Glibertarians.com 2019 Archive

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  • What Are We Reading for October 2019

    It’s October, which means you’ve all been reading the copy of The Collected Works of SugarFree we sent C/O your direct supervisor, right? I hope it didn’t get lost in the mail. Binding books in the skin of genuine Subaru drivers is both time consuming and expensive.

    jesse.in.mb

    Suzanne Crowder Han: Korean Folk & Fairy Tales. I brought this home with me from Daegu  and read it at the time, but had forgotten just how odd some of the folk tales could be (especially when filtered through cultural and linguistic translation. The main thing is if you ever get a chance to trick a dokkaebi  (도깨비) out of xer bangmangi (방망이), you should definitely do it and then explain to your shithead older brother who had disinherited you after your father died how you went about it so that he can get his comeuppance when he acts out of greed rather than innocence.

    S. Blyth Stirling: Naked Scotland: An American Insider Bares All. I’d be lying if I said that cover had nothing to do with me picking the book. I was mostly looking for a primer on cultural mishaps beyond calling slacks “pants” or discussing the inexplicably-popular-again “fanny packs.” The book is breezy and fun and sits comfortably in the American Abroad and Travelogue genres.

     

    SP

    I’ve been reading thrilling textbooks on subjects as fun as medical law and ethics. Or trying to get time to read them, anyway.

    However, I’ve been taking small bites of some cookbooks and ways-of-eating books. You’ll notice a theme.

    The MIND Diet

    The MIND Diet Plan and Cookbook

    Diet for the MIND

    The Healthy Mind Cookbook

    Deep Nutrition

    If there is any interest, I’ll write a post about the MIND diet.

     

    Tulip

    I am re-reading all of Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayles series.  China Bayles is a former Houston criminal defense attorney who leaves the rat race behind to run an herb shop in the fictional Texas hill country town of Pecan Springs.  Like many fictional towns, Pecan Springs has a crazy high murder rate and China helps to solve them.  If you like cozy mystery series, this one is great.  There are over 20 books in the series, the characters actually evolve over time, and Albert includes recipes and further reading in every book.  So far, every recipe I have tried from the series has been great.

     

    OMWC

    I’ve barely had time to wind my wristwatch. Wait, do people still wind wristwatches? Let me tell you about the onion on my belt…

    But at least I can get a few minutes in while relaxing in the smallest room of the house. And what’s in there includes Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson’s Farthest Star,  a rather pedestrian SF novel with some crafty writing but nothing particularly novel (cough, cough) to say. Painful for me to write this since I am a huge fan of Pohl. The genre is often termed “Big Dumb Object” and I think that’s fitting. This book is perfect for the application.

    The other book gracing the bathroom is the oft-thumbed Valve Amplifiers, 4th Edition. Geeks only, please, but if you are consumed with electronic anacrophilia as I am, this will delight.

     

    SugarFree

    Lovecraft, all Lovecraft. I reread it all every couple of years. Going back to him after spending the summer reading the antecedents to his fictional universe and the descendants that followed it, going back to the man himself is very comforting.

    Fun Fact: On a word count basis, all the fiction Lovecraft ever produced is still less to read than Stephen King’s It.

     

    Mad Scientist

    How To Restore British Sports Cars by Jay Lamm. This isn’t really a “how to” book so much as it is generalized advice applicable to many vehicles. Not necessarily British. Not even necessarily cars.

    mexican sharpshooter

    This month I picked up a classic with a twist.  Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds.  I was given the option of reading it in high school but I instead picked a different book to report on.  I want to say it was War of the Worlds but I don’t recall.  What I do recall is my English teacher simply citing the phrase “undead” to describe the book.  As much as I enjoyed his class I am happy to say he was wrong.  I am rather enjoying it, though it is taking longer than I anticipated.  The entire book is annotated by a number of experts in the field of chemistry, physics, sociology, and ethics.  The book itself is nothing like how it was portrayed in Hollywood, especially given how intelligent the monster is throughout the book and draws many questions all too often posed in science fiction, such as, “What is the whole human thing anyways?”

  • Friday Morning Linkses

    Wait…Below, not to the left!

     

    Sort of last-ish minute fill in for links. We hope the variety of linksters we have had parading through this week has both confused and delighted you. If not, too bad. You are stuck with me this morning. God help you all this afternoon, if this keeps up.

