Did anyone else go all Ron Swanson on their local grocery store today? “I want you to give me all the Cadbury Creme Eggs you have… Hold on. I’m concerned you’re just going to give me a lot of Creme Eggs. I want all that you have.” Sure my teeth are rotting from my head, and I’ve given myself Type II diabetes, but I’ll just keto for a couple of months and everything will be fine, right?
I love this hed: Vaping Teens Exposed to as Much Nicotine as Tobacco, but Don’t Know It. Probably because they’ve never used tobacco. I still can’t quite understand whether the news people are mouth breathing morons who don’t really understand that nicotine in NOT the product in tobacco that causes cancer, or whether there is some other motive in play here. But let me help everyone on this blog: There is no established causal link between nicotine use and cancer, nor am I aware of any other detrimental effects of long-term low-dose nicotine delivery. Nicotine is a poison at high enough doses. Like if you ate about 2 dozen Juul pods. But in the tenth-to-hundredth of a milligram range, no.
The video link is gone, but I’m pretty sure the Crew Dragon blew up this weekend. It sure looked like all of the fuel detonated at once, instead of over time in the rocket nozzles.
An interesting test on whether the law means what the law says or whether all statutes are open to Living Constitution interpretation. My non-lawyer take — the Title VII Non-Discrimination does not protect people from being discriminated against due to sexual orientation or gender identity, and if Congress wants that those to apply, they need to amend the law. My human take — as long as people come to work and do their job, who cares?
While this would certainly be good news for the housing and car markets, it is impossible for me to see the FedGov erasing all student loans as anything but a lump-sum payout to big banks. Those loans were already guaranteed by the government, so its not like they were carrying bad debt on their balance sheet. Nope, they’d just get a big pile of cash, presumably all at once, or very quickly.
I’m feeling very 90s college radio today.
Bonus Link: Meanwhile in Florida the Easter Bunny winds down after a hard weekend with some ultraviolence. Spud dumped this in Animal’s article so I’ll give him a tip o’ the cap.
That’s no ordinary rabbit! It’s got a mean streak a mile wide!
That’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!
*ahem*
Lagomorphs are not rodents.
*ducks*
It’s a matter of opinion.
THE U of M Golden Gopher football team hangs head in shame and slinks away.
They’re not even gophers, they are 13-striped ground squirrels.
https://twin-cities.umn.edu/athletics/goldy-gopher
You don’t lay hands on a woman in front of the Easter Bunny. He won’t stand for it.
“It is not known who was inside the big, white bunny suit but he looks hopping mad as he is seen in the video throwing several punches at a guy in downtown Orlando near Tier nightclub Sunday night.
An Orlando police officer eventually stepped in to break up the fight.”
That probably means the guy in the bunny suit was a cop.
The cop did roll up pretty casual.
Srsly, if you got to witness a beat down by a 6’ tall white rabbit, would you jump in immediately?
Named Harvey?
Oh yeah.
I *warned* you, but did you listen to me? Oh, no, you *knew*, didn’t you? Oh, it’s just a harmless little *bunny*, isn’t it?
Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a college administrator!
My dad just told me that he’s praying for a Kamala Harris/Pete Buttegeig ticket in 2020. This might be worse than the time he told me he thought Paul Krugman should be nominated to head the federal reserve.
. . . he’s praying for a Kamala Harris/Pete Buttegeig ticket in 2020.
#Metoo, but possibly not for the same reasons your Dad’s praying for it.
Yep. Me too.
Your dad has some……interesting ideas.
He’s an old boomer liberal. Voted D in every election since ’72. Lives in Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s district, campaigns for her and donates to her.
At least you seem not to have fallen for that shitz…
Out of 3 kids, my brother’s the only one that did. I did for a while, then went rebellious teenager and full conservative before going libertarian in college. My sister’s a religious super-conservative.
It’s interesting how people diverge over the decades. My dad was a hippie Deadhead back in the early ’70s, a real Deadhead who followed them around the Northeast to see them multiple times whenever they were on tour, and he’s a Pat Buchanan style paleocon these days.
*Biter qivering lower lip, eyes well up with held back tears*
Brother?
But seriously, that sounds like my Dad, who claims that he’s held pretty much the same opinion on most issues for the last 40 years, and it made him a radical hippie then and a Tea Partier Edgelord now.
Hah….my dad always says he never cared about politics then, only the music and the drugs (presumably – he’s never admitted to drug use and I’ve never asked, but cmon, he was a Deadhead!) ……so in his mind he didn’t flip sides, he just didn’t have a side in the beginning.
I guess that was me. I came of age during the draft for the Vietnam War and I voted for anyone who would end that abomination (I wound up voting for McGovern).
I have always felt that my “politics” were “individual freedom”. I drifted away from the Democrats as the 70’s ended and wound up voting for Reagan in 1980 after listening to his radio shows on news radio. The older I get the more anarchist I get.
Huh. I never saw Kamala with a tag team partner.
Kamala had various “managers” over the years. Maybe Buttchug is there to grab Trump’s leg when the ref isn’t looking or hit him with the steel chair if he falls out of the ring.
And yes, I will continue to flog this one until she drops out of the race.
Horizontal Harris-Bent Over Buttigieg 2020.
Yea, I was lucky that Easter at my mom’s house was not spoiled by some stupid political discussion breaking out, although I did catch some people muttering off to the side about “income inequality” and “I just don’t know how we’re going to fix this country”.
CNN is a hell of a drug.
“it is impossible for me to see the FedGov erasing all student loans as anything but a lump-sum payout to big banks”
That PLUS vote-buying with other peoples’ money.
Its a fair cop.
The whole point of vaping for a lot of people is to get the nicotine without the tar and other carcinogenic garbage that is in cigarettes. Kind of like drinking black coffee instead of a Starbucks frappa-whatever. Like you, I have no idea how the discussion changed.
And don’t forget the mechanical damage from smoke inhalation, which causes emphysema.
IIRC the only health risk from nicotine is heart damage since it’s a stimulant.
But it’s clear that these people are hysterics and as such will never embrace harm reduction.
Have you seen the Truth anti vaping video? One of the muppets tries to say vaping is safer than smoking and it gets shouted down by the other muppets.
See below. Those are quite possibly the worst commercials ever made. Not only that, they’re actually dangerous in their misinformation.
Yes, I have seen it several times. It still sends me into a white-hot rage every time.
Fuck those anti-vaping commercials. I think Swiss posted an article about Illinois raising their smoking age to 21 which is nuts considering the state has bigger issues to deal with these days. The kicker is that I know the person who ran that 21 Tobacco campaign and outside of her nanny statism is a decent person. I had to unfollow her though because I damned near wrote a screed on her FB page about how’s she’s a fucking authoritarian and how this would disproportionately harm the poor and create more of an incentive for the government to abuse people.
“this would disproportionately harm the poor and create more of an incentive for the government to abuse people.”
That’s probably her dream that she doesn’t want to publicly admit.
If they’re poor, they obviously can’t be capable of making their own decisions. Otherwise they wouldn’t be poor.
/reasoning
I know the person who ran that 21 Tobacco campaign and outside of her nanny statism is a decent person.
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
Washington is about to join suit, which is moot since the Feds are about to make 21 national law.
As as we have seen with alcohol, such laws don’t in any way encourage teens to circumvent them.
Does anyone get into vaping nicotine that wasn’t a smoker before hand?
Its big with HS kids. It doesn’t stink and your girlfriend doesn’t take a sip of your dip cup by mistake.
