Sorry, guy. You get a lump of coal.
Two days left till Christmas! I hope many of you are taking the whole week off. I know I won’t be. There’s literal work to get done as well as continuing to unpack and move stuff from the old house to the new one. Not to mention, I have a shitload of shit to build for Santa tomorrow night. But that’s the way it goes. I’m not complaining. I’ll leave that to Cleveland Browns fans. And complain they will. The way the end of the second quarter was coached yesterday would leave any fan sick to their stomach. Texans fans are happy. As are Pats, 49ers, Falcons, Ravens, Saints, Colts, Dolphins (and Bengals, in a way), Jets, Giants, Raiders, Eagles (at the expense of the Cowboys, who should have fired their coach at the airport), Cardinals and Chiefs.
Across the pond, the misery of ManUre fans continues apace. Everton made a splash with a massive managerial hire…then played a snoozefest of a draw. Spuds lost to Chelski in humiliating fashion and some of their loser fans topped it off with racist monkey chants. Man City topped Liecester. And Liverpool won the Club World Cup. And Ohio State beat Kentucky in Vegas in basketball in a rather exciting game.
“Fifty bucks the Harbaugh kid picks his nose.”
Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith was born on this day. As were cosmetics magnate and first female African-American millionaire Madam CJ Walker, hard-of-hearing VP candidate James Stockdale, bowling legend Dick Weber, Japanese emperor Akihito, “The Golden boy” Paul Hornung, voice actor Harry Shearer, douchy general Wesley Clark, ageless daytime actress Susan Lucci, King Crimson’s Adrian Belew, enormous douche Bill Kristol, Iron Maiden’s Dave Murray, underachiever Jim Harbaugh, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, and legendary actor Corey Haim.
That’s quite a list. But we have to move on to…the links!
It’s a beautiful day…
Bill Cosby’s publicist is all out of fucks to give. Dude needs to have a pudding pop and relax.
Gee, this is a real surprise. Despots gonna despot.
Not an ideal place to park.
This is part of the reason why I’m glad I left Virginia (twice). I’m just surprised it happened east of Richmond. This usually goes down west of Charlottesville.
Chicagoans want 2019 to go out with a bang. And they’re succeeding, sadly.
Christ, what an asshole. I can’t see ever doing something like this.
As the impeachment circus continues, Trump continues to remake the Judiciary. Nice job on the rules change, Dirty Harry. You should have listened to Cocaine Mitch.
Remember that cop in Fort Worth who shot a woman inside her home recently? He was just charged with murder. Which continues Texas’s streak of doing the right thing in these situations.
I’ll do a couple birthday songs today. Here’s the first one. And here’s the second. Sorry, Eddie, but you lost this argument. It’s still a catchy song.
And with that, I bid you good day. Make it a great one, friends!
I’m working. No rest for the wicked..
I’m at work it’s not the same thing.
I’m working from home, does that count?
Now I need to clean up a bunch of shit the tier 1 guy taking time off dumped into my queue.
How are you feeling about this coming Saturday? I’m more nervous about that than Christmas.
The OSU game? My dad’s the big fan there. I’ll pop in to watch it once in a while, but I don’t really follow college sports (not really going to college probably has a lot to do with that). There are rumors flying all around Cleveland now that the Browns may be replacing Kitchens with Urban Meyer though.
“I’m at work”
Its like going to school, has nothing to do with getting an education
They tried to make me learn but I was too smart for them
I’m doing a half day today and Thursday. And I’m at work but not really present. *watches clock*
Duncan Ferguson ends his tenure undefeated (I don’t count PKs). It was a poor match Saturday, but a tired, injured team still played good D.
Both new managers were in the stands. Big Dunc gets a promotion to assistant manager from cones guy, and may be the manager-in-waiting now, getting to train for (hopefully) 4.5 years under one of the best.
I’m still completely shocked they were able to pull this hire off without a bigger club stealing Ancelotti before it got done.
He’s got a tall order getting them to the top 6, but it’s still doable.
Top 6 in 2021? Nah, there is a good base of talent on this team, and he wouldn’t have signed on without the promise of money in Jan and summer.
There is no top 6 this year. Only route to Europe is FA Cup.
They’re 8 points out of sixth. It’s doable if they can beat everybody they’re supposed to beat.
8 pts and 9 positions.
Someone else would have a good run too.
But you are correct as 5-17 are all the exact same team.
Their next six league fixtures are Burnley, Newcastle, Man City, Brighton, West Ham, and Newcastle.
They get 12-13 points from that, they could be top 6 by the end of January.
12-13 from 5* matches. I doubt it.
But, yes, you would be correct, if that happened. I think more like 8 pts and safety at mid table.
*Ignoring Man City.
They have Newcastle twice in that stretch.
Newcastle is in 9th. There is no reason to think we will dominate them. 4 pts would be a good result.
Which jives with my math. They beat the other three lower-level teams, take 4 from Newcastle and lose to MCFC. Boom, top 6.
The important thing is to have a good team in time for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VWlcUPqCT0#action=share
I was thinking 4-6 from the other 3.
Question: will they still be able to hear all the cheers from Anfield that far away?
I doubt it, but they will still be playing in Everton’s hand-me-down stadium.
It is funny that Everton will be close to downtown Liverpool while Liverpool will still be in the Everton neighborhood.
In Liverpool’s defense, it’d be dangerous moving all those trophies to a new location. Better to let Everton move that bare cupboard.
😛
He must be delighted to be away from that dumpster fire in Napoli.
Both Eddie Murphy’s bit and the publicists reply are comedy gold.
Worst pileup I have ever seen was a 100+ car pileup on 1-75 just north of Chattanooga. Early 90s, IIRC. Foggy morning commute, they just kept running into the pile unseen. The only people who died were people who got our of their cars.
I just missed one of those Tennessee fog pile ups years ago. Half an hour after I passed through I started hearing news reports of the massive pile up with injuries. Those fogs are no joke.
69 car pile up? so they both got rear ended?
Wouldn’t it be more like all of them jackknifing into each other?
Probably both Ford Probes
There’s a Cummins engine joke in here somewhere I need to make but can’t think of.
Focus.
Some people like injection, but these people prefer to be blown.
Or Powerstroke diesel?
Even better.
Only if paired with a Siemens joke.
*gaze, narrowed, 1 each*
The puns really got ya turned around, eh?
He’s gonna go crossed eyed.
I guess you could say he… only had eyes for her.
Now the coroner is tasked with getting the red out.
The family flew in on the redeye.
*narrows gaze*
Did you just use Visine?
*glares balefully*
“The executor of this aggressive push is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is almost singularly focused on reshaping the federal judiciary, twice ramming through Senate rule changes to speed up confirmations over Democrats’ objections.”
See it’s all cocaine Mitch’s doing. No Democrat would stoop to this.
He changed the rule for the SC, stating Reid’s precedent.
So of course it’s all Cocaine’s doing according to the media.
It’s his fault that Reid changed the rules.
But seriously that is probably a big reason he pushes judges through. He promised that the Democrats would regret making the rules changes and so now he is following through.
Good. When the other side refuses to abide by the gentleman’s rules you have two choices. It is nice to see a Republican taking the “Ok, the gloves are off now choice” as opposed to the “bend over and take it” choice they love so much.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Too bad they can’t bring it up to themselves on the UNHRC. We’ll have to depend on Venezuela.
The only problem with what McConnell is doing is that things will turn, the Ds will have power again, and there is no going back.
Reid could end up winning in the long run.
He could change the rules back during a lame duck session before Dems take over, as a giant “fuck you”. And knowing him, he will.
Honestly, with the way Dems are lurching toward socialism, I don’t see them winning control of the Senate any time soon. They’re going too far for voters in many states to stomach.
They are only two states shy right now. And remember that they held the last supermajority in the Senate while being the party most linked to communism.
They’ve lurched waaaaaaay left since the 2018 election. Plus they’re not holding that Bama seat, so they can forget that.
That’s not true they have been this far left since 2016. Mind you 2018 say the election of AOC over the minority whip.
I don’t know, man. They’re talking about reparations for people held at the border, free college for everybody, blanket student loan forgiveness, charging fossil fuel execs with climate crimes, etc.
Sure, you had the odd local Dem pol calling for that in 2016. But this is becoming their national platform now.
