Category: Daily Links

St Louis won a wild one in Atlanta and the Dodgers cruised past Washington.  And today is that glorious day when we have four playoff games in a row. I can’t wait.

The Seahawks topped the Rams last night in a game few people east of the Rockies even realized was on. And an 8 game slate on the ice last night resulted in the following winners: Carolina, New York (Rangers), Buffalo, Tampa, Nashville, Boston, Colorado and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. I’m sad I don’t get to call the name of the team from the land of 10,000 lakes, but I’m sure I will soon enough.

President (and Buckeye) Rutherford B Hayes was born on this day. As were: silent film great Buster Keaton, (over-)actor and proud gun owner Charlton Heston, animated crime stopper Dick Tracy, writer Anne Rice, twitchy baseball manager Tony LaRussa, nutjob Susan Sarandon, and boxer (involved in the greatest fight in history) Mickey Ward.

Y’all can fight me over the claim I made for that last name. Here’s rounds 9 and 10 in case you wanted to get goosebumps this morning. See? You know I’m right.  And now on to…the links!

You can add an IRS “whistleblower” to Trump’s headaches. And I remember when the IRS got weaponized by the executive branch. My how times have changed.

The FBI will use a movie as a pretext to troll online postings. And they’ll likely use it as a reason to arrest a bunch of people who did nothing wrong.  Yay, America!

This will be even funnier than Obama or Arafat winning. And by “funny”, I mean pathetic.

Apparently, the EU’s top court thinks it has jurisdiction of the entire world. Facebook needs to tell them to go suck an egg. But they won’t. They already bow and scrape to the Chinese government. Why not keep doing the same for the Europeans?

Bill DeBlasio decides to call out a cop’s widow. Its an interesting strategy. Especially since, you know, NYPD cops are trigger-happy as shit!. Jeez dude. If you’re gonna have six-hour work weeks, try thinking of something a little less contentious to do with that time.

I guess these women aren’t in to method acting. Seriously, I have no idea why a young woman would ever trust this guy.

A New Zealand bishop is being forced to resign for an “unacceptable sexual relationship”. The twist is that its with an adult woman!

And here’s a great song to end a week of great songs.

Enjoy more of my good musical taste. And enjoy your Friday and have a wonderful weekend. Beat Michigan State. Go ‘Stros. And all the best to your teams as well.

We’re having a challenging day here, so this will not be up to my usual excessively excellent standard.

So, let’s get to it!

First, because I need it, some levity.

This is welcome news in AZ.

How is this company still in business?

Huh, somehow increasing taxes isn’t the answer to everything.

Still no explanation of why this happened in the first place.

 

Hope you all have a great rest of your day!

I’m 0-2 on baseball playoff predictions after the Rays, with the smallest payroll in MLB, homered their way to a win in Oakland and a date with Houston in the ALDS.  I’m debating making a prediction about the divisional series because I don’t want to jink my Astros.  So I’ll just make them for the NL.  I’m going with the Dodgers and Braves. I may or may not make AL picks tomorrow.We’ll all have to wait and see (as if anybody really cares).

Liverpool won a wild one against Salzburg and now must do a quick turnaround for a match Saturday with well-rested third-place Leicester City. Barcelona got back on track . Chelski won, as did Ajax and Dortmund.  And in more local news, HOCKEY IS OFFICIALLY BACK!!!!!. Toronto beat Ottawa, the Caps spoiled the Blues banner-raising, the Oilers greased the Canucks, and Vegas (baby, Vegas) drilled San Jose.  More on tap tonight for those of you whose team didn’t play.

Its Chubby Checker’s birthday! And Stevie Ray Vaughan’s too. Also the following: hurler Dennis Eckersley, rocker Lindsey Buckingham, magical lion-snack Roy Horn, transformational hockey goalie Glenn Hall, race-baiting tax-evader Al Sharpton, golfer Freddie Couples, rocker Tommy Lee, singer Gwen Stefani, and actors Neve Campbell, Seann William Scott, Shannyn Sossamon, and recently-freed rapper A$AP Rocky.

That’s a pretty decent list, even if it does lack many historical names. Not to mention HOCKEY IS BACK!!! But either way, its time to move on to…the links!

