Monday Morning Links

Take that, Monday!

I have found out that the old philosophy “work hard, play hard” is best done when not 53 years old. I tired that the past couple of weeks…and while I did get a fair amount of work out of the way…the rest just made me tired. How about “work reasonably hard, play…moderately?”. Hmmm. I don’ think that will catch on. But you did not come here to hear me kvetch. You came here for the Links! Well, really you are here for the comments space. But throw me a bone here.

  • This is all I ever need to know about the IAEA. Be sure to read the last two sentences.
  • You guys used to have ships…not anymore. Maybe the USN could start offering paid protection? “Your once proud nation cannot protect your ships against piracy or regional bad boys? Call on the USN – rate quotes available today!”
  • Statist @$$hole decries government monopoly’s failure?
  • How about horsewhipping their C-Suite naked, through the streets of Tinker AFB?

Uh…go forth and free Cascadia, or whatnot.

Comments

547 responses to “Monday Morning Links”

  1. You came here for the Links! Well, really you are here for the comments space.

    I came here because I got nowhere else to go.

    1. Fourscore

      You are always welcome at Chez Fourscore, UCS

    2. straffinrun

      Online or meatspace? Both?

      1. Well in the real world, I’m stuck in my cube at the office, trying to remeber what I was working on before desktop support forcably rebooted my machine, replacing all the office software with the washed out version where the UI elements are all the same shade of white with no indication that they are UI elements, greatly irking my sensibilities.

        1. AlexinCT

          Neo is that you? Take the red pill!

      2. Fourscore

        Yes

  2. Count Potato

    “However, since the beginning of July, the IAEA has noted that Iran failed in two of its commitments by no longer respecting limit imposed by the agreement.

    Iran announced this month that its enriched uranium stockpile had exceeded the 300 kilogrammes imposed by the accord.

    Days later it said it would begin enriching uranium to above the 3.67 percent level set by the deal, announcing the following day it had reached 4.5 percent.”

    Shocking.

    1. Count Potato

      “Iran claims it has arrested 17 CIA ‘spies’ and will put some of them to death in latest blast at the West after seizing of British tanker

      Iran’s intelligence ministry declared it had broken up an American spy ring and sentenced several of its members to death, according to state television. ‘The identified spies were employed in sensitive and vital private sector centers in the economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber areas… where they collected classified information,’ a spokesman said. An Iranian television documentary (top image) aired on Monday purported to show a CIA officer recruiting an Iranian man in the United Arab Emirates (an official is shown speaking to the program bottom left). Iran has been feuding with the West for weeks over the crumbling nuclear deal and a series of threats to Middle East shipping, which heightened again last week when Tehran’s revolutionary guards seized a British tanker (pictured bottom right) in the Straits of Hormuz.”

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7271681/Iran-claims-arrested-17-CIA-spies.html

      1. Wonder who they really are, because the CIA is too busy trying to enact a coup at home to put boots on the ground. Besides they’ve been addicted to sigint for decades.

        1. AlexinCT

          ^^^THIS^^^

    2. On my list of people who would use a nuclear device on a population center unprovoked, the current government of Iran is up there. I’d be surprised if they didn’t lob them at Israel first, either by missile, or by way of their puppet terrorist organizations.

      1. Suthenboy

        I’d bet money that if Iran gets the ability to build bombs they will pass one off to their puppet orgs.

        1. Slammer

          If I had puppets I’d be really careful about giving them the means to take out their masters

          1. Drake

            Yeah – A nuke goes off in Israel, Iran (and probably Pakistan) gets nuked hard immediately.

      2. Stinky Wizzleteats

        The level of enrichment is more a threat of capability than an actual attempt to produce a weapon (assuming the increased enrichment is the true level). It falls far short of what’s actually needed, under five percent is nuclear reactor fuel levels.

    3. Things were going great until Trump bumbled in to office. /Obama

      1. AlexinCT

        The fact that they are still peddling this shit now that the details of this not just idiotic, but abysmal deal are in the public space, just baffles me. I guess they truly believe that if they keep telling this debunked lie, it will become the truth?

  3. You guys used to have ships…not anymore

    The tithe to Brussels had to come from somewhere.

    1. Compare to the bravado of the Royal Navy in WW2: St Nazaire Raid

      I always thought this would make a great movie.

      1. Private Chipperbot

        I’m positive there was a movie made about this. Trying to find it.

        1. I saw a documentary about it…

      2. Private Chipperbot

        More of a docudrama by Jeremy Clarkson.

      3. It is sad. My favorite period and part of history is the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars. The Aubrey/Maturin series of historical fiction books are wonderful.

  4. Rebel Scum

    The pathetic size of the once-great Royal Navy: Ex-admirals join criticism of cuts that have left Britain’s fleet utterly inadequate to deal with Iran

    “Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the-” um…something.

    1. Slammer

      Wokes?

      1. Not Adahn

        *applause*

        1. straffinrun

          Joins in opplause.

  5. PieInTheSky

    Not only Monday but first Monday after a vacation. But meh. Whateves… a job day is a job day.

    Statist @$$hole decries government monopoly’s failure? – I blame the free market

    1. “It’s a living”

      1. PieInTheSky

        Not a great one mind but still

    2. Sean

      Not only Monday but first Monday after a vacation.

      Right there with ya, Pie.
      Took me an hour to sort out my email inbox.

      1. PieInTheSky

        I had about 230 unread after a week… Not that bad also many of them not relevant

      2. AlexinCT

        I am back as well but not from a vaycay. Having a needle stuck in your hypothalamus as part of a special treatment to deal with a 43 year old sleep disorder and then ending up with bouts of vertigo for a few days is not a vaycay. On the up side, I might eventually get more than 3 hrs a night when I do get to sleep.

        You glibs miss me?

        1. They only did because their laser sights were being recalibrated…

          1. AlexinCT

            Who took the hits in my place?

  6. Rebel Scum

    Cuomo even called for state police to step in and assist those without lights or air conditioning in Brooklyn.

    People’s dogs don’t deserve to be shot just because there is a little heat wave.

    1. ChipsnSalsa

      Cuomo did have something useful to say.

      “I encourage NYers to check on neighbors- esp the elderly- tonight,” he tweeted.

      1. Did someone check Gracie Mansion?

        1. ChipsnSalsa

          They are fine, i’m quite sure

          1. Are the Deblasios even there?

      2. Slammer

        We’re supposed to check on New Jersey and Connecticut?

    2. “No-Knock Wellbeing Check”

      1. leon

        We saw it was hot in your house so we removed the door and som windows for you to let the breeze in.

        1. “And no charge for the battering ram either!”

        2. Rhywun

          He does care! ?

    3. Suthenboy

      Because the cops are electricians? What the hell NY? Why do y ou only vote for asylum residents.

      1. Lackadaisical

        Because most new Yorkers have insane political stances?

        1. Heroic Mulatto

          And that makes them different than the majority of their fellow Americans how?

          1. Lackadaisical

            All the crazy is pointing in one direction?

  7. Private Chipperbot

    The Royal Navy only has 30 combat vessels? Holy shit, that’s a joke. Oops. Only 10 are operational. The carrier carries no planes, the destroyers engines blow up, and the frigates are still using Falklands era tech for their weapons…

    1. But they’re fully up to date with their intersectionality and diversity training.

      1. Tejicano

        Oh fuck! You can bet your balls on that!

        1. ChipsnSalsa

          The 8 ball?

        2. JaimeRoberto: Gentleman, Scholar, French Tickler

          Don’t assume you know what’s between my legs.

    2. straffinrun

      At least they have money for goons to shake down for the BBC and arrest people for Pepe memes.

      1. blackjack

        Not to mention those who run with scissors.

    3. Rebel Scum

      Sounds like they are in the same sorry state as the German air force, last I heard.

      1. Or the German Army, or the German Navy…

    4. PieInTheSky

      Question is how is the German navy doing?

      1. Reports are it is still resting peacefully on the ocean floor.

        1. *narrows gaze*

        2. Rebel Scum

          And their seamen are a bunch of sour krauts.

          1. Not Adahn

            How long have you had that joke fermenting?

        3. Slammer

          This sub thread is now a U-boat thread

          1. straffinrun

            Swiss is gonna give us Das Boot.

  8. Count Potato

    “‘This vile idiot needs a round’: Louisiana police officer suggests that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot in shocking Facebook post”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7271129/Louisiana-cop-says-Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez-shot.html

    1. a round of pulling a train?

      1. Not Adahn

        A round of drinks?

    2. PieInTheSky

      What is the point of a daily mail link with no demi in the sidebar huh?

      1. Wait…Count Potato, is that you?

    3. Rhywun

      Juvenile bluster tweet == international news. FFS.

      1. Count Potato

        So you are saying it was the jews?

    4. commodious spittoon

      Give her what she wants and she would be shot, eventually. Once the next, even more vicious generation of socialists takes the reins she and her vanguard would be put to death.

    5. Steve Scalise says hello.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    The Navy’s only vessel in the Gulf arrived on the scene 10 minutes too late to save the Impero on Friday and was reduced to sending radio messages ordering the Iranians not to board the tanker.

    “I say! You there! Harrumph!”

    1. A strongly worded memo will be sent to your supervisor!

      1. Festus

        “This is going on your Permanent Record!”

      2. AlexinCT

        That’s the world these idiots wanted. Now they find out some people realize those angry memos have no power and don’t care and they are pouting.

  10. leon

    Would venture that Fort Sill housing is run by them too. But then again Lawton is just a terrible place.

  11. Twitter Disgusted by Joe Biden Kissing Granddaughter on the Lips

    In his speech, the former vice-president discussed many topics from what he claimed was President Trump embracing both White Nationalists and foreign dictators to his visions for immigration and health care reform.

    It was not the content of Biden’s speech that has many Twitter users openly repulsed, however, but rather a public display of affection in which he kissed his granddaughter on the lips after introducing her to the crowd as a summer volunteer for his campaign during her break from school.

    1. Did he slip her the tongue?

      1. Rebel Scum

        Lucky he didn’t cop a feel.

        1. leon

          Question about Biden. If he gets the nomination, how often will we have to hear about his Dead son?

          1. The one who said “Don’t run for president”?

    2. Slammer

      The primary is in New Hampshire and Iowa, not Alabama, you idiot

      1. leon

        Lol. I remember seeing a friend kiss their parents on the lips when I was a kid. I was confused.

        1. A lingering kiss…? Did you get funny feelings down below?

        2. MikeS

          Did you grow up in Alabama?

    3. straffinrun

      Next, he’s gonna put her back in chains.

  12. Rebel Scum

    Guy who I admit looks like a Nazi routinely fails to sound like one.

    Appearing on “Fox News Sunday” with host Chris Wallace, Miller addressed the recent media-generated controversy over President Donald Trump’s tweets last week. In a series of tweets last week, Trump suggested that the far-left congresswomen, who came from other countries (Omar) where there was rampant corruption, should “go back” to their countries, “fix” them, and “then come back” to the United States and “show us how it is done” before they criticize the U.S.