That makes no fucking sense. Sure it doesn’t stink and no dip cup, but nicotine is like the John Kasich of recreational drugs. Literally every other choice is better.
Nicotine goes great with alcohol and other drugs.
Nicotine + alcohol = some memories I don’t really want to have. Too bad I don’t black out.
Counterpoint: I won’t be arrested, lose my job, or have my belongings confiscated by the state for using nicotine.
Well, at least not yet.
When they do, though, it is hi-larious.
Yup. My kid says vaping is rampant in high school. The kids have figured out that it is way safer than smoking. And as a bonus it really pisses off the squares.
Illinois raising their smoking age to 21
And as a bonus it really pisses off the squares.
*goes long on vape stocks*
your girlfriend doesn’t take a sip of your dip cup by mistake
This is among the reasons why I switched to Swedish snus. My wife accidentally drinking dip spit was having a very detrimental effect on my marriage.
Things I learned from Uncle Sam #325: always maintain positive control of your Coke or coffee cup.
I read that as “Swedish anus”, and some of those blondes are pretty hot.
Those “Truth” “VAPING MAKES YOU 4X MORE LIKELY TO START SMOKING HERP DERP” commercials make me want to kick my television.
Second. Yup, kids, keep smoking HURR DURR.
“Juul pods contain the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigs.”
Yeah, maybe that’s why they last a day, like a pack of cigs.
There are a number of financial interests against vaping — tobacco companies, governments that tax tobacco, media outlets running scare stories, etc.
Altria owns Juul, IIRC
^THIS^
The state govt is far more worried about kids vaping than they are kids smoking. They need those smokers to pay for all their dreams. Not only in direct taxes, but those tobacco settlement payments that Big Tobacco is still making.
Small Tobacco, and Big Government.
actually, there’s math involved.
Small Tobacco + Big Govt = Big Tobacco
Yes – for the moment, vaping is about half the cost of smoking. I’m sure this will be rectified eventually.
“For their analysis, the researchers used data from 265 of the volunteers who had both survey and urine sample data. Among those who said they thought they were using nicotine-free products, 40 percent had significant levels of cotinine in their urine.”
What was the question? I can’t believe 40% wouldn’t know they were vaping nicotine.
““Nicotine is a highly addictive substance and it’s being delivered at much higher concentrations than before,” Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Use and Addiction Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School, told NBC News. “So they’re getting a bigger buzz.””
Bullshit.
People aren’t buying the “more potent marijuana! THC!” bullshit, so they have to find a new excuse to be authoritarian..
being delivered at much higher concentrations than before
Someone has never tried smoking a cigarette while on the patch
““Nicotine is a highly addictive substance and it’s being delivered at much higher concentrations than before,” Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Use and Addiction Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School, told NBC News. “So they’re getting a bigger buzz.””
Bullshit.
Bullshit is right. I remember the buzz I got when I smoked my first cig as a teenager. It was strong and made me dizzy as fuck. The buzz from the second one was practically nonexistent. You’d think that a professor at a medical school would have some rudimentary knowledge of the effects of common substances.
The other thing is that they are simultaneously claiming the nicotine is giving a “bigger buzz” and 40% don’t notice.
Among those who said they thought they were using nicotine-free products, 40 percent had significant levels of cotinine in their urine.”
Two possibilities:
(1) The people who thought they were using nicotine-free products were idiots who were actually buying nicotine products.
(2) The vape companies are committing fraud and advertising nicotine products as nicotine-free.
I’m betting on the first one, which makes the use of this statistic the usual pro-Big-Nanny horseshit study.
Teenagers who are idiots? I guess there’s a first time for everything.
Do you know how much of the price of tobacco is tax?
*I have no idea how much of the price of vape stuff is tax but I am guessing a lot less than tobacco.
*looks at last bill*
“Sales Tax $0.00”
In NYC the total tax is almost seven dollars a pack. That’s more than the total cost of vaping.
RE: SpaceX
Has Florida Man been accounted for?
Totally not good. Because the Boeing Constellation crew vehicle is also having trouble. That leaves Russia and China as the only two nations with manned spaceflight.
Agreed. However, this is SpaceX’s MO. Taking calculated risk for the sake of speed.
This kind of issue and the resulting scramble is part of how they have gotten as far as fast as they have.
That said, I felt terrible for all the people who worked on the project. Fortunately only money – no lives lost.
An excellent point. I should pay more attention to the business end of things.
Hopefully they’ll pick themselves up and figure it out.
Well, SpaceX, so your money lost.
It was an engine test that went wrong, not the crew capsule.
Hmmmm. I was under the impression that the engine test was of the escape rockets, which are somehow attached/tethered to the crew capsule. If they blew, the capsule probably didn’t remain unscathed.
It was the thruster engines which are mounted on the crew capsule.
Critically they are used for abort.
Speculation is they were using the crew capsule that they had flown to the ISS.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/04/heres-what-we-know-and-what-we-dont-about-the-crew-dragon-accident/
TW: Ars – Home of Top Men who know better. Don’t read the comments…
Like if you ate about 2 dozen Juul pods.
Wash ’em down with a shot of Clorox. You’ll be fine
OT: are these the apes that those Chinese scientists spliced with human genes?
That guy could have won the Nobel Prize in Trolling if he had been wearing a MAGA hat in that selfie. Proggie heads would have exploded just trying to think of the correct response to it.
all of the fuel detonated at once
Premature detonation.
>While this would certainly be good news for the housing and car markets
Well, at least for the owners of capital (and as a person who “owns” a mortgaged home, that’s me.)
I hear some 737s suffered anomalies lately too.
There are no successes or failures, only nominal and anomalous moments.
Well, at least it was the final test. Now they’ll just call it the “penultimate” test and pretend like they meant that to happen so’s they could catch one last bug.
“Those who earn more than $250,000 would not be eligible for any debt cancellation.”
This sort of shit burns me. Here I am a sucker for diligently paying my student loans when all I had to do was vote in some politician to force banks to forgive those loans.
Let me be clear, I take no joy in paying student loans but no one put a gun a gun to my head and told me to attend a Catholic university in Chicago. I had a plethora of options ranging from taking classes at the local community college to going to one of our many state schools in Illinois but for some reason I and I alone made the choice to go to a private school and take out loans.
When I went to law school I went to Syracuse because I got a partial scholarship. Got into Wake Forest, which is a better school (and was closer to my wife’s parents), but the money caused me to go to Syracuse.
What a fool I was.
I concur. I have a Masters in EE from that school and every year those fuckers ask me for more money.
Second to the sucker bet.
I got accepted to University of Illinois for a partial scholarship and turned it down because my stupid 18 year old brain fell in love with DePaul. My parents did their best to dissuade me but I decided to go to DePaul anyway. My Mom made it clear that she wouldn’t cosign on any loan or give me any money to go there.
Was your mother at least relieved that your stupid 18 year old self didn’t declare undying love for RuPaul?
LOL
When I was in high school my parents thought I was gay because I had a hard time with dating girls and I watched Sex in the City. My older brother couldn’t keep the girls off him so my parents thought that it would be the same for me. They were wrong. It wasn’t until my Mom saw me interact with some girl in college where she learned that I wasn’t getting dates because I was gay but because I was awkward as fuck with the opposite sex.
my Mom saw me interact with some girl in college
I think I might see part of the problem…
I went to a state school instead the Ivy I was also accepted at precisely because I suspected that all they grants they promised me in the first year were going to turn into loans by the 2nd or 3rd year and I’d be one of these whiny punks today, instead of having paid off my loans 15 years ago.