I think they will get a big defeat sometime soon and the far left will get booted out. And then things will swing back to the Ds, only with a more centrist approach.
They just have to find their next Bill Clinton.
Maybe they could fly to Epstein’s island and look in the underage cat house.
They were going to do that anyways…
Yeah. If it can be done, they’ll do it. Queensberry rules are over.
I don’t know. Reids was a tacit admission that the Dems will not hold punches or options off the table. The ratchet would have kept going because the Dems would have demanded every judge be center left. McConnell is just playing the game with that knowledge.
“Remember that cop in Fort Worth who shot a woman inside her home recently? He was just charged with murder. Which continues Texas’s streak of doing the right thing in these situations.”
Texas prosecutors keep this up and FOP will be forced to pull out of the state. Then what will the people do?!?
Stop getting shot?
A couple of years back, the cops were responsible for 25% of all gun deaths in Los Angeles. There was close 200 and 50 were killed by cops.
Gotta pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers in this racket.
-Chicago FOP spokesman
Iron Woke Maiden.
‘The white man came’.
Yet funny, if it’s so bad what whitey did, why do they stay?
Tricknology?
Blah blah blah
Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has called for witnesses, including former national security adviser John Bolton and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, to testify.
Okay, Chuckie, but if you get to call witnesses, how do you and the rest of the kangaroos justify your refusal to let Trump call witnesses?
That was the House, he totally would have let Trump call witnesses if it had been him running things.
Why do you keep going on about process? This is not a real trial, he doesn’t have those rights. Now why won’t the Senate be impartial jurists kind they are supposed to be?
The House gets to tell the Senate what to do now? So much for “constitutional norms”
My mistake I was thinking of Pelosi
Schumer also said, intelligently, that Senators need to shut up and stop prejudging the case before it’s presented to them. I was shocked.
Also, I noticed that RBG said anybody who has prejudged the case should recuse themselves. Which would, in my opinion, mean anybody not presuming him innocent before the trial should sit it out. Of course the media claims it means people who say he’s innocent until guilty should sit it out and let the Dems run the trial.
I know Warren said she’d vote to convict back in October. What have Bernie, Harris, Booker, and Klondike Bar said?
That was Durbin…which made me laugh. That hack would do the proverbial pull his pants down and sit on a block of ice if the Party told him to.
My bad. It was Turban Durbin. For some reason I get those two cretins confused.
Durbin is the one that just sat there and got shoved aside for leadership, seniority be damned…he is a spineless, jellyfish with his own party.
He’s bluffing because he Graham won’t call witnesses – because for real witnesses like the Ukrainian Prosecutor would testify that Graham was in on the giant grift.
30 Years Later, 3 Lessons From The Fall Of Romanian Communism
We need Pie’s take.
How about AOC or Bernie?
Not Muh Real Communism!!!
Pie’s take on what?
We need you to make a chart.
We’d like your take on our take on your country’s former government, how much clearer could I be?
Gee, asking someone in a former Communist country if Communism was bad? I wonder what he will say….?
I meant that it seemed a little presumptuous for an American charity tourist to deliver insights on the legacy of communism in a country she didn’t visit until nearly 10 years after Ceausescu was shown the door.
Certainly….but this you ask of Pie?
you’d be surprised
there is nothing new in there it is pretty boilerplate stuff about communism
Are you for or against?
Hey he doesn’t get to pick! We get assigned our sides in the debate and no way am I taking the pro Commie side against … Oh wait different thing. Carry on.
38 shot – 5 fatally – in Chicago weekend shootings
Time to ban weekends. TGIM? Seriously, this headline has been around in similar forms for years. Are they not even trying to address the problem?
The problem got 5 smaller this weekend.
Okay, pretend I didnt just write that.
I’d give you one if it involved Subway and bleach.
I was going to write the same thing, robc. Then I realized the vote count will remain the same.
I laughed.
It is almost all in Englewood or similar neighborhoods. The beautiful people on the Gold Coast aren’t getting shot…
I blame gentrification and/ or white flight and, off course, cspiyalism, inequality, lack of common sense gun control and in the end ((()))
You forgot to blame Indiana.
That is a sub-part of the gun control argument, yes?
Why limit the Indiana blame to just that?
Yeah, they’re just paying all the taxes to have cops get rid of what they probably consider “undesirables”.
I mean, it’s not as if they’re in the streets protesting police brutality with their brothers and sisters across the city who are being brutalized. They don’t seem to give a shit.
The minute some “youths” got out of control on the yuppie/hipster beaches and on Michigan Avenue – the CPD was out in force (and the ride to the stationhouse was most unpleasant).
My aunt and uncle live in Chicago and almost never get shot.
Dean was arrested and charged with murder in the shooting death of Jefferson in October, hours after he resigned.
Did he resign shortly before being arrested or shortly before shooting this lady? Journalism has gone down the crapper.
I don’t know…they included this bit of extremely relevant info:
So back in my Romanian language post I told you how the word pula is equally versatile and in use as the word fuck in English. Now a local sage has compiled a more extensive list of usage for the english speakig peoples, and i share it with you. You may replace the word penis with dick, cock, schlong ot what have you. You too may find a new expression to use in your daily speach
https://utopiabalcanica.net/2019/12/05/20-ingenious-ways-to-use-pla-in-the-romanian-language/
News we can use.
Pula mea!
“replace the word penis with dick, cock, schlong ot what have you”
“…here’s a little number I tossed off recently in the Caribbean”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9PiqCeLEmM
So let me get this straight? The Romanian word for a dick sounds like pull a? Yet the English are the wankers?
I thought Pula was just a nice town on the Adriatic with a Roman arena.
I heard the 69 car pileup all had the same insurance and it’s yours.
Are they not even trying to address the problem?
Does shifting the blame count?
Canuck Barbie wants your guns
“The group PolySeSouvient, a leading voice for gun control, is pushing for a truly national handgun ban, arguing local ones are generally ineffective, as what it calls the “disastrous patchwork of local and state laws” in the United States demonstrates.
Local bans would also have to overcome “enormous obstacles,” including provincial governments ideologically opposed to gun control and an array of legal and jurisdictional complexities, the group recently warned in a letter to Public Safety Minister Bill Blair.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has already signaled opposition to banning handguns despite support for the idea from Toronto Mayor John Tory.”
Trudeau is warning provinces that resistance is futile, issuing a vague promise to use “other tools” to empower cities to ban handguns if their provincial governments object.
The federal government’s preference is to hand some powers over firearms to the provinces, which would in turn allow for municipal regulation, Trudeau said.
“In some situations, we may have a province that is unwilling to do that despite the willingness of a city or cities to do that,” he said. “At which point, I have been assured, there are other tools we can use that wouldn’t be as ideal, because it would involve disagreements with the provinces at a time where we want to be collaborative.”
In addition to the local handgun bans, Trudeau says his government is still committed to a nationwide ban on semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and pistols arbitrarily defined as “assault weapons.”
They promise to move quickly on a commitment to outlaw assault-style firearms, including the popular AR-15, saying guns designed to inflict mass casualties have no place in Canada. Owners of legally purchased firearms that fall under the ban will be offered fair-market prices through a buyback program.
The prime minister played down the notion his government’s minority status affords little time to usher in tighter gun control.
“Our primary concern is getting it right,” he said. “But even in a minority situation we’ve seen that there is a very clear consensus from three of the parties in the House — us, the NDP and the Bloc — that moving forward on much stronger gun control is a priority.”
pushing for a truly national handgun ban, arguing local ones are generally ineffective
Wth kind of arguing is that? It’s an admission of ineffectiveness.
We should be socializing handguns. Then the guns will truly be ineffective.
Now hang on here. I might be persuadable on this point:
“the militia shall consist of every able-bodied citizen between eighteen and forty-five”.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
following the reasoning in Gideon v Wainwright:
The right of an indigent defendant in a criminal trial to have the assistance of counsel is a fundamental right essential to a fair trial, and petitioner’s trial and conviction without the assistance of counsel violated the Fourteenth Amendment
The right of an indigent citizen to be equipped to fulfill his responsibilities as a Member of the militia is a fundamental right essential to a representative Republic. The existence of large stockpiles of functional but disused weapons ameliorating the costs of this decision, the various arsenals, storehouses and armories of these United States are hereby directed to issue one long gin and one pistol to each citizen upon their attainment of 18 years of age.
hereby directed to issue one long gin
Perhaps the Glibbest of typos.