Adam Schiff, who has said his office had no contact with the whistleblower before he filed his complaint, did in fact have contact between his office and the whistleblower before he filed the complaint. But nothing to see here, folks.  Its commonplace for a spy to relate conversations he doesn’t have firsthand knowledge of to an oversight committee chair and that chair not relate the concerns with the rest of the committee.  Move along, sir.  I said move along.

in related news, the prosecutor looking into the firm that inexplicably employed Biden’s son for. ridiculous sum of money said he was pressured by the US government to back off. But the media won’t touch that since it didn’t come from “a source” or “someone with knowledge of the information”.

Bernie Sanders has cancelled all campaign events for the time being after a medical scare. You can go ahead and put a fork in him.  The hard-left vote now completely belongs to Warren.

Meanwhile, her most serious opponent has a few questions to answer about an official trip he took to China in 2013 with his son. You know, his best defense on this might be to say “I took him there because China still makes some of the best heroin in the world and Beau really wanted to move away from crack to smack.”  Its a lot more plausible than the “nothing to see here, folks” defense they’re going with.

Dem super-donor Ed Buck has been indicted for a second person’s drug overdose at his Hollywood mansion house of horrors. I wonder how many of the people whose campaigns he raised millions for will come to defend him. I wonder how many in the media will address those connections.  I’ll go out on a limb and say the answers to those are both zero.

The EPA has sent San Francisco notice that they are in violation of the Clean Water Act for their use of storm drains letting used drug needles and human shit to flow into the Pacific Ocean.  SF denies the claim, saying all that human shit and those needles are captured in their water treatment plants. To which I would ask: what happens to that waste once it’s captured?

The brother of her victim and the judge in the case both hug convicted murdered Amber Guyger as she’s sentenced to ten years. God bless that brother, but I think it is out of place for a judge to do something like that.  Its also apparently considered “samboing and mammying” to forgive someone to at least one high-profile assclown.  I’m not sure I’d be as forgiving, but who the fuck does Nasheed think he is to tell someone how they should react when their brother is murdered?  Seriously, fuck that guy.

I remember the time Mark Sebastian locked himself in the Q-102 studio in Cincinnati and played this song 20 times in a row before they broke the door down and took him away. It was awesome.

Well that’s it, my friends. Go have a great day.

Sanders has heart stent procedure after chest discomfort

Bernie Sanders experienced chest discomfort during a campaign event Tuesday evening and had two stents inserted to address a blockage in an artery, his campaign announced.

“Sen. Sanders is conversing and in good spirits. He will be resting up over the next few days,” senior adviser Jeff Weaver said in a statement Wednesday. “We are canceling his events and appearances until further notice, and we will continue to provide appropriate updates.”

The Vermont lawmaker has kept up a relentless campaign schedule, particularly during the summer months, and often makes three or four stops a day in different regions. He was scheduled to attend a gun policy forum in Nevada on Wednesday, and then make seven appearances in California on Thursday and Friday.

At 78, Sanders is the oldest candidate in the Democratic field. But he projects vigor belying his age on the trail, and has not been faced with questions regarding his stamina and mental acuity that have plagued former Vice President Joe Biden, who is two years younger.

Chest pains. They’re called chest pains. He almost had a heart attack, you quisling fucks.

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Cory Booker raises over $6 million in the third quarter after threatening to drop out of the 2020 race

Sen. Cory Booker is breathing a sigh of relief as his campaign announces that he raised over $6 million in the third quarter.

The haul represents the most Booker has raised since the start of his campaign for president. His campaign manager, Addisu Demissie, celebrated the fundraising results after Booker declared last week that the campaign would need to raise at least $1.7 million in the final 10 days of the quarter if the candidate was to remain in the race.

“I’m proud to report that our 10 day push raised a total of $2,159,165.34 from more than 46,000 donation,” he said in a memo to supporters on Tuesday. “Because of you, we’ll be able to make critical investments that will allow us to continue growing our campaign in the way we need to compete to win the nomination.”

“Yay,” America says while clapping limply.

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Elizabeth Warren’s new remedy for corruption: a tax on lobbying

Elizabeth Warren wants to tax the corporate lobbying she says is breaking the American political system.

Warren, whose presidential campaign has been incrementally releasing a package of anti-corruption proposals, has unveiled a plan to tax corporations and trade organizations that spend a lot of money lobbying Congress and federal agencies.

