappear when the average human life expectancy drops to 30! How bout you lead by example and take your effete metro-sexual reporters and drop them in the middle of Siberia with only the tools a Stone Age proto-human would have? Be the change you wish to see in the world!
only hunter gatherer societies are not really equal . The best hunters and warriors and such always had status
“only nothing is really equal”
FIFY. Except for maximum entropy of the heat death of the universe. That’s probably the ideal situation for Lefties.
You’d think those nauseating little fucks would have read Lord of the Flies.
Note to pajamaboys. See Piggy? That’d be you.
It’s worse than that, they suggest that there was some shift in the ‘human psyche’ that pushed them away from egalitarian values (utterly unsupported by actual research in the field of course), when its obvious that a greater access to resources inherently results in a more largely stratified society. Hunter gatherers are more ‘egalitarian’ because everyone is equally poor.
Also, these retards don’t even attempt to explain Gobekli Tepe, because it would make their argument fall apart.
Yeah, that doesn’t strike me as a virtuous hallmark of a noble civilization. It strikes me as a pre-civilizational crab bucket: squabbling, envious proto-humans tearing down the successful and destroying their works. Sounds super.
What is it with these people and egalitarianism? Do they not understand how greatly they benefit from inventors and investors and entrepreneurs? So greatly in fact that the benefits redounding to living in such a society vastly dwarf their own meager contributions.
We are inheritors to such wealth and luxury as would be staggering to anyone who came before, but all these cretins can do is bitch about how life could be bettered if we derail this wealth-generating train and thereby beggar the next generation. Bitch, do you not get that the marginal improvements in life one might realize from cannibalizing our capital stock and distributing it among the millions is nothing compared to the inheritance off of which we already live? And less still measured against the wealth that capital will accrue for our descendents. It’s maddening how blinkered and dense these stodgy fucks are.
All those neanderthals were sitting in their caves on mountains of gold. It’s obvious, with so few of them, their slices of the pie were huge.
“What is it with these people and egalitarianism?”
They suffer from a combination of legitimate lack of talent and imposter syndrome. They recognize that they have attained very lucrative, privileged positions despite their (real or imagined) lack of competence/capability. Therefore, they see anyone that has succeeded as something of blind luck and not earned; therefore, unfair. It’s also just a heaping helping of garden variety envy and avarice.
In fact, our ancestors have for the most part been “fiercely egalitarian”, intolerant of any form of inequality. While hunter-gatherers accepted that people had different skills, abilities and attributes, they aggressively rejected efforts to institutionalise them into any form of hierarchy.
Xe knows this, how, exactly?
+1 Time Machine
Yes, because feudalism developed because one egalitarian just had some convenient skills, abilities and attributes. These individuals were particularly intolerant of inequality.
Because there is this one hunter gatherer tribe in Africa that is fiercely egalitarian and since that fits the authors preconceived notions of collectivism he gets to ignore pretty much all the rest of actual human history
They were so fiercely egalitarian that we developed Stockholm Syndrome specifically to cope with being violently abducted by rival tribes.
[CITATION NEEDED] – they base this on their own article about a group of agrarian people living in the desert for the past 20,000 years or so. The links in that article… link to other journalists writing their own articles. And so the circle of citations goes, never once leading back to a reputable source that could prove that no one was a leader in these societies.
I highly doubt that our hunter/gatherer ancestors had no leaders or social hierarchy. If the smallest, most useless male in the group wanted to be with the most beautiful/fertile woman in the group that leader would simply step aside and let it happen? I doubt that. Human nature is a bitch, and I’d bet my life that the assertive, strong, smart and dominant ones in hunter gatherer groups were top dog when it came to food, clothing and mating.
“I’d bet my life that the assertive, strong, smart and dominant ones in hunter gatherer groups were top dog when it came to food, clothing and mating.”
The field and the players change, but the rules of the game stay the same.
We can concede, maybe, that they were “fiercely cooperative”, but beyond that, newp.
Yeah, we’re a cooperative species or we wouldn’t group ourselves up like we do. That why I went with the word “assertive” instead of “aggressive”. You can be strong, smart and physically dominant but if you aren’t able to work with other people, it’ll be pretty hard to pass your genes along to the next generation.
Fauxcohontas
FTFY
So, White Indian is writing for The Guardian?
That is a lot to just pull straight out of your ass in so few words. What else have you got up there Gaurdian?
Still not tired of all the winning.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/05/delingpole-winning-grant-applications-for-climate-change-down-40-percent/
If Trump really wants to stomp the life out of this he will direct the NSF to give out grants studying the corruption behind the global warming scam. More of a ‘oops. here is how we went wrong’ studies. The assholes would be lined up around the block to disavow the scam.
Four Dem Senators calling for Franken’s resignation…please let it be so.
Russian stooges the lot of em
Up to 6 now (Patty Murray and Kamala Harris added in)
okay, now i want Franken to stay and beat this shit. principals > principles? guilty as charged.
When do the sexual harassment accusations on female politicians begin?
