Author: Brett L

Long weekend powers — activate! Form of … good beer! To echo Sloopy’s sentiments in the Morning Edition, this has been a great year for me, and I have really enjoyed the sense of community this website has created. If you’re ever down in St. Pete, give me a call and I’ll take you on a real Florida Man adventure. It’ll be like The Hangover with Cubans instead of Asians and uglier hookers.

One programming note: My wife is going to North Florida to help out with some family stuff for the next two weeks. I’ll be mostly swinging Single Dad status. I will probably not be around much or authoring the Links much until the middle of January. No matter what they say, I definitely did not sexually harass or make unwanted advances against any of my co-bloggers here at Glibertarians.

For those of you who enjoy G&T or bitter, black coffee, you may also enjoy sadism. Or be a psychopath, which, far be it from me to judge.

That stupid Rethuglican tax cut nets an extra $5B from Goldman Sachs. At $1.1M/second, that’s like, an hour and a quarter of Federal salaries.

Anti-government protests in Iran. Originally from higher prices. See, that’s another problem with Socialism — rising prices are the Government’s fault.

Infowars, so take with huge grain of salt, but I can totally see this being true: Guy protests Trump by ranting at Disney animatronic robot. So, so brave.

Have a little mellow to take you through to the end.

What I learned this year is that my kids have a truly embarrassing amount of stuff, and are spoiled little shits about it. I think next year, I am limiting family to one gift for each, plus what Santa brings. And finding some sort of volunteer activity to do. I have good kids, and Monday was the first time I’ve been sad to watch them be themselves. How did you Glibs with older/adult children get them through the “MINE!” stage of the holidays?

I know this went up in the comments earlier, but I can’t miss out on a big, old purple-veined dick joke.

Vegas can be rough on cougars.

This is probably of interest to our kind of people. (Not: Rand (Ayn or Paul), Gold Standard, Colloidal Silver, 27th Trimester Abortion)

I hear it helps with nausea… more pregnant women turn to Mary Jane. (Misleading headline. It just says more pregnant women are using it.)

A nice little strumming song for your Wednesday.

I’m out of work starting in 3..2..1.. just kidding. I have a 4:00 meeting. But after that its gonna be like Khayser Shozhe at work. I’m ghosting harder than that time I figured out I had my hot/crazy coordinates backwards on a woman.

Juries continue to not find Cliven Bundy and others involved in an armed standoff with the Bureau of Land Management guilty. I’m sure its white privilege.

The EU continues to hate the Poles for not being properly servile to their German and French masters.

Hopefully, Playa Manhattan was short on his favorite stock to short.

I know we love to hate Elon Musk here, but there’s just something about that much thrust in one place that makes the Falcon Heavy pretty. STEVE SMITH SAY “YOU KNOW WHO ELSE HAD 5M LBS OF THRUST?”

For music, I offer this throwback about a red rocket.

Listen, don’t get too close. The two year old is sick and has been clinging to me like a tiny, sick little ape. Luckily, this is not a gut-distress sickness. Poor guy. I like our doctor’s nurse’s advice to my wife on the phone. “Don’t worry unless you give him medicine and doesn’t perk up at least a little.” Clear, easy-to-follow and doesn’t depend on trying to get a two-year old to hold still for a thermometer that isn’t that accurate.

Is there anyone who doesn’t have to resign? There’s the ESPN President stepping down over drug addiction — which in retrospect makes total sense. And I’m guessing young kids and/or actual rape given how fast Kozinsci pulled the eject handle. I like how this attack on Teflon Don and the Hair has done more to discourage sexual harassment and punish harassment than anything since the personal audio recorder.

Is something really homeopathic if it contains enough of a dose to injure or kill you? I’d think there’s a fraud complaint waiting to happen.

Germans make strong bid for Central Asian, Welsh sex tourists. Meanwhile, in other sexual news…

And based on that last link, I must torture you, today.

This three day work week (and two day link week) like to kill me. I am so ready to bail. Instead, I’ll hang here with you nice people.

Cell phones added to the list of products known to cause cancer in California. Which is why I only use mine outside of California.

I haven’t used MongoDB, but it appears to be about as craptastic as Microsoft SQL was 15 or 20 years ago, security-wise. The State of California has 4GB of voter information being held for bitcoin ransom. Pay now before the cost doubles!

I was told that women could not be sexual harassers. What’s wrong with Kansas?

Rape U is upholding the reputation set by the football program in their Greek system.

Greetings, all. I am back from a number of family obligations, one involving prison, but none involving meth, reptiles, or guns. Its a reallly strange state of affairs where a string of visits to some infirm/imprisoned family members without the kids was a “great weekend” for my wife and I. Big thanks to those who picked up the slack while I was out.

FCC votes to no longer regulate Internet Service Providers as public utilities. As I understand it from Commissioner Ajit Pai’s outreach to several news outlets, all internet companies (ISPs and content providers) will now fall under the same regulating authority, administered by the Federal Trade Commission. Although I do wish the ISPs would put boing-boing and Gawker’s zombie sites behind an additional paywall nobody will use.