The proposal would tax groups and companies that spend between $500,000 and $1 million per year on lobbying at a 35 percent rate, increasing the rate for bigger lobbying budgets. Corporations and trade groups that spend more than $1 million per year on lobbying would get hit with a 60 percent tax rate, and those spending more than $5 million would see a 75 percent tax rate.

These brackets would hit the pocketbooks of big pharmaceutical and health insurance companies, the real estate industry, fossil fuel companies, Wall Street firms, and electric utilities the hardest. They do not apply to charitable or social welfare organizations that also lobby the government, such as 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 nonprofit groups, but do apply to trade and professional associations, 501(c)6 groups.

It’s surprising how many of the Dem candidates really only have one idea. Warren will tax our way to utopia, Sanders will grumpy unmutalism, Yang has his pie-in-the-eye UBI panacea, Biden has “I was Barack’s VP. [flashes blacklight white fake teeth]”, and Harris, well Harris… she’s never met a problem that can’t be solved with a fake AAVE accent and a lengthy prison term.

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Kamala Harris Is Trying to Get President Trump Kicked Off Twitter

Kamala Harris is trying to get President Trump and his sausage fingers kicked off Twitter. On Tuesday, the senator and Democratic presidential candidate wrote a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, stating that she believes Trump violated Twitter’s user agreement regarding targeted harassment and inciting violence against a group or individual.

“In recent days, President Trump published the following tweets from his Twitter account to target, harass, and attempt to out the whistleblower who set forth credible allegations that the President has abused his power by urging a foreign government to investigate a domestic political rival,” Harris wrote. She also cited Trump’s tweets targeting House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and his tweet mulling the hypothetical “Civil War” that would ensue over his potential impeachment.

(I gave you the Gawkmodo version of the story because it is so delightfully whiny.)

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Keep your body behind the ball.  Everybody that played the game as a kid has heard that. Well, almost everybody. Of course, there was a bigger error that’s not getting the attention it deserves.  I’ve watched it a million times and I’m still sure it hit the bat first. Oh well, I’m 0-1 with my wild card picks so far.  I’d love to be 0-2, but I still think the A’s win tonight.

I’m sure as I type this update Bayern has scored again on Spuds.  That was an absolute beatdown. The kind that costs people their job. Real drawing with Brugge is the same kind of result. PSG, Juve, Man City, and Athletics all won. More fun across the pond today with the second set of UCL matches.  Not to mention fun this side of the pond as the NHL season officially opens today.

King Richard III was born on this day.  So were: badass rebel Nat Turner, bald person Mahatma Gandhi, chump Paul von Hindenburg, comedic genius Groucho Marx, the nearly-as-funny Bud Abbott, overrated picture-taker Annie Liebovitz, egomaniac Sting, wrestler Yokozuna, and 80s musician (who posed in Playboy when it was kinda too late) Tiffany.

OK, let’s get on with…the links!

Seriously, dude? How in the world could that seem “romantic”, you dumb bastard?

Sorry Meghan, but the Mail On Sunday is just publishing what they were given. I don’t see this going anywhere.  Also, your entire job is to be in public and do whatever you feel like on the dime of some else. Suck it up.

This would have been even better if he said he wanted sharks with freaking laser beams coming out of their eyes. Of course, the sources for the entire piece are “sources” and “people familiar with the matter”, so I’m having a hard time believing any of it. But it still sounds hilarious.Hilariously awesome!

Clinton-appointed judge behaves like Clinton. Receives punishment like a Clinton. Christ, what an asshole.

Well, plan on Johnson & Johnson to be filing for bankruptcy in a few years.  Once you settle one of these, the floodgates will open.

That asshole who killed her neighbor in Dallas was found guilty of murder. Good.  Now I hope they sentence her to a veeeeery long time.

Man, I remember going to see them on this tour.  It was AWESOME!!!

That’s it folks. Have a great Wednesday!

The Monday before baseball playoffs start and the only sports action is the Yinzers vs the Bungles? Those Yinzers are bad, but I’m starting to think the Bungles are Miami Dolphins-bad.  Well, the NHL season starts tomorrow, so these dead days won’t be back for some time now.