If I could do it all over again, I would have went to a community college and then transferred to U of Illinois. I tell everyone to take this route. If you don’t have any money saved up or don’t want to drown in student loan debt, go to a CC and then transfer to one of the state colleges.
Seriously – what about those of us who scrimped and went without for over a decade to repay our college debt? Are we going to get a nice fat check to make up for everything we had to forgo to make those payments while these whiny brats get their get-out-of-debt-free cards?
You know we’re not, and that would also be unfair to the taxpayers.
What about those of us who paid as we went along?
The responsible always get cucked and screwed.
This is just a poor precedent. It’s enabling bad choices.
“Are we going to get a nice fat check to make up for everything we had to forgo to make those payments ”
I’m sure your retirement accounts will be raided to make up for it.
^This. Paying off my student loans was one of the happiest financial days of my life.
If they pay off loans for current holders it will be a big “fuck you” to everyone who did that.
And to everyone who refused to take one in the first place.
I didn’t need any student loans. Uncle Sam payed most of it for me, and I did the difference. I did pay off some $40K of student loan debt (along with her credit card debt) of my ex, so I do have a dog in this hunt.
“Uncle Sam payed most of it for me”
So what’s the difference?
They required 6 years of service, and I still have the bullet hole, metal plate to fuse my bones, artificial knee, and some shrapnel to show for it…
What she really wants is to end the student loan program, and this is the quickest way to do it.
I could get on board with that. That would cut the legs out from under the marxist horseshit in a second.
Allow student loan debtors to declare bankruptcy in order to mitigate the debt and that’s it. Fuck paying off student loans for people that can afford to pay them.
One addition: Schools with endowments of more than $1B are responsible for defaulted student loans discharged through bankruptcy until they reach that point.
I’ll even give them a head start: no discharging student debt for at least 5 years after you’ve run your last course. Nearly everyone is technically bankrupt the day they graduate.
Sounds fine to me, if institutional accountability was reintroduced into the system this problem would take care of itself.
Make colleges responsible for half the debt. of course, that diversity shit they peddle today would take a huge hit and likely die instantly.
Government took away the ability to declare bankruptcy so the higher ed institutions would not have to worry about letting people in that couldn’t pay it back…
Think that through…
Bingo. Make it dischargeable in bankruptcy and end the federal guarantees.
The other great thing about this would be the instant implosion of every grievance study program in the country except maybe at the Ivy’s.
What will the Trigglypuffs of the world do then?
Learn to code?
Y’all are bitching about student loans…the same people who want to do this also want reparations for slavery. They are both just back-door communism under a different name. Excuses for redistributing wealth.
You didn’t build that!
Remember, only trained professionals should be able to own firearms.
NYPD rookie suspended after he puts gun down to play video game and friend accidentally shoots himself dead
And this is why I drill the rules of safe weapons handling into my kids over and over again. Treat every weapon as if it were loaded, never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot, keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot, keep your weapon on safe until you intend to shoot. Simple fuckin’ stuff.
Yes. I’ve taught first time gun handlers the same basic rules time after time. I make them practice them with me with an air pistol before I bring them to the range or shooting.
(Never taught anyone on long guns. )
We teach exactly the same things, word for word. They must exhibit and adhere to these at all times even when we fart around with the BB guns.
We also end what ever session we have if the kids decide to display immaturity when we are shooting, again, may it be a BB gun or firearm.
To this day I recall the moment nearly 50 years ago when Pater Dean checked our pellet guns as we were heading out to shoot. I had gotten excited and put a pellet in mine, so it was loaded. Back I went to the house, while Pater Dean and Bro Dean went shooting. I’ve never loaded a gun before it needed loading since.
You get . . . less of what you punish.
+1 sideways gangsta grip
Great fun scene in “Person of Interest” when some too-cool-gangsta kid comes at Reese with that, and he just gives a look like “really?” and then dismantles the punk .
I was at a birthday party recently where they were shooting Nerf guns. Some twerp of a kid kept putting one in another kid’s face so I told him to knock it off. He responded “It’s not loaded”, of course I said “Guns are always loaded”.
Little fucker came back with “My dad works at a gun range and he tells me it’s not always loaded, you just have to pretend it is.”
I said “Tell your dad he sucks at teaching gun safety, now stop putting it in other kids faces before I take it from you.”
I walked into our conference room where one of the dudes was showing off a new rifle… pointed right at me. I asked him to move it, and like a true dipshit he said “it’s not loaded!”. I lit him up pretty good then.
He’s asked me to go shooting a bunch of times. Funny, I’m too busy…
Then you shot him?
Not arrested like Plaxico Burress?
Laszlo Plaxico!
Let’s not forget this gem!
Cop shoot self in leg
Classic. Of course now they actually do have a Glock 40.
The sources said he put his gun down on the table, and while playing a game Afoakwah picked it up to check it out and inadvertently fired a single shot into his neck. He was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he died, they said.
So he immediately pointed it at himself…
I cant find the video now but there used to be one where some very drunk dude is screwing around with a 38 revolver. He is obviously in a house trailer…points the gun at the far wall and pulls the trigger. It clicks so he turns the gun around and is looking down the barrel in puzzlement. Then he pulls the trigger again. The bullet hits him just below his eye and he drops like a sack of sand.
I am sure sitting on the table where he is playing checkers with Hitler is his Darwin Award.
He was doing the gene pool a favor.
Ahem
the gun was put down on the table, and it was picked up to be checked out, and a single shot was inadvertently shot into his neck.
Was that before or after the friend admitted he was boning the cop’s woman?
I still can’t quite understand whether the news people are mouth breathing morons who don’t really understand that nicotine in NOT the product in tobacco that causes cancer, or whether there is some other motive in play here.
They’re perverts who get their rocks off on bossing people around and denying them their pleasure.
Yes, you are correct sir!
An interesting test on whether the law means what the law says or whether all statutes are open to Living Constitution interpretation.
I think we already know the answer.
This is the problem with enumerating things in a list–the list is never complete and you have to keep adding to it (which in this case should be done by statute). That’s why we have a 9th amendment worded the way it is.
You are indeed correct. There is zero statutory basis, and zero agency authority, to take any action on “sexual preference” or “gender”.
Hasn’t even slowed anybody down.
So is Elizabeth Warren also proposing that all the student loans I paid off myself should be reimbursed to me? Is she also proposing that taking a job while in college so I didn’t have to take out larger loans is time I should be reimbursed for?
No? So she’s proposing that I pay my loans and pay for someone else’s as well.
Fuck. Off. Slaver.
Is she proposing that there be no student loans in the future?
Because if you pay these off, how can you turn around an loan more?
Its like amnesty for illegals. They’ll do it just this one time, and totally fix the system that let it happen in the first place. Maybe in the next session.
Bingo. All us suckers get to foot the bill for idiot children as well as ourselves.
All right then, just like they’ll be doing with healthcare, let’s follow this through. “So long as I’m paying for someone else’s” education, it makes sense that I should have a say in what education they’re getting. Now, at long last, we can have a national conversation about which degrees are worth earning and which are bullshit. How about we survey all the coffee jockies at Starbucks and find out what degrees they have, then cross those off the list.
Fortunately for Warren, this has NOTHING to do with education, so she’ll never need to have that conversation. It has everything to do with stealing my money and shoveling it towards the asshats who run universities.
They are just buying votes, straight-up.
The worst part of this is that people who never took out student loans, especially those who didn’t go to college, will be subsidizing those who took out loans.