    Wallace pressed Miller about the president, repeating many of the same talking points and examples the political Left uses to try to paint Trump as a racist.

    “I fundamentally disagree with the view that if you criticize somebody and they happen to be a different color skin, that that makes it racial criticism,” Miller said. “You saw from Congresswoman Pressley this week that she was saying that if you are — if you’re brown, you have to speak like a brown person; if you’re black, you have to speak like a black person,” Miller told Wallace. “That’s the kind of ideology the president is rejecting.”

    “If you want to have a color-blind society, it means you can criticize immigration policy, you can criticize people’s views, you can ask questions about where they’re born and not have it be seen as racial,” Miller continued.

    Silly, Steve. In order to not be racist you must immerse yourself into race and view the world through the lens of skin pigment. That is, unless you are white, in which case anything you say on the matter is racist.

    1. Suthenboy

      Meh. He doesn’t even have a secret Nazi haircut. Hell, he doesn’t even have any hair.

      1. Lackadaisical

        So you’re saying he’s a skinhead?

    2. Most racist interview ever.

    3. Rhywun

      If you want to have a color-blind society

      I think it’s abundantly clear that the left doesn’t want any such thing.

      1. Drake

        They traded in that idea back in the 80’s. Now it’s wholly owned tribal voting blocks – and Whitey can’t vote in their own interests because that’s racist.

  13. MikeS

    From the story about the pathetic Royal Navy:

    More British ships will be needed if the growing game of brinkmanship between Iran and the West in the Gulf escalates – after it began when Trump axed the Iran nuclear deal and imposed sanctions on Tehran, and ratcheted up when the Revolutionary Guard bombed two oil tankers.

    Orangeman bad AGAIN!!!11!

    1. Rebel Scum

      it began when Trump axed the Iran nuclear deal

      Patently false statement is patently false.

      1. AlexinCT

        It was the truth while we could bury our heads in the sand and pretend Iran was compliant!

    2. Festus

      Oh! That’s when the trouble over there started. Thanks for enlightening me about a shithole that has been in a near-constant state of war since before we knew how to write.

    3. Rufus the Monocled

      They were going to break it all along. THAT’S why the deal was a joke if anyone knows how Iran operates. Yeh, the biggest funder of terrorism on the planet was going to honour a piece of shit paper signed by Barry. Hello.

      They took the money and ran.

      Bobbie Sue, whoa, whoa, she slipped away
      Billy Joe caught up to her the very next day
      They got the money hey they got away.

      1. JR Robble Dobbs

        Steve Miller, libertarian?

        Hoo-hoo-hoo, Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
        You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
        He ain’t gonna let those two escape justice
        He makes his livin’ off of the people’s taxes

        1. AlexinCT

          So who is taking the money and running?

      2. Fatty Bolger

        Of course they were. Even if they were temporarily meeting the limitations (which I seriously doubt) there’s no doubt they were still working to increase their capacity and efficiency. The agreement has built in expiration dates for a reason – so there can be another shakedown when they expire.

    4. Lackadaisical

      I dunno, not that Iran isn’t a bad actor to begin with, but they certainly are ramping up the theatrics.

      1. MikeS

        Compared to shortly after receiving a pallet of cash, sure. Compared to taking 52 Americans hostage…

  14. Count Potato

    I couldn’t sleep last night. Not that I don’t have chronic insomnia. My mom is going in for a diagnostic procedure today. For some reason I just have a sinking feeling about it. I know anesthesia isn’t that risky, but I can’t seem to tell my brain that, and I can’t stop worrying.

    1. She’ll be fine, and if it helps, you can fret here all you want.

    2. leon

      I couldn’t sleep but that was because my daughter woke me up several times.

      1. leon

        And now I finish reading. Hope all goes well with your mom, I wouldn’t worry about it.

    3. It’ll be ok, the car ride to the surgical center is statistically more dangerous.

      1. ChipsnSalsa

        Is Q’s reassurance some sort of double entendre of support?

    4. straffinrun

      Should go well, eh? Catastrophizing is a bitch. No idea how to stop people from doing it, though.

    5. Ooh I hate insomnia – had a bad spell of it for a long time and it begins to distort ones view on everything. Just relax and know that some things are beyond your control; ie worrying about them won’t change the outcome.

    6. Rufus the Monocled

      Good luck!

    7. MikeS

      Best wishes for your mom. And try not to worry, as you know, there’s nothing to worry about.

      To keep your mind of it, put on some Miley Cyrus and look the through the millions of pictures of Demi Rose at the ‘Mail.

    8. invisible finger

      “Not that I don’t have chronic insomnia”

      As long as you’re there, ask for a little anesthesia for yourself.

      Seriously, I know what you’re going through. Hopefully your mom’s diagnostic procedure results in better news than my brother’s did two weeks ago.

    9. Drake

      Worried about the procedure or the results of the tests?

      (When I have worries, I try to get their very core, then neatly arrange them in my brain to stress over)

      1. Count Potato

        I’m more worried about the procedure.

    10. Democratic Hitler

      Best wishes to your mom.

      When I’m worrying disproportionately I try to remind myself that of all the things I’ve gotten really worried over, especially the health-related things, basically none of them have ever turned out the way I most feared.

      But, it’s human nature to worry about loved ones, it’s OK to let yourself worry a bit as long as you don’t let it overcome you.

      Good luck today.

    11. Hope it goes well and your mom is okay, my dude.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Retired commander of UK maritime forces Rear Admiral Alex Burton told BBC Radio 4: ‘There is no doubt that the size of the navy since 2005 – reduced from 31 frigates and destroyers to now 19 – has had an impact on our ability to protect our interests around the globe.

    I think Admiral Burton is confusing cause with effect.

  16. PieInTheSky

    So due to baggage constraints I am not happy with the whiskey I bought from Cadenheads… I was thinking I should do a Berlin city break to get more as there is a shop there… Although not as good as the flagship in Campbeltow. Goddamnit I wish I was still in Scotland. And rich.

    1. If I were in Scotland and rich, I’d want to get out of scotland before some parlimentarian busybody robbed me of all my money.

      1. PieInTheSky

        Nonsense. Just stash it offshore.

        1. What, like the Orkneys? Nah, I’ll just get it out of the jurisdiction.

        2. Sean

          like, in a buoy?

          1. Cacciatore

            +1 cloth

    2. Suthenboy

      “…in Scotland. And rich.”

      That’s how you get to be ‘not rich’.

      1. PieInTheSky

        No, living in Romania is a surer path,.

  17. Mammary Monday provides pulchritudinous peaks of pleasure.

    https://tinyurl.com/yyaeyo6y

    1. straffinrun

      Can we make 13 our new edit faerie?

      1. I don’t have such authority, but Swiss might still be lurking around…

      2. Lackadaisical

        Edit elf?

    2. Gustave Lytton

      11 is clearly about braking sammichs.

      1. Gustave Lytton

        *making, making dammit!

  18. Festus

    Best wishes, Count. I was wondering where Fat-ass was this morning. Seriously, she’ll be fine.

    1. Count Potato

      Thanks 🙂

  19. If only Trump hadn’t backed out of the ridiculous, ineffective Iran deal then they wouldn’t be blatantly ignoring the deal and moving full steam ahead making nukes!

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      You do know this what they’re (the psycho proggies) are gonna go with, right?

      What I find hilarious is the Europies still fight for the deal but at the same time look to and need American assistance (be it through soft or hard power) to fight their damn battles. In other words, they want America, the country they love to bash, to be their lover and protector.

      I like that Trump is acting all worried claiming he doesn’t need Iran’s oil because the U.S. is now energy independent. It’s the Europeans who need it and that’s why they cry to the USA for help behind the scenes.

      1. Slammer

        I guarantee you the people who set that deal up went over there and split the money up among themselves and Iran

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          Now there’s a spin on it.

      2. invisible finger

        Europe could save a lot of energy by turning off their surveillance cameras.

  20. Rufus the Monocled

    Re Britain. That extends to Canada and to NATO.

    They all cut their militaries and budgets because they all knew America was going to protect them.

    Even now, when powerless, the Brits still probably don’t get it.

    Which is why I laugh whenever I hear Britain (and France) are still considered ‘Major powers.’

    1. At the first sign of instability in the US, the traditional European powers are going to panic. We really messed them up after WWII.

    2. well they do have nukes. They can just lob a few at Iran using a catapult.

  21. American Green
    How did the plain green lawn become the central landscaping feature in America, and what is the ecological cost?

    Few Americans bother to question the lawn, in part because its true price is not readily apparent. What is that price? Although the turf industry says that the lawn is the equivalent of “First-Aid for the Earth,” the reality is more complicated. Grass by itself can indeed prevent soil erosion and storm-water runoff, but the quest for perfect turf is another story altogether, with a dark side for both the landscape and public health.

    The following is a list of some things the industry does not want you to know.

    – Between 1994 and 2004, an estimated average of 75,884 Americans per year were injured using lawn mowers or roughly the same number of people injured by firearms.

    -Using a gas-powered leaf blower for half an hour creates as many polluting hydrocarbon emissions as driving a car seventy-seven hundred miles at a speed of thirty miles per hour.

    – Nearly half of the households sampled in one study failed to carefully read and follow the label directions when using pesticides and fertilizer.

    – Approximately seven million birds die each year because of lawn-care pesticides.

    – In the process of refueling their lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and other garden equipment, Americans spill about seventeen million gallons of gasoline every summer, or
    about 50 percent more oil than marred the Alaskan coast during the notorious Exxon Valdez disaser.

    -A single golf course in Tampa, Florida — a state that leads the nation with over a thousand of these emerald green creations — uses 178,800 gallons of water per day, enough to meet the daily water needs of more than twenty-two hundred Americans.

    etc etc

    1. The following is a list of some things the industry does not want you to know

      Seriously though, do they think that replacing lawns with gardens is gonna somehow eliminate the need for power equipment? Congrats, you just replaced my clean 4 stroke mower with a dirty 2 stroke tiller. Oh, and I still need a leaf blower because leaves look like shit in a mulched garden.

      1. Oh, and my pesticide usage went up, because veggies and flowers are more attractive to bugs than mere grass.

      2. Certified Public Asshat

        Yeah, blaming lawns for leaves was strange. My grass does not drop leaves in the fall.

        1. But when you’ve been hered into high density housing tenements, you won’t have any trees dropping leaves on any lawn either!

          Get in the sardine can, Kulak!

    2. Festus

      I, for one would be quite happy to never have to do lawn care again. That being said, the author is a ninny.

      1. Agreed. I have plans to convert most of my front yard into a garden. Not to save the planet, but to reduce my mowing time by 15 minutes and make the house look less crappy from the curb.

        Sane people really need to combat this enviro lunacy with a healthy dose of conservationism and stewardship. This environmentalist crap needs to die.