Not sure I want to tack a positive right onto a negative right, though.
I’d push for the issuance until the compromise position is the removal of restrictions.
Why not? It works for the Swiss.
Don’t the Swiss also have mandatory military service, and you get to keep your service rifle at home when you roll into the reserve (or whatever they call it)?
The transmutation of rights from negative rights to positive rights is one of the most corrosive processes that have contributed to our current overtaxed, over-governed situation. I’m opposed in principle.
I was being glib, But a free Sig 550 is a free Sig 550.
I phrased it in terms of rights, but membership in the militia is a duty. Is it wrong for the society that benefits from the duty to pick up part of the tab?
one long gin and one pistol
I like the cut of your glib.
This is why the slew of new local laws — like the ones in Virginia — are infuriating. No one even thinks they work. The purpose is to punish and harass rural conservatives.
“In some situations, we may have a province that is unwilling to do that despite the willingness of a city or cities to do that,”
Yes, urban centers should decide how people on the other 95% of the land should live!
-Democrats
Not just that but that they should decide how everyone else in the country lives.
Makes me think about the calls for proportional voting systems. Their advocates always forget to mention that in a proportionally allocated government no one has a constituency.
I wonder what the makeup of our federal government would be if we had proportional voting. My guess is we’d have a handful of parties lobbying each other to form a coalition government.
I have thought eliminating districts and having proportional voting, or, at least, single transferable voting, in each state would be interesting.
Small states wouldn’t change anything or much. States like CA would have lots of interesting stuff, as you would need less than 2% support to guarantee yourself a seat.
KY, for example, would still require 16%.
Congressional black caucus would probably stay about the same, only without the need to create crazy gerrymandered districts.
By “stuff” you mean “rules that somehow ensure only Democrats end up on the final ballot”, right?
“Yes, urban centers should decide how people on the other 95% of the land should live!”
Show that Yukon Grizzly your badge! Show him your badge!
https://imgur.com/gallery/pd6FK
Classic
I see a great future for the NoDaks replacing Indiana as the go to place when Canada really, really gets woke. Unless, unless, Trudeau draws a line in the sand at the border.
Wouldn’t that be a line in the snow?
I blame gentrification and/ or white flight and, off course, cspiyalism, inequality, lack of common sense gun control and in the end ((()))
You should be writing for “Scientific” “American”.
A Third of America’s Economy Is Concentrated in Just 31 Counties
Top 1% of counties or population? Those things are not the same
Have they removed government spending from GDP?
Wait…32.3% of GDP from 26.1% of employed population. That is more equal than even I would have guessed.
And by an amazing coincidence, a third of America’s income taxes are concentrated in just 31 counties.
Income is going to be geographicaly concentrated because of the economies of scale.
I’m upset because two of those are DC counties and New York. NYC is still one of the biggest import ports but it’s also the banking heart and the Fed is steeped in enriching the banks.
So, now they have sympathy for the poor people in rural places. Not so much when those people vote and the electoral college system produces an election result they don’t like.
It’s almost as if the huge government subsidies given to old white farmers is having a negative effect on the economy of rural America.
Because some of you have an obsession with hating on dark matter, Bob Murphy has done an interview with a scientist on the matter.
Enjoy
https://www.bobmurphyshow.com/episodes/ep-87-dr-sabine-hossenfelder-discusses-the-pros-and-cons-of-dark-matter-in-physics-and-the-limitations-of-existing-computer-models-of-the-climate-system/
Dark Matter = the Celestial Aether of the 21st Century.
Oh but I suppose you’re just fine with white matter!
#blackmassmatters
#blackassmasters
#meagangood
Reliable source.
CNN’s Brian Stelter this morning said the polling on impeachment hasn’t changed much in part due to the “Fox News talk radio firewall.”
Stelter opened today talking about the “impeachment flat line” — how the overall trend in polls asking whether people support both impeachment and removal has gone up and down but not hugely changed.
“There’s been barely any movement throughout the hearings and the debates on the floor of the House and then to the vote. People are exactly where they were. Basically a 50/50 country,” Stelter said.
“So when you hear hype about movement and individual polls or when you hear Trump claim he’s suddenly gaining tons of support, just remember that it’s a flat line,” he continued. “One of the many reasons why is because the Fox News talk radio firewall is holding incredibly strong.”
Stelter is the absolute worst. He’s beyond dishonest
How do they explain then that support for impeachment dropped with each passing day?
Is Fox News winning the media wars?
Just 31 counties, or the top 1% by share, made up 32.3% of U.S. gross domestic product in 2018
Is this where the work is done, and wealth created, or are these merely the counties in which large business entities are domiciled and in which they file their accounting and tax reports?
It’s where all the middlemen are domiciled.
Agent Tulsi
President Donald Trump applauded Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a Democratic presidential candidate, for voting “present” on impeachment.
Trump criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for suggesting Gabbard might be a Russian plant in the 2020 Democratic presidential field.
“Then she said Tulsi Gabbard is a weapon of Russia and they lost all credibility because we know that Tulsi Gabbard — and I give her respect. She didn’t vote the other day. I give her a lot of respect because she knew it was wrong. he took a pass,” Trump said during his speech at a Turning Point USA conference on Saturday.
“I know one thing. She is not an agent of Russia. Now what they said about me three years ago — it took me two-and-a-half years of phony, horrible hits, where they hurt a lot of people. They hurt a lot of innocent people — two and a half years,” he added, referring to the Russia probe.
“I know one thing. She is not an agent of Russia. ”
She didn’t show up to the Russian agent staff meeting. That’s how he knows.
“My handler said she wasn’t one of theirs.”
/DU
Might I ask that someone do something about the sidebar? It’s making it hard to read some of the comments.
It’s more than just the sidebar that makes the comments hard to read.
I’m sure we could recommend an optomitrist.
Nah.
Aww.
*kicks at pebble, misses*
Good news, everyone! We found a guy who told us what we wanted to hear.
Paul Davis literally helped build Amazon.com from scratch. Now he says it’s time to tear it apart.
Davis, a computer programmer who was Jeff Bezos’ second hire in 1994 before the shopping site even launched, told Recode on Friday that the company should be forced to separate the Amazon Marketplace, which allows outside merchants to sell goods to Amazon customers, from the company’s core retail business that stocks and sells products itself.
His reasoning? He’s troubled by reports of Amazon squeezing and exploiting the merchants who stock its digital shelves in ways that benefit Amazon, the company, above all else. Davis’ concerns come as Bezos’ company has come under increased scrutiny from politicians, regulators, and its own sellers, in part over the power it wields over small merchants who depend on the tech giant for their livelihoods.
“There’s clearly a public good to have something that functions like the Amazon Marketplace. … If this didn’t exist, you’d want it to be built,” Davis said. “What’s not valuable, and what’s not good, is that the company that operates the marketplace is also a retailer. They have complete access to every single piece of data and can use that to shape their own retail marketplace.”
There it is, plain as the nose on your face. Amazon is destroying capitalism.
If it’s not profitable for the independent retailers they can always go another way.
I looked at it, but I wasn’t willing to give up twelve percent on every sale plus another three for credit card fees.
“There’s clearly a public good ”
Gahhhhhhhhhhhh! Go Fuck yourself, marketplaces are excludable and therefore not public goods.
Not knowing what public goods are is an easy flag to ignore anything else that person is talking about.
Amazon keeps recommending stuff that I don’t want. Make them stop!
So that pileup was about a mile from my house. I didn’t even know about it until somebody called to check on me last night.
Well…are you in the pile up or not?!
I’m posting from the bottom of the pile.
Is it light out yet?
Too foggy to tell. Help is only hours away!
I remember that movie
100 Years Ago This Week: US Packs 249 Commie Bastards on the ‘Red Ark’ (USAT Buford) and Ships them off to Mother Russia
I’d say we need to do it again, but the Russians have wised up and wouldn’t take them. I suspect that’s why the Democrats hate Russia with such a passion now.
Goldman was described as a “prolific anarchist”, whatever the fuck that means.