    But enough of that – you are here to comment. These here links are sort of your excuse to do so:

    • I am quite sure this will turn out well. Maybe Bernie can take a second honeymoon. “The North Korean leader compared the site to the Mt. Kumgang tourist area, which he visited on Wednesday and ordered the removal of all the “unpleasant-looking” facilities that had been built by South Korea.”
    • Man, the House of Windsor has been laid low. I guess with that jug-eared dolt for a father, and the vacuous mother, this shouldn’t be so much of a surprise.
    • The only reason I am linking this story is due to the headline.  That has to be the best part of the job at the paper…”remember, if the headline doesn’t make people do a double take, you have failed!”
    • ““The fourth plenum will implement reform plans, and they will talk about how to improve governance, which is pressing”. No, silly Glibs, this is the CCP, not the TEAM BLUE or TEAM RED conventions!
    Now go do that voodoo that you do so well!

  • OverRated: The Week in College Football Polls

    So very boring edition:  a week when the mails simply did not run

    Image result for happy illinois fan

    If you had Wisconsin imploding in Urbana (motto:  we’re no Carbondale), you could easily be writing a much heartier note than this right now.  Similarly, you were just a genius if you had Kansas hanging 48 on the Horns in Austin.  Ranked Missouri should have beaten 1-5 Vandy by 16 but lost by seven, but I didn’t see that one coming.  That is to say, there wasn’t much greatness going on in the pointy-ball prognostication world; and there was only a little news from our five posers from last week:

     

    Week Eight Most OverRated Football Program Results

    1          SMU toasted Temple and climbed two places.

    2          Minnesota razed Rutgers, now the best six-loss team in the game, and jumped four ranks!

    3          Appalachian State mangled Monroe, rose two spots, and still shouldn’t be ranked at all.

    4          Boise State scored a point a minute in the final quarter, still lost by three to toothless BYU, and fell eight spots in the AP.  The Broncos were the classic overrated (14th!) case where they don’t play anybody, the AP voters were forced to fill out 25 lines on their card, and someone vaguely remembered back before Obama when they were the badasses of Division 4 or so.  There really ought to at least be a fine for this sort of behavior.

    5          Oregon had to come back from ten down in the fourth to save themselves from the fish-flingers of Washington.  As Glibs discussed elsewhere this week, these are arguably a couple of 18-ish teams that should have finished in a dead heat, but it would have been funnier if the one ranked 25th had held on to edge the one ranked 12th instead of the other way around.  At least the Huskies come away with a firm grip on the title of best three-loss team in the nation.  Meanwhile the Ducks rose to the 11th spot, and we might soon need to concede that it’s earned . . . but lets wait a few weeks, shall we?

     

    So Boise was our sole toldjasos™ this week.  The season has pretty much stomped all the starch out of all the early bad ranking ideas already, and we’re running out of time to prove anything new.

    Meanwhile, where are we in our weekly idiocy?  Has the AP poll already stepped on every rake possible!?  Well, more less, yes:  it’s getting very quiet: 

     

    Yet Another Week N + 1 Most OverRated Football Programs

    1          Minnesota should make soup out of Maryland.

    2          Appalachian State will ruin the Jags of South Alabama

    3          SMU visits Houston where the entire team is redshirted.

    4          Oregon should beat Washington State by 10.

     

     

    Honorable mentions – We’ve already taken down Clemson and Wake; Wake is maniacally overrated even yet.  Notre Dame still shouldn’t be a top ten team, but I’ve been bored of this conversation for decades:  it just comes with the territory; I can confidently predict they will be ranked top ten at some point in the 2048 season; they will be top five in the sport a decade after Congress has entirely outlawed its play.  Cincinnati might prove out . . . we’ll see.  Arizona State fell seven places and is still grossly overranked, but this wasn’t funny earlier in the year when we rang them up the first time, and it still isn’t.  We already nailed Memphis, but they’re going to bob about the surface like a ripe corpse until deflating and then sinking back down to their destiny amongst the catfish.  Enough!  So how many heads do we have on the wall now?