This
I’m sure that my son’s buddy that went to votech and became a mechanic will happily pay off the $30K debt of a gal who can’t pay it off herself as a coffee slinger with a Women’s Study degree.
How about we propose that people degreed in Women’s Studies pay extra taxes to cover the unfortunates who had to attend vocational schools. I’m sure that will go over well.
Well that would only be fair. After all she is a privileged college grad who understands how everything works, while he’s just a hick rube.
Every time I hear ‘women’s studies’ I remember the Occupy WS guy that posed with a sign and a long face. The sign said ‘Corporate America doesnt appreciate my academic accomplishments in Women’s studies and now I am stuck with $300,000 in student loans’
Holy shit. What an idiot. 300 fuckin’ K? Worse, we are stuck with that moron forever.
What choice did he have? He would have washed out of any math or economics program.
Also, “stuck with.” Fuck you, you OWS turd. You CHOSE to take those courses and borrow that money. And now you want everyone else to bail you out. Fuck. Off. Slaver.
Yeah, I remember a coworker of mine who’s daughter was going to Tulane as an out of state student (and didn’t qualify for any scholarships because she wasn’t the best student) telling me that it was almost $60K a year for her.
Reading between the lines, she mostly wanted to go to Tulane because she wanted to party in NO. Her parents were too gutless to tell her to lump it and off she went.
I thought it was a puppeteer.
I remember it as a degree puppetry as well.
I sprained my wrist (NO NOT LIKE THAT). Typing with a splint on my hand and wrist is really fucking difficult.
Shoulda sprained the other one, huh?
If you think typing with a splint is difficult, you should try the other thing.
Writing longhand?
Thumbing a ride?
Oh, Gary!
(NO NOT LIKE THAT)
S60.529 Blister (nonthermal) of unspecified hand
I could get behind the student load forgiveness thing if it was part of a plan that included polices that:
1) Stop pushing a college degree as something everyone should have
2) Stop pretending all college degrees have the same amount of usefulness and should all result in a big paycheck
3) Stop allowing the exclusive colleges to be a gateway to the “top” jobs in government and business only due to their name brand
4) Allow online colleges to be accredited so they can be competitive
None of that is likely to happen, so fuck that loan forgiveness BS.
Having the government pay for the college is the best way I can think of to devalue college degrees even more than they already are.
5) Purge all faculties of Marxists and SJW morons.
SJW morons and marxist is precisely why some in government think they should be making college free…
it produces a large swath of brain-dead voters for them.
Keep it up NYC. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/04/22/de-blasio-defends-gas-guzzling-motorcade-ban-skyscrapers/
He is so full up his own ass I think even some voters are starting to see it.
Speaking of low mass at high velocity
TW: Joe Stiglitz
America’s economy has not been working for a large portion of the country. Workers at the bottom of the income scale earn wages, adjusted for inflation, that are not much higher than what they were 60 years ago, while the income of a typical full‐time male worker hasn’t budged much from 40 years ago. In addition, life expectancy is in decline. But the economy is not only failing American citizens. It’s failing the planet, and that means it’s failing future generations.
There are many reasons for our plight, including corporate power and greed centered on immediate profits and little regard for the impacts business decisions have on low-income Americans and the environment.
———–
Climate change is real, and it includes not only an increase in the average temperature, but also more extreme weather events including droughts, floods and hurricanes that have led to a large number of deaths. The United States has borne enormous costs as a result of the warming planet — in 2017, more than 1.5% of GDP. By the end of this century, some sectors of the US economy, including agriculture and energy, could lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year because of climate change, according to the latest report issued by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
So there is a real urgency to respond to our economic malaise and our climate crisis. The good news on this Earth Day is that these are problems of our own making, and that means a change toward pro-Earth policies can make a big difference. Even better, the major investments we need to respond to the crisis would be a spur to the economy. This is one of the central messages of the Green New Deal.
———–
It would make so much more sense to spend money retrofitting our economy to reduce the risk of disastrous climate change rather than spending money to deal with the enormous economic and human costs of coping with its consequences.
These are not hypotheses, subject to analysis or debate.
This is a catechism, which we recite as a demonstration of our faith and belief.
Don’t make us burn you, Heretic.
It’s a cult… plain and simple…
‘…an increase in average temperature…’
Bullshit is bullshit. Besides, someone forgot to tell the thermometers.
Yada yada yada we have to destroy capitalism argle bargle beeble bloop.
Interesting qualification, that.
Climate change is real, and it includes not only an increase in the average temperature, but also more extreme weather events including droughts, floods and hurricanes that have led to a large number of deaths.
Flat out wrong. We had much worse droughts in the past than we have in the last 40 years, hurricanes are at something of a low point. Floods, I couldn’t say, but I bet neither could he.
And, of course, the last bit about a large number of deaths is pure dishonesty, given the increase in population.
Drugs are bad, hmmm-kay….
Huh. I would have never guessed that Valerie Jarrett is Jewish. How big is the chocolate ration this week?
Or that Roseanne Barr is Jewish.
Isn’t she?
Here’s a question – why are colleges so much more goddamned expensive than they were decades ago? Well, let’s start with the administrative bloat that includes armies of “diversity staffers” who cost millions and don’t educate one fuckin’ swinging dick. Any plans to trim that fat as part of this free college baloney? No? Then piss off.
Don’t forget all those Title IX compliance people.
Have you seen the accomodations and perks?
“Free college” => “paid for by tax dollars” => “you need a whole new army of compliance officers and audit staff”
“Here’s a question – why are colleges so much more goddamned expensive than they were decades ago? ”
Because of a combination of factors. The first is that government created a monopoly that exempted colleges from any financial responsibilities and left it up to people that wouldn’t realize how bad they were taken until after to understand how badly they could be taken if they borrowed a ton of money to “study the subject of their dreams”. When you have no competition or skin in the game, cost doesn’t matter.
But couple that with some other phenoms like the massive increase of the bureaucratic machine at these schools of administrators all making 6 figure salaries doing nothing of value or with people still not realizing that the investment way too often never comes close to the reward, and you can see why this stuff simply just is running out of control.
Why is X More Expensive Now? An instructional video.
Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You may remember me from such educational videos as Step-Up to Foot Safety and Montana: the Devils State. I’m here today to walk you through figuring out why something got so expensive.
First, look to see if the government is creating easy credit. Yep, you can see it right here *pan to picture of the government doing government things.* Next, we know that economic profits go to whoever in the value chain holds the scares resource. Here, we have a graphic comparing the rate of population growth vs the rate of new Universities *pan to a split screen, on the left are two sailors picking up hookers, on the right is fucking nothing.*
Karl Marx walks on screen: And as long as there is easy credit and the students are part of an army of reserve workers, the capitalists in the University system will use the mechanisms of the government to keep the easy money coming in.
The End!
^^^What he said. Since the FedGov acts as a middle man and is throwing money at unsuspecting 18 year olds like a drunken sailor, there’s every incentive for colleges to jack prices as high as possible. The education market is severely distorted and until the FedGov stops guaranteeing loans, it’s not gonna stop.
There does seem to be a feedback loop:
Government pays for tuition > College raises tuition to the max it can get away with > Government increases the amount it pays for tuition…
Because the student loans and financial aid is fueling a bubble.