She was not an attractive woman. She had that “I’ll beat your arse until the blood runs down your legs” look to her.
https://libcom.org/history/emma-goldman-extended-timeline
Emma Goodman was Also one of the biggest detractors of the USSR. She went to England to give a speech to commies. It started with a standing ovation, and ended with crickets because she excoriated the USSR.
Lemme guess – “Not doing it right”
No. She was an anarchist who truly hated the state. Was she right about everything? No, but she was not some Stalinist commie.
I just think it’s funny how quickly libertarians toss out “Me Today, You Tomorrow” when it comes to tossing out ‘Communists’.
She realized what Bakunin did fifty years before her
Not at first, she supported the initial revolution, then became disillusioned.
George Orwell supported the commies too, until he saw what unrepentant assholes they were during the Spanish Civil War. People recognizing their own failings and changing their opinions is good.
Not everyone can be right, and at least she attacked the USSR rather than try to make excuses for it.
Not everyone can be right *at first.
I can.
I said “Not Everyone” not, “Nobody”
That strikes at the heart of freedom of speech. Nah, we just need to defeat those bankrupt ideas with better ideas. I mean, it’s not as if we don’t have a laundry list of failed communist regimes to point at and say “this is what this commie asshole wants!”
But, we should still keep the helicopters gassed up, as a back-up
“‘Republicans have been using the courts to achieve policy priorities that they couldn’t achieve through the democratically elected legislative branch of government,…”‘
Bitch all you want, and in some cases it’s legitimate, but the Dems were the ones who opened Pandora’s Box with the Senate rules changes. Turnabout, bitches.
‘Democrats have long been reluctant to talk about the courts in a political way, Kang said. But, with Republicans choosing judges with far-right ideologies, liberals can’t “cling to romantic notions of our courts as impartial,” he added. “That’s not the reality and not how Republicans see it.”‘
Yep, the courts totally weren’t weaponized under the previous administration to bypass any cumbersome constitutional hurdles to the delight of many a progressive.
Such progjection.
I assume Nazi Pelosi is drunk.
“We are, we have, I have… When we bring the bill, which is, just so you know, there’s a bill made in order by the Rules Committee that we can call up at any time in order to send it to the Senate and to have the provisions in it to pay for the, for the impeachment. And then the next step, and the eh, que, uh… uhl … … whatever you want to call it, the qu uh, the trial,” Pelosi answered when asked about her decision not to submit the impeachment of President Donald Trump to the Senate.
“That is where you put the managers. I was not prepared to put the managers in that bill yet because we don’t know the arena that we are in,” she added.
Reading through that Vox thing about Amazon:
Let’s say you are the impresario of a weekend flea market; one of those massive multi-acre California style flea markets. You provide the space (lease a big parking lot, and charge for booth space). Maybe you can squeeze a cut of sales. You charge admission. And you aggregate the market, to the benefit of both buyer and seller.
Wouldn’t you, in that position, make an effort to enhance the effectiveness of your marketplace by studying what sells best, in order to make more from it?
Car parts sell well? Invite more car-part-sellers. Or clothes, or whatever. You might even start picking a few things up and selling them yourself.
Is that really some sort of nefarious anticompetitive behavior, or is it just simple good business?
Amazon moves pretty seamlessly between roles as a retailer and market provider. It does everything it can to lock in sellers, then uses the data it collects from their sales to discover the best opportunities for its own products, which it then sells in competition with the sellers on its own platform. It’s basically crowd sourcing price discovery, then arbitraging the difference between the discovered price and its seller fees when it’s advantageous to do so. It’s indisputably anticompetetive. Maybe a little scummy, but not really nefarious. I can’t possibly imagine the government breaking them up over it.
The ten best selling books of the decade will make you wish that illiteracy was much higher in this country.
https://lithub.com/these-are-the-10-best-selling-books-of-the-decade/
So what you’re saying is there’s a flocking behaviour in ChickLit?
It certainly tells you who is reading books. Or at least who is reading new books, though i doubt there is much difference.
I’d love accurate data on the reading habits by various demographic indicies. It would be interesting to see.
But if there is a disparity between the number of male versus female adult readers, I’d postulate that the sorts of books taught in school are to blame. They certainly seemed to be chosen to either discourage reading all together, or merely discourage boys from reading.
Now i’m trying to think of books that I was assigned to read (rather than ones i got to choose to read) in High School.
Romeo and Juliet: It was Ok i guess.
Julius Caesar: Pretty good, as Shakespeare goes.
Phantom of the Opera: Surprisingly good for what i expected
Count of Monte Cristo: Fantastic
Huckleberry Fin: Meh
The Crucible: Also Meh
Macbeth: Not a big fan
Beowulf: Not as exciting as i wanted it to be, but still cool i guess.
Dracula: Fantastic
Importance of Being Earnest: Pretty good short story
Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde: Meh
Cant remember any more.
Sheesh, I got crap like “Johnathan Livingston Seagull”
My high school had kids self-select into “Schools” based on trade/professional interests. Since English was the only course required for all 4 years it was the only one where this choice made an affect. Like a dope i picked “Science and Engineering”, which meant there was 1 Girl in my English class. But in retrospect however that may have influenced what novels we read.
I’m trying to remember what the required titles were.
The Scarlet Letter; The Great Gatsby; Ethan Frome; The Crucible;
Still more, but they elude me.
Scarlet Letter. I forgot that one.
Animal Farm
1984
Great Expectations
On the Beach
Jane Eyre
Rebecca
Fahrenheit 451
Martian Chronicles
The Great Gatsby
are a few I remember enjoying
I remember thinking the story of the Scarlet Letter gave me headaches every time I picked it up.
Actually I’d gotten a brand new printing and the chemical fumes coming off the book were giving me the headaches. Though the story didn’t help.
Were not part of the curriculum at the school I attended.
I don’t remember what we were required to read other than Lord of the Flies.
I recall being the only kid in class that liked the book.
We had all the usual standbys too and I almost universally hated them.
The ones I remember are:
Fahrenheit 451: Excellent
Martian Chronicles: Good
Slaughterhouse Five: Excellent
Wiseblood: Good
A Tale of Two Cities: OK, would have been better if it was a hundred pages shorter
The Bluest Eye: meh
Fahrenheit 451: Good
Dandelion Wine: Good
Shakespeare: I had little appreciation for then, because my English teachers were boring
High school readings:
Beowulf
Canterbury Tales (some of them)
Paradise Lost (some)
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
Huckleberry Finn
Tale of Two Cities
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Pride and Prejudice
Death of a Salesman
J.B.
Those are the ones I can remember. Plus various American and British poetry.
We had to read TWO Toni Morrison books, The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon. So overrated.
My most hated assigned books in high school were Tess of the D’Urbervilles and McTeague. Both of them were dreadfully boring.
Tess was dreary, but I truly hated Pride and Prejudice. My mom thought it was great.
From memory:
MacBeth, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar from Shakespeare
Huckleberry Finn
Grapes of Wrath
Ethan Frome
The Good Earth
Red Badge of Courage
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
Of Mice and Men
The Great Gatsby
Zelda
Fahrenheit 451
1984
Brave New World
Frankenstein
The Scarlet Letter
Importance of Being Earnest
Waiting for Godot
and I’m sure I’m forgetting some.
I read Waiting for Godot on my own (along with many other books), which got me onto Ionesco and Alfred Jarry. I still love Pere Ubu. Then it turned out my freshman English prof was a big Ionesco fan so we had something to talk about.
TGA just needs a little smack on his ass while wearing some vinyl chaps.
“In the second decade of the twenty first century, women began to demand more accountability for sexual harassment in the work place, but also they loved reading a book about BDSM being performed on a female subordinate by a very rich and handsome man. And that is how our laws evolved to reflect this nonsensical dichotomy that it’s only sexual harassment if you are not good looking and are not obscenely rich.”
– History book from the year 2100
And that is how our laws evolved to reflect this nonsensical dichotomy that it’s only sexual harassment if you are not good looking and are not obscenely rich
Otherwise it is cool until you become old enough that you are no longer a power broker. Then everyone will come out and be brave about it. Even if being “Brave” means waiting 40 years to let countless other girls get hammered by pervs because it landed you that sweet gig. But no that the guy can’t hurt you it’s totes the epitome of brave to stand up to him.
