What a weird day. I know gray and overcast equals winter for more than half of our commentariat, but it feels like doomsday here. I haven’t seen the sun in 36 hours and I’m comfortable in pants. What is happening?! Also, speaking of weird, I was following up on a decent chunk of change left in my father-in-law’s prison canteen account when he passed. It won’t make us rich, but it will buy my mother-in-law a new iPhone for Christmas. I called a FLDOC number, the lady tried to transfer me to someone, he had gone to lunch so she transferred me to his voicemail… and here’s where it gets weird: Not only did he call me back, but he was able to provide me with clear, easy to follow instructions to get a check cut and mailed! Total bizarro world! For my next trick, I will try to get Ford to pay me for a repair I had done that was retro-actively warrantied.
Don Brett wants to know… how do you like your pork chops?
Impeachment Central:
I think if the Democrats have already lost the LA Times, this impeachment thing is not going to play well.
So an American administration can, without the consent of Congress, fly literal plane-loads of cash to Iran without it meeting the bribery threshold, but withholding promised military aid that had never been delivered is bribery? Can anyone even see the goalposts anymore?
Republicans Pounce! Threaten to hold a full impeachment trial, damn the campaign schedule
It’s a certain type of weather here in Florida.
SugarFree’s Dem Deathwatch: A New Hope 2, Part 3
Deval Patrick Makes A Late Entry Into The 2020 Presidential Race
Although…
Comments
264 responses to “Thursday Afternoon Links”
My religion is that I’m always right.
http://local12.com/news/local/ohio-house-passes-bill-allowing-student-answers-to-be-scientifically-wrong-due-to-religion
Your answers could always be wrong.
Unless you advocated for ideas the instructor doesn’t like.
Hey! That is my thing. Get your own funny hat if you want people to pretend you are always right.
Well everyone knows that the earth being six thousand years old, fossils were put there by God to test our faith, and semen originating at the base of the spine are scientific facts anyway so this shouldn’t cause much of a problem.
>>fossils were put there by
GodThe Devil totestweaken our faithMy fundamentalist, PhD-having-in-a-no-shit-hard-science brother in law.
My fundamentalist finance+MBA wielding Uncle, too.
Not gonna lie, I have a hard time reconciling Genesis with our current understanding of natural history. However, “fossils are some divine conspiracy to throw people off the scent” strikes me as weapons grade stupid.
It also seems like a god that’d allow that wouldn’t be a god anyone would want to worship.
Haaaaaaaave you met my friend, Job?
There are many interpretations of biblical stories. A significant number of them don’t require special pleading in face of observation about the world.
You go to an evangelical church, right? I don’t hear a lot of those kinds of interpretations at evangelical churches.
I relate Adam and Eve’s “Fall” when they ate the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and thereupon recognized free will and sin and the ability to know right from wrong to a moment in Evolution when “mankind” became Homo sapiens and began to understand the universe.
Yeah, they just kinda gloss over the creation story at my church.
I’m perfectly happy taking a “creation story is metaphorical/representative/non-scientific” position, but the problem is that going to pure metaphor, such as viewing Adam and eve as personificafions of a growth towards rational Man from irrational beast, starts unraveling threads that undercut a lot of the themes running throughout the OT and the NT.
I’m much more comfortable with the view that Genesis is a greatest hits compilation and that the creation story is massively oversimplified and condensed to be more approachable for the average person.
My brother is another young Earth creationist. I am increasingly drawn to the wisdom in the Bible, but the world was not created 6000 years ago; that is simply nonsense. I don’t really understand the need to insist that Genesis is meant as a literal account of creation. The Bible is full of allegory, and it seems pretty obvious that Genesis is intended as a mythic dramatization of moral truths.
~ Joseph Campbell
I don’t really understand the need to insist that Genesis is meant as a literal account of creation.
Part is the camel nose under the tent issue. If they can’t trust the words on the page to be literal truth, then where are they going to muster the fortitude to stand behind the socially unacceptable parts of the Bible?
Another issue is as I mentioned above. If you go purely metaphorical, then there are a lot of threads, some leading to Jesus, that start unraveling.
Yet another is the good old Protestant v. Catholic fight. Many Protestant sects are still holding tight to the “Bible, nothing but the Bible, nothing beyond the Bible” view of truth. This, in particular, drives me up a wall.
I have a hard time reconciling Genesis
How long is one of God’s days?
If you say a billion years, it works out generally well, but it means he’s gonna be resting for quite some time.
Yeah Sussudio makes no sense, Land of Confusion sucks.
Land of Confusion sucks
You shut your whore mouth!
Sussudio wasn’t Genesis.
But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group than as a solo artist, and I stress the word artist. This is Sussudio, a great, great song, a personal favorite.
There’s an added complication of numerology. 7 is associated with perfection. 1000 doesn’t always mean one more than 999, it means a very large number.
Similarly son/daughter doesn’t necessarily mean directly descended from. Sometimes it means extended descendants.
That said, my difficulty reconciling Genesis has more to do with not wanting to be disappointed in some of my favorite commentators if I find that they take a hard line position on the subject.
“I have a hard time reconciling Genesis with our current understanding of natural history.”