     

     

    Year to Date Hides on the Wall

    1          Georgia lost at home to the second-best team from South Carolina

    2          Utah lost to an unrated USC but seems to be coming back

    2          Stanford was revealed by USC

    2          Syracuse was unranked after Maryland

    2          Michigan was blown out by Wisconsin

    6          UCF was edged by an unranked Pitt

    7          Iowa was no number 15 as Michigan proved, and they continue to be pantsed weekly

    7          Wake Forest allowed Louisville to hang 62 on them

    7          Cal was dumped from the AP after losing to Arizona State

    7          Boise State lost by three to toothless BYU

    11        Iowa State was dethroned before their decent showing against Iowa

    11        Memphis lost to possibly 80th best team in the nation Temple and disappeared

    11        Michigan State slowly fell out of the ratings, so I was right after all

    14        Clemson was dethroned by Mack Brown retirement project UNC

    14        Texas lost to the university of Texas at Norman (mid-season toldjasos™)

    14        Texas probably over-paid for losing to titan LSU (early-season toldjasos™), but then they let Kansas hang 48 on them at home

    17        Auburn over-paid for losing to Florida

    17        Texas A&M probably over-paid for quality losses against Clemson and Auburn . . . or maybe not

    19        Washington State was de-ranked after becoming lowly UCLA’s first win

    20        Virginia continues to lose after losing to can-play-with-UGA Notre Dame

     

     

    Year to Date It-Would-Seem Blown Calls Because They’re Doing Okay Really Well

    1          LSU

    2          Oklahoma has gotten better all year and refused to lose to Texas

    2          Florida seems to have earned their status by defeating top-ten Auburn

    3          UCF is now a skin on the wall after Pitt

    4          Michigan no longer a blown call because Wisconsin

    5          Washington State no longer a blown call because UCLA

     

    Our year notches another WIN!!! and now grades out at 20-3-3.  So closes another week!

    links to older opinions:                  2019-10-17                 2019-10-10                  2019-10-03                  2019-09-26                  2019-09-19                  2019-09-13                  2019-09-06
    Disclosure of sources of bias:  your writer has attended the University of Tennessee, Memphis State and the University of Memphis, Christian Brothers College . . . and he sleeps with an alumna of Georgia whose parents met at Washington State . . . and his son went to Houston . . . and he never met anyone from TCU he didn’t like . . . and he irrationally hates Notre Dame, UCF, Clemson, and Notre Dame.

     

  • The Sacred Glade

    Before Rome existed, the druids lived in Germania, and worshiped the Old Gods, and were Kings Among Men, feared and revered at the time, for they had the fortune of the Gods.

     

    They erected temples and made sacrifice in the nearby forest, pleasing the Gods, until one day…

     

    Rome appeared. They had heard of, and some even fought these Shining Invaders, but no one really believed it, until they Came, Saw, and Conquered everything before it, and then the Gods were angry.

    Flocking

    First you take the area you want to cover, and lay down some PVA, then paint it out, not too thick, and leave some air gaps so it dries in the middle.

     

    I like to do my accent color before my primary colors, I can always enhance later.

     

    “And we came upon a ford, and upon the Right, we observed a small Glade of what appeared to be diseased trees, the engineers said this was due to the Barbarian Temple across the stream, and that no Roman should enter the Glade, we were pleased and made it so,” Commentaries, by Caesar. 

     

    Water

    These came out nice, then I got some turf on the rest and had to repaint/waterize it, but it’s cool.

     

    Single color is OK for a WG table, but a diorama requires more, depth is obtained by using darker colors where you want deeper, due to the limits of the “water” material you use. I use Modge Podge for most things, and acrylic resin for the big stuff. You want to lay down a shallow groove in the foam, then paint darkest, lighter then a bit of sand/ochre on the shoreline, I add some shrubs depending on the scale. Whitewater needs to be dry brushed, after your water is dry (what?) take a brush full of white paint and wipe off 90 percent on some cardboard, then Lightly begin stroking the paint downstream, very gentle, and you will see the wave tops appear, apply as you like for effect. 

     

    Autumn, 1944, France

    Major Richard Licum is tasked with taking the crossroads at Lille Dique, with him is the 69th tank battalion of the Rheem. 

    Licum: Lt. Queef, options!

    We could go to the forest but it’s spooky

    1. Munsch, options

    Well I have a few, they look tasty…

    Shut Up Mench!