SNL covered this well.
“In the words of that old Negro Spiritual, Free at Last, Free at Last”
Thank god almighty I haven’t read any of them.
Here, cuddle up to the reading list promoted by my kid’s new school: http://www.classicalcharter.com/current-families/students/#
… w0t?
They blocked it?
Don’t you mean “we” blocked it?
I don’t manage the proxies.
If I did… I wouldn’t be blocked.
NY Government blocking access to info about non-government schools. The guilde protects its own.
Wife has read all but two on that list.
The Help and The Fault in Our Stars
I doubt if they were released now she’d read them. Her appetite for popular smut has diminished greatly in the last year.
What I was assigned to read in High School that I can recall.
Of Mice and Men
Animal Farm
Fahrenheit 451
Romeo and Juliet
Honestly none of them really had any impact on me at the time.
Reading for me then was for entertainment, or to pass time, not enlightenment.
Women read.
Men work.
Meow.
I wonder how much Visine it would take to stop my heart. God knows I’ve been building an immunity to the stuff for twenty-five years.
*hits bowl*
Well, that depends on how it’s administered. If delivered with enough kinetic energy directly to the chest, it wouldn’t take that much visine at all.
The story reminds of somebody from my past who would make homemade, quasi-liquid alkaline from cigarettes. You know, just in case he needed to poison someone.
Not sure if the chemistry behind that would actually work or not.
Hiya Sloop!
I will be working today as well, but not late. It appears I have a full sports docket, with the Wild on at 4 vs the Flames and Vikes/Pack after that. Lucky me!
I visit this site periodically to see what’s going on in Chicago. So far this year: 2684 people shot. Keep up the good work, Chicago!
Thanks for all the work this year. I hope you and the crew have a wonderful Christmas!
But, the urban progressive will have you know that most of the city is safe. It’s just the poors that are getting shot and they make sure to segregate them far away from the effluent. After all, if they don’t drink craft beer are they even human?
Best typo ever. Bravo!
I spend all day writing typos, and never get any appreciation.
Make sure they are fart jokes and you’ll go farther.
I look at that monthly or so, as well, but yesterday was more important. Seems there was a funeral for a cute white girl* that was murdered in New York.
* Not to disparage the New York event, only to point out how one event overshadows another. We’ve come to expect Chicago stuff as routine and barely newsworthy.
I got the gist, and you’re correct. Black people get murdered on the regular here, and after the solemn tones from the talking head on the television, it’s a big smile and on to the weather and traffic. A pretty white girl dies in a violent way, and it’s the lede for a fucking week.
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
And not just that. In Chicago if there is a shooting in Lincoln Park or downtown the police flood the area like they’re giving out free donuts. The politicians give some very somber press conference about the scourge of violence and suddenly get all law and order about any slight infraction. When five kids get shot-up in Englewood they pretend like nothing happened. They’re lucky if it’s even mentioned on the news.
The local government’s disparity in policing and services is just too overwhelming to ignore.
Whoa, woah, woah. There’s no way you can call this a leadership problem. It’s not the Mayor or the commissioners or the alderman committing the murders and heists. So how can you say it’s their fault?
Solving the murder case successfully is like 16%? Hawaii 5-O and Sgt Friday got that done in an hour or so with time out for commercials. Chicago gonna have a lot of Cold Case detectives working
10.6%, actually.
This is my problem with the entire “urban renaissance” narrative that is peddled in the 21st Century: there has been no renaissance. All that is happening is that cities are using tax payer dollars to ship out and relocate the poors, while subsidizing the amenities for the rich. This is a diseased mind set that is common in northern cities.
Chicago has more violence then those other cities, because they have a shit ton more poor people, primarily because it use to be an overwhelmingly blue collar city up until the 90’s. And every time a factory closed they replaced it with tax payer subsidized condos. So whole tracts of the city have been turned into mini Detroits and the ones that they can’t pay-off to leave they isolate into these pockets and ensure that they can’t go to schools outside that area (even though they are part of the exact same tax base as neighboring communities) or even regular street repairs. This is plainly obvious to anyone who drives through Old Town, for example, and then travels to Austin, for example.
And it speaks to the inherit flaw of government, in general. Disparity is a natural by-product.
The difference is in Lincoln Park the residents complain there aren’t enough cops in their neighborhood. The residents in Englewood complain there’s too many cops in their neighborhood.
Not true. The residents of Englewood were complaining there were not enough cops in their neighborhood. That was the criticism of the last Police Superintendent.
https://abc7chicago.com/politics/chicago-violence-mccarthy-under-fire-at-city-council-/1019167/
And the gentry liberals of Lincoln Park are the first ones to white knight about over policing in communities like Englewood, while simultaneously demanding that police flood their community any time one of them gets mugged.
I’m not saying the poor are some kind of blameless victims, but they also suffer from purposeful neglect.
Add in a healthy dose of disarmament under any pretense and it almost becomes a bizarro fear-based serfdom that gets little productive output from the serfs.
I guess voting cattle is more valuable?
By three barely-teenagers.
I think that affected the news coverage.
Chafed – sorry I missed the Glibfit post last night, but to answer your questions with my own personal, and thus very valuable advice:
1) Go watch this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j4PS_8R5IE Most good gun-ownership classes crib everything from this video and the associated book. Most bad ones would be greatly improved by it.
2) Don’t think. Get a full-sized black 9mm striker-fired People Popper Pistol – A Glock, Smith and Wesson M&P, or Sig P320 to name 3 good ones I’ve shot. Don’t start out with a hammer fired pistol as your first. There is a reason the entire industry is converging on black 9mm striker-fired People Popper Pistols. M91 and P226 and CZ75s are all great pistols, but getting a DA/SA pistol as your first is just setting yourself up for an artificially difficult learning curve. If you still want one, get competent*, then decide if you still want it.
*able to hit a torso sized target 100% of the time, every time, at at a static shooting range at 10 yards.
Well, I wouldn’t rule out SA only pistols.
When I practice regularly, I can put 19 of 20 in the 10 ring at 10 yards. If I take a break and skip a month, I can only put 16 or 17 out of 20 in the ten ring.
That’s with a compact EMP-4 1911.
This recommendation is specifically for someone who is getting into pistol shooting for the first time. Remove all the “yeah buts” and complexity. Once skill is acquired there, begin introducing the complexity of SA-only, DA/SA, safety disengagement, etc.
That’s my personal MO anyway.
The discussion sent me on an extended wander through the S&W revolvers. Can’t say I’m knocked out by their website (c’mon, guys, when you say “compare”, don’t just give me the most superficial info. I want every damn thing lined up side by side). I’m now torn between a combat/home defense shotgun and a carry revolver as my next acquisition.
I vote shotgun.
I’m tempted to embrace the healing power of “and”, but I always seem to wind up with one of the more expensive models on offer, so it will probably be one at a time.
Also need to get a better handle on what we are spending on the Casa Dean next year. After this year, it shouldn’t be much, but Mrs. Dean hasn’t weighed in.
The genius of the “and” is a wonderful thing, although considering the dosh I just dropped on my new PC build, perhaps a little less genius can be brought to bear for a short while.
It’s a trick
For decades, major tobacco companies have fought against raising the age limit to buy their products from 18 to 21. But recently, some cigarette and e-cigarette giants have started lobbying for the minimum age to rise.
“Raising the purchase age to 21 reduces underage access,” a radio ad from e-cigarette giant JUUL declared. “That’s why JUUL Labs supports making 21 plus the law nationwide.”
Last week, President Trump signed a congressional spending bill that includes a new federal regulation raising the age of purchase.
But health advocates are not wholeheartedly celebrating the change. They worry it may help the companies stave off further sweeping regulations of their industry, and wonder how stringently it will be enforced.
——-
The federal age limit comes after a rapid succession of new laws at the state and local levels. At least 19 states and the District of Columbia have passed some form of 21 age limit, many in the past year and with the support of big companies.
But Glantz says he sees a familiar strategy from the industry as these laws have passed. In this and previous fights, he says tobacco companies will preemptively lobby for bills that are weak or don’t spell out effective enforcement mechanisms.