I am shocked. Shocked! To find out that there is arms smuggling in the US arms acquisition pipeline.

Guys, let’s just go. Its far away and we probably won’t make it, but… Kepler-90 is far enough away to keep the regulators from finding us.

And a rare commenter, but supporter sends along this cute article.

Joy Division? Whats so joyful about this one?

Happy Friday everyone, I am still getting dug out as my work did not do itself while I was onsite with a client this week. Have a safe weekend. Especially if you are in a fire zone or (perhaps as dangerously) experiencing snow and sleet where it does not normally freeze roads.

Megan McCardle posts a qualified defense of “whataboutism”. Which I hate because there is a difference between tu quoque logical fallacies and pointing out that the person you are arguing with is perfectly fine with an entirely analogous situation with different principal actors than the one they are attacking. But much of the, uh, formation of the Glibertarians.com site was based on a perception that TOS had taken to more “principals not principles” reporting.

In a story full of whataboutist attacks and defenses — Roy Moore’s original accuser admits that she added the date and location to the signature in her yearbook, but claims the comment and signature are his. Clarifying my position, I think that Moore almost certainly tried to date women under the age of 18 in his 30s. I think that his blatant disregard for both law and Constitution as a state judge should be disqualifying of anyone voting for him. I think doctored evidence weakens the case that what he did in pursuit of young women (who actually appear to be of legal age to consent at the time, as far as I know) were in any way illegal. I am glad that the attempts to destroy Moore’s candidacy with these allegations have brought to light a culture of harassment in politics and media, and hope that the culture changes.

I am unclear as to why it would be a scandal for Wikileaks to offer information to the Trump campaign. (TW: CNN) I suppose if the campaign believed that the emails were credible AND contained information that should have been confidential to approved government employees, they are probably obliged to report that those are in the wild to appropriate federal authorities. This also seems like whataboutism as both Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin seem to have lied about disclosing the same confidential information

From the not-giving-is-stealing files: Apple to reap $47B windfall in new tax plan. Yet, when you look at the article, that only happens if Apple repatriates money held overseas. In which case the Federal government gets $31.4B in taxes they are not currently able to collect. So the real headline is: Tax Plan nets $31B from Apple.

Hey guys, I am back from a work trip. I loved getting a real Tex-Mex fix in the Metroplex, but I was working in Irving, so it was all blue and silver stars and Rangers gear. Blech. Someone else can have all of that. Also, DFW Airport looks like it got left behind in the Great Airport Upgrade. Also, I left my car keys with the TSA at Tampa International, so I’ll be going back by there in a little while to pick them up (and my car).

You know who else from Germany wanted to create a United Europe?

Paging Mr. Lizard. There has been a break in containment in Washington.

This is one of the most dangerous things in modern America. These people need to be summarily fired and fined.

It turns out that being forced to achieve an erection and masturbate in front of police is not a legal 4A search. In fact, sexual abuse of a minor under color of law appears to also be one of the very few holes in Qualified Immunity.

This looks like bullshit to me.

You guys have ruined my Youtube recommendations.

Hey, guys. Sounds like somebody has a case of the “Mondays”! **finger guns** Me, I have to get on a plane tonight and be out in the world for a couple of days for work. Which sucks. I actually have to groom. Apparently, my work-from-home look is a little too close to “why is there a bum in our lobby?”. Also, let us all wish the Sloopster good luck in his auction tomorrow. May his crowd be full of people who are flush with money and bad at value.

Florida Woman sentenced to five years in prison for tax fraud. Based on some family experience, I can say that this is about the going rate in FL.

FBI gives the ATF list of 4000 people who should not own guns because of mental instability, violent criminal offenses, tells them “good luck and please go get those guns back. Hopefully not one bullet at time, brass separate.”

I take exception to Sen. Grassley’s characterization that money spent on alcohol or in the company of a certain type of woman is “blown”. Also, if I’ve spent $5M on booze and the type of woman who will hang out with me for money, I’m probably going to die pretty horribly of cirrhosis.

This is my favorite take on the Venezuelan crypto-currency: Government-Run Digital Currencies Could Disrupt U.S. Dominance. Just like Venezuela has created millionaires by debasing their paper currency.

You know who else was a finalist for Time’s Person of the Year?

Name the missing item in the links.

Nothing special going on in my world today. How’s yours? I mean, if you’re a Vols fan, it must hurt to get relegated to Vandy status. The coach at NC State doesn’t want the job either.

In today’s on-going fallout from perv-land, Pelosi calls on Conyers to resign — so he checks into the hospital. Republican Joe Barton has decided to retire over dick pics.

Maverick has once again deigned Republicans worthy of his support after they kissed his ass enough to make him feel special. We will see if his undecided mini-me junior senator will tag along with daddy.

Interesting climate science. I have some quibbles, but its probably me not them.

Doctors can ignore directives literally tattooed on your chest.

Playa Manhattan had a special musical request.