Let me help you…
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/genesis-and-science_b_500201
Thanks for the link! Some of those points I hadn’t heard before. I’m not sure all of the interpretations were 100% convincing to me, but it’s closer than I’ve encountered before.
Never bothered me. Most of Genesis reads to me like “Just how would God explain this to a bunch of sheep herders in the early Bronze Age who barely listen to him anyway?”
^This. Genesis does not describe mechanisms, it asserts that God was the creator and does so poetically in mythic terms. It is obvious that even in a literal interpretation the vast majority of the story is elided. Cain is cast out to wander the Earth, and the next verse has him lying with his wife. The existence of said wife makes it clear that other humans exist, but then Adam and Eve have another son Seth, who is said to be another child replacing Abel who Cain has killed,
“When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.”
There are strong indications here that Cain’s wife is not his sister, and that there are other humans in other places. This reads to me not as an exhaustive account of the creation, but as a combination of a mythic account of creation, and a more specific legendary account of the origins of the line of Abraham and hence of Israel.
I distinguish myth from legend deliberately. Myths are known and understood as not literal, they describe moral truths in story, but are not meant to be literally believed. Legends are history with embellishment. They describe historical events and people, but with fictionalized emphasis and aspects. They are also not meant to be literal truth, but rather than depicting moral truths they depict historical truths with gaps filled in to make the story flow better and fit a narrative. Was there a Romulus? Maybe, but he was almost certainly not as he is depicted. Nonetheless Rome was founded, and it was founded by warriors (a man suckled by wolves in the legend).
Both of Mrs. Animal’s brothers, too. There’s no shaking that particular lunacy.
What do fundies think about Adam and Eve’s children screwing each other? Was incest o.k. in those days ?
Yup. They’d say that it wasn’t bad until much later on. They could probably cobble together some half-convincing genetic argument, too.
That said, incest was pretty dang common in the ancient world. Siblings, half-siblings, and cousins were all quite eligible back then.
And rape, don’t forget all the raping going on back then, Makes STEVE SMITH look like a piker. I’ve heard that most if us wouldn’t even be here it it wasn’t for rape.
Yeah, God’s prohibition on incest comes in Exodus I think so, until then…
Me too!
Wild boars later seen at strip club.
What sort of sickos want to see boars stripping?
Furries?
Beto?
MikeS?
Look, I’m just saying it gets cold and lonely during a NoDak winter. Don’t judge.
Boaring!
Duke Nukem was a fun game.
Too bad they never made a sequel.
NEVER. RELEASED. A. SEQUEL.
There are also only 3 Indiana Jones movies.
The band US died in a plane crash shortly after releasing The Joshua Tree. It was very sad.
U2, not US… blah
I’m glad you cleared that up, because I was very confused.
Raiders, Last Crusade. They made a third? When? Given how many years were between the two they made, I guess there COULD have been room there, but…I missed it somehow?
Temple of Doom
Those are indeed three words. What do they have to do with the two Indiana Jones movies?
That, I assume, is the joke.
Because 1 and 3 are the only good ones.
kali maa! kali maa shakti de! bali chadhau tere aage! swikar karo!
*removes ruodberht’s heart*
Deval’s campaign:
https://tenor.com/view/grand-closing-grand-opening-gif-15151212
“but it will buy my mother-in-law a new iPhone for Christmas.”
No, no, no!
Buy yourself a new one, give her your old one, and she’ll still think she got a new one.
My FIL did enough to make her poor that I would feel bad using the money we gave him to make prison less shitty on myself.
I read that as “bury my mother-in-law with a new iPhone”. I was confused because Brett didn’t look like an Egyptian when I met him.
so he wasn’t walking?
He just wants to make sure she’s still down there?
My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this CIA agent who’s going with the girl who saw Trump ask for 31 favors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.
How many scoops did he get?
10 samples then walked out.
Without paying! But he did tip bigly.
He ain’t called Donnie Two Scoops for nothing.
https://twitter.com/KristySwansonXO/status/1194715678877597696
I’ll say it is! Trump found a Baskin Robbins that is still open?
You don’t have them near you? Up here they’re merged with Dunkin’ Donuts everywhere. Because don’t donuts and ice cream go together?
They never did well here. We have Graeter’s and Aglamesi’s.
We’ve only got Graeter’s in the grocery stores, no shops up here. But we’ve got Mitchell’s as our local, they’ve done some good collaborations with Great Lakes in the past (Ginger Snap Christmas Ale and Chocolate Chunk Edmund Fitzgerald come to mind).
Because don’t donuts and ice cream go together?
It actually makes sense, because most people will want donuts in the morning and ice-cream in the evening, so you can stay busy all day by combining the two. Plus you can also service the weirdos who deviate from this schedule. Win-win.
There’s one down the street from me. In 11 years I’ve never been in there, but I assume it’s well patronized based on the number of wrappers I find in my yard.
The “loading” thingie up top? Niiiice.
agreed
Had me waiting for a bit.
We’ve got shit DSL internet.
So black guys with hair are not allowed to run for President?
Joe Biden nervously pats his hair plugs and backs out of the room.
Well there was this one time we let a black guy with hair at the controls, and it didn’t turn out so well.