        1. A garden takes more labor to maintain in a not-crappy looking state than a lawn does.

          1. Not Adahn

            I am loving the short, slow growing seasons here. The shrubbery that was planted a year ago still looks good and has had exactly zero maintenance from me. I haven’t even watered them.

            Yay for competent shrubbers!

          2. ChipsnSalsa

            Is his name Roger?

          3. Lackadaisical

            But I want my shrubs to grow. ..

          4. Sean

            “What is mulching?”

            /Groo

          5. Lackadaisical

            But I want my shrubs to grow. ..

          6. mulch + landscape fabric + a few minutes/week of maintenance = a not terrible looking garden.

            In comparison, the comparable area of yard requires the riding mower, the push mower, the weed eater, and the leaf blower, and that’s just the weekly stuff to make it look okay.

          7. Your standards of okay grass are much higher than mine, and your standards of okay garden are much lower than mine.

          8. MikeS

            Same here.

    3. MikeS

      – In the process of refueling their lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and other garden equipment, Americans spill about seventeen million gallons of gasoline every summer, or
      about 50 percent more oil than marred the Alaskan coast during the notorious Exxon Valdez disaser.

      And the vast majority of it evaporates nearly immediately and never even hits the ground.

      1. The takeaway I got from Exxon Valdez is that there are wild bacteria who eat hydrocarbons, and that the untreated beaches recovered while the treated beaches were desolate because the artificial scouring of the oil killed all the biota as well.

        1. MikeS

          SCIENCE!

      2. “Americans spill about seventeen million gallons of gasoline every summer”

        This is such a bullshit claim. Seriously.

    4. straffinrun

      I look at every blade of grass on my lawn and start crying. “That one right there. Another (((one)) could’ve saved from climate change.”

      1. Your lawn must be small, since you have time to drink, miss the train, and shitpost with us.

        1. straffinrun

          Multitasking.

    5. Rhywun

      How did the plain green lawn become the central landscaping feature in America

      Ask England. We learned it from them. And everyone else who could copy it – did.

    6. creech

      “Approximately seven million birds die each year because of lawn-care pesticides.”
      That’s about how many the neighborhood cats account for each year. Ban unleashed cats!

      1. blackjack

        I hate to get all sciency, but if you run a leaf blower for a half an hour, you’re gonna burn, what, a gallon of gas? Probably not even close to that. Now do 7700 miles in a car.

        1. Lackadaisical

          Guessing there’s a big difference in the emissions of leaf blowers. Still hard to imagine it’s a difference of that magnitude unless carbon dioxide and water vapor are basically harmless.

          1. Gustave Lytton

            And fuck you very much EPA for fucking over outdoor power equipment. Yay! Better to run lean and burn up the engine (and buy a replacement soon) that allow the plebes to adjust their carbs to optimize their own property. I’d like to shove a rusty defeat device up the backside of every EPA employee.

            *note to wannabe Preets, this can’t be a true threat because plebes aren’t allowed to acquire defeat devices thanks to the threat of $3300 fines per instance.

    7. Gustave Lytton

      The robins pulling up worms in my lawn seem pretty happy with it. Also the moles, but I’m going to kill those fuckers.

    8. BakedPenguin

      I personally think lawns are silly. However, they seem happy to ignore how much CO2 lawns soak up.

      Of course, that would require consistency.

  22. PieInTheSky

     In homeopathic philosophy, vital force is a non-material substrate that is responsible for maintaining the body’s sensations and functions and where homeopathic medicines act. In genetics, the body’s vital functions are controlled by biochemical information, which is contained in the cell genome and consists of a protein encoding portion (exome) and another that regulates this encoding scheme (epigenome). Both the philosophical vital force and the genome present properties of complex and dynamic self-organisation systems.
    AIMS:

     This study aimed to explore and develop a philosophical-scientific correlation between vitalism and genetics according to the complexity paradigm.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31319421?dopt=Abstract

    1. Nothing. To. Cut.

      1. Festus

        “They are trying to steal our essence!”

    2. robc

      What did I just read? I feel dumb now.

  23. Count Potato

    https://twitter.com/HiyaItsMayaYT/status/1153156805674954752

    So polar bears must be the most racist thing ever.

    1. straffinrun

      Ivanka should’ve tweeted back one word. “Bitch”.

    2. LJW

      They should have adopted a German Shepherd.

      1. and name it Blondi?

        1. Chipwooder

          Or Prinz, either or

      2. LJW

        Also fuck the people who get pissy about not adopting from a rescue shelters.

        1. Not Adahn

          While I am very pro-shelter adoption, I also understand that if you want better dogs to exist, you need to buy from breeders that are developing better dogs.

          This also lets you have (some) consumer power towards the development of dogs. I’ll never by a chihuahua or a cocker spaniel from a breeder, since I don’t see the point in developing those breeds. I DO support the creation of dogs with heightened social awareness and temperaments with high drives to please, such as the Berger Blanc Suisse. I was the happy owner of one (adopted from a shelter) and if I ever have the money I’d get another one directly from the breeder.

          Dogs are man’s greatest invention, and if you want to keep the technology developing, you’ve gotta support the people working on the tech.

          1. leon

            Growing up we had a Lab, and despite how crazy they are, I’ll always have a soft spot for Labs.

          2. The bruising hasn’t healed yet?

          3. slumbrew

            It’s not like I would have spent more if I had actually gotten a purebred. *grumble*

            On the other hand, she’s pretty damn great

        2. Certified Public Asshat

          Oh I didn’t rescue my dog, he rescued me.

    3. commodious spittoon

      And here I was thinking it’s going to be the lady complaining about a black actress portraying a white-furred cat. This may be even dumber.

  24. Well is DSM is pretty much a dumpster fire so this isn’t too surprising.

    https://www.studyfinds.org/study-psychiatric-diagnoses-are-scientifically-meaningless/

  25. See, this is what happens when you strip a word of all meaning.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cory-booker-donald-trump-is-worse-than-a-racist/ar-AAEEhQT

    What comes after racist? Super racist?

    1. Double-Racist!

      1. Plinker762

        Double secret racist

    2. white supremacist
      white nationalist
      neo-confederate
      neo-klansman
      poopyhead meanie

    3. straffinrun

      Marianne Williamson.

    4. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Uberracist.

    5. Timeloose

      Sacist?

    6. Slammer

      Presidential election winner

  26. Angela Merkel Rips Right-Wing Extremism On Anniversary Of Hitler Assassination Attempt

    “We are … obliged today to oppose all tendencies that seek to destroy democracy. That includes right-wing extremism,” declared the German chancellor.

    like the EU?

    1. straffinrun

      That “includes right-wing extremism”? So there are other forms of extremism she wants to oppose? Citation needed.

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Wasn’t the news a few months ago that she was going to step aside? Whatever happened to that?

      1. straffinrun

        They can’t pry the scepter from her shaking hands.

        1. Does she have Parkinson’s or the DTs?

      2. Rhywun

        When her term is over.

    3. PieInTheSky

      Well right wing extremism, when it is that, should be opposed, depending on definitions of right wing and extremism. Then again who can trust definitions these days…

      1. Would Stalin have said “You’ve gone too far left”? If not, you are a right wing extremist.

        1. PieInTheSky

          aktchually Stalin was right-wing

          1. Don Escaped Texas

            Yeah: “conservative ” begs the question: conserve what?

          2. Rhywun

            His own power?

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      He’s a victim of Trump Derangement Syndrome Fatigue Syndrome.

      1. Festus

        “I was in the pool! I was in the pool!”

    2. A Leap at the Wheel

      He also got a ratings boost at the start of the Drumpf administration. This is probably reversion to mean.

  27. So… antifa except wearing white instead of black?

    https://www.scmp.com/video/hong-kong/3019535/rod-wielding-mob-dressed-white-storms-hong-kongs-yuen-long-mtr-station

    It was stupid to think that the Mainland ChiComs would take HKG’s impudence lying down.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      That’s mild in the grand scheme of things. Hong Kong is doomed.

      1. Plinker762

        Guess they couldn’t get APCs into the MTR station

    2. Rhywun

      I’m lost. Who’s protesting what now?

    3. Drake

      The cops seem really disinterested in apprehending any of them.

    4. straffinrun

      2047 coming sooner than the HKers thought. Talk about the inevitable.

  28. Slammer

    Did anyone post about the Vox article that mentioned socialist Nationalism?

    1. PieInTheSky

      Which Vox?

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      They really do lack any sense of self-awareness, don’t they?

    3. leon

      So they talked about Warren?

  29. Do our pets ever really love us – or do they just stick around for the food?

    But what of eros? Thankfully, most dogs or cats don’t view us in an erotic light. Even leg-humping isn’t likely to be a sex thing. The intentions of a horny dog may not necessarily be to inseminate their owner’s leg, but instead to manage unresolved tensions within the human-canine household. Some argue it could be about dominance; others that it could be to let off steam. There is also a chance that, well, a bit of friendly leg-humping just feels really nice to a dog, but not necessarily in a knowing, sexual way. The behaviour is seen in male and female dogs, and, occasionally, in cats.

    Birds, however, are another story. Birds are far more likely to feel a warmth for their owners that you could term eros. A parrot that is tenderly stroked in the wrong places by its minder, for instance, will often misread friendship signals as foreplay and begin producing sex hormones. Should you wish not to sexually excite a parrot, try not to stroke down its back or on, or under, its wings. These are the areas that males and females preen in the early stages of their courtship in the wild. A stroke like this is like the kiss and a cuddle that readies them for sex. Upon discovering this fact, I realised I had more than once inadvertently sexed up a parrot.

    1. Rhywun

      They really do just let anyone brain-fart there, don’t they?

      1. So what you’re saying is, Glibertarians has as much journalistic cred as the Guardian?

        1. Rhywun

          Our brain-farts don’t make me want to hurl my computer out the window.

          1. So what you’re saying is, you like the smell of your own brain farts?

          2. Rhywun

            I’m not saying anything else now.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Fierce urgency

    Democrats hope they can get Mueller to explain what he meant and say whether he agreed with Barr that no obstruction of justice occurred.

    “We simply want to bring the report to life, and if Robert Mueller would simply, on live TV, highlight the important parts of the report, that would be very helpful to the American people,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), who sits on the Judiciary Committee.

    “It could” move people on impeachment, said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), a member of the Intelligence Committee. He hopes Republican members repeat the president’s mantra of “no obstruction, no collusion” often enough to force Mueller to correct the record.

    “You don’t know what’s going to happen, but the point is that he is of sufficient stature that I do think it really could change minds depending on what is said,” Krishnamoorthi said.

    For now, there is not enough support among House Democrats to pursue impeachment.

    ——-

    But time is relatively tight: Lawmakers will leave Washington for a six-week break days after Mueller testifies. If he sets off alarm bells, lawmakers could face angry constituents in their districts who favor impeachment.

    If the hearing is a dud, the August recess could effectively put an end to the chatter. Congress will be in session only 10 weeks this fall, too little time to organize impeachment proceedings before the 2020 campaign is in full swing.