Oh wait, ManUre and Arsenal played to a 1-1 tie, leaving the Red Devils in tenth and behind such heavyweights as Crystal Palace and Bournemouth. Heady days at Old Trafford, I gotta say.

The marginally-above-average-looking idiot Brie Larson was born on this day. So were: embarrassingly-bad PM Theresa May, funny man Zach Galifanakis, steroid aficionado Mark McGwire, baseball legend Rod Carew, the lovely Julie Andrews, master of disguise George Peppard, hero to home brewers Jimmy Carter, and outlaw Bonnie Parker.  Well that was better than yesterday. Also, the more I read what Brie Larson says, the more convinced I am that she’s a performance artist.  Because nobody could be that dumb and yet remember her lines.

I guess I’ll have to ponder on that another time.  Because now I need to finish getting you guys…the links!

Afraid you might be getting a little too right-wing?  Maybe all you need to do is stop exercising so much, shitlord.

I really wish Hong Kong residents had a Second Amendment. This will get worse. It will get much, much worse.

What a dick.  Also, I always get a kick out of articles like this where the phrase “they might have also used it for __________, researchers say” pops up with regularity.  RANT: These researchers have no fucking idea what that giant dick-rock was used for. The have no idea if a “cult” really carved it. And they have no idea what it means for humanity.

Thank God the hobos are free to shit and shoot up smack on that sidewalk again. Now the leftards who don’t let the homeless camp in their back yard can talk about what a great job they did helping them out because they’ll be able to shoot up and shit in front of other peoples’ homes. But the city has an idea!

I can’t possibly imagine this working. But I’ve seen crazier shit.  The “mistake of fact” claim the defense has made doesn’t really wash. “Your honor, I was so fucked up that when I busted into the other person’s apartment, I thought there was a man sitting in mine eating ice cream, so I felt I was in imminent danger and unloaded on him.”  Yeah, not sure that’s gonna fly.

There’s probably over a billion people out there without reliable electricity or drinking water, yet these people will always find first-world shit to bitch about.

This is a story that we need Swissy to weigh in on. His updates during the earlier rounds of protests were illuminating.  Hopefully as the date approaches, and it devolves into the inevitable shitshow, he will do the same.

Since nobody seemed to care for The Doors yesterday, I’m gonna move the clock forward a couple decades. Hopefully this goes over better, and hopefully it always stays true.

That’s it, friends. Have a great day.

*runs in the room*

 

Okay, I got this.  They called me in like, ten minutes ago.   So here is the news from down south!

Guatemala:  Trump cuts aid and starves Guatemalans.

Quilinco sits deep in Guatemala’s western highlands, in an overwhelmingly agrarian region where poverty is high and child malnutrition rates hover around 70%. The region also boasts some of Guatemala’s highest migration rates to the United States. Local farmers say climate change is making it increasingly difficult to get by and is one of the factors pushing people to head north.

But Quilinco has also benefited from a U.S.-funded program to help farmers adapt and improve their food security. It’s a place where one agricultural aid project’s impact — and the stakes of cutting such aid, as the Trump administration did this past spring — can be seen firsthand.

To get there, I rode a bus for five hours from Guatemala City and then got a ride in a pickup truck for another hour. The truck bounced up a dusty dirt road that wound up the mountains, through pine trees and a patchwork of little fields of corn and broccoli.

Virtually everyone in the town makes a living as a farmer, planting corn in the summer for subsistence. In winter, many also plant vegetables such as snow peas and potatoes for export to the United States.

Farmers and scientists say climate change has been making agriculture more difficult. This year, the problem has been drought. Rain patterns have been more unpredictable, and storms have been stronger. Two years ago, a rare spring hailstorm shredded García Ramos’ corn plants, and he lost the entire crop. In other years, hurricanes have left him with nothing

Columbia:  A plan agreed upon by Columbia and eight other Latin American countries to convert their economies to run on 70% renewable energy.  This is twice that of the EU.  No mention of mass starvation or economic migration in the article.

In Bolivia….meh, who cares?  Okay, fine.  This one is funny.

Trump to Honduran migrants:  “Go back to the shithole you came from.”  (No, not really)

The Trump administration signed an asylum agreement with Honduras that could force asylum-seekers to seek protection in one of the most dangerous countries in the world instead of the United States, the latest agreement with a Central American country aimed at curbing migration at the southern border.