    Fortunately they found General Winter, who told them to hold in position, hehe,

     Obergeneral Schitz, is in a pickle, he’s outgunned, and only has a rag tag collection of Stugs, and some old Pz2s, and one Tiger. His forces are mostly kids and old men.

    I needed to make bases for the men, and used Googly Eyes, crushed flat, the men are only a half inch tall, I may leave them with white bases so I can find the little guys.

    I have a few more things to add, new stuff for me, but it should finish nice, and I’ll tell you a story, til then,

    Gallery, https://photos.app.goo.gl/MpHrVHrBcxvotRwD9

     

     

     

     

  • Thursday Afterschool SPecial Links

    On This Day in History

    1901: 63-year-old schoolteacher named Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She survived. But didn’t become rich and famous as she hoped. So, no point in trying this, kids. Also, it’s illegal on both sides of the border.

    1945: The United Nations Charter is now effective and ready to be enforced. And look how THAT turned out!

    1969: Richard Burton purchased a $1.5 million diamond for Liz Taylor. Moral: don’t waste your money on bullshit expensive gifts; she’ll divorce you anyway.

     

    Links

    This is an amazing story.

    This makes as much sense as any other wall.

    This annoys me. Get the US out of the Middle East.

    This just doesn’t matter. She doesn’t stand a chance.

    This guy. (Who?)

     

    Music

     

    Have a great rest of your day, or you can do whatever the hell you want.

    SugarFree’s Dem Deathwatch

    Tim Ryan is out, leaving us only a mere 17 remaining Democratic primary candidates.

    Row 1: Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar
    Row 2: Beto O’Rourke, Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney, Eric Swalwell, Tim Ryan
    Row 3: Pete Buttigieg, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson
    Row 4: Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Bennet, Mike Gravel, Julian Castro, Joe Biden
    Row 5: Seth Moulton, Wayne Messam, Tom Steyer, Steve Bullock, Bill de Blasio

    Delaney, Williamson, Bennett, Messam and Bullock didn’t qualify for the last debate and are probably just going to hold out until after the off-year elections. Or these crazy kids might be waiting to roll the dice in Iowa and New Hampshire.

    Sanders should have dropped out by now, but his ego is still fighting against all reason.

    Booker, Harris, Klobucher, Gabbard, O’Rourke and Castro are effectively waiting for some sort of Hail Mary, Warren blowing an underage mule or Biden stroking-out. Or they skulking as VP fodder.

    At this point, outsiders Yang and Williamson are probably just duking it out to be the Green Party candidate, but they should learn the lesson of Jill Stein: Don’t offer yourself as a scapegoat for the DNC’s failures.

    And, waiting in the wings and popping pills, is Hillary, ready to make a meal of what remains after the debates. Will she announce before Iowa? Or wait until it settles down to just Warren and Biden? There have been at least three trial balloons in the press this week. And the kooky Gabbard-is-a-Russian-asset wasn’t an accident. She’s appealing directly to the TDS shocktroops to sway them to her cause. Hillary as the firebrand… OK. At least it will be funny to watch…

  • The Awesome Adventures of Secret Nazi President!!!11!!1!!! Vol 41: Oh, Canada!

  • Thursday Morning Links

    Good morning all. For certain values of good. I think I scratched my eyeball this weekend, and then in the first client meeting Tuesday morning, I scratched it worse. Yesterday, I really couldn’t open it or look at a screen or go out in daylight. And I had to be part of a fake meeting for a marketing promo video being shot jointly by our company and client. Nothing makes me feel sexier than having a a red, swollen eye. I assume any shots featuring me will feature the back of my head.

    Let’s see, what else happened? Apparently strange times were afoot at Minute Maid. No more to say. I really couldn’t watch.

    I assume this is the face one makes when wondering how his life got to the point where these morons are lecturing him about morality.

    Oh, Florida Man. That’s just unsanitary.

    Brutal. Trump’s web team is strong.

     

  • Some horror movie picks for Halloween.

    It’s that time of year to settle in and throw in a horror film.  So, which ones should you watch? You could stick with Jaws, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Saw, Hellraiser (did you know they made 10 of them), Child’s Play, Scream, Halloween, or your favorite long running franchise.  Instead, I’m here with 7 of my favorite lesser known horror films, with some honorable mentions for some comedy horror films.