    Some impeachment supporters argue that it’s already too late and that Mueller won’t have an impact.

    “I think time is running out,” said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), who still argues that the Mueller hearing is important to correct the public perception. “It will have the effect of shining a very bright light on a very corrupt organization, the Trump Organization.”

    There’s got to be something we can lynch him for.

    1. leon

      “We simply want to bring the report to life, ”

      Next they are going to do a live action remake of the investigation.

      “and if Robert Mueller would simply, on live TV, highlight the important parts of the report, that would be very helpful to the American people,”

      I might be out of touch, but how transparent can you be that you want him to say what he clearly said in the report he wasn’t going to do.

      1. LJW

        Directed by Oliver Stone.

    2. Timeloose

      If they want to impeach him then they should do so. They are trying to get someone else to put his ass on the line in case it blows up in their faces.
      Cowards.

    3. Rhywun

      Didn’t they already have access to the complete report, or am I misremembering? If they know what’s in it, just come out and say what it is.

      1. Not Adahn

        They don’t have access to the Grand Jury testimony, which is where the obstructive collusioncoverup is hiding.

      2. Rebel Scum

        Didn’t they already have access to the complete report

        Yes. I believe most have not bothered to go read it.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Republicans are expected to focus on the parts of the report that cleared Trump of wrongdoing, and push Mueller to justify his hiring of prosecutors whom Trump routinely denounced as “angry Democrats.”

    Partisan cherrypicking! Muddying the waters!

  32. Festus

    “I’m out! I’m literally grasping at straws!”

  33. PieInTheSky

    Paid family leave and breastfeeding: Evidence from California

    Jessica Pac, Ann P. Bartel, Christopher J. Ruhm, Jane Waldfogel 21 July 2019

    Mothers in the US breastfeed their infants at higher rates today than at any point in documented history, but low-income mothers have become less likely to do so. A leading reason for mothers to stop breastfeeding is the need to return to work. This column uses data on over 270,000 mother-child pairs in California, which implemented paid family leave in 2004, to examine the relationship between paid family leave and breastfeeding. It finds that paid family leave significantly increases overall breastfeeding duration, suggesting that paid family leave may lead to longer-term health improvements for children and mothers, particularly among disadvantaged families.

    https://voxeu.org/article/paid-family-leave-and-breastfeeding

    Our results suggest that paid family leave significantly increases overall breastfeeding duration by nearly 18 days (from a base of 221 days) and breastfeeding for at least six months by 4.9 percentage points (from an average of 53% before implementation of the paid family leave law) while having little effect on the probability of initiating breastfeeding.2

    1. Rhywun

      But women who don’t work but instead care for their kids full-time are still in chains, right?

      1. PieInTheSky

        Women should work just the right amount of time.

  34. Semi-Spartan Dad

    Equifax Reaches $700 Million Settlement Over Data Breach
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/equifax-reaches-700-million-settlement-over-data-breach-11563798429

    At least 100 million of that is going to the CFPB as a fine.

    Consumers, by filing claims online or by mail to a settlement administration, could be eligible for up to $20,000 for lost time and money, such as $25 an hour for up to 20 hours spent on protecting personal information or addressing identity theft after the breach, the agencies and states said.

    Meh. Would have preferred to see an across the board change in executive leadership or the ending of Equifax as an entity. If it’s easy enough, maybe I’ll try to collect for the 20 hours of my time I spent and continue to spend locking down and monitoring accounts.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      Didn’t they make news a while back for hiring an incompetent music major to run their show? I can’t remember if that was Equifax but I seem to recall her being warned about possible vulnerabilities to data breaches and she ignored it.

      1. Semi-Spartan Dad

        I believe so. Completely over her head and incompetent, but she checked all of the right HR hiring boxes.

    2. Sensei

      Ditto. I want to see what the claim process is like. My bet is that it ain’t easy.

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      How much is getting funneled to DNC NGO’s?

  35. ttyrant

    Alright Minnesota shitlords. One week until I join you all. I am expecting you to roll out the red carpet (on privately funded roads, of course), and for a burnt offering of your finest orphans.

    1. Pope Jimbo

      Well you better learn to spell Minnesoda correctly if you want to sound like us.

      Your first assignment as a n00b is to make plans to attend the Great Minnesoda Get Together.

      1. ttyrant

        I’ll keep my eyes open for the announcement. Did I at some point see you say that you play basketball somewhere around the area? I am leaving a regular pick-up game here in Milwaukee and, like a junky, I will likely go mad if I don’t find a similar game up on Minnesota. If I’m imagining things and you don’t actually play, feel free to ignore this, but if I’m correct and you’ve got any advice on that front, I’d appreciate it.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          Double-T, I do have a weekly game in the winter. It is very bad basketball. It is a 6′ and under game (special exemptions are made for taller people if they are extra bad). I’m one of the younger players at 53. The game has been going on since 1988 or so.

          We can talk more about it when you get here and schedule a meetup.

          1. ttyrant

            Thanks Pope Jimbo. I can assure you that I am an expert at very bad basketball, and am also under 6′. At 31, though, I would be the game’s spry, young chicken.

      2. A Leap at the Wheel

        Jimbo, you know you can’t expect a noobie to attend the GMGT without first visiting Duluth Trading and buying five flannel shirts and a Canadian Tuxedo. What will he wear?

        1. ttyrant

          You mean you guys won’t be dressed in top-hats and monocles? That’s disappointing.

          1. It’s windy there, and top hats are easily taken by the breeze.

          2. Old Man With Candy

            When we went, I wore my snappy Glibertarians hoodie.

            Of course we still got snubbed by Tundra.

        2. Pope Jimbo

          Only city hipsters wears flannel to the GMGT Leap.

          Old timers from Outstate will wear a short sleeved white (light blue is also acceptable) dress shirt with jeans and a new seed cap (suspenders are always good, but not required). Young people from Outstate are easy to spot because they look like they are straight out of a MTV video. Mostly because they watch MTV videos and think that is how people dress in the City and they want to fit in and not get called a rube at the Fair by the City kids.

  36. Rebel Scum

    Who?

    Rep. Katie Porter announced Monday that she is in favor of an impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump, becoming one of the first Democrats who won Republican districts in 2018 to support such a move.

    The freshman Democrat tweeted a video in which she said, “After weeks of study, deliberation and conversations with Orange County families, I’ve decided to support an impeachment investigation of the President.”
    Porter, who represents California’s 45th Congressional District, said, “I have not come to this easily,” adding, “I know deeply what this means for our democracy.”
    “I didn’t come to Congress to impeach the President,” Porter said. ” … But when faced with a crisis of this magnitude, I cannot with a clean conscience ignore my duty to defend the Constitution.

    Lol. Sure…

    “Congress must continue the work of special counsel Mueller,” Porter declared, saying Mueller had “presented extensive evidence of obstruction of justice that requires continued investigation by Congress.”
    Porter said the Trump administration has “refused to respect the rule of law,” and “They have ignored multiple subpoenas” and “directed current and former high-ranking officials to disregard summons to testify.”
    “The President has continued his efforts to spread mistrust of our law enforcement,” Porter said, “contempt for our journalists and false information about the law, director Mueller’s findings and basic, uncontested facts.”
    “The question is not whether a crisis is in our midst, but rather whether we choose to fight against it,” Porter said.

    As she mounted her noble steed, drew her sword, and led her army into battle.

    1. LJW

      Our Democrat congressional rep is basically useless, which is perfect. If she supports anything extreme left she’s gone.

    2. leon

      “an impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump, ”

      Always with the investigations. You know you can only ride the “he’s a criminal” train so far before your forced to make a choice about the destination. Either you impeach him like the criminal you say he is, or you eat the fact that you’ve pissed off your base by squashing their hopes.

      1. Gustave Lytton

        Unless you have a cooperative media and then you can ride that it until you get to the next worse than hitler candidate.

  37. leon

    The most pressing libertarian question is why is Dave Smith always late on delivering his podcast?

    1. Because his customers put up with it?

    2. straffinrun

      He’s got a baby. *Shrugs*. It’s by far my favorite podcast now that Mises stopped doing their civil war series.

      1. leon

        I enjoy it along with Tom Wids, Contra Krugman and Bob Murphy show. But I’m all caught up. Need some new podcasts

        1. Stinky Wizzleteats

          Check out Lions of Liberty, they put out regular content that’s consistently good. If you’re a peacenik libertarian the Scott Horton Show is also good.

          1. Gustave Lytton

            I see a need for a podcasts post to collate these recs. Like the what are we reading one.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Let me show you the depth and breadth of my insanity

    Over the past few days — which have felt like a runaway elevator ride into hell — there has been a lot of pointless debate about whether Donald Trump’s vicious, false and hateful attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and the other progressive congresswomen known as “the Squad” will help him or hurt him. I don’t know the answer, but we have to ask ourselves, first of all, what the question means.

    We are clearly not asking whether this tactic will improve Trump’s capacity for governing effectively, or his position for posterity, or his role in the histories of this period that will presumably be written somewhere, by someone. Those ships have sailed, so long ago they can no longer be seen over the horizon. We are presumably asking whether or not he improves his chances of parlaying another electoral minority into another Electoral College majority, by exploiting the built-in weakness of our anachronistic political machinery and the directionless bitterness of a few million white people in a handful of “heartland” states.

    To frame the question that way, I believe, is clarifying. We are no longer talking about saving democracy or about appealing to the better angels of anybody’s nature. We are talking about small and evil things, and our vision is limited to the least-bad choices in an all-bad situation. We are like the prisoners in a dungeon conjured by Dickens or Alexandre Dumas, trying to keep our spirits up by placing bets on cockroach races.

    The world inside this person’s head is a dank, squalid place, filled with terror and gloom.

    Pity is all I have to offer.

    1. Rhywun

      filled with terror and gloom

      Don’t forget the racism and hatred!

    2. “We are like the prisoners in a dungeon conjured by Dickens or Alexandre Dumas, trying to keep our spirits up by placing bets on cockroach races.”

      Yeah, sure.

  39. PieInTheSky

    The Quiet Cruelty of When Harry Met Sally

    The classic rom-com invented the “high-maintenance” woman. Thirty years later, its reductive diagnosis lives on.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/07/when-harry-met-sally-and-the-high-maintenance-woman/594382/

    But high-maintenance is one of a particular subgroup of pop-cultured insults that are applied, most commonly, to women—a category that whiffs of feminist backlash. There’s MILF, popularized by American Pie; and cougar, popularized by the 2001 book Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men; and cool girl, introduced by Gone Girl; and gold digger, an insult of long standing recently revived by Kanye West. There’s butterface, derived over time from movies and music. There’s Monet (Cher in Clueless: “From far away it’s okay, but up close it’s a big ol’ mess”). There’s cankle—whose coinage added one more entry to the ever-expanding list of body parts women might feel insecure about—popularized by the allegedly romantic comedy Shallow Hal. (“She’s got no ankles,” Jason Alexander’s character, Mauricio, says. “It’s like the calf merged with the foot—cut out the middleman.”)