Close to 30 years ago when I was graduating high school and going off to college, I remember having to fill out the Financial Aid Form, after which point the college determined how much money our family could pay toward tuition and room/board, with the rest of the money being made up from scholarships, grants, and loans. It seemed very obvious to me that if the amount of financial aid increased, my parents and I would still be asked to pay the same absolute amount, with the extra financial aid going to bloat tuition.
why are colleges so much more goddamned expensive than they were decades ago?
Because federal subsidies have made a hash of the entire market for higher education. When students enter college, federal student loans mask the cost of what they’re buying. So, cost becomes not a serious consideration in the equation, especially when you consider the fact that the courts have made college essentially mandatory for most white collar jobs. The resulting market signal for the colleges and university has been consistent for the last fifty years. Expand. Expand at all costs. Expand, even when expanding doesn’t cover the cost of expansion. Students can’t hack it in their departments? Create new, easier, ones where they can. Student doesn’t want to major in what you’re offering? Add staff and a new major. Just grow. You can’t afford to be left behind. You’ve got to get bigger. No matter what.
But, all these expenses are fixed costs. And as the industry grows and grows, the only way to keep up is to raise prices. And, in a rare instance, this won’t have a major effect on demand because Uncle Sam is masking the higher costs. But, that creates a new wrinkle. Now you’ve got to expand your administrative function to manage the growth and to keep the government dollars flowing. And once there, the administrators soon begin to find opportunities to expand their fiefdoms. And growth continues. Growth of more and more fixed costs.
The answer is simple. It needs to happen. The industry needs to be rationalized. The question is whether the state and federal governments will allow that needed development to happen.
My dad was a hippie Deadhead back in the early ’70s, a real Deadhead who followed them around the Northeast to see them multiple times whenever they were on tour, and he’s a Pat Buchanan style paleocon these days.
“I’ve seen those people in their natural habitat. Keep ’em the hell away from me.”
I hate patchouli!
South St. Paul students lobby to wear ethnic-pride sashes at graduation
The issue will be discussed at Monday night’s school board meeting.
http://www.startribune.com/south-st-paul-students-lobbying-to-wear-ethnic-pride-sashes-at-graduation/508903342/
I wonder if white kids wanted to wear MAGA sashes, if that would be okay.
The trolling opportunities here are epic.
That is so Kek.
Yes. This would have led to all sorts of hilarity on my part as an 18 year-old punk who thought he was far funnier/smarter/handsome than he really was.
You know who else allowed students to don so-called “identity adornments”?
Bring back the Kaposia Indian!
Maybe I’m old fashioned or naive, but something’s been bugging me about politics lately. When did we get to the point where stealing isn’t wrong? Because a lot of what’s being proposed is pretty much just that and is pretty much being advertised as just that – stealing. I mean, for a lot of the old social safety net programs, they were at least advertised as something like an insurance program. Everybody would have to pay in and everybody would get covered. I don’t like the idea. I think its authoritarian. But, at least I can understand how someone in good faith could say they believed in it. But, increasingly, the entire business is being advertised as soaking other people to get something for yourself. Do these people really think stealing is okay? Or do they convince themselves the people they’re aiming to screw somehow deserve it because they’re somehow less than human? Ultimately, how can you take that sort of line of reasoning and think you’re somehow the good guy?
The 1900’s. What you see now is a drop in the bucket compared to the shit the pre-17th amendment Senators got up to…
Undoubtedly. But, here’s what’s different. Those guys were considered corrupt. They pulled their stunts behind closed doors because it was shameful. Now, stealing from our neighbors, if we get the government to do it for us, is widely seen as a virtue.
I think a lot of it has to do with polarization, or the “us vs. them” you see a lot now. It’s never me or my friends that will have to pay, it’s those evil white male business owners who have been stealing from minorities and women their entire lives. You could say it’s a Robin Hood mentality.
They’ve convinced themselves that you didn’t build they things you have, and therefore they’re entitled, nay, obligated, to take some of it back.
Well, hell, you now have the DA in Dallas County saying that prosecuting someone for stealing less than $750 of “personal goods” is “criminalizing poverty”.
Because poor people have to steal…
I wonder how that’s gonna work out
I don’t wonder at all.
For as long as I have been alive I have heard people say “For the socialist what is his is his and what’s yours is his”
Stealing, unfortunately, seems to be natural part of human nature. Non-thieves have to be taught, they aren’t born. There are plenty of cultures in the world where stealing is thought of as normal. Hell, it’s the gospel of socialism. How many people go around today in America openly and unashamedly proclaiming themselves a socialist?
Maybe I’m old fashioned or naive, but something’s been bugging me about politics lately. When did we get to the point where stealing isn’t wrong?
Theft has always been a part of politics, but it seems that the advent of democracy has paradoxically increased the scale of the theft. Probably because democracy is just the term for the things we choose to do together.
Also, since it’s appropriate: “The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavours to live at the expense of everyone else.” – Frederic Bastiat, 1847
Again, though, there’s something different. Sure, people have always been thieves. But, at least they were ashamed of it. They would come up with rationalizations to pretend it wasn’t theft. Maybe that was hypocritical. But, hypocrisy is the dues vice pays virtue. At least on some level they had a basic moral guide that told them that stealing wasn’t something to brag about. With the current lot, I don’t think they’d bat an eye about saying they’re going to take stuff from other people.
Well, socialism is your proximate cause, and the innate covetousness of man is your ultimate cause. Outsourcing one’s theft makes it easier to pretend it is something other than it is, and people have always made rationalizations for why they can steal from others, usually stealing from the disfavored (enemies, foreigners, infidels, the rich, etc.), which “makes it OK”. The current crop of wealth-redistributing politicians, and their followers, are just a pathetic shade of pirates.
To venture a theory on why the current crop of politicians is more brazen about stealing from their own citizens than those in the past, I would think it might be because it is no longer acceptable to steal from outsiders but the desire to enrich oneself at the expense of others has not gone away and still needs outlet. The rise of the welfare state happened at about the same time as conquest and colonialism were going out of fashion, so there might be something to it. But then again, correlation does not equal causation and this is just wild guess-work.
The Ten Commandments are just something some people wrote.
Nicotine is a poison at high enough doses.
And in truth, everything is.
The only solution: ban everything.
Too much H2O kills!
DHMO has killed so many people.
Mammary Monday gives you the greatest hot girl adornment after birthday suits.
https://thechive.com/2019/04/21/sexy-girls-in-sports-bras-is-a-workout-for-your-eyes-40-photos/
Re: Student Loan Cancellation – An Exposition of Why We are Fucking Doomed:
“forgiving” obvs
My friend’s (useless reprobate) wife wasted hundreds of thousands on a Naturopathic “Medicine” degree. She simply assumes that the debt will be “forgiven” (read: bailed out by taxpayers who aren’t irresponsible layabouts). It sickens me.
She should have gone into homeopathy, at leas then she’d have a working model for getting out of debt.
“What do you mean my last payment didn’t cover the principal and the interest? Ok, just cancel that check and I’ll send you one for half what I sent last time.”
[diluted golf clap]
diluting it makes it too damn loud!
I think you meant:
I will send you one for 1/10000th of what I sent you last time.
I’m sorry for your friend. She should be cleaning up with that even if, or perhaps because, it’s total horseshit.
So true. So, so true.
No kidding. I know a couple naturopaths. They make a good living. Their patients (mostly) swear by them. I got no beef with anyone who has satisfied customers.
In health and wellness, in particular, we tend to vastly underestimate how much of your physical wellbeing is dictated by your mental state. The placebo effect is well-known and a known risk of any scientific clinical study, but that’s really just the tip of the iceberg, I believe. MDs mostly make their money by convincing you you are sick and sending you off to buy pharmaceuticals; naturopaths take kind of the opposite approach, and it seems to work for a lot of people.