Am I cynical for wondering if Harris is only doing this so she doesn’t have to worry about Franken running against her in the 2020 Dem Primary?
“Strong, principled womyn”
Not surprising. Far too many weak points in the dam – something was going to start a crack in the whole, crapulous edifice. Turned out to be Conyers, but the outcome will be the same.
“Welp, it’s not going away. We may as well stake out a sacrificial goat.” Real bravery, folks.
So Governor Mumbles McTrustfund appoints a fucking commie to take his place.
Yay.
Hopefully it’s Ellison. I can’t see him winning re-election in a state that Trump nearly took last year, and I’d really like him to not be my Congressman anymore. Good to do it now since two or three years from now his son would have enough experience to give the DFL cover in giving him the seat.
For all the sci-fi and time travel paradox aficionados here, I highly recommend the series Dark on Netflix right now. A lot of critics seem to be disparagingly likening it to Stranger Things, but I actually find it to be orders of magnitude better. It’s very smart, well paced and brooding with sly, stealthily timed humor thrown in on occasion.
Watching it right now. It’s good and I actually enjoy listening to the German.
Noted. Thanks for the suggestion — I’ve been looking for a new show and I’m getting bored with my rewatch of Dexter.
And by chance I just came across this review in the NYT which also nicely illustrates the folly of funding the arts with public money:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/arts/television/dark-a-german-netflix-series.html
Ow! My balls!
“Germans launch home-developed Benny Hill series. Details and yakkety sax at 11″
I had not heard of that. thanks.
(*given that many people are like me, and never watch tv anymore, the only way one learns about shows is when someone says, “hey X is good”. that’s how i ended up watching mindhunter and american vandal, recently)
i think its a smart idea for some of these new-media competitors to traditional TV to go outside the US and produce atypical content. its cheaper, has a guaranteed (if smaller) intl audience, and there will be new ideas which turn out to be popular which US producers typically wouldn’t touch for fear of being ‘too outre’
its sort of like foreign restaurants. at first its weird; give it time, everyone eats it and can’t remember when anyone didn’t. I remember when sushi was considered particularly ‘bizarre’. now you can get it in convenience stores.
many/most of the ‘good ideas’ in TV / movies of the last few decades have been US-translations of pre-existing foreign productions. often watered-down or modified, but still.
Do any of you here work? How am I supposed to get a bigger tax subsidy if ya’ll won’t work?
The secret of our success.
Orphans.
Lots of productive, sweating, slaving, orphans.
Four Dem Senators calling for Franken’s resignation
I am deeply ambivalent about this. As much as I take sadistic delight in seeing a pompous hypocritical blowhard like Franken twisting in the wind, I keep asking myself, “Does this have a meaningful effect on what he does?” “Did he leverage his position and/or authority in furtherance of these ‘crimes’?”
I think he’s a boob and and an ignoramus. I think he is a menace to freedom; I also think he should be removed from office for that, and not because he fake-squeezed what’s her name’s boob. As for the dreaded kissing banditry, what ever happened to the frontier justice of a sharp slap to the face?
“I think he’s a boob”
That’s a bit of the root of the problem eh?
Under the standards the yowling harridans of the Dem Party and its allies want applied to everyone else, he should go.
Good enough for me. I don’t like those standards, but (a) they are in no position to complain about them and (b) until those standards are applied to inflict pain on their supporters, they won’t go away.
Add Patagonia, North face, and Arc’teryx to the list with REI. I do like my Columbia boots. Too bad about REI. Never really cared for any of the other brands, too pricey.
Helly-Hanson?
Cabela’s or GTFO.
I keep forgetting that they recently opened a cabelas down the street. They tucked it away on a back road.
I’ve also got a Duluth trading near, but the overlap between them and REI is limited.
Anything you can get at REI, you can get at Cabela’s cheaper and without a political agenda.
Cabela’s makes own-brand climbing gear that competes w/ Black Diamond / Petzl / etc?
*Disclosure: i used to work @ REI.
I don’t like their commie seattle-cooperative politics more than you do. But REI came into being as a place for rock climbers to pool together and buy what was (at the time of its formation) absurdly-expensive and hard-to-find high-end climbing gear. basically, a ‘buyers club’. Which is why it still has a membership model today. But in the old days they didn’t even sell soft-goods. It was just a place to get webbing and harnesses and ropes and ‘biners and ascenders etc. at 1/3 the normal cost. And while climbing is probably still just a tiny part of their business now, its still a huge part of their market-position relative to EMS / Campmoor and people like Cabelas, et al.
Just checked… no cycling gear at Cabela’s either.
i thought about mentioning the Novara stuff, but i had heard that brand went way south
i still have the Novara bike i bought in the early 1990s from the REI where i worked. it was the highest-end bike they made, which i got half-off @ around $600-800 or so. its definitely heavier than the titanium/carbon composite frames they make now, but it was superbly well built, and well-appointed (all shimano xtr components, etc), and still runs great. Sad to see that they went to shit.
I have a couple of North Face jackets that I sue for skiing. They were given to me. I think I’ll just Sharpie out the logos.