Asking for cooperation during a diplomatic call = bribery
Nancy Pelosi’s son pulling a Hunter Biden = nothing worth talking about
Woops – Maybe Hunter was better at the grifter life. Company Founded by Nancy Pelosi’s Son Paul Jr. Is Charged with Securities Fraud
and I’m comfortable in pants.
So, you’re normally Donald Duck/Porky Pigging it?
I put a towel down on my office chair to catch the taint sweat. Change it every day.
How long are your days?
Psst. It t’aint sweat in that towel.
Anal leakage?
Ok… so I’ve seen video of the paramedics giving CPR to the shooter. Obvious self-inflicted wound; gun right next to him. They knew in the first 5 minutes of the incident that the shooter was neutralized.
That didn’t stop them from moving the entire student body around at gunpoint for the next 4 hours like they were POWS.
“My kids shouldn’t be afraid to go to school!!!!!!”
Well, maybe they should cool it with all of the GI Joe shit. If you want to get your gun on, go to Afghanistan.
But they’ve been waiting to play soldier for soooooo long.
My homeschooling exemption letter included language that no other adult other than my wife or I could be recognized as having authority over our children. I specifically pointed that this includes the teachers and administrators at the school. The school board recognized my exemption immediately with no further questions.
That doesn’t prevent GI Joe from getting his oppressive freak on. But I’ve had it with school systems turning into pretty-much prisons and let them know we wouldn’t play by their rules. It’s worked out very well so far.
I should have added that this story brought back flashbacks of my experience in high school but sans cops. Administrators and security guards had no problem doing the same kind of shit. I remember being locked in the gym for hours after a bomb threat had been called in. They seriously thought it was a better idea to lock us in the building under a bomb threat than let kids go home for the day. It turned into a riot where several teachers and security were knocked down and the doors were ripped off the hinges. The school was lucky no students were killed as everyone rushed out.
When we had bomb threats we all milled around outside.
ah, the 80’s, when a school bomb threat meant the opportunity to drag a cigarette or two down during the break
We had one at my high school in the 1980s where someone called the school’s front office and said “This is a bomb scare.”
Lest there be any confusion.
So, Iv’e been through some active assailant training with our PD. If something goes down I am confident that there will be several casualties not caused by the assailant.
My department has a timeshare on a Lenco Bearcat. The only time it has ever been deployed: a parade after the Kings won the Stanley Cup.
Don’t even get me started on what’s in the armory.
My friend, quoting a career cop friend of his: “If they ever locked federal and local law enforcement in a school gym together overnight, it wouldn’t take two hours before people started trying to arrest one another and then started shooting each other.”
Locals have sheer numbers; the feds have 20 year sentences to hand out.
Today, in weird coincidences…
Yesterday, I saw (and linked) a story about how NASA was getting shit about calling some space rock “Ultima Thule” because Thule has some sort of tenuous Nazi connotations. A little while ago, I flipped on the teevee, to a Hitler Channel show about the rise of You-Know-Who. Prominently featured was
dun dun DUUUUUUNNNNH!
the Thule Society, without whom none of the incivilities of the mid-twentieth century would have been possible.
*spooky music, fade to black*
That must be some space rock!
You know who else had space to rock?
Also, I extend a hearty fuck off Tulpa.
Clever new avatar, Tulpa.
That’s like eschewing vegetarianism because Hitler was a vegetarian.
Works for me!
Vegans are Nazis?
Or dogs, since he was a dog person.
The “evil villain has a cat” cliche of the movies has been trying to balance the scales ever since.
I figured that company that makes roof racks for cars was a secret haven for Nazis.
Written by a republican critter, but still amazing to see in the LA Times (thanks for the link Brett)
For two years, Obama and Biden, supposedly a Ukrainian savant, refused to send our allies lethal aid to beat back the Russians. And we know from the report of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III that they did nothing to stop election meddling. Russia beat Obama on both fronts.
An inconvenient truth is emerging for Democrats: if you are worried about Russian influence, Trump has done a much better job than Obama ever did. Under Trump, we actually sent the Ukrainians lethal aid, a policy that Taylor and Kent admitted is better than it was before. And under Trump, the 2018 midterm election was apparently conducted free from Russian meddling.
Democrats want to overturn an election based on merely a momentary halting of military assistance to Ukraine by Trump’s White House because Trump raised questions about corruption in a notoriously corrupt country. But they never bothered to ask the Obama White House why they held up lethal aid for two years when it was sorely needed.
Trump sent military aid to Ukraine because Congress forced his hand at the height of “Russia Fever Dreams”, in which even so-called libertarians were begging for a war with Russia because it was Her turn and someone needed to be held accountable. Obama was right not to send military weapons to Ukraine (for Christ’s sake, not even Western Europe was willing to send military aid). When the bodies of advisers start coming back in about five years I hope the people who wanted this don’t start playing the game of “don’t look at me” like they did after Iraq.
Send money to Ukraine, denounce and sanction Russia for its incursion in Ukraine, but military aid is just the beginning of our budding proxy war there.
They don’t take responsibility for the negative outcomes of their preferred policies when they fuck up the United States, there’s no way in hell they’ll even acknowledge fucking up a country halfway around the world. You may as well hold out for one if those beer pissing unicorns.