I grew up around a lot of chiropractors who were perfectly happy to send someone for an MRI and then off to a neurosurgeon if they didn’t think they were the appropriate people to treat back pain/injury. I think the danger there is people who don’t actually know the limits of their own practice or drink their own kool-aid.
It seems to me that more of them know their limitations than the fucking docs do. I spent a small fortune with a big-shot ENT doc to figure out my ear and hearing issues.
MRI, many tests, blah blah blah to be told ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So I’m thinking that I’m crazy for paying most of my kids’ college bills. They should be running up huge debts that can be “forgiven” soon.
How will they learn to cope in today’s society if they have no experience in reneging on basic contracts?
They can have your money now, or have your money later. Hopefully they will do well in life and be able to give back to you when you’re older and they are prosperous and debt-free except for mortgages.
The three of them are already having loud vicious arguments about which of them the wife and I will live with when we are old coots. Not sure who will
winlose that arguments.I’m afraid to suggest that they can split the wife and I up. Mostly because I bet they won’t argue about who has to take her. It will just be me that they fight over.
Suggest that for just a few dollars a day right now, they could put you into a nice home and never have to deal with you later on at all. It’s prudent financial advice!
Then spend that money on liquor.
Easy decision
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-M9AM_TvIg
Same. I keep reminding Spawn 1 how nice it will be to have me around to fix stuff, take care of the cars and kids, and just generally be a helpful dude.
While he’s out busting his ass to keep a roof over our heads! 🙂
Here’s a question – why are colleges so much more goddamned expensive than they were decades ago?
Well, we know so much more than we did in the olden times, it just makes sense that teaching all those additional new facts would cost more.
Simple, really.
<bad_racist>
In the old days you just had to teach white men. Do you know how much harder it is to teach women and minorities?
</bad_racist>
“Churchgoers tackle a Navy veteran mother, 31, to the ground after she walked into an Easter service holding her 10-month-old son and a gun and started ranting about the rapture
Churchgoers tackled a Navy veteran to the ground after she walked into an Easter service holding a gun and her baby son, and threatened to blow the building up.
Anna Conkey stormed into the Tsidkenu Church in the Clairemont area of San Diego on Sunday while waving the handgun around, police say.
The 31-year-old then walked onto the stage and started talking about the rapture while grasping the 10-month-old boy.
Terrified onlookers bravely stepped in and tackled Conkey to the ground before officers arrived on the scene to arrest her.
Conkey, who also worked as a journalist for NBC 7 San Diego, has ranted in YouTube videos and on Facebook posts that Jesus is a ‘liar’ and the Bible is a ‘trap’.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6946825/Churchgoers-tackle-woman-walked-San-Diego-church-GUN.html
Good for them. Glad nobody was hurt. Yeah, lucky for the baby she walked into a church instead of just pulling an Andrea Yates.
Conkey, who also worked as a journalist for NBC 7 San Diego
The solution is to ban TV “journalists”.
Not enough hot to crazy for me.
I’m on the fence.
What’s the deal with being bumped to the bottom when trying to reply to someone else’s comment?
And yet it puts the comment where I initially tried to comment? I give up.
Squirrels.
What is the deal with the Navy trying to wear camo uniforms? What was wrong with the work shirts and bell bottom dungarees that they wore when I was in (mid to late ’80s)?
They wanted to keep up with the AF in the useless we’re relevant uniform race.
“What was wrong with the work shirts and bell bottom dungarees that they wore…”
Nothing, Jimbo, absolutely nothing…
They dumped the blueberry uniform now and just wear green to camouflage them on those non-green ships
Ary you sure Baby Conkey was really a baby? Not the evil genius behind all of this?
Late onset schizophrenia is tough.
Maybe I’m old fashioned or naive, but something’s been bugging me about politics lately. When did we get to the point where stealing isn’t wrong?
It’s not stealing when the government does it.
It’s not stealing when you believe no one earns what they have, and that they certainly don’t deserve what they have.
That is the whole point of ‘you didn’t build that’.
Ever hear a con artist justify their fraud and theft? They all say the same thing – ‘If you are stupid enough to fall for it then you deserve it’.
De Blasio tries to explain daily SUV trips amid pitch for his Green New Deal
“De Blasio’s Green New Deal will fine private buildings that don’t slash emissions by 30 percent by 2030 and outlaw the new construction of “incredibly inefficient” glass and steel skyscrapers”
This is going to be interesting to watch…
Sorry Chafed missed your earlier post.
You’d think that someone like the mayor of the biggest city in the United States would have a staff of people assigned exclusively to preventing him from spouting pig ignorant shit like that in public, but you’d be wrong.
Well, there probably is a staff person for that. But, it only works if the staffer isn’t as pig ignorant as the mayor.
I mean, it’s not like there hasn’t been an entire design certification regimen dedicated to exactly this for the past quarter century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership_in_Energy_and_Environmental_Design
We can thank that program for those ridiculous “water saving” features that waste a crap load of water in bathrooms across the country.
The lavatories that stick on, the toilets that randomly flush multiple times, and flow rates like a 90 year old man with prostate problems…
My Japanese class is at a local community college’s LEED Platinum building. It’s a horrible structure beyond just the bathrooms. Terrible climate control and when the motors run to open/close vents, can’t hear the instructor. Or when the vents are open and the outside noise from the bus station next door filters in.
But… It’s green!
Yeah, nothing gets built in NYC that doesn’t already follow that stuff.
Serious journalism. Thoughtful analysis of politics and society.
Haha, just kidding. It’s Salon.
Post-Mueller report release, the only consolation is that the Russian-enabled elevation of Donald Trump to the Presidency may have finally inoculated the American electorate against ever electing another “businessman” to this country’s highest office.
The titans of the business elite that might be locked out of the Oval Office until further notice, like Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg, have only themselves to blame. They failed to effectively police their own, which permitted the ‘Don from Queens’ to rise to power ‘by any means necessary.’
———
Up until Trump’s election, we were infected with this notion that the ability to accumulate vast wealth was a virtuous interplay of innovation, hard work, and discipline. Trump knew this about us. He framed his wealth as self-made, despite what the New York Times subsequently documented was the systematic criminal tax evasion perpetrated by Trump’s father Fred that was its foundation.
The disclosures about Trump’s ill-gotten fortune built on tax evasion and the misery of others including undocumented immigrants and gullible Trump University enrollees, is only part of a swelling tide of disclosures about the seamy side of great wealth and power.
Over the last several years powerful elite institutions, ranging from the Catholic Church to Wells Fargo, have been revealed to be plagued by a kind of corporate corruption that’s so systemic it is near impossible to expiate. These vaunted institutions come clean on one hideous scandal, and they are back in the glare doing damage control about another freshly disclosed breach of the public trust.
Post-Great Recession, as an unpunished Wall Street wipes its lips of the crumbs left from the $20 trillion of American household wealth it devoured, there is a growing consciousness among voters that the fix has been in for a very long time in America’s politics.
Blah blah blah rich people suck. Kkkapitalism is theft.
Oh, I am looking forward to the author’s salty ham tears during Trump’s second inauguration.
Same here. I am also popping up corn waiting to see just how far this insanity will go. Will they start giving spittle flecked, Alex Jones style rants about cannibalism and lizard people?
I see the goodthinking billionaires get a pass. Ell-oh-ell.
But enough about governments…
The stupid. It burns.