    HM: Zombeavers (2015)/Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)/My Name is Bruce (2007)

    Yes, three honorable mentions.  My article, my rules.

    All three of these are comedy/horror films with different target audiences.  Zombeavers targets the classic horror movie fans, using the standard tropes of the tales, but turning them around.  It’s about a toxic waste spill that turns a dam of beavers into bloodthirsty killers. Anyone bitten by them will eventually get sick and turn into one as well.  Do not expect high brow cinema going into this. The ending may very well kill Swiss, as they show another toxic waste spill, this time getting into a beehive (go ahead, so what the name of that one should be).

    Tucker and Dale vs. Evil targets the more casual horror fan.  Ever hear about killer rednecks and their murder cabins in the woods?  Then you know what you need to going into this movie. In this case, the two rednecks are just trying to get to their newly purchased vacation cabin and get it fixed up.  After a terrible attempt at flirting, some local college kids get creeped out and scared by them. Misunderstandings happen, college kids keep dying, and there’s even a woodchipper scene.

    My Name is Bruce targets the fans of the one (and only) Bruce Campbell.  In a small city, some kids fooling around in a graveyard unleash an ancient Chinese demon.  One of them is the worst kind of fanboy, thinking that Bruce is exactly like Ash from the Evil Dead movies and goes to recruit him to help.  If you don’t know who Bruce Campbell is, and have never seen the Evil Dead movies, go watch them instead.

    7th: The Devil’s Backbone (2001)

    Alright, into the serious ones.  Fair warning, this is a Spanish horror film done by Guillermo del Toro, so expect subtitles.  This is set at an orphanage during the last year of the Spanish Civil War. There’s great visuals, a creepy ghost, and the question of how can a child keep their innocence in the face of a terrible war.  It’s thematically similar to Pan’s Labyrinth, but didn’t get the widespread acclaim. If you haven’t seen Pan’s Labyrinth, then see that one as well.

    6th: Cube (1997)

    This one you may have heard of, it’s a bit old at this point, but I’m still a fan.  It’s a relatively low budget film that hides it pretty well. A group of people wake up, all in different rooms, all wearing the same clothes, and not remembering how they got there.  The room is a cube, with a door in each side (top and bottom as well). As they move through the rooms, they learn that some are trapped, and work to try to figure out the pattern, and what the hell is going on.  This movie did spawn a sequel and a prequel which don’t quite match the same WTF quotient as the original (in my opinion at least).

    5th: Identity (2003)

    This one uses two familiar premises: opening in media res, and a bunch of travelers getting stranded in a hotel (including a prisoner).  People get assigned rooms, and try to settle in for the night. Someone (or something) has other plans. People start dying, and room keys are left by their bodies that don’t match the rooms the people were in.  Then the bodies start disappearing.  The two premises then get introduced to each other in a fairly novel way.

    4th: Drag Me To Hell (2009)

    Sam Raimi did this one.  If you don’t know who Sam Raimi is, I’ll direct you up towards My Name is Bruce up above.  Raimi was making cult films before he hit the big time with the first Spider Man trilogy. (fun fact: the same Delta 88 has been in almost all of his films).  Drag Me To Hell was his return to horror after the Spider Man trilogy, and he revels in it. A loan officer at the bank is forced to tell a gypsy that the bank can’t extended their mortgage again.  The gypsy curses the poor bank worker, and things start taking a turn to the dark. As they learn more about it, the curse is set to have the loan officer dragged to hell after three days. Lots of blood and gore in this one, don’t watch it if you’re squeamish.

    3rd: In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

    This is probably the best representation of Lovecraft put to cinema.  It’s about an insurance investigator who needs to find out what’s going on with a missing author.  The author is due to submit a new book to the publisher, who took out a multi-million dollar policy against him disappearing.  The insurance investigator believes it’s all a publicity stunt, and parts of it started out that way, until something from outside found a way to use the author to get into this world.  Then it becomes a reality bending story wrapping around in on itself, and managing to swallow its own tail at the end.