Beer pissing unicorns? Where?
Their job is to conduct these hearings in a way that moves public opinion to the point that the Senate will convict the president.
A
riotlynching is an ugly thing. And we think it’s just about time we had one.Five awkward seconds.
Five Awkward Seconds was my girlfriend’s nickname for me in highschool.
braggart!
You’re clearly rounding up
Dick inches, dick seconds.
Is inch-seconds a unit of measurement for some sexual performance metric?
Five Awkward Seconds was my girlfriend’s nickname for me in highschool.
Huh. Small world.
If anyone listened to Howie Carr – as New Englanders here know – Deval Patrick is a piece of shit.
He should have to answer for that decision.
Piece of shit.
I am having trouble making the numbers in the coke pig work out (using an LD50 of 95mg/kg). Not to mention that animals generally don’t like eating bitter-as-fuck toxins.
“I don’t like the way it tastes, but I like the way it smells.”
They didn’t know it was bitter until the first taste, after that, it was party time.
Your LD50 is for humans that haven’t built up a tolerance. I think I saw in a documentary that you can build up a tolerance by gradually ingesting trace doses over time.
coke pig
Counting seconds before Leap bursts in to claim that that was his high school nickname in 3 … 2 … 1 …
https://media.giphy.com/media/ZI88V08ZzgMWA/giphy.gif
Just go with it. It’s a good story.
“You know what capitalism is? Getting fucked!” – Coke Pig Tony
“I kill a communist for fun, but for a green card… I’m gonna carve him up real nice.” – Coke Pig Tony
FTA:
There was more than one pig. It was a coke pig party.
Ham in coke
Substitute accordingly.
Not to mention that animals generally don’t like eating bitter-as-fuck toxins.
The pig ate my evidence.
Sure, tell that to ‘shroomed out hippies at a Grateful Dead concert.
What a weird day. I know gray and overcast equals winter for more than half of our commentariat-
It’s very weird to have it look like rain, but no rain. On weather related topic, my citrus trees seem to like the break in heat. Who knew?
/not a farmer
How do you know that they like it?
Here, lie down on this couch. You can tell me anything.
Well my tangerines when from tiny little balls to big juicy balls…
Maybe they’ve been edging behind your back.
loading…
I’m telling you, the Hildabeast is running. She will swoop in at the convention to “save” Team Blue.
But it would be even funnier if she entered sooner than later.
It will be even funnier if she swoops into the convention to save the party – and everyone there just says “nahh” and nominates somebody else.
“Go home, Hillary, you’re drunk”
In fairness to Hilary, she knows how to use the back room levers of power. If she shows up, she will already have locked in all the super delegates and when the rest of the delegates complain, she will laugh and tell them to read the agreement that they signed when they picked up their convention credentials. In the fine print, it will say that they pledge their undying loyalty to Hilary.
No way those novices can stop her if she decides she wants to run again.
That’s like eschewing vegetarianism because Hitler was a vegetarian.
He liked dogs, too. We’ll have to get rid of them.
That’s it, starting tomorrow I’m not eating vegetables *or* dogs!
I was hoping someone would try the carnivore diet.
Looking forward to the review!
WHAT?
You are never going to get an invite to dinner at our house with those crazy dietary restrictions. That is all my wife knows how to cook.
Hi Brett!
Bright sunshine here. Cold, but somehow better when the sun graces us.
Excellent song choice. An addictive little diddy.
*boogies*
The sunshine today is great because we’ve had about a week or so of gloomy crap weather. Nice to be able to see a piece or two down the road.
Yesterday was hilarious. I couldn’t believe how many accidents there were.
My fellow Minnesotans really, really suck at the driving.
That is just one of the signs that winter is here. That first day where everyone drives like an idiot.
A good friend of mine simply refuses to come to work the first day that there is snow in the metro area.
He’s smart. It’s a fucking fiasco.
I’m sure I don’t need to remind someone as fashion forward as you Tundra, but remember to bundle up now that it is cold.
I heard that it wasn’t a violation of the NAP to punch a dude wearing those.
I’d say not punching someone wearing those could be argued as a violation against everyone else.
I assumed those were Kurt Schilling fans.
I can already predict the company ending lawsuits when all of those hipster twats bust their teeth tripping on those frigging things.
Now those are peak derp.
Those violate the NAP, so punching them is only appropriate.
Yeah. What the hell. Ive been here three months and have already encountered the following:
– Being passed by someone on the shoulder. This has happened at least twice, both times on 35E.
– Doing the speed limit and passing everyone on the road. This hasnt happened too often, but it’s strange to be flying by everyone in the left lane at only 55.
– The willingness of folks to fly through recently-turned reds is amazing. If I’m sitting at a red and it turns green, I now feel I need to count to two to be confident I’m good to go. I even had one lady pass me as I began to brake for a red in a left-turn lane such that she could make the light. I have to admit this last one was more impressive than anything else.
It also seems to me that people here generally dont know how to merge. It seems like I constantly have to hit the brakes because some twit is doing 45 while merging on the highway.
Lol. Yes. We are baffled by the zipper-merge, too.