    1. Is there a low-maintenance woman software update? I seemed to have missed that version.

      1. something something buy a sexdoll something

      2. Poor Elspeth….

    2. Rufus the Monocled

      I briefly dated a high-energy, over thinking, spazz girl not unlike Ryan in the flick. They’re EXHAUSTING. She constantly questioned every single possible motive and when explained she was over blowing things she didn’t believe it.

      1. Were the last words she said to you “I knew you were out to get me”?

    3. leon

      Women are so oppressed. They can’t force men to be attracted to them.

    4. Chipwooder

      MILF is an insult?

      1. straffinrun

        MIWFWYD is.

        1. Chipwooder

          Hey, I finally figured that one out! Very proud of myself.

    5. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Men aren’t stereotyped at all, especially in romantic comedies.

    6. Lackadaisical

      I always thought romance movies were anti male. The idea that any self respecting man would put up with crazy women that offered nothing to the relationship always offended many sensibilities, even ( especially) as a child.

    7. MILF is an insult?

  40. The Late P Brooks

    And furthermore-

    Trump targeted those four charismatic women of color in Congress, of course, precisely because they had become a flashpoint of division and dissension among Democrats. As a lengthy report published this weekend in the Washington Post puts it, Trump told his advisers “he thought he was interjecting himself into Democratic Party politics in a good way.”

    As for the substance of the perceived dispute between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and their respective allies, that didn’t matter to Trump and he almost certainly didn’t understand it. As I wrote here last week, he perceived an opening to come sailing in and dunk on a group of powerful, strong and articulate women who have been presented to his supporters as cartoon villains — and that is certainly how the red-hatted hordes perceived his words and actions.

    Powerful. Articulate. In spades.

    1. R C Dean

      Two of them are arguably charismatic. Two are definitely not.

      1. Rhywun

        But they are of color. That’s gotta be worth at least a +2 on Charisma.

    2. Rebel Scum

      red-hatted horde

      Band name?

    3. Mainer

      Impeach the mother fucker ! That’s like poetry.

  41. LJW

    Elizabeth Warren says the ‘warning lights are flashing’ for the next economic crash

    The government should cut household debt by canceling up to $50,000 in student loan debt for most families, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and strengthen the power of unions, Warren wrote. She also said that the Financial Stability Oversight Council must meet “specifically to discuss these risks and announce a plan for addressing them.”

    She’s right, if we implement her policies the economy will be in trouble.

    1. So, she wants to steer into the cliff?

    2. PieInTheSky

      Eh a recession will come either way… What matters is how it is addressed.

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        By ‘how’ you mean ‘leave it alone’, right?

        1. PieInTheSky

          What I mean is not really relevant

    3. Rufus the Monocled

      She’s the poser child for ‘This is what happens when the government intervenes things get worse and blowns ups’.

      She’s demented.

    4. Right – government will save the day.
      https://fee.org/articles/the-great-depression-according-to-milton-friedman/

      Friedman understood . . . that before the Federal Reserve Act financial panics in the US were mitigated by the actions of private commercial bank clearinghouses. Friedman and Schwartz’s view of the 1930′s was that the Fed, having nationalized the roles of the clearinghouse associations [CHAs], particularly the lender-of-last-resort role, did less to mitigate the panic than the CHAs had done in earlier panics like 1907 and 1893. In that sense, the economy would have been better off if the Fed had not been created. This position is perfectly consistent with the position that, provided we take the Fed’s nationalization of the clearinghouse roles for granted, the Fed was guilty of not doing its job.

      Thus the Fed’s failure in the early ’30s shows the dangers of excessive centralization of important market functions that were previously dispersed among multiple private institutions. Friedman’s bottom line remains intact: The Fed caused the Great Depression.

      1. Festus

        They want this Presidency to fail and without donning my tin-foil top hat, it would not surprise me if something major went FUBAR in about a year’s time.

        1. Rhywun

          Nothing would please the Dems more.

  42. It’s all about sex with Trump

    The case of Acosta and the depraved sex predator he protected goes to the heart of both Trump’s election and his survival. It’s not complicated; it’s about sex. Absent the modern obsession with sex, Trump would still be a cipher unknown to most Americans, and it may yet be his undoing.

    Acosta had to resign when more and more evidence surfaced of his deal — cut while he was the U.S. attorney for South Florida — to let Trump’s old pal, financier Jeffrey Epstein, off with a wrist slap for years and years of sex trafficking with underaged girls and raping them. Eleven years ago, prosecutors and the FBI had turned up 36 victims, who were as young as 13 when Epstein seduced them and who would testify about his predations, but they never got to tell their stories. Acosta worked out a nonprosecution deal with Epstein’s lawyers that if the debaucher would plead no contest to just two charges of soliciting prostitution, do a little work-release time (12 hours a day of cell time) and register as a sex offender he would not have to face all the criminal charges and the recitations of his abominable crimes.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      Boy these negative articles about the guy are relentless.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      I take it the Arkansas Times is in the bag for the Clintons. They must be the last holdouts in the state.

    3. leon

      “cut while he was the U.S. attorney for South Florida — to let Trump’s old pal, financier Jeffrey Epstein, off with a wrist slap for years and years of sex trafficking with underaged girls and raping them. ”

      Damn that Willey Trump . Using the levers of power long before he was elected to get that guy he was aquatinted with off Scott free.

      1. +1 Time Machine

      2. Rebel Scum

        He is both an evil genius and a dumb simpleton. I dare you to find the contradiction.

        1. Count Potato

          So was Dubba.

    4. R C Dean

      Trump’s old pal, financier Jeffrey Epstein,

      Just a blatant, flat out lie.

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        it’s astonishing. Their audacity and arrogance. Amazing.

        Notice the only two comments and how they diverge.

      2. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yep, they were superficially friendly acquaintances who ran in overlapping social circles, nothing more.

      3. Rebel Scum

        But don’t you dare disparage the (fake) news media.

  43. Don Escaped Texas

    What does the FW on a TN Gadsden Flag stand for?

    On most plates, there’s a two-digit code I can cypher, but this one eludes me.

    1. Got a picture?

      1. Chipwooder

        ,a href=”https://wcyb.com/resources/media/3a8f3b2c-11f9-4783-bed8-af32634dd1f0-large16x9_ImportedfromLakana.jpg?1515114231607″>Here

        1. PieInTheSky

          got a better one?

          1. Chipwooder

            I swear, the site screwed up, not me!

            Anyway, if you look at the page, each of these has a little two letter code that derives from the subject matter of the plate. Civil War plates get CW, Appalacian Trail plates get AT, Watching Wildlife plates get WW, and so on. The Gadsden plate actually benefits a foundation for Friends of Sycamore Shoals, a state park, so I’d guess FW stands for friend of wildlife, something like that.

          2. Freedom Wanker.

    2. LJW

      Best I could find

      What do the stacked characters on the license plate mean?
      The stacked characters on the license plate are assigned by the Tennessee Department of Revenue and are for office use only for the purpose of unique identification.

    3. invisible finger

      Fuckyouthats Why?

  44. The Late P Brooks

    The government should cut household debt by canceling up to $50,000 in student loan debt for most families, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and strengthen the power of unions, Warren wrote.

    And then, we should formulate a plan for strengthening the economy, with a timeline; five years, say.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Magic beans in every pot!

    2. invisible finger

      If you got the unions out of higher education, college tuition might be reasonably priced.

    3. Rebel Scum

      We have to crash the economy to save the economy?

  45. Young Democratic Socialists trained to recruit without using word ‘socialism’
    National organization offers tips during ‘Socialist Summer Camp’

    How does one convince a young person to become a socialist? Well, for one, don’t use the word “socialism.”

    That was among the advice doled out by the Young Democratic Socialists of America as it hosts summer strategy and training sessions to gear up for activism this fall semester.

    “We want to abolish capitalism, nothing less than that,” organizer Anna Bonomo recently told Young Democratic Socialists of America members during an online conference call training.

    But to do that, she continued, sort of convince people they need socialism without using the word. It’s more about connecting over “shared struggles and shared interests,” she said in a video conference training observed by The College Fix.

    1. Chipwooder

      Scum lies, film at 11

    2. “We want to abolish capitalism, nothing less than that”

      And I want you all to go fuck off in some random shithole, but we can’t have everything we want in this life, now can we?

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Nothing like lying to get the point across that you’re honest about your goals.

    4. Rhywun

      They could go with “communist”.

    5. Rebel Scum

      ‘Socialist Summer Camp’

      Do you know who else?

      1. Count Potato

        Tommy?

    6. The Last American Hero

      Why not just move to North Korea? They abolished capitalism. They could be living the dream right now.

  46. Rebel Scum

    Are we still talking about this?

    House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said on Sunday he hopes Robert Mueller’s testimony before the House will bring the former special counsel’s report “to life.”

    “Since most of our constituents in their busy lives haven’t had the opportunity to read that report — and it’s a pretty dry prosecutorial work product — we want Bob Mueller to bring it to life, to talk about what’s in that report,” the California Democrat told Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

    “It’s a pretty damning set of facts,” he said, “that involve a presidential campaign in a close race welcoming help from a hostile foreign power, not reporting it but eagerly embracing it, building it into their campaign strategy, lying about it to cover up, then obstructing an investigation into foreign interference again to try to cover up.

    “That’s a pretty damning set of facts that most American people are not familiar with,” Schiff said. “And, of course, the president keeps on trying to deceive them about those facts. But who better to bring them to life than the man who did the investigation himself?”

    If only saying it would make it so.

    1. Timeloose

      Isn’t the report supposed to speak for itself. Was their collusion or not? Everything else is out of scope.

    2. R C Dean

      “welcoming help from a hostile foreign power”

      By declining every invitation to be entrapped by US law enforcement and intelligence operatives.

      1. Lackadaisical

        Exactly, it’s in the best interests of the deep state to get rid of trump. By not betraying the country, he was helping their enemies. QED.

  47. MikeS

    Spread the good news, far and wide:

    Science Officially Declares Open-Plan Offices Are a Total Bust. Here’s Why

    Co-working brings together a large number of people with different goals and tasks, which means people trying to engage in focused work or small meetings are often easily pulled off track. Counterintuitively, the communal nature of open offices, like those in co-working, results in less face-to-face collaboration. In effect, studies have found that people shift to email and instant messaging to preserve privacy.

    1. Open plans let the bigwigs who actually get offices lord it over the peons even more. I don’t think they’ll go away as fast as they need to.

      1. wdalasio

        Not to mention the real reason companies go for them – they save on real estate.

        1. A Leap at the Wheel

          Bingo. Nothing more or less than that.

        2. Democratic Hitler

          As usual, it’s too bad that they usually aren’t more honest about that instead of manufacturing a bunch of bullshit PR about improving collaboration. I’d respect them a lot more.