    2nd: The Babadook (2014)

    This is one you are the most likely to have heard of, it made a big splash when it came to Netflix.  This tells the tale of a widowed mother raising a six year old by herself. The kid in this movie is a piece of shit as only a six year old can be.  One day, he comes into his mom’s room and asks mom to read him a storybook he found called Mister Babadook. Mister Babadook tells the story of a monster (can you guess his name?) that torments people who learn of his existence.  Strange things start happening in the house, mom blames the kid, the kid blames the Babadook. From this point, things begin to escalate.

    1st: Trick ‘r Treat (2007)

    Time for my favorite cult horror film, one that’s perfect for Halloween.  Trick ‘r Treat is an anthology film telling several interwoven tales that take place in a small town (in Ohio, which seems to be a hotspot for horror movie franchises), with a little boy (known as Sam) witnessing most of the events.  Most of the stories deal with the rules and traditions of Halloween, with those violating them getting punished in some manner. There’s ghost stories, the reason for the jack-o-lanterns, poisoned candy, the proper time to take down the decorations, and what happens to those who don’t give out candy at all?  There’s been rumors of a sequel to this move for over a decade, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

    So there’s some of my.favorite horror films to watch.  If I left out your favorite cult film, I may not have seen it (or I may not have considered it cult enough to write it up).  I’ve tried to stay with films that you can easily find to rent, purchase, or stream (otherwise Cemetery Man would be in this list).  I also tried to stay away from the usual slasher films (Urban Legends would fit here), or ones that go too far into sci-fi (Event Horizon would go here).  Go ahead and tell me how wrong I was in the comments.

  • Wednesday Afternoon Links – Skin edition

    Man tries to make Onion article a reality.

    “Rub this callus to take a selfie.”

    What your phone needs is a supple, pinchable coat of human skin, apparently

    Today in news that will please David Cronenberg and only David Cronenberg, it is now possible to shroud your smart devices in warm, flabby flesh that just loves being pinched and tickled.

    Skin-On Interfaces, a line of smart device covers currently in development, uses artificial skin technology to create new input gestures for computers and mobile devices—all you need to do is poke, stroke, and press down on that soft, supple meat. This nightmare comes from designer Mark Teyssier, his team at Telecom ParisTech, and researchers from HCI Sorbonne Université and CNRS. (Cronenberg, we imagine, is a silent partner.)

    Teyssier, who believes that “human skin is the best interface for interaction,” first came up with the idea after he had a compulsion to pinch his phone, which, sure, we’ve all felt at some point, right? His project has resulted in two different products: one with a uniform skin surface and another that promises the hyper-realistic feeling and appearance of filthy, probably hairy flesh.

    Charmless Hags Obsessed With Charmless Hag

    Warren, the piece noted, isn’t the kind of person who is just gonna get her a beer: She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She’s rich. She was a professor at an Ivy. But, as The Atlantic admits, “gonna get me a beer” isn’t posturing, it’s a typical speech pattern for somebody from Oklahoma. The thing about Warren that’s been irreconcilable for pundits and the political media: She may have taught at Harvard, but Warren actually is from down home. She’s both. And she’s deploying that personal story effectively.

    Warren’s stump speeches are filled with personal references to the challenges of working middle-class motherhood—of finding and affording daycare and of the precariousness of it all. She’s claiming the narrative of the local girl made good, the woman who toughed it out. In politics, this story is usually trotted out by men, who want to tell you about a waitress they met in a diner in a key primary state and the homey wisdom she imparted to them. If you see it first-person, it’s more typically the stuff of country music.

    Harris is such a buzzkill and Sanders is half-dead so Jezebel has to work up the spit to go down on Warren.

    Gum. The key is gum. For the next 46 articles.

    And delve into the contents for the category error that a condescending lecture is always a hard truth…

    DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

    Navy ‘Doomsday’ plane built to withstand nuclear attack grounded after striking single bird

    The Navy’s “Doomsday Plane,” designed to withstand even a nuclear attack, suffered millions of dollars in damages after striking a single bird as it practiced a landing maneuver earlier this month at a Maryland air station.

    Hate Bird, The Bird That Hates… your plane

    The E-6B Mercury was supposed to only touch down momentarily before immediately taking off again from the Patuxent River Naval Air station – but a bird was sucked into one of the plane’s four engines while it attempted the “touch and go” move, according to Military.com

    Tim Boulay, the communications director for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, told the Navy Times the incident was a “Class A” mishap, which means there was at least $2 million in damages to the plane. The designation is typically used in instances of aircraft destruction and death.