I got hit by a fuckhead running a red many years ago. I now always wait to make sure the vicinity is fuckhead free.
You ended up over on the wrong side of the river, correct? How’s everything going?
Yeah. We all need remedial lessons in merging. Really lets you fly your
freakpassive aggressive flag.By the end of the winter we’ll all be doing 80 in snow and ice. We just get terrified after the first snow.
We’ve got the red light running problem here too. It’s usually safe after the third, or fourth car has run the red.
In MA the rule is “you’re never the last one through the red light.”
They got that wasscowy Twump now!
Babylon Bee style headline: “ACME Industries delivery truck seen at Capitol after hours”
They’re gonna steal that, you know.
VICTORY
School shootings have become such a way of life, that parents, students and teachers were prepared when shots rang out Thursday at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita.
The shooting at Saugus High School killed one person, identified only as female, and wounded at least four others. All schools in the William S. Hart Unified School District were briefly put on lockdown, before the suspect – described as an Asian male – was taken into custody. The suspect is being treated at a hospital.
Like schools across the country, Saugus High School has put students and teachers through school lockdown drills. Student Mason Peters said his teacher didn’t hesitate when they heard the distinctive sound of gunshots.
“My teacher quickly sprang to his feet, got up, locked the door, asked the students to get the keys, and so we like reinforced it, turned off all the lights, and we got a bunch of desks and stuff, and then reinforced the doors, and we all just stayed hidden,” Mason said.
A way of life? Honestly?
White supremacy strikes again…. no wait…
When it comes to education, asians are considered the most supreme whites.
All schools in the William S. Hart Unified School District were briefly put on lockdown
Why? Other than to ramp up the fear?
Nope, ramping up the fear is what it’s all about.
Throw it back at them. Illegal immigrants killing Americans is such a way of life now. Oh, it happens as often as school shootings?! Oh well, way of life. We have to do something!
finally, people have given it enough thought and training to model a serviceable response in their head.
now they need to investigate this kid and find out if he had a history of violence and/or making shooting threats that were downplayed b/c of our public school discipline reform policies designed to curb the school-to-prison pipeline. (yes, i read Andy Pollack’s book)
described as an WHITE Asian male
Deval Patrick Makes A Late Entry Into The 2020 Presidential Race
I thought it was beyond the pale to mention CP time now?
Something something Danica Patrick late entry…
Something something Danica Patrick late entry…
At least you refrained from making a “come from behind” reference.
I’m maturing.
You car guys and your jokes!
“Guns don’t kill people. Public schools kill people.”
– Michael Malice
The data, surprisingly, checks out.
Counting coup
Lloyd Blankfein hit back at Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren on Thursday, after she singled him and other billionaires out for greed as she pressed for higher taxes on the wealthy.
“Vilification of people as a member of a group may be good for her campaign, not the country,” Blankfein, the 65-year-old Goldman Sachs senior chairman, said in a tweet.
“Maybe tribalism is just in her DNA,” Blankfein added in an apparent dig at Warren’s much-criticized prior claims of Native American ancestry. P
Nice.
Are we the only ones who thing Trump and All of Congress should be removed from office for sending the Ukrainians military aid?
It’s important to send the “old” munitions overseas so that we can replenish the US stock with “new” munitions and keep all the contractors rolling in money.
Vital to national security.
FIFO.
Stale bullets are gross.
Considering that many libertarians are now Russiaphobic and believe delaying a proxy war in Ukraine is the height of scandal, I’d say there are about fifty of us. About a third of them Leftists, if we’re being honest.
It’s funny to be the anti-war dude in my proggie-heavy family.
Isn’t that fucking nuts? Suddenly, you, a gun owning curmudgeon, are portrayed as the pussy because you don’t want to send people to go die in some far off country for obscure reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with our own national security. It’s mind boggling.
I always ask whose kid they are willing to sacrifice. Honestly, they’re as bad as the fucking neocons.
I’ve never liked that line of thinking. First, children aren’t chattel belonging to their parents. Second, many warmongers might shed a tear or two but would happily push their own children in front of a bullet. Themselves, less so.
Not chattel, but pretty valuable nonetheless. Waste pisses me off.
Second, many warmongers might shed a tear or two but would happily push their own children in front of a bullet. Themselves, less so.
A good deal of warmongering is promoted by those who have put themselves in harm’s way as well.
“Give me your sons, your fathers,
Your young men yearning to grow old,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the honest, brave and bold:
Lay them at my altar of war.”
MajGen Smedley Butler twice won the Medal of Honor. At the time of his retirement, he was the most decorated Marine in history… however,
I think we need a new Glib phrase/aphorism to express our views succinctly. You know how we use “pepperidge farms remembers?” I think I like a riff on that whenever the press or public officials talk about getting their war boner on – with someone else’s kids: “Smedley Butler remembers!”
Smedley Butler was a good man and his book should be required reading for every person in America.
Fine, ordered on kindle, I’ll read it tonight. Anything else?
They didn’t cover that part of Smedley’s career in boot camp, did they?