“They’ve tried to co-opt the issue and started pushing bad legislation,” he said
We should definitely institute flogging as a punishment. That’ll show everybody we mean business. And if that doesn’t work, a bullet to the back of the neck.
We should definitely institute flogging as a punishment. That’ll show everybody we mean business.
I see you have met our HR department.
Certainly, i don’t see how rhetoric of “We need to criminally charge X Corporations executives and board” could have bad effects on the economy or how businesses deal with politicians
We need to criminally charge politicians for threatening citizens with criminal charges for lawful activity.
In a completely unrelated note, Leftists are dismayed by “big money in politics” and ponder how to solve it.
I’m so glad we have Trump in office to fight the regulatory state.
Most libertarian president ever!
I’ve always said that, policy-wise, he’s basically Bill Clinton with a bad haircut and a Twitter account.
Love him or hate him, you can’t say Slick Willy is a teetotaler.
Like Donald, he’s best know for staying away from the liquor ?.
I’m pretty sure Bill Clinton eats ass.
Between his antics and being married to Hillary, I’m sure he’s had to eat a lot of shit over the years.
One thing I hate about this kind of thing is they’re going to claim increasing government penalties caused massive declines in smoking, when really it’s the other way around.
did not mean to reply to you on that, but ok.
Thank you for your service.
I no understand internets.
It’s a succinct statement on where this country is that fuckin’ Trump, of all people, is the less regulatory option for president.
The spousal unit and I are painting walls, painting and installing baseboards, moving furniture . . . somewhere in that process I have to locate a fresh turkey for Christmas dinner. We may not have a functioning dining room, but by God, she wants her turkey dinner (and days of turkey sandwiches afterwards, which sends her to her happy place).
You might just get her some of these.
She’s not after the Trypto — it’s that sweet dark meat she craves. (The pervs among us may now have a field day with that comment . . .)
*stifles laughter*
Your are spending your holiday renovating the house and bringing home the bacon. She better be at least laying in the carpet.
You can get your turkey at the grocery store. Except it will be labeled ‘standing rib roast’. It makes the best turkey sandwiches
Looking at this clip, I realize how much JJ had to change Ep. 9 to fix the damage done by the Last Jedi.
What is this. I See Foreign Script on a video and i start to get suspicious that it will be Russian propaganda.
In the end, it’s all Russian propaganda.
Needs more seppuku
Kabuki Snoke looks a hell of a lot cooler than the original.
Mornin’ Glibbies!
@Timeloose, in case you didn’t see my comment last night because you went to bed (lightweight), great story, dude.
I have little to say about today’s lynx (Bill Cosby makes me have a sad), I don’t really understand what’s going on with the impeachment because I don’t care, and the end of the year approaches with us having a worse/better year than normal. I dreamt my brother (the one who is helping us) went on a killing spree and, more disturbing, I saw some good furniture on the side of the road and my truck was broken.
I still have to work. Tonight we are going to the Plaza to eat at Jack Stack, walk around looking at the lights and expensive jewelry and culinary items (Tivol and Williams Sonoma, respectively), then get cheesecake to go at the Cheesecake Factory. That is my Christmas present. I may go to Midnight Mass tomorrow after our family get-together, which will be lame. I am trying very hard to whip up some Christmas buzz. Saturday was good.
I had a new idea for a book. Santa’s Mrs. Claus is actually Krampus and they had a meet-cute on the job one Christmas Eve and argue over which twin is the naughty one and which one is the nice one until they’re both so confused they don’t know what to do.
That’s a bit odder than my latest idea.
I’ve been dying to do something paranormal. My one foray into it is just a short story and in an anthology.
You know better than I what can be made to work in that genre.
I was thinking of a quasi-western where the story starts when the characters have found and accquired the treasure, and now have to get it back to civilization and cash it in so they can start enjoying it.
El Dorado!
My middle-aged frumpy hausfrau vampire is on hold. Vampires are just done to death. I would have done an incubus, but I already did a storyline where the heroine is drugged and doesn’t remember having sex.
The twist I was thinking of was thus –
To launder the treasure, the characters had set up a phony mining company with a land claim and melted down the gold, adding some impurities to make it look like freshly-extracted material from their mine. When they finally reach Fusion City (this is a scifi western on an infrastructure-poor, ill-settled planet) the de facto antagonist gets away with the gold, leaving the protagonist with the mining company and the land claim. He goes back to their land and pokes around for anything to sell, and turns up something like bauxite, or a similar unglamorous but worthwhile mineral deposit that ends up being worth more than the original gold.
I seem to believe the “antagonist runs off with the gold and protag is surprised by something better” is a pretty standard plot point (see: water/mineral rights in Montana). But then, going after the antag is similarly familiar.
Where
That is only MUH FEELZ and I have zero evidence to back up MUH FEELZ and I am definitely looking at it with a writer’s eye.
I know it’s not original.
*grimace*
I’m sorry. I should not have said anything.
No need to appologise.
I couldn’t actually figure out how to get the story on the page. Most of my interest was drawn to working on the setting. The plot mainly came from wonder “what happens next” after watching some westerns. They find the treasure, have shot this round of competing claimants, but are still far from anything.
I don’t really understand what’s going on with the impeachment
I think its fairly simple.
The Dems are trying everything to damage Trump for the election, and impeachment looks like yet another torpedo that is circling back on them.
The Repubs are having an argument over the best way to dispose of it – quick ‘n’ dirty motion to dismiss, or a vicious knife-fight of a trial.
Everything else is just more palace intrigue.
No, I got that part.
I don’t understand what “crimes” he is being impeached for.
Despite what everyone will have you believe, abuse of power is a completely normal thing to be impeached for. 4 of the 20 people that have been impeached in US History (including Trump) had Abuse of Power as one of the charges.
That’s the kicker. There are no actual crimes cited. It’s “abuse of power” (which I don’t think Congress has the authority to delineate”) and “obstruction of Congress” (for exercising a pretty well established executive privilege). Other impeachments cited chapter and verse of the U.S. Code. This one doesn’t.
Eh. Among the 11 articles of Johnson’s impeachment was “Making three speeches with intent to “attempt to bring into disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt and reproach, the Congress of the United States”.
It seems anything goes.
The big reason for the Senate is to act as a check on this. The Senate is always supposed to be the slower, more deliberate, less responsive to the whims of the public, body. That is why the House impeaches and the Senate tries the case. Much as we have eroded the special nature of the Senate it has in fact done its job in this area, which is why Johnson and Clinton were both impeached and neither was removed.
Except that charge was in addition to a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. So, there was an actual breach of the law there.
I have to admit, the election is looking like more and more like a bare-knuckle brawl, and I am looking forward to it.
If that is a bare-knuckle brawl between Donald Trump and Alyssa Milano, that might break all pay-per-view records.
Grab her by the pussy?
Bear witness to what passes as a professor at a university these days
Bear witness
He’s promises to tell the whole truth and not just the bear minimum.
I don’t think its appropriate to have bear arms in a courtroom like that though.
Better leave ursine at home if you are attending that trial.
Bare witness
Bare witness NSFW edition
Yeah, that and the screaming personality disorder who “wins” debates by having huge tantrums about being black and “queer” and asserts that “science is a projection of whiteness”, “space isn’t real”, etc. This is one of the most absurd human beings that I have ever been aware of.
Ps – yes it’s Hot Air/no I don’t like Chairwoman Malk
‘“Imagine someone who grew up inner-city, Kansas City for instance, who never left a 20-block radius,” the professor suggested.’
Lived there for the better part of a decade, no need to imagine. And there’s not a soul in the nation who hasn’t been more than twenty blocks away from home. The premise is stupid, but it ties into the view that white progressives see black people as little more than serfs there to vote for Dems.
‘He continued, “They can’t even fathom that there’s mountains in the world let alone that there’s something outside of that…And so structural inequity, to some degree, because of our lack of privilege in terms of mobility determines what we can understand to be real and falsifiable.’
Wow, now THAT’S how you soft bigotry of low expectations. What a racist shithead.
I don’t think that’s true for cities like NYC and places that have insular communities like China Towns and suchlike. They can get their groceries local and they all speak their native language within their communities, with some people never learning English at all.
The reason some ethnic conclaves continue to exist is because new immigrants are still arriving there. It is possible that one could be born and live his or her entire life within that neighborhood, but the majority have traveled half-way across the world to be there.