    No one aboard the Navy aircraft was injured, but the plane was temporarily grounded after the Oct. 2 incident.

    This marks the second “Class A” mishap for an E-6B Mercury this year – back in February, one of the planes brushed against a hangar as it was being moved from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. The incident also resulted in millions in damages.

    Imagine being this butthurt that a mass shooting DIDN’T occur.

    That dastardly Joker is now dancing on anything but those stairs

    Before it came out, everyone was terrified that the Joker would lead to mass violence.* Instead, weeks after its release, it’s mostly lead to people photoshopping Joaquin Phoenix in clown make-up into any image they can imagine. This, obviously, is a reassuring outcome. Rather than accept a supervillain’s ideology as their own, the world has latched onto that scene where he dances down a Bronx staircase instead, seeing in that moment the truth that comic book movie iconography should never be taken more seriously than its potential as fodder for dumb memes.

    The fullest expression of this is a Twitter account called “Joker Dancing In Random Places,” which has been created for no apparent purpose other than to slap a boogying Joker into, as the name suggests, any old place its administer can imagine. Here, for example, is the Joker introducing a bit of levity to Da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

    *Please note: A few dipshits on the internet do not constitute “everyone.”

  • The Hat and The Hair: Episode 136

     

    “Facebook?” the hair asked.

    “Of course,” the hat replied.

    “CNN?”

    “Yes, of course.”

    “Google? Apple? Microsoft? The NBA?” the hair asked.

    “Yes, yes, yes, and hell yes,” the hat confirmed.

    “They’re all Russian assets?”

    “Yup. All Russian assets.”

    “And all of the Democratic candidates?” the hair asked.

    “Everyone one of them. And when they lose to Donald, that will prove it.”

    “Huh?”

    “Try and keep up, OK?” the hat sighed.

    “Is there anyone who isn’t a Russian asset?”

    “Only Hillary. That’s why she’s going to jump into the race,” the hat said. “She’ll have to in order to save America. If there were any legitimate candidates on in Putin’s employ, then Hillary wouldn’t be forced–FORCED, I SAY!–to get into the race.”

    “All Russian assets?” the hair asked incredulously.

    “Only a Russian asset would question their designation as a Russian asset,” the hat said matter-of-factly.

    “Is that all of them, just the entire traditional and social media and all twelve Democratic candidates?” the hair asked.

    “No, there are more. Far more. Millions more,” the hat said and paused for dramatic effect. “Everyone who didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 is also a Russian asset.”

    “That can’t be true,” the hair said.

    “And some of the one that did vote for her too. They confused the electoral college by giving Hillary the win of the popular vote.”

    The hair gasped and whispered, “Diabolical.”

    The hat nodded sagely.

    “So who isn’t a Russian asset?” the hair asked.

    “Well, Hillary, obviously.”

    “Obviously.”

    “And Chelsea. And maybe Bill.”

    “What about his penis?” the hair asked.

    “Oh, Bill’s penis is definitely a Russian asset.”

    “What about Huma?” the hair asked.

    “Well, she was a Russian asset, but Hillary turned her.”

    “How did she turn her?”

    The hat lolled out his tongue and waggled it suggestively.

    “Ah,” the hair said.

    “Sapphic rites,” the hat said.

    “No, I get it,” the hair replied.

    “A trip through the rubyfruit jungle. She shucked her oyster.”

    “You’ve made it clear…”

    “Bumped doughnuts. Munched her rug. Licked her carpet. Slurped her hairy taco.”

    “Stop, just stop.”

    “Stirred her bean curd!’ the hat said.

    “‘Stirred her bean curd?!?’” the hair asked, confused.

    “It’s Chinese.”

    “Chinese?” the hair asked.

    “Is there a fucking echo in here or something?” the hat asked Donald.

    “You guys need to slow down,” Donald said. “I’m trying to write all this down and you are going way too fast.”

    “Well, let me see what you have so far,” the hat asked. Donald turned the writing pad and slid it across the desk to the hat.

    The hat studied the pad intently and then said, “Donald, this is just a drawing of two giraffes having sex.”

    “And that’s a hyena watching,” Donald said, pointing to the small figure in the lower corner.