I don’t know, tbh. I was an “O” and I can tell you that it was discussed in the training pipeline, but not in great detail. A little more at Basic School and by then people had their own interests. Perhaps remarkably, I think the military is remarkably clear-eyed about the occasionally shitty politics that underlie America interventionism, but it tends to be viewed as a “historical phenomenon.” This is another form of Gell-Mann Amnesia I would say, where we look at significant political scandals or illegitimate causus belli, in this case, and tell ourselves: “Glad that’s not us, eh!”
I think by the time you’re even a mid-grade junior officer, you’re like, “Fuck. This is a shitshow. I don’t know what’s what.” And you’re kinda hoping that the American people are doing their job because you don’t have the luxury of the time to read up on the history of every possible American intervention and the whys and wherefores: they do manage to keep you pretty busy with a vast array of things that must be done in order to get promoted, including further professional military education in your spare time, in addition to all the duties of your job, occasional duties and watches, and trying to maintain a family.
I like it.
It fits. Progs are always about other people’s money… and other people’s lives.
Spending* other people’s money
I still can’t figure out why Ukraine is vital for our national security. Just give their women asylum and leave the men to their own devices.
And as far as aid goes, are we selling them the weapons, or are we giving them weapons? I thought we were selling, but I don’t see how that qualifies as aid. It’s more of a business transaction.
I think we’re selling, but We’re giving them money to buy them.
From my understanding it isn’t even “we” who are selling, just certain well connected companies. It’s cronyism under a thin veneer of foreign aid.
If that’s the case, then I’d love to see some enterprising reporter find out who is making money off the sale. I suspect we might discover why this is so crucial for our national security.
Any journalist worth their salt will have stock in a defense contractor. If it bleeds, it leads, after all. Nothing attracts views or sells ad-space like a war.
Salting journalists is cruel.
What do you think foreign aid means? It’s like you are distinguishing bullshit from manure.
When I lived in Eastern Europe USAID shoveled a lot of aid to help restructure the local companies. A very large chunk of that money went to consulting companies like Deloitte and KPMG, which employed a lot of expats. It was a pretty nice scam.
Nice racket.
where Stephen Gutowski pushes back against gun control DO SOMETHING!!!!11
https://twitter.com/StephenGutowski/status/1195072590240452608
We have a major cold front coming this weekend; highs will be in the mid 70s, lows in the 50s! Fun fact: The touristy restaurants in downtown Fort Lauderdale turn on the outdoor heaters when the temp hovers around 70.
The Babylon Bee remains great and bipartisan
elder gods
Clearly they haven’t been reading SF.
Well, according to the lore, Satan was God’s Vice President during his first term. Although I doubt he’ll get an endorsement, as he was kind of the Aaron Burr of celestial beings.
That is hilarious only to the most selective weirdos on Earth.
Well played sir. Well played.
(Pleads guilty to voting for Duncan Hunter in California just because he’s GOP despite his campaign finance “troubles”)
Uffda. The Danes have out cooled us when it comes to amusement rides?
Say it ain’t so.
Yep…im doing it
Hell yes!
Yusef knows what is what!
The Sandy & Bernie Comedy Hour rambles on…
*guffaws*
Note that it was recently estimated in NYC that it would run $25 billion dollars just to bring their own homes for “the working people” into a state of repair, without the gardens or hipster food. The Feds kick in around $2 billion a year but every winter night some percentage of these homes go without heat due to the cruel disinvestment.
link
If the public housing has community gardens, that means we can cut the residents off from food stamps right?
So, we tore down most public housing in urban centers because they were “a breeding ground for poverty and violence” and replaced them with expensive condos, but now we’re going to build public housing again? Something tells me they are not going to build that housing in the same areas that are now gentrified. That would offend their socialist base.
Not even close.
Some notorious examples were torn down, sure. I don’t have numbers but I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of original public housing buildings nationwide are still standing.
I have to plead ignorance then. Where I live they tore down most of them in the early 2000’s. I know NYC has a lot of them, but I always thought those were state and city funded public housing. Maybe it was the federally funded housings that they tore down?
Is there any state/local solely funded housing? I thought it was mostly funneled federal dollars.
82 years of this crap
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_Act_of_1937
Thanks to this cunte
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Bauer_Wurster
Looks like the city and state were the impetus in NYC but the Feds were always involved.
They get torn down because someone decides the site is now too valuable for the projects. This gets dressed up in sanctimony, but it is all about changing trends in interest in various areas.
That article from LA Times makes, think a pretty good point. I’m not saying the the Democrats are in an unrecoverable position, but I am saying that they do seem to have stepped in it. They Have failed to produce any witnesses that would convince Senate Republicans to remove Trump. So now they are in the position where they have very few options. House Democrats can Impeach and send to the senate, and see what happens there, or they can let this peter out in a long and ongoing investigation past the elections. Neither seem very good for them. Option 2 means trying to bury perhaps the biggest story of the presidency and try to get their base and Trump to forget about it. It’s nigh impossible. The 1st route holds more options for future moves, so i foresee Impeachment coming down, though i don’t know when. They can bank on Schumer making some issues for Senate Republicans, and trying to recruit some. However it is not without risk as McConnell has now told the House that their would be a trial and i don’t think he plans to run it in a way they will like. The Bidens will be called in. Schiff’s staff will be called in (if one chamber can call in anothers staff). It won’t be a pretty fight.