The U.S. signed the asylum agreement with Honduras’ foreign minister of affairs, a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security said during a news teleconference Wednesday afternoon.

The accord would allow the U.S. to send asylum-seekers from the southern border to Honduras to seek relief in a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Breaking news:  Rudy Guilianni subpoenaed by the House.  This is not Mexican related.

More breaking news:  Trump now colluding with Australia!   This is also not Mexican related.

 

 

 

Damn you, Mack Brown.  Kick the extra point. KICK THE FUCKING EXTRA POINT AND TAKE YOUR CHANCES IN OVERTIME!!!!! Elsewhere, Bama cruised, TTUN won their rivalry game, Minnesoooooda has rowed to boat to 4-0 (but both them and Michigan State stay behind aTm in the polls after they powered themselves to a close win over juggernaut Arkansas), USC (West) continues to disappoint, and Ohio State curb-stomped the shit out of Nebraska. And that was just on Saturday!  On Sunday, the Browns actually looked good, the Patriots continue to get every break in the world, the Chefs escaped Detroit, and the Saints-Cowboys played an entertaining game.

The MLB Playoffs are set, with the NL Wild Card game coming tomorrow and the AL version on Wednesday. My predictions: the Brewers and Athletics will win. Once that happens or doesn’t, I’ll lay out my divisional picks. Not that anybody cares.

Underrated actor Eric Stoltz was born on this day. He shares it with such luminaries as: band leader Buddy Rich, flamboyant writer Truman Capote, brilliant author Elie Wiesel, annoying actress Fran Drescher, and a person who allegedly makes music named Trey Anastasio.

That’s it. That’s the whole list today. And it sucked.  Step up your game, September 30th. And start with what we hope is an enjoyable installment of…the links!

You like the First Amendment? Well that’s a shame if you live in New York City. Seriously, they can go eat a bag of dicks.  Not one dick. Not two dicks. But an entire plastic, single-use 55 gallon trash bag filed to overflowing with dicks. And then they can eat some more.

Looks like this impeachment circus train is heading further down the tracks. And Trump isn’t slowing it down when he retweets things like this. But in all honesty, he might be right. This could unravel the whole deal.

This guy appears to have handled just about everything right.  Which is probably why he’s being charged.  The only mistake he made was in not just having his wife call 911 right after they got off the phone with their lawyer. Interesting to see how this plays out.

“Uh, yeah. This should have been expected,” said every single person in the world who has a basic understanding of economics.

Maybe you should have grown up and taken some marketing classes, huh? I’d also considered saying “Nothing lasts forever”.

And here is a follow-up to my link from the other day about people putting boulders on San Francisco streets to deter “urban campers”. Bless her heart.

I’m finally switching genres for those of you who (wrongfully) hate the 80’s new wave/punk/pop stuff. But I reserve the right to go back to the well if I get a bunch of shit about it.  Also, the keyboards in this are amazing.

Actual conversation with Mom, whom we have to nag to take a shower and get dressed every day.

Me: You have to take a shower and get dressed now.

Mom: OK, but I want another cup of coffee first.

Me: You’re already had two, you’re just stalling. GET IN THE SHOWER.

Mom: But I’m tired and need another cup of coffee.

Me: GET IN THE SHOWER AND GET DRESSED OR NO COFFEE.

Mom: (glares) You know who else made Jews get in the shower…?

Birthdays today start with our spiritual and philosophical father; a guy who founded the single most useless area of “science”; a guy who almost single-handedly destroyed biology in Russia; a truly great American filmmaker; maybe the most versatile physicist ever; one of the worst guitarists in the history of American rock; and conversely, one of the greatest bassists and songwriters in the history of American rock.

News to follow:

 

If you say so, Nancy. You’ve already given up.

 

Baltimore imitates London.

 

I’m sure this isn’t yet another hoax.

 

The question not asked: why not just GET RID OF THE WHOLE FUCKING THING???

 

OUTRAGEOUS. Oh wait, too local.

 

Global warming. FdA, Brooks, mikey, and Riven hardest hit.

 

Too soon?

 

Hand. Feed. Bite. Stupid.

 

I’ve had this amazing piece of lyric poetry earworming me all week. Maybe I can return the favor to you.