First off, how are Palestinians not white? Second of all, is the Times saying that Jews are Palestinians?
Not reading that, but I’ll assume we’re ignoring that the name was Judea until the Romans decided they hated (((us))) around 70 AD, kicked us out and destroyed the temple?
Romane itte domum!
Re-write that 100 times!
The NYT will publish any garbage as long as it doesn’t align with a conservative viewpoint.
If you care what color Jesus was you’ve missed the point anyway.
Jesus was probably olive-skinned like most people in the Mediterranean at the time.
There, nobody’s happy.
“How do you feel about the possibility that Christ may not have looked the way he has been portrayed for centuries in the United States and Europe?”
If you’ve studied art for longer than 10 minutes, you’d know that religious paintings and icons were often used to instruct the illiterate peasants, and were painted so that those peasants could relate to the subject. Light-skinned peasants in Germany or Italy weren’t going to relate to a dark-skinned Jesus, even though that would be more accurate. Artists in the Renaissance would be exposed to people from the middle east through trade would know that they had darker skin and hair. They would spend years studying anatomy but not realize that people from different regions have a different appearance?
I can’t believe people are still bringing up this dreck.
Whoa, you mean the historical Yeshua looked like an ay-rab? No way, dude.
Actually Ay-rabs and Turkish people look distinctly different, at least to me.
+ 1 Chinese Jesus
I imagine you could stuff everything the NYT staff ‘knows’ up a mosquito’s ass and the mosquito would fly away with no discomfort whatsoever.
I’m stealing that
I got that one from my grandfather. He had a million of them. Another favorite “That (wood, metal, rock, whatever material) is harder than a preacher’s dick at a wedding”
Now that I think about it I remember the first time I heard that one. I was about ten and trying to build a deer stand. I had cut some small trees and half-assed hewed them into short planks. I was going to nail them to a tree as rungs up to my small platform. The tree with the best overview of a fresh cutover was a beech. My grandfather came along to check on me.
“What are you doing?”
Me – “Nailing these to the tree as a ladder”
“That’s a beech. Have you ever driven a nail in a beech tree before”
Me – “No”
“You have to dip the nails in oil. That beech is harder than a preacher’s dick at a wedding. They will just bend over faster than the new bride.”
I miss that guy.
Worse, is the Times saying that there were Palestinians in the Holy Land 2,000 years ago? There was no such thing as a “Palestinian” of any kind until 70 years ago, when Jordan got booted out and the Jordanians living there decided to rebrand themselves in hopes of getting a shithole of their own to rule over.
Oh Kevin – what is you doing?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/22/no-weld-cant-beat-trump-hes-only-way-real-conservatives-can-dissent/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2a7d72f197d6
(read the whole piece on my phone from this link https://twitter.com/JonahNRO/status/1120298722116681728 but seems to be messier on my laptop.)
Huh.
Even if true this means what exactly?
“And yeah if you see absolutely nothing weird about multiple big accounts suddenly using a heretofore unknown term for Christians in a Church for Easter that happens to not include the word “Christians” they maybe you should look for crazy inwardly, not outwardly.
I also hate the binary choice between “nothing to see here” and “triggered snowflake baby crying.” I’m not outraged at the use of the term. I’m annoyed at the inability to admit why it is done. Not everything has to have only 2 diametrically opposite choice.”
https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/1120289802862125056
Meh. It really is a nothingburger.
https://twitter.com/CathyYoung63/status/1120131312269111296
The most notable thing about this otherwise nothingburger was the weirdly uniform verbiage from all the progressive high priests as it there is some central bureau of messaging that issues all of their talking points.
*if, not it
Exactly. Is anything they say genuine? At least you know Trump’s mealy-mouthed rants are his.
It’s not a binary choice between “nothingburger” and “conservative PC snowflakery outrage”. Granted, pointing out that the Left coordinates its use of language to avoid contradicting their narrative isn’t something new or some profound observation. They do it all the time. However, trying to pretend that this isn’t another example of exactly that is at best intellectually dishonest and at worst dumbass bigotry.
Also, references to Notre-Dame being closed on Easter, and describing the religion of the people who were murdered in Sri Lanka are two different things.
The PC faction as usual protects Islam at all costs. In this sense, it’s indeed a nothingburger.
I’m kind of in the same camp for different reasons. Every one of the “Easter worshipers” talkers had no qualms noting the religion of the victims in New Zealand. They sure as hell weren’t referring to them as “mosque worshipers”. And to do so would have been wrong. But, why not show a little consistency?
I read it more as most English speakers would know that those going to church on Easter were Christians and that noting that coordinated attacks were happening on one of the biggest of the Christian high holy days would have more impact in the verbal economy of a headline than “Christians celebrating Easter in churches”.
On those hot take tweets:
New Zealand attack: Religious identity of victims called out. Ethnic identity of attacker called out. Motivation of attacker (wrongly) called out.
Easter attacks: Religious identity of victims not called out. Ethnic/religious identity of attacker not called out. Motivation of attacker not called out.
None of this is an accident. Its coordinated, and for a reason.
Mild disagreement: Easter attacks targeted more than just churches so it appears, on first take, that it was an assault broader in nature than just Christians.
Identity of attacker: NZ gunman was apprehended so his ethnicity was immediately known. In SL, no one has yet claimed responsibility so, while there is reasonable suspicion as to who did this, it is not yet definite.
They’ve arrested 24 Sri Lankans from a small, local jihadi group.
Round up the usual suspects?
We were one of the countries that warned them this was coming over a week ago. They got help from outside the country.
OK, thanks. I checked this afternoon and, at that time, they were just saying likely done by that group but no arrests at that time.
Snark aside, outside support or full outside group was my guess. Didn’t seem like a Tamil effort. Christian minorities wouldn’t be their sort of target. I’m kinda surprised that no Islamist group has claimed credit for it as a revenge for NZ.
Apparently, a number of people from this group went to Syria and Iraq to train with ISIS.
I dunno. The first I heard about it was from an Indian Christian who was more concerned that the Indian press was aggressively pushing the Islamic terror aspect of it in order to buff Modhi in the elections.
The second I heard of it was people upset about “Easter Worshipers” which I guess could be considered not to identify the religious identity of the victims, but it seems like a tempest in a teakettle to claim that the reader would not walk away from that knowing Christians had been the target.
Preferred term is Christmas and Easter Christians?
Florida Bunny?
Alright which one of you took a break from your furry convention to join this beat down?
Bunny Rabbits in the streets out of control. It’s all right there in the book of revelation. End times upon us.
Didn’t read the links, eh?
I actually did, just missed the bonus at the bottom
Lol!
“Having a gun in New Jersey could soon cost 20 times as much: Gov. Philip Murphy’s proposed fees — $550 to own and carry a gun, up from $27 — would be among the highest in the U.S.”
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1120380524466405383
Democrats, party of the working class.
Lights Neil Gorsuch devotional candle.
*Roberts blows out devotional candle*
What a cuck. And Kav is not impressing yet, as he appears to aspire to be SCOTUS cuck jr.
Dependence on the judiciary to rule our way always struck me as the TOP MEN-est of all TOP MEN arguments.
So a $25 driver’s license fee is tantamount to ending suffrage for blacks and Hispanics, but tacking on hundreds of dollars for a different Constitutional right is A-OK. Got it.
I’ve not read the bill so I’m not sure what this applies to.
NJ has various IDs for long guns and individual permits for purchase of handguns.