Which begs the question “Why did Nancy Pelosi ok this?”. I know a lot of people think it’s because she thinks the Election is unwinnable, and i find that to incredible. My thought is that Adam Schiff has been orchestrating this, and she was foolish enough to believe the man and that he could pull it off. I think it would be very interesting to hear their private conversations.
Because Nancy wants the presidency…take Trump and Pence down
Or maybe she believes that a president abusing the powers of his office for personal gain is an impeachable offense?
Not if she were President.
Suuure.
Trolling only works it it’s at least vaguely plausible.
Nancy being concerned about abuse of power is just as plausible as Donny being concerned about corruption.
He is concerned about corruption – their corruption. You’re getting confused because you don’t like Trump. Just because Trump is a giant mouth-breathing douche, it doesn’t mean that the Bidens weren’t and aren’t corrupt. This also rhymes with “Just because Trump is a giant mouth-breathing douche, it does not mean that Obama’s admin didn’t weaponize the FISA courts and the FBI and the entire US intelligence apparatus against an opposition candidate.”
And if we’re comparing offenses and corruption as between the Big Cheeto and Chocolate Nixon/HERSELF, I’m gonna have to tell you you’re on the wrong side of this. And it’s not particularly close.
What am I confused about? He proved with HERSELF that his concern for even their corruption only goes so far as it will benefit him. Wanna bet that if/when it comes down to Trump V Biden, he milks the ‘dirty Bidens’ all the way to a re-election and then forgets the entire thing.
yeah… no.
You said that Pelosi was doing this impeachment thingy because “she believes that a president abusing the powers of his office for personal gain is an impeachable offense”
But hey, you always believe what you say. You told us this yourself.
The one question I have for Hyperbole is this:
When you are around folks whose blind spots and prejudices are in the other direction do you point out the absolute dishonestly and corruption of the left in all of this? I ask because you have made comments in the past that seemed to imply that you think there is no substance to the accusations against Biden.
I don’t really get the argument that Trump did anything wrong here. It is within a President’s role to talk to foreign leaders and ask them to investigate charges of corruption against Americans. There is plenty of evidence to justify an investigation into Biden. Sure, the reason Trump cares is that Biden is an opponent, but what does that mean? Should the fact that Biden is running for President prevent any investigation of his apparent wrongdoing? That seems an odd standard. Is it the delay in the foreign aid? Why do we give foreign aid if it isn’t to give us leverage with foreign countries?
See this situation doesn’t look to me like there is an equivalency between the two sides. This looks to me like entrenched interests trying every trick in their repertoire to get rid of the outsider, and that is far more damaging than some garden variety corruption by Biden, or Trump sounding like a buffoon.
I’m still not sure why you think that you’re making some kind of moral point about him. His Enemies – the people who have been trying to have him ousted from office before he even got there, the same people who did everything they could to rig a Presidential election against him, right down to using the NSA, FISA courts, and FBI to surveil him, his family, and friends, as well as had advisors of his thrown in jail on completely pretextual bullshit “process” charges (See, e.g. Flynn, Mike); and are now trying to have him impeached – that’s what he has been watching for the last three plus years, but somehow, you think him pointing out “their corruption” and only “their corruption” shows that he has some kind of moral failing? Oh, you mean, he’s making money on TRUMP HOTELS!!!1!!1! EMOLUMENTSZZ!!! His hotel getting more guests or even one getting built is on a par with…. hmmmm…. let’s see, a Secretary of State selling US national security interests in the most blatant, right out in the open, money-laundering scheme ever – that was aided, abetted, and covered-up by her sycophants in the Media. Somehow Trump is “bad Trump” in that he has asked that their corruption be investigated?? I’m not sure what you’re smoking, but I think I’d like to sample an ounce or two. On my own.
And I think on the scale of moral equivalencies, or false equivalencies, I’m not quite seeing this the way you are. I mean it seriously. Lay out what massive corruption you think there is by Trump. And please tell me how it stacks up against what’s been done to him over the last election and his Presidency. I’d like to hear that analysis please. Then we’ll be able to judge the relative merits of the claims about why this should be investigated or shouldn’t – or why his concern about “their corruption” isn’t justified.
The one question I have for Hyperbole
Seemed like more than one question but I’ll try and answer all of ’em, Yes, I have a few hard-core Dem friends/acquaintances, and when they pull the ‘Trump’s a fascist/racist/dictator-wanna-be shtick’ I push back. Did Hunter cash in on his fathers position, sure, you betcha. Is that something the current President should be hinging foreign aid/policy on? No.
Quick aside – What is this evidence that there should be an investigation in to the Bidens? what is the investigation suppose to find, give e the best/worst case scenario (depending on your tribe) of what Hunter did that would require the United States Government to open an inquiry in to his action.
The reason I think Trump has abused his power is because he used the power given to him for personal gain not for the reasons that we gave him (or any president ) those powers. I guess maybe I have a antiquated idea of what ‘abuse of power’ is, seems many Trumpsters think that there must be a crime involved, but that’s not ‘abuse of power’ that’s committing a crime, “abuse of power” means nothing under that definition. To my mind ‘abuse of power’ is doing something you are allowed to do but for the wrong reasons.