    2. Festus

      What? You don’t want “Dorito Breath” sitting two feet away from you?

    3. LJW

      I’m on month 4 of my open office experience. I hate my life. I work from home as much as possible. There is this woman who won’t shut the fuck up. All day long in a oh my gawd tone bla bla bla. Sorry had to vent.

      1. straffinrun

        That’s not a vent. Throw in some 80’s action movie references and go Razorfist.

        1. You’re funny Straff. I’ll kill you last.

          /Ahnold

      2. *commiserates from stupid open office desk, listening to the conversation of the girl 5 desks down*

        Nobody is here yet, and I can already feel the productivity draining.

      3. Stinky Wizzleteats

        If you’re allowed I’d recommend a set of these, they aren’t cheap though:

        https://www.cnet.com/topics/headphones/best-headphones/noise-canceling/

    4. ChipsnSalsa

      According to recent research, overhearing half of a conversation, such as one side of a phone conversation, is even worse than overhearing a live conversation between two people.

      Well that’s good because I hear both sides of phone conversations because both participants have each other on speakerphone! Dolby Surround FTW

    5. Rhywun

      I can’t wait for this to become common wisdom in a couple decades.

      1. MikeS

        So soon?

        1. Rhywun

          Enh, I’m an optimist.

    6. Drake

      Back when I had an office, people I was working on a project with would come in, close the door, and have an honest conversation with me. Sometimes they just had to vent, sometimes I learned the important stuff people didn’t want to say in public. That open space squashed it – now people are constantly scanning their surroundings during any conversation.

      1. If anyone wants to have an open discussion in my office, we duck into the boardroom or the server room. Otherwise you have to watch what you say.

    7. ChipsnSalsa

      CAN EVERYONE PLEASE STOP COUGHING!

  48. The Late P Brooks

    Mayor Butthead says, “Why you so racist, you racist?”

    South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) warned white supremacy could be “the issue that ends this country” in an interview with ABC News Saturday.

    “That is the only issue that almost ended this country. … We’ve had a lot challenges in this country, but the one that actually almost ended this country in the Civil War was white supremacy,” Buttigieg told the network in Iowa.

    “It could be the lurking issue that ends this country in the future, if we don’t wrangle it down in our time,” he added.

    “The entire American experiment is at stake in whether we can manage to deliver prosperity in a way that your race has no bearing on your income, your wealth, your employment opportunities, your experience with criminal justice [and] your ability to vote,” he added.

    “We’re just not there and we won’t get there until we acknowledge that replacing a racist historical structure with a more neutral current one is not enough,” he said, according to ABC News.

    By all means, lecture me about my moral inadequacies, and tell me what a deep disappointment I am to you. I just can’t get enough of that.

    1. straffinrun

      But I want a more neutral racist historical structure. I think.

    2. AlmightyJB

      Maybe if these assholes would get outside their little bubbles and meet some actual real people, they would realize that white supremacy is as dead as polyester suits.

    3. Rhywun

      How many trillions of dollars have we already pissed away trying to “deliver prosperity”? Maybe try not doing that for once, hm?

    4. Semi-Spartan Dad

      “That is the only issue that almost ended this country. … We’ve had a lot challenges in this country, but the one that actually almost ended this country in the Civil War was white supremacy,” Buttigieg told the network in Iowa.

      Even if you believe the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery and not over state sovereignty, the North still didn’t believe in the interracial holding of hands while singing Kumbaya.

      1. AlmightyJB

        Slavery was more of a Republican/Democrat issue than a strictly North/South issue.

      2. I will happily die on the hill that the Civil War was not in fact a civil war but instead a war of invasion on the part of the USA against the CSA, and was only incidentally related to slavery. In fact, Reconstruction continued a policy of using race relations as a method of weakening the political power and social structure of the southern states. There were and are people who genuinely want to eliminate racism and forge a society where people look beyond collectivism and prejudice and see each other as equals, and even better, as part of a single community of humankind. That only rarely if ever has anything at all to do with policies regarding race in this country, from the 19th century to the present day.

        1. The Last American Hero

          The articles of secession say otherwise…

          So does the map of Oklahoma.

          1. Slavery was a point of conflict, but the war was not fought to free slaves. Slavery was an issue because of Congressional representation which was itself an issue because of economic and trade policy. And as Lincoln said, if he could’ve reformed the union without freeing a single slave, he would have.

          2. Rebel Scum

            His first inaugural stated in no uncertain terms that he intended to commit violence and bloodshed in states that failed to collect the recently doubled tariff. He went to war to collect taxes an assert federal dominance. Hell, the emancipation proclamation didn’t even apply to places under federal control at the time. A fun and enlightening exercise is to compare Lincoln’s first inaugural to Jeff Davis’s.

        2. Heroic Mulatto

          and was only incidentally related to slavery.

          Someone forgot to tell this guy…

          But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other — though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

          Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind — from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics; their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just — but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.

          In the conflict thus far, success has been on our side, complete throughout the length and breadth of the Confederate States. It is upon this, as I have stated, our social fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.

          1. I’m not saying that slavery wasn’t an issue, but it wasn’t the cause per se. The real beef started over slavery in the new territories, and that had to do with political power (which translates into economic policy) much more than any genuine moral concern over slavery. Slave owners were a small minority in the south, slavery itself was considered at least a moral conundrum by some prominent southerners (including Lee) and presumably therefore by some of the hoi polloi as well, and several southern states didn’t even secede until Lincoln had already sent troops south.

            Which is to say that slavery quo slavery was not nearly as important as, for instance, slavery as a symbol of regional conflict between two different cultures, slavery in its role as a factor in political dominance, etc.

          2. robc

            And Kentucky remained pro-union and pro-slavery throughout the war.

          3. Count Potato

            There is no way that answer could fit on a citizen test.

        3. Scruffy Nerfherder

          No slavery, no Civil War.

          Seems simple enough to me.

      3. Rebel Scum

        Indeed. Many (most?) abolitionists thought slavery was wrong but didn’t want black people around. And Lincoln worked until his dying day to colonize US blacks elsewhere. Some took it upon themselves to move to Liberia, where, in an ironic turn of events, they enslaved some locals.

    5. Yes, Pete, harping on white supremacy will indeed end the country if you keep it up. If you continually tell people who aren’t racist that they owe a moral debt to others due to their skin color and that their ethnic heritage means that regardless of their personal situation they hold some sort of privilege because of their ethnic heritage, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, you will sow discord. So stop doin’ it, already.

    6. Rebel Scum

      Truly a student of history.

    7. Fatty Bolger

      “The entire American experiment is at stake in whether we can manage to deliver prosperity in a way that your race has no bearing on your income, your wealth, your employment opportunities, your experience with criminal justice [and] your ability to vote,” he added.

      Well, let’s look at the Trump record on this: Lowest unemployment for minorities in 50 years. Real progress in criminal justice reform. Strong support for school choice.

      But by all means, keep pretending that the real issue is a bunch of imaginary cross burners lurking in the shadows.

  49. AlmightyJB

    ‘How about “work reasonably hard, play…moderately?”’

    I’m with you Swiss. The mind is willing but the body needs it’s rest these days.

    1. R C Dean

      Not everyone has a high RPM motor. I’ve never been that way, never wanted to be that way.

      1. AlmightyJB

        We spent last week running around Chicago in oppressive heat and humidity. Seven hour drive home yesterday. Today is our last day of vacation and we’re home vegging on couch where I suspect we’ll spend most of day. Of course it’s raining all day so won’t feel to bad about that:)

      2. STEVE SMITH HIGH RPH MACHINE. RAPER PER HIKER.

      3. Yep. My wife was giving me shit for wanting to plant a butterfly garden next to the bird feeders. “who wants to just sit there and watch birds and butterflies? What are you, 80?”

        I responded “it’s the just sitting there that appeals to me. The birds and butterflies are just to add an interesting backdrop”

        I’d love to have a bit more energy so that I didn’t feel like the weekend was one long recharge from the prior week. That comes down to getting back in shape. Beyond that, I can’t stand being all “go go go”.

        1. “I want to set up Mothra versus Rodan, but pteranodons are hard to find.”

          1. pan fried wylie

            The scaled down, garden version of Pteranodons would just be birds.

          2. So, all Trashy needs to do is set up a miniature version of Tokyo in the garden, and they should fight, right?

      4. It’s the FOMO. My wife and I see it in our daughter. There was a period where we had to watch her to make sure she wiped after using a toilet because she couldn’t stand the thought that something interesting might be happening somewhere else while she’s stuck on the can. When I was her age and older I used to fight like hell to avoid sleep for fear all the really cool shit would happen while I was in bed.

        Of course, these days, I assume I’m not missing out on anything. The whole family was in Rehoboth for the week, so I came back for a day to myself at home. I don’t think I spoke more than five words, and those to the dogs. I spent at least an hour sitting on the couch drinking coffee in silence, just kind of looking at the room and out the window. It was sublime.

        1. Lackadaisical

          I find myself doing the same sorts of things. Sitting and doing ‘ nothing’ has had a great effect on my mood.

          1. commodious spittoon

            That’s because you weren’t doing nothing. You were plotting against minorities.

            Why Sitting and Drinking Coffee While Doing Nothing is a Dog Whistle Between Privileged Whites, And That’s Not Okay

          2. How can someone go through live thinking everyone is evil and scheming with the worst possible motives? It seems tiring.

          3. commodious spittoon

            Tbf, I suspect very few people do, and among those who do they do it because they work for clickbait sites and excreting headlines like that is the only way they keep their anemic numbers up. Or they work in academia where publishing vile opinions justifies their sad sinecures. I don’t think most people who repeat the mantras about white supremacy really believe in it at heart, because they wouldn’t be typing out sneering posts at DU like I do here. They’d be making bombs.

        2. Pope Jimbo

          I remember a day like that about 15 years ago. I sent the wife and kids off somewhere and spent the day by myself at home with the mutt. I spent it reading and napping on the deck with the mutt lying beside me.

          Every nap would end with me snapping awake in a panic because it was so quiet that my subconscious was sure something had gone wrong. Real quiet was an amazing thing that I noticed that day. The quiet I had become used to was just an absence of crying/fighting/screaming from the kids.

      5. robc

        I had a friend who tried multiple times to be a law firm partner-track lawyer and eventually realized he was cut out for corporate law, and now does very good for himself. The high energy, crazy hours thing he just couldn’t keep up.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    Thus the Fed’s failure in the early ’30s shows the dangers of excessive centralization of important market functions that were previously dispersed among multiple private institutions. Friedman’s bottom line remains intact: The Fed caused the Great Depression.

    *collapses onto fainting couch*

  51. Fatty Bolger

    ‘Let me guess, you want to nuke them all’: Trump constantly baiting John Bolton in front of officials, report says

    During a White House Situation Room meeting last year, Mr Trump reportedly said to his hawkish national security chief: “Ok, John, let me guess, you want to nuke them all?”