If this applies to actual carry permits it is pure social signaling. In NJ to us mere citizens they issue a number of carry permits that approaches zero.
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2019/03/13/phil-murphy-wants-new-nj-taxes-and-fees-guns-and-ammunition-nj-gun-tax/3104564002/
Various fees are proposed to go up.
Glad you are here. I read this earlier and wanted your opinion of the guy’s conclusions.
How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer
Thanks!
The $100 ID card is mostly one time. The $50/pistol is a nice FU, but likely low enough that it’s unlikely to trigger any additional constitutional issues that NJ hasn’t already faced for its ridiculous firearm laws.
NJ is a shithole. It is known.
I was born and raised there. I happily escaped to a free state.
Late addendum to the Dragon Crew Capsule article. It appears the anomaly occurred during static engine testing when the thing was bolted to a test stand. Doesn’t appear that the DCC blew up. Also, they have at least two DCC vehicles ready for testing. So, a setback but not a disaster. Thanks again to Sensei for the perspective on this.
Glad to help!
“Leaked documents show that McDonald’s is adding international hits to its American menu, including a Spanish McExtreme Bacon Burger and a Dutch Stroopwafel McFlurry”
https://twitter.com/businessinsider/status/1120361743438569472
WTF??
Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger with McBacon sauce, bacon, gouda cheese, and onions
I’m good with that.
Stroopwafel sounds like a Nazi tank division.
You know who else hated ethnic foods because he considered them a cultural invasion?
UCS?
That’s the answer to “You know who else hated?”
A delicious, syrupy, crunchy Nazi tank division.
Dutch sounds like a Canadian version of German.
Dutch sounds like a Canadian version of German.
Frisian even more so. One of my more uncanny experiences was wandering into a bar in Friesland after having been in France for several weeks (and in several French bars). The background murmur in a Frisian bar is incredibly familiar to English-speaking ears, whereas a French bar “feels” foreign simply because the cadence and tempo of the background convos feel all wrong.
Frisian is the closest “relative” of English.
Even Dutch is closer than, say, German. One day living in Germany I came across a Dutch radio station. Mostly incomprehensible to me but amidst a lot of the gargling I heard perfectly clear “English” words. That doesn’t happen much in German.
An amphibious tank division. With sails, and big silly hats.
Huh. I might actually set foot in a McDonalds again. There is nothing wrong with them now, just not my taste.
This I might try.
The Stroopwaffel McFlurry is a great idea.
I dare you to ask for one of those in a leather bar in Berlin.
You’re getting Jesse all hot and bothered….
stroop is pronounced like the stuff Creosote Achilles plays with.
Now I’m wondering how I never went to a leather bar in Berlin.
Speaking of religion, and dogma, and angels, and Armageddon, and suchlike flimflam-
I watched The Prophesy last night. I don’t as a rule care for supernatural scary stories, but I liked it. There’s some good sly dark humor in it. Like when Gabriel (Christopher Walken) says- after the guy kills his “zombie”- “Do you know how hard it is to get one of those?”
Walken is a genius at delivering dark humor.
Once I got past the angel with a Brooklyn accent thing, I enjoyed it.
Viggo was pretty good as The Devil as well.
Also- Walken calls people “talking monkeys” throughout the movie. He’s pissed because You-Know-Who gave them souls and said they could come to Heaven.
Does he call them irredeemable, or deplorables?
Not to be outdone by SpaceX, Tesla gets in on the self-destruction.
Boom.
You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!
Needs better engineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq2rzUMfjf4
God, I hope that’s real.
Any of y’all use one of the Mattress-in-a-box type mattresses (Purple/Casper/Leesa/et al)? Need a new mattress, really don’t feel like dealing with mattress stores.
BF brought a Casper with him when he moved in. He doesn’t think it’s soft enough, I think it’s obnoxiously soft. The mattress itself seems decently made.
I have no idea what your budget is, but the Tempur-Pedic “Cloud” we bought about ten years ago was the best damn sleep investment we ever made. Spousal unit’s “carpal tunnel syndrome” went away within days, which is how the physio finally figured out that what had really happened was that she had compressed the nerves in her brachial plexus (she’s a side sleeper) to the point where the damage mimicked carpal tunnel. Fortunately, it was reversible.
We’d had memory-foam toppers on the previous mattress, which didn’t do diddly for us.
We have a natural latex foam mattress that’s the bomb. We bought it from Room & Board, but the mattresses are made locally.
Expensive, but totally worth it.
Someone here recommended “Helix” a while back. I only briefly looked into it; but I need something. I am tired of waking up with back pain.
Stop aging. Duh.
I looked into that, but it was even more expensive than a new mattress.
You don’t have a picture in the attic doing your aging for you?
I wish.
The voodoo redirected at the guy unknowingly squatting in his attic and now he can’t get rid of the smell.
Since the Tempur-Pedic, no more back pain for me, either. They really are kinda miraculous. Of course, you have to pay for the miracle . . .
Saw a commercial for their “Breeze” – wannnnnt
Doooooooooo it.
I don’t have $4,499 to spennnnnnnnnnd
? our Tempur-pedic.
Why would anyone buy a matress? There’s usually one out by the dumpster, or you can just make one with a tarp, stapler, and lawn clippings.
The most comfortable bed I’ve ever owned, hands down, was a waveless waterbed. When we had to get rid of it we went shopping.
Bed #1 I was unable to sleep on. $3k. We traded it for bed number 2 with a $1k bump. Still no good. The final compromise was a Sleep Number bed for an additional $5k. It is tolerable but $8k later I still miss my waterbed.
?
I think I paid around 200 bucks for my current ten-year-old mattress. Never occurred to me that spending thousands might help.
Probably covered while I was snoozing. Still worth a look at WaPo spin.
https://mobile.twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1120394483445710848
Yes yes, only the right wing gets upset when Islamists bomb churches on Easter. I assume that means the liberals and centrists are okay with it?
Right wing extremist = not a marxist lying shitweasel
The comments are good. Amazing how unaware they are. A million people spit on them and they just double down. I guess it’s the Obama ‘everyone is wrong but me’ mentality. Dunning-Kreuger in spades.
Goddamn that’s a bad tweet and I’d imagine it’s just as bad an article. The WaPo is so odious it almost makes me ashamed of shopping at Amazon.
Really? You get attacked and your family killed because of your religion and that makes you mad? Why can’t you think about how important multiculturalism is? You betters think about it. What is wrong with you, bigot?
Font nerds rejoice! Democratic candidates’ font choices critiqued and analyzed.
“The flat color field is arresting, even if it makes the candidate look like a flight attendant on Tulsi Airlines.”
Yeah, some decent mild snark in there for a Bern-victim.
Bernie’s motto is “Not me. Us.” Blecht.
It’s a typo.
He meant “Not me. You.”
I like Avenir so I guess it’s either Amy! or Andrew! for me.
First!
Well, in a proggy world where everyone gets a trophy, why not?
*shrugs*
Just finished Amazon’s The Tick S2E8. They crushed it this season. I can’t wait to see how it ends.
What’s you opinion of the Patrick Warburton version of the live action show? That was my introduction to the Tick. It’s campy silliness put me off liking the broodiness of the Amazon version.
It strayed from the original voice of the animated version. It was cute – Seinfeldesque even, but not nearly as good or as fun as the Amazon reboot.
Watch the cartoon instead. Most episodes are on YouTube. The first live action version sucked. The current version was ok in season 1, but season 2 is excellent.
+1 Lobstercules
+1 Lob-ster-cu-lees not Lobster-cules