Very few northern cities get any immigrants anymore. NYC may be the exception, but overwhelmingly the trend is for immigrants to settle in suburbs now, as they are more affordable
I should have included the “grew up” part. For first generation immigrants, I accept your premise. For their kids, not a chance.
I find it strange that we’re focusing on urban areas when the Amish and other such groups would fit the bill quite nicely.
Most of them go more than 20 blocks from home regularly.
I would see them regularly in Walmart a county away from home.
That might be Mennonites you’re thinking of. They come to our Walmart too and they live a fur piece.
It is both, I think.
Even if that is only the Mennonites in the walmart, the Amish venture more than 20 urban blocks down the highway in their buggies on a regular basis. City blocks vary in size, but we still are only talking about 2 miles max.
Fair enough.
SHUT UP LIBTARD! THE AMISH ARE MURICAN UNLIKE THOSE HEATHEN CHINAMEN
Amish aren’t even human.
Now, me … I grew up close to East High School, but we went everywhere in town and had church and school in Independence.
So I think most cities have a car culture. People in NYC don’t have cars and all necessities are within walking distance.
I lived in the slightly less of a clusterfuck Boston for a few years in my twenties. I wouldn’t say it’s as public transit centric as NYC but it definitely was more heavily present than a midwestern city and had more of a cultural enclave vibe as well. That said, I still would have found it very inconvenient to keep myself limited to such a small area and live anything resembling a normal city life, but that may just be my white privilege talking. Either way, if those people exist, they’re a fraction of a percentage point in urban communities. I still argue the professor’s premise is extremely limited and dumb.
“no I don’t like Chairwoman Malk”
I don’t think she’s been associated with Hot Air for the better part of a decade
Time really flies. Maybe I forget how long ago it was because of the small Asian lady aging process – nothing until about 70, at which point they turn into a little yoda lady.
It irritates me that the yokel Buzzfeedosphere refer to anyone who teaches in higher ed as a “professor” for those delicious outrage clicks. The dude is a debate coach with the title of “instructor”. It’s like referring to anyone who works in a corporation as a “Vice President”.
It’s mendacious – do better PJ Media!
It all started with Obama billing himself as a conlaw professor and snowballed from there.
It’s like referring to anyone who works in a corporation as a “Vice President”.
That would be a bank, yes?
*ducks*
Would.
I’m so glad we have Trump in office to fight the regulatory state.
Most libertarian president ever!
He just wants to be appreciated. And loved.
I’ve gotten very sucked into watching “Wild Wild Country” about the Rajneeshpuram commune in central Oregon. It’s really interesting and I was completely unaware of the entire affair. For me it’s one of those “I have everyone involved” (the cult and the government are pretty mutually disgusting) types of stories with some exceptions for the locals. There are some pretty interesting civil liberty questions raised. I find myself wondering if I would be able to stick to my principles in that situation. It’s tough to strictly abide by the NAP when your neighbors are both awful and overwhelming.
There’s something awfully weird about the PNW. A history of neo-nazis (?), cults, violent bolshevism, and that creepy guy who possessed Ray Wise and murdered teenage girls.
It seems to be less about spawning extremists rather than where extremists always decide to move to.
/glances around furtively and pulls at collar
I don’t know about the rest of the PNW, but the Aryan Nations group in Idaho that made national news 4 or 5 times a year during the ’90s was literally like 2 dozen inbred hillbillies living in campers and shacks on some acreage (the notorious “compound” that got razed when Richard Butler finally died). Their annual parade boosted the population of Hayden and the surrounding communities by probably 10x when counter-protesters would show up from hither and yon. As a kid that was my first introduction to media sensationalism.
It’s funny, prog-types from elsewhere reliably talk about the inland NW as being a stronghold for militias and Neo-nazis. It was never true and there is absolutely zero evidence of it that I’ve seen in my cumulative 1.5 decades of living here. But everyone else are the insular ones according to Brooks’ professor down thread.
I also find it to be an fascinating phenomina that so many movements that ostensibly are about rejecting societal restrains so quickly turn inward and become insanely structured and militant.
Always the case
They’re invariably an exercise in stroking the ego of the leader.
That wasn’t just his ego they were stroking!
I’m trying to figure out what it is that compels people to devote themselves to megalomaniacs. I don’t get it. Any experience I’ve had with these types of people instantly raises the hair on the back of my neck and my gut impulse is extreme cynicism and revulsion.
I thought that was a well done documentary. Made me jealous for a Rolls Royce and several young concubines.
Funny how quickly aesthetics make exceptions for themselves when it comes to things that sparkle and poontang.
*ascetics
+1 uzi toting jumping followers.
I have to watch that thing. A good buddy has recommended it to me twice and I keep forgetting about it.
After you watch that, watch the Documentary Now spoof titled Batshit Valley.
Há! I love Bill Hader and the one on El Chapo was frigging awesome.
The Rajneeshees were a perfect example of one vote, one time. Fuck them. They lost any remaining sympathy at the salad bar.
Weirdest related moment- watching a C-pop music video by a US born artist featuring a book by the late Rajneesh (under the name Osho)
https://youtu.be/3q6D0wMX_H0
Yeah, it was interesting watching the mutual adversarial build up of tensions between them and the government. I agree with the “fuck them” sentiment completely, Sheela deserves to still be in jail (still waiting to see how she got out of a 20 year sentence in less than 4). The government certainly wasn’t the good guy in this story either though.
I haven’t watched the documentary, but living through it (albeit not a resident of Antelope and as a kid), I’m not very impartial. They quickly moved from a bunch of harmless nut jobs to a dangerous cult on the order of the People’s Temple (even copying their voter tactics) or Aum Shinrikyo.
Oh I would never argue in favor of the Rajneeshi’s. Fucking whack job assholes. My point being the government (like it almost always does in these situations) did more to escalate tensions than diffuse and tried several end-runs around the law to get at them . That being said there is absolutely no excuse for those cult member assholes behavior.
I don’t understand what “crimes” he is being impeached for.
Not being a cardcarrying member of the Mandarinate.
He’s a moneygrubbing upstart who shouldn’t even be allowed to use the servants’ entrance.
She’s right but not how she means.
“It is fascism that we’re evolving into,” the New York Democrat told the disrupter in Los Angeles Saturday before admitting the distraction had her “thrown off.”
Ocasio-Cortez, 30, had been quoting the speaker before her, Harvard Divinity School professor and left-wing activist Cornel West, who once said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who came to Congress in January after beating a member of the House Democratic leadership in a primary, riffed on West’s theory.
“Establishing a loving society in the United States of America” is not “an irrational, overly feeling, sympathetic statement,” she said. Rather, it’s the pursuit of “an advanced society.” And an advanced society, Ocasio-Cortez said, guarantees healthcare and tuition-free college and trade schools, among other benefits.
“What we are living in now is not an advanced society,” she said.
That astoundingly vapid and stupid, just what I would expect from West.
And love means never having to say you’re sorry.
I thought you could get arrested for lovin’ in public.
Anyone who wants to enshrine “love” as a principle of public policy is utterly dangerous and should be kept as far as humanly possible from the levers of power.
I hear a helicopter ride is good way to get people away from the levers of power.
love me
*points gun at your head*
“Justice is what love looks like in public.”
No. No, No No. That is Mercy. Justice is people reaping what they sow, either good or ill. Justice is receiving what you are due.
Tough love.
I never said i thought Justice was all that. I’m a big fan of mercy.
Maybe she could seek strength through joy?
She’s 30 years old now?
Wow.
Dispatch from the things you never thought you’d read desk
President Donald Trump is the favorite candidate of America’s millionaires — and his support seems to be strengthening.
Asked which candidate they support for president in 2020, 36% of millionaires named Trump, up from 32% in May, according to the Q4 CNBC Millionaire Survey. The second-favorite candidate is former Vice President Joe Biden, with 14%. Sen. Elizabeth Warren came in third, with 8%. The survey was conducted before Michael Bloomberg entered the race.
Millionaire support for Trump has also grown over the past three years. In mid-2016, Trump trailed Hillary Clinton by 13 points among millionaires. Of millionaires today who have donated to a campaign, the largest number — 39% — have donated to Trump.
Inexplicable.