    According to the report by the Axios website, Mr Trump turned to Mr Bolton in an Oval Office meeting with Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar and said: “John, is Ireland one of those countries you want to invade?”

    Quoting unnamed senior administration officials, the account claimed the president recently joked that “John has never seen a war he doesn’t like”, repeating sentiments made in public. “If it was up to him he’d take on the whole world at one time, okay?” Mr Trump recently told NBC’s Meet the Press.

    Yet the president is said to get “quite touchy” if critics of Mr Bolton complain the national security adviser could pull the US into unnecessary conflict against Mr Trump’s will. “He doesn’t want anyone to believe he’s anybody’s pawn.”

    1. AlmightyJB

      That’s kinda funny. Should have kept Bolton at U.N.

      1. This. He really was a perfect fit for the U.N. bureaucrats.

    2. wdalasio

      Good on Trump. And I have to admit, a couple of those made me chuckle.

    3. >>“John, is Ireland one of those countries you want to invade?

      Now that’s funny.

      1. straffinrun

        Funny. Still can’t stand the war monger. I don’t care if it’s part of his 3D chess, I wish he’d find someone else.

        1. Warty would be just perfect.

          “SQUAT THIS!”

      2. Scruffy Nerfherder

        That’s hilarious.

        But we should invade Ireland.

        1. Rebel Scum

          Free Guinness!

      3. robc

        After Bush’s late September 2011 speech, my first comment, since he was very vague about what terrorists were were going after, was “We are going to invade Northern Ireland?”

        1. The troubles seem to have settled down.

          I think we need to invade Seattle and Coastal Commifornia.

          1. slumbrew

            I believe that 9/11 basically dried up most of the funding for the IRA as Americans got a little more serious about what sending money to them really meant.

    4. A Leap at the Wheel

      I Want To Believe

  52. The Late P Brooks

    “We want to abolish capitalism, nothing less than that,” organizer Anna Bonomo recently told Young Democratic Socialists of America members during an online conference call training.

    But to do that, she continued, sort of convince people they need socialism without using the word. It’s more about connecting over “shared struggles and shared interests,” she said in a video conference training observed by The College Fix.

    Why get hung up on jargon? Call it socialism, call it something else. It’s just people helping people. What’s wrong with that? Now get back in the bread line, before you lose your spot.”

    1. creech

      Don;t forget to tell them they will all have to work longer for less pay in order that those too lazy to work aren’t deprived of their rights.

    2. Rebel Scum

      It’s just people helping people.

      At gunpoint.

    3. Did they ask her how much the camp was to attend?

  53. wdalasio

    OT: You know, even back in the 1980s, we as a society recognized that the notion of “white privilege” was laughable. It’s sad that we’ve degenerated as a civilization.

    1. Yusef drives a Kia

      Privilege? Living in motels, going from job to job? I feel real privileged about now,

  54. Yusef drives a Kia

    They red tagged the jobsite, no one gets in, so I’m waiting, again……
    On the clock

    1. Drake

      It’s on sale?

      1. Yusef drives a Kia

        No not K mart, O’Reilly auto parts

  55. The Late P Brooks

    They red tagged the jobsite, no one gets in, so I’m waiting, again……
    On the clock

    Bioterrorism?

    1. Yusef drives a Kia

      Hydrant in the wrong place, 50 yards off, morpns….

  56. Heroic Mulatto

    Why have the usual suspects been silent over the gender-switching of Old Deuteronomy in the Cats movie?

    1. Sensei

      Obligatory Team America and “Cats” reference!

      1. commodious spittoon

        I Like Food And Rainbows And Stuff
        3 years ago
        Roses are red. Violets are blue. Mr. Mistoffelees has a big white van. Get in the back of it.

        I don’t know why but that tickles me.

    2. Because the usual suspects weren’t allowed to see Cats because their parents didn’t want them to catch the gay?

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      God was pretty down on the idea of criticism in Deuteronomy?

    4. Because the middle part of the Venn diagram of kids who grew up reading comic books and kids who watched a lot of Broadway musicals is pretty damn narrow?

      1. Heroic Mulatto

        You’d be surprised.

        1. Come to think of it, my grandmother used to play “Memory” on the piano all the time…

    5. Not Adahn

      Well, it does call for a tenor, so I guess it’s possible.

      But a female BRIAN BLESSED?? Really?

      1. Heroic Mulatto

        But a female BRIAN BLESSED??

        EXACTLY!

      2. commodious spittoon

        CHISWICK!

        FRESH HORSES!

      3. I LIKE NOT THIS NEWS, BRING ME DIFFERENT NEWS.

    6. Not Adahn

      Remember when there were exactly zero rat’s asses given when Robert Guillaume sang Phantom?

      Fuck Hitler, someone needs to go back in time and murder @Jack as an infant.

      1. Heroic Mulatto

        Everyone knows you don’t fuck with Benson.

    7. Nothing about that sentence had any meaning to me.

    8. AlmightyJB

      I think you know

  57. The Late P Brooks

    A different sort of voodoo economics

    The world’s biggest cement makers have been under pressure from environmental groups, regulators and lawmakers to cut pollution. Now, some of the world’s most powerful investors are echoing those calls.

    Members of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate change and the Climate Action 100+, a coalition of money managers with more than $33 trillion under management, is asking that European construction-material companies commit to a target of reducing net carbon dioxide emissions to zero by 2050. The group sent the demands to CRH Plc, LafargeHolcim Ltd, HeidelbergCement AG and Compagnie de Saint-Gobain SA, along with letters setting out steps applicable for each company on how to get there.

    Just like industries from traditional power generation to shipping and transportation, pressure on is mounting on cement companies to clean up and help slow global warming. The industry accounts for 7% of the world’s man-made carbon dioxide, according to the International Energy Agency.

    “Construction material companies may ultimately risk divestment and lack of access to capital,’’ said Vincent Kaufmann, chief executive officer of the Ethos Foundation, a member of the group. “An increasing number of investors seek to exclude highly carbon-intensive sectors from their portfolios to meet their own decarbonization plans.”

    I’m sure whatever gets substituted for concrete will be 1000% environmentally friendly.

    1. Oh I’m sure it will the 1000% more profitable, and owned by the relatives of the activists.

    2. +1 Wattle and Daub

    3. ChipsnSalsa

      This recycled cardboard is just as strong as concrete, our new Director of Engineering from with xir degree from Woke Studies U. has assured us.

      1. “We mix the cellulose fibers with portland cement, water, and rocks, and get very good results.”

  58. Evan from Evansville

    I’ve been freelancing for the past 9 months. Some of it as a side gig but in Thailand it’s been my source of income.
    I just had a job interview to get back into teaching. Satit International Bilingual School of Rangsit University Chiang Mai. They offer visa services, health benefits and several week-long vacations a year. It’s also the highest paying teaching gig that I’ve seen here (which isn’t much, but life is cheap here). They are also a Cambridge International School.

    I’m going to have to start working mornings (GUH)! and go back to teaching the little monsters. But this place seems different. They provide a four-month training program to be Cambridge certified. I think this means that I can teach in any of 160 countries that accept that certificate. This might open a lot of doors.
    I think I would be an idiot not to take this offer. But I am conflicted. It’s going to be tons of work but believe in my free time and be able to chill.

    Decisions. This could be BigBig.

    1. As an advocate of stability, I’d say go for it.

      1. Seconded. While there’s a lot of truth to the notion that you should enjoy life while you can, it’s also a fact that as you get older a lot of doors start closing and staying closed simply because of your age, which means that you want to make sure other doors open because of your experience and qualifications.

        1. -1 50yo exotic dancer

        2. Rufus the Monocled

          My cousin who travelled the world globetrotted himself into a corner in this way.

    2. Heroic Mulatto

      They’re giving you CELTA training for free? That’s about 2,500 dollars.

      That having been said, if you don’t like teaching, don’t teach.

      1. Sensei

        Exactly what I was going to suggest!

        If you don’t like teaching you (and your students) won’t be happy.

    3. commodious spittoon

      They’re going to harvest your organs and dump your body in a ravine.

    4. Not Adahn

      They’ll let you into Racist University? I guess it’s not run by locals?

  59. Bob Boberson

    Too busy working to Glib much today. Thanks to Count Potato, Derpologist, well…..pretty much all you Glibs, my google newsfeed is comprised of nothing but Breitbart, Daily Wire, The Root, The Guardian and Vox. This gem came up today:

    https://qz.com/1153516/americas-wholesome-square-dancing-tradition-is-a-tool-of-white-supremacy/

    File under Oh, FOR FUCK SAKE

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      *pouts*

      It’s like SJWednesday never existed.

      1. Bob Boberson

        I’m sure you are responsible for at least a couple of the daily DERPS I see in my feed.

        /pats scruffy on the back

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          *puffs out chest, beams*

    2. commodious spittoon

      What does it say about white supremacy that its tools are so benign and unfashionable?

      1. Bob Boberson

        who knew that all the people doing this in the rec rooms of nursing homes are actually holding a secret Klan rally?

        I’ve actually square danced at a few hippie bluegrass festivals and it’s taylor made for crackers like me who have no rhythm and need to be told what to do every step of the way to not make a total fool of themselves. It’s my favorite form of dancing.

        1. commodious spittoon

          it’s taylor made

          Made by Zachary Taylor, the most racist president before President Trump.

        2. Heroic Mulatto

          You know, The Cha-Cha Slide also tells you what to do.

          1. And the Hokey Pokey!

          2. Rebel Scum

            It’s Electric!

      2. Heroic Mulatto

        EXACTLY!

    3. Count Potato

      Is there anything that isn’t white supremacy?

        1. Juvenile Bluster

          The tomatoes white people eat are picked by underpaid immigrants. Of course it’s white supremacy.

          1. TRAVESTY! Where is my tomato-picking robot?

          2. Heroic Mulatto
          3. AlmightyJB

            Plus, all POC live in food deserts where no fresh produce exists. Only junk food loaded with poison to keep them weak. Tomatoes are a symbol of white privilege.

          4. There’s AIDS in the Big Mac!

            THERE’S AIDS IN THE BIG MAC!!!

          5. Don’t have a Mad Cow.

    4. Bob Boberson

      DISCLAIMER: The author has a few legitimate points; Henry Ford was a horrible racist. The government trying to push square dancing is both wrong and miles from any semblance of it’s so-called legitimate functions. That being said I’m sure this retard would have no problem if it were the government proividing grant money for intersectional non-white genderneutral LGBTQTXYZ interpretive dance.

    5. Not Adahn

      What about cakewalks?

    6. Miserable person leading a miserable life writing about misery.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    Editors? We don’ need no steenkin’ editors.

    A 29-story office building at 123 Mission Street illustrates the policy puzzles that fester because of these facts: For centuries, tobacco has been a widely used, legal consumer good that does serious and often lethal harm when used as it is intended to be used. And its harmfulness has been a well-established and widely publicized scientific proposition for generations.