Not really.
Herself has a record going back to the People’s Temple of ignoring corruption. Trump’s only been in office 3 years.
Wait, I thought HERSELF was Hillary.
This is for The Hyperbole.
Well according to Hunter, Joe knew about his job with Burisma. The rest is from John Solomn (Don’t know about the spelling and won’t swear to the details) The State Department knew about Burisma and wanted the company investigated for corruption. The VP’s team knew about State’s concerns and still came up with the plan to demand the Ukraine’s prosecutors resignation.
From that it is not hard to argue that Joe wanted the prosecutor fired to protect his son. Yes he may have valid reasons to want the prosecutor fired, but the real reason may have been to protect his son.
For the record I think Joe knew Hunter pretty much made his living by making sure people knew he was Joe’s son and it would look good if they gave him money.
Again, ‘Knew about Burisma’ is doing a lot of work here. Knew what about Burisma? That they hired Hunter so that Joe would protect them in case someone questioned why they hired Hunter?
Again, working off memory, Burisma talked to the State Department about getting some protection from corrupt prosecutors and mention Hunter Biden’s name rather prominently.
Burisma hired Hunter for cover. Joe provided the cover, this wasn’t about protecting them from fallout over Hunter, this was about providing them with a big stick to stop existing investigations by Ukraine, and it appears to have worked. Now all that said, what I think Biden did was garden variety influence peddling, it is wrong. It is also ubiquitous and probably unavoidable.
The thing that outrages me about this, and why I am unwilling to adopt a “Meh, plague on both their houses” attitude is the relentless drive to get rid of Trump by career bureaucrats. I really don’t care that Biden did his kid a favor and his kid got rich off it. I look at that the same way I look at people screaming about NCAA cheating. It is universal. It is human nature. Go ahead and punish it because we shouldn’t just give up, but everyone sane knows it will always be with us.
The bureaucratic state flexing its muscle to send a message about what happens to “not our kind” Presidents is infinitely more serious. So, yeah, Trump may be no better than Biden, but allowing our intelligence services to become Chekists is quite literally the most serious thing in my lifetime.
What abuse of power occured though?
Use his position as president to lean on a foreign head-of-state to look into corruption?
She could believe it, however she is opening up the entire political class to abuse of power (a good thing for sure) as no one is above this.
I know a lot of people think it’s because she thinks the Election is unwinnable, and i find that to incredible. My thought is that Adam Schiff has been orchestrating this, and she was foolish enough to believe the man and that he could pull it off.
While I think the latter is more likely, the recent hop-ons to the primary bandwagon make the former seem more plausible.
They don’t have to convince the Senate. They only have to convince a couple hundred thousand voters in swing states that Bad Orange Man is so sufficiently icky that taking a chance on a fascist/socialist isn’t such a dangerous alternative.
Can’t talk. Have to go home and cook up some sausage! Why?
Because I want Jimmy Dean flavored candy canes!!!!
A gift meant for the portly gentleman
Although…
Maybe he can ask Michael Dukakis for some pointers on how to deal with this if it becomes a scandal. You know, one former MA governor presidential candidate to another.
Step 1: ride in the open hatch of an armored vehicle while wearing a tie
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Elected!
+1 Monkey Business
/Follow Me
https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/14/south-park-transgender-athlete/
South Park is really going to piss people off with this one. It will be so sweet to meet Trey Parker and Matt Stone in the gulags
I’m pretty sure they’re going straight to execution, like Terrence and Philip in the movie.
Dick Fest definitely is a fraudulent enterprise and would not be supported in Libertopia. I want my money back!
Lloyd Blankfein mocks Elizabeth Warren after attack ad: ‘Maybe tribalism is just in her DNA’
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/14/lloyd-blankfein-mocks-elizabeth-warren-maybe-tribalism-is-just-in-her-dna.html
Priceless.
Beautiful.
Sitting in a bar at SLC, reading this: https://pleasekillme.com/the-nerves-stand-back-and-take-a-good-look/
Here’s a link to the titular song. Good power pop with a heavy homage to ‘60’s RnB.
Stand Back and Take A Good Look https://youtu.be/s0uJr7PBjbQ
Gould, you glorious bastard!
Have some FUNK.
Oh, now you’ve sent me down a Dayton Funk wormhole…
(Brooksed it. Meant for Tres.)
Thats good stuff, but I like Shoop Shoop.
Remember when Roger Troutman had Zap! studios on 48 ?
And, you’re awesome.
Thanks! You’re awesome too! : )
Fun fact: When Mr. GT first moved to town, he went to Troutman’s studio looking for a job, having had experience at a big recording studio in Chicago. He thinks they thought he was a little pale.
A little.
Ooh! Ooh! Another fun fact! When Mr. GT worked at the Chicago recording studio, he edited one of the Ohio Players’ songs down for the radio version. I can’t remember which one right now, and he’s off picking up our Cheap Pizza Night pizza at Papa John’s. I’ll ask him when he gets back.
I was mistaken – he edited down three OP songs! Fire, Sweet Sticky Thing, and Love Rollercoaster.
No time to link – time for pizza & football!
Go Browns!