Proof positive that you don’t have to be smart to be rich.
Or that you can be very intelligent and talented in one facet of your life while being extraordinarily stupid in another facet.
Refer to one of my college professors — PhD in Physics — totally incompetent at basic life skills.
Some of the smartest people I’ve ever met are pretty damn stupid.
*raises hand*
That would be me.
These numbers aren’t really adding up for me.
I admit I didn’t click the link.
The 10 best-selling books of the decade: 1, 2, 3 = 89% stolen from the original (the first one anyway). Original author shrugs and says, “Oh, that’s cute” and makes plagiarizing fiction kind of a thing (that’s died down now) (thank heavens). I will not complain of its content or quality of writing, but I do deeply resent its provenance. No, there are no original stories, but she could have at least tried to come up with something of her own—or at the very least disguise it better and not used 89% (as run through that college do-hickey that checks for plagiarism) of it. Also, set in Seattle, written by an Englishwoman who has never been to the US and uses “grey.” No, lady, it’s GRAY, like God intended. Stephenie Meyer actually actively damaged fiction publishing by not suing James’s pants off.
This is truly not coming from a place of envy. It’s coming from a place of “This is why we can’t have nice things.”
That said, I want to see the numbers on how many copies each title on all the literature prize nomination lists got.
Prometheus Awards for the decade:
2010 The Unincorporated Man – dreck
2011 Darkship Thieves – good, but not great
2012 Ready Player One and The Freedom Maze – don’t know
2013 Pirate Cinema – Doctorow, so I assume it sucks
2014 Homeland and Nexus – former is Doctorow, see above
2015 Influx -dont know
2016 Seveneves – I like Stephenson, but haven’t read that one
2017 The Core of the Sun – dont know
2018 The Powers of the Earth – dont know
2019 Causes of Separation – dont know
You said lists…are there any other literature prizes?
I was thinking about the Booker and Nobel, but here’s a list of the most coveted literary prizes in the world.
Hugo is 7th on the list and I am not sure how coveted it is anymore.
Not since it went woke and it all turned into “issue books.”. Like Anita Sarkeesian and boring “issue” games.
Exactly. I used to try to read the Hugo winners, I started only looking at Prometheus at one time. That is how I ended up reading The Unincorporated Man and Darkship Thieves.
Ready Player One was meh
Seveneves was average for him – i.e. good but he’s got way better
don’t know any of the others
Ready Player One is hot garbage with a Mary Sue male protagonist. I never finished it.
Spielberg made the movie story tolerable by ditching 90% of the inane dialogue.
For some reason, I read the whole way to the end of Ready Player 1. Do not recommend doing so.
It’s on my TBR.
Low on my TBR.
A TBR that has almost 1,000 books on it.
“an Englishwoman who has never been to the US and uses “grey.” No, lady, it’s GRAY, like God intended.”
Amen.
Your husband is a lucky man, Mo
Aw, thanks! I’m not going to show him this, though. He thinks he is the luckiest of the two of us, and he is wrong. I am the luckiest.
I will cut you both. I have been dealing with US spellcheckers flagging g-r-e-y since middle school and obstinately refusing to change it. If you’re so smart, why is there a GREY Goose vodka, but no GRAY Goose vodka, hmm?
France.
Boom.
Meh, half of our language is French loanwords
^
Cheese eating surrender monkey apologist
You know who else made booms in France?
Manufrance?
No, lady, it’s GRAY, like God intended
Slate.
/cable color code
“Imagine someone who grew up inner-city, Kansas City for instance, who never left a 20-block radius,” the professor suggested. He continued, “They can’t even fathom that there’s mountains in the world let alone that there’s something outside of that…And so structural inequity, to some degree, because of our lack of privilege in terms of mobility determines what we can understand to be real and falsifiable.
“Whiteness then works and then appropriates science and technology to say ‘This is true while this is not true because it’s not verifiable.’…It’s a hyperfocus on the experiential for those who does not capitulate with whiteness.”
Never mind that, I find it unfathomable that anybody could be dumb enough to even suggest this moronic nonsense.
The kind of idiocy you’d only get from an academic.
I’m sure one of the Dem candidates will come out with a new proposal to recognize a new right to be transported more than 20 blocks from your home while you are growing up.
+1 Long March.
+1 Trail of Tears
…
Maybe they could herd people from the inner cities into train cars into countryside camps where they could observe mountains and therefore become capable of understanding what is real and falsifiable (as the professor says).
Ah, so that’s why the Chinese keep sending muslims to Luopu.
What a fucking pretentious douche. Like people from Middle America never travel or read books or watch tv or see movies.
Fuck what a dick.
One of the dumber reinterpretations of Plato’s Cave I’ve read.
I live in semi-rural Ohio and there are plenty of people who have never left the small town where they were born. It’s not only something that occurs with minorities. Doesn’t that undercut the professor’s entire premise?
I’m sure one of the Dem candidates will come out with a new proposal to recognize a new right to be transported more than 20 blocks from your home while you are growing up.
Bring back busing!
It’ll work THIS time!
Hey, the Broncos beat the Lions in the Least Cared About Bowl this weekend. (I didn’t see them in your winners list)
I think Browns fans were overeager for a winner and that team is still a year away. I think they fire Kitchens and get an experienced HC and maybe try to upgrade the offensive line this offseason. Their schedule was brutal the first part of the season. (First 10 games opponents winning pct: .620 – 93-57)
Riverboat Ron should be paddling up the mighty Missisip and then detour over to the other rivers needed to make this allusion work. Anyway. Riverboat Ron will be their head coach if there is such a thing as cosmic justice for Cleveland. Which we know there is not.
What a fucking pretentious douche. Like people from Middle America never travel or read books or watch tv or see movies.
Exactly. Go drive around backwoods bumbfuck America, and you might see rundown houses or trailers, or who knows what, but they have new pickup trucks outside, and satellite teevee dishes, and all the mod cons. Hell, if you stop and ask, I bet they’d tell you they even have indoor plumbing.
What a lying depraved cunte.
I think it’s more honest to say that someone who lives in Manhattan knows less about people who live in rural NY than it is to say that rural NY knows less about people who live in Manhattan
^^This^^…….wealthy urbanites in my experience tend to be some of the most naive and bigoted people (especially in regard to their understanding and estimation of people from rural areas) on the planet,
Ironically, making an idiotic statement like that based on an impression of rural America gleaned from middle school textbook black and white photos of the dust bowl is indicative of precisely the type of insular thinking and embarrassing ignorance the author wishes to impute on the rubes. Christ, what an asshole.
I remeber riding in the back seat of my Gf’s (at the time) mothers car. We were in rural upstate NY and she exclaimed “Look, people out here still dry their clothes on clothes lines!”
She honestly thought it meant they didn’t have electric dryers.
They were being green.
Sun-dried clothes are the BEST.
Unless your neighbor is burning stuff.
But going to the Insular areas of the United States doesn’t count as real “Traveling”
Just as an aside:
I get tired of encountering this attitude that if you don’t travel a lot, you’re objectively living your life the wrong way. I like taking a weekend road trip every couple of years, but that’s it. People give me all kinds of crap because I don’t travel much.
To me, it’s a hobby like any other. Some people like it, others don’t. Neither of them are incorrect. I love cooking; I find it fun and fulfilling, but I absolutely understand if other people don’t feel the same way about it. Not everybody wants to spend two hours making potato kreplach from scratch, but I don’t go around telling people that they’re missing out on essential life experiences by not doing that.
I wholeheartedly agree. And the fact is that some people just cannot travel all that far, because of finances or family obligations (traveling long distances with young children is an insane chore).
I could travel more, but I choose not to. I prefer to meander around the Midwest, much to my wife’s chagrin.
I fucking hate traveling. I like camping. I like Secret Glib Cabin In The Woods. But the idea that I’m going to spend 2 days of a 6 day trip stuck in a flying metal coffin or rolling metal coffin sounds pretty insane to me.
It’s rooted in old world elitism where travel was a luxury and information and culture were more geographically confined. You no longer need to undertake an arduous journey to experience authentic ethnic cuisine, foreign languages and cultures, or exotic art. Usually the sort of people who like to make themselves conspicuous by doing so are self involved, vapid and gauche cretins with an inferiority complex.