    The building is the headquarters of Juul, a large company that markets vaping products — electronic cigarettes — and that has been running full-page ads in major newspapers ostensibly attempting to limit sales of its product: “Youth vaping is a serious problem” that justifies “cracking down on underage sales at retail stores” and removing from stores “flavored products.” Juul’s flavors include mint, mango, fruit, and cucumber. Other companies’ flavors have included “Unicorn Puke” and “Zombie Juice.” The target audience is not mature.

    This city, Juul’s host, recently banned such products from being sold in stores or online and delivered to city addresses. Its purpose is to limit cigarette smoking, the nation’s foremost cause of preventable death. Well.

    It’s a stupid article, made worse by the chatty high school kid style of writing popular in some circles these days.

    Like, organize your thoughts, dood. Don’t just randomly puke them up on the page.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Cucumber flavor? Blecch.

      1. Rhywun

        It’s as terrible as it sounds.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s a stupid article, made worse by the chatty high school kid style of writing popular in some circles these days.

      Being an earnest and foolish youth is considered a bonus in debate these days.

    3. The Other Kevin

      I’ve heard the radio spots on the Chicago stations. Juul is attempting some serious damage control.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        They shouldn’t bother, the antismoking zealots won’t cut them any slack for it. Hell, they’re attacking a product that‘s far safer then the alternative because it somewhat resembles that alternative. It’s madness really.

      2. Rhywun

        The left is trying to destroy them, facts be damned.

    4. Rhywun

      Its purpose is to limit cigarette smoking

      LOL

      Back in the real world… Juul is not a cigarette. It is not tobacco. It helps people quit tobacco, you ignorant slut. Your city just imposed a policy that will kill more people. Pat yourself on the back.

      1. Drake

        But do they pay $billions in taxes and bribes like the tobacco industry? That’s the real issue.

        1. This is where the opioid pharma companies went wrong; they didn’t pay sufficient protection money.

    5. Chipwooder

      It’s a stupid article, made worse by the chatty high school kid style of writing popular in some circles these days.

      Like, organize your thoughts, dood. Don’t just randomly puke them up on the page.

      How dare you criticize George F. Will!

      1. Rhywun

        I didn’t see the byline until now. I thought you were kidding. Go home, George, you’re drunk.

    6. “the chatty high school kid style of writing popular in some circles these days”

      This this this!! Also: the headline style “Blankety blank blank: Here’s what happened/Here’s that that means/And it’s not ok” that was pioneered by Gawker and Buzzfeed needs to die in a fire.

      PS: WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!?!

      1. Children don’t read Gawker. Nobody reads Gawker.

        1. commodious spittoon

          Children are a luxury of white privilege. Minorities have children by accident, or because of their opposition to abortion due to false consciousness. Whites have children to exclude minorities.

          1. MUH AKSESS TO BURTH CUNTROLL

      2. Rhywun

        That shit is infesting TV commercials, too. And news. And sports…

      3. Fatty Bolger

        It’s the one weird trick of clickbait writing.

    1. But… Miami? I understand the tax incentives, but not Florida as the chosen destination.

      1. robc

        Miami is north of the Mason Dixon line.

        1. robc

          I have suggested that the ACC realign to North and South divisions:

          South : UNC, Duke, NC St, Wake Forest, Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Florida St.
          North: Boston College, Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Miami.

        2. Yep. Starts turning into Cracker Country once you pass Jupiter.

      2. Fatty Bolger

        Miami is like the elephant’s graveyard for New Yorkers.

        1. A good friend of mine is from Pensacola, which is basically Alabama, and even he says, “Miami’s not Florida.”

          1. Chipwooder

            Lived in Pensacola for 7 years – can confirm that it’s much more Alabama than Florida.

      3. Rhywun

        Yeah, I want a tax utopia without the shitty weather and bugs.

        1. Drake

          New Hampshire

          1. If full of Massholes.

          2. Drake

            Yes – you have to fight for freedom.

        2. robc

          Tennessee?

          1. Rhywun

            Note: I don’t like heat or humidity. That does limit my options.

          2. robc

            Also, the entire Ohio Valley area is death to anyone with allergies (Note to self: why do I still live here? 2nd note: not much longer)

          3. robc

            Liberty is positively correlated with distance from Canada.

          4. MikeS

            Not in fly-over country.

    2. Drake

      Not Phil Murphy. He tried to get every millionaire to leave NJ.

    1. Congresscritter isn’t a job.

  61. MikeS

    Man Drowns As Politically Correct Passengers Struggle To Describe What Just Went Overboard

    They came up with lots of ideas:

    Non-gender-conforming person overboard
    Another member of the patriarchy is perishing don’t save him
    Someone is dying but we’re not sure what xis pronouns are
    The sea is angry today, my diverse friends
    ARRRRR shiver me timbers thar be drownin thing in that thar water
    IT’S MA’AM OVERBOARD
    Thar xe blows
    Vaguely human-shaped object overboard

    1. Rebel Scum

      Nice.

  62. MikeS

    Sanders: ‘If You Like Your Means Of Production, You Can Keep Your Means Of Production’

    Sanders has talked often about how the workers are going to steal the means of production from their owners. Americans were getting understandably worried about his proposal since revolutions like that have had questionable results in the past, usually resulting in some unfortunate side effects like an economic slump and also hundreds of millions of deaths.

    1. “questionable results”

      Understatement of the century folks.

      1. pan fried wylie

        quit overplaying Venezuela’s Economic Slump.

  63. Trump supporters are Klansmen currently sharpening their pitchforks and tying nooses. A frothing mass of subhuman psychopaths bent on destroying everyone even remotely different.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-joy-of-hatred/ar-AAEzS9n

    PS: I can actually understand why, absent context, the “send her back” chant could be offensive. What I don’t understand is how it’s ipso facto racist; AFAIK there is no racial component to it at all, it’s all about patriotism and Omar’s anti-Americanism.

    1. Related:

      https://freebeacon.com/politics/ilhan-omar-marriage-flummoxes-media-fact-checkers/

      It “flummoxes” them because it’s not providing the answer they want.

      1. commodious spittoon

        How is “Let’s not cover this” flummoxing?

        1. commodious spittoon

          “He only said it because he’s such a racismy racist bigot.” Where’s my bravery in journalisming award?

    2. MikeS

      I’d accept Chauvinism or jingoism, but racism is bullshit.

      1. What about Calvanism?

        /Babylon Bee

        1. slumbrew

          No one is “a good boy”.

        2. MikeS

          It’s fine if it’s blended with Hobbsism.

    3. Rhywun

      Jamelle Bouie

      And that’s where I stopped.

    4. Rebel Scum

      Omar is not white. Ergo any criticism of her is racist.

    5. Chipwooder

      “To be clear, the Trump rally isn’t a lynch mob” but I’m going to spend the bulk of the article recounting a particularly horrific 126 year old lynching anyway

    6. Drake

      The only thing I can see that defines the Left right now is a burning hatred of Whites. They hate us personally, they hate Western civilization, and any limit on the state’s power.

      1. I’d amend that with “burning hatred of anyone who supports constitutional originalism and individual rights”. The hate for “POC” that wander off the reservation is 1000x hotter than typical hatred of whitey.

  64. The Late P Brooks

    “The Joy of Hatred” you say?

    A phenomenon which manifests itself exclusively among the members of the alt-right and other white supremacist types.

  65. The Late P Brooks

    Note: I don’t like heat or humidity. That does limit my options.

    Parts of South Dakota are nice.

  66. “the divisive rhetoric at President Trump’s most recent rally demonstrated, [he is] exploiting white people’s anxiety about their looming minority status for political gain”

    Citation needed.

    “Republican voters ‘yearn for a white republic’ and are willing to destroy the country to get it”

    Nazis! Nazis everywhere!!

    “But the demographic picture is a bit more complicated than the simplistic progressive narrative about the seemingly inevitable decline of the (old, white, male) Republican party (and racist white conservatives) suggests.”

    No shit asshole.

    https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/demography-destiny-right/

    1. Rebel Scum

      and racist white conservatives

      “Your divisive language is tearing the country apart, you white, racist, misogynist, xenophobic NAZI!”

    2. Rhywun

      Because assuming that black and brown people were born to support socialism is the not-racist position.

  67. The Late P Brooks

    Since many rich people are kind souls who give back to society in big ways, maybe it’s wrong to demonize them. Perhaps, you might think, even if most of the ultrarich are rapacious sociopaths, we should thank the rich who donate to noble causes for their generosity, or (as some have argued) look to them to solve more of society’s problems through philanthropy.

    This would be a mistake. We shouldn’t cut the benevolent rich any slack — not least because, upon closer examination, they usually aren’t so benevolent after all.

    Yes, yes, of course.

  68. If being a teacher wasn’t such a miserable exercise in state-enforced propaganda, maybe this wouldn’t be an issue.

    https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2019/04/04/the_national_stem_teacher_shortage_threatens_future_prosperity_110320.html

    I actually considered being a teacher for a while because I really enjoy it. That joy alone *might* have been enough to overcome the ~75% paycut I’d be taking; however, the unions, the intrusiveness of the State and the lack of control over the curriculum nuked any such ambitions.

    1. I never got past the part where I’d be forced to spend the workday in the same room as the students.

    2. Rhywun

      I got an earful of horror stories from older bro – centered almost entirely around bureaucracy and parents – which put an end to any desire I might have had to be a teacher.

    3. commodious spittoon

      Kinda related. I pulled this up while looking for something else. KDW on the left’s opposition to school choice.

      “Let’s ban private schools,” Gawker cheerily suggests. Writing in that esteemed journal, John Cook argues that “there’s a simple solution to the public-schools crisis.” If people make choices that complicate the Left’s agenda, then ban those choices: “Make Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama’s children go to public schools,” Cook writes. “From a purely strategic and practical standpoint, it would be much easier to resolve the schools crisis if the futures of America’s wealthiest and most powerful children were at stake.”

      The Left’s heart is still in East Berlin: If people want to leave your utopia and have the means to do so, then build a wall. If they climb over the wall — as millions of low-income parents with children in private schools (very commonly Catholic schools) do — then build a higher wall. If they keep climbing – and they will — then there are always alternatives.

  69. The Late P Brooks

    Jacobin lays it all out in the open.

    We Don’t Need the Wealthy — Just Their Wealth

    ——-

    Bernie Sanders is right. We need to build a mass movement powerful enough to take on the millionaires and billionaires, so we can take control of socially created wealth and subject it to public, democratic control. Then we can start to solve the problems that the rich can’t.

    And when we have killed and eaten the goose, and golden eggs are no longer forthcoming, we’ll devour you, next.

  70. 0x90

    “but when Cali “made a furtive movement close to his waistband,” that’s when Comello opened fire, according to Gottlieb.”

    Always the furtive movements with these damned cops .. er, I mean gunners-down of mob bosses ..

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-suspected-gunning-down-reputed-mob-boss-mistook-him-deep-n1032331