Hey guys, what’s up? I got to drive home yesterday from my Mother-in-Law’s house. Towing a trailer of free stuff we got from some friends who adopting the RV life. At least the roads were empty. And I had an appliance dolly. That right there is worth about a guy and a half. No way was I getting a solid wood entertainment center down the stairs at my house with just me and my wife hoisting. I hope everyone had a safe and relaxing holiday weekend.
Mt. Everest, where the 1% goes to die. At least they all died checking something off their bucket list, right?
I have an alternative proposal for Chancellor Merkel, just let the Jews own guns, and they’ll guard their own synagogues, schools, and day cares.
Here it is, the latest scare tactic in the vape wars. This is less credible than the sucralose studies on rats that led to “Nutrasweet causes cancer”. Although you may want to avoid the cinnamon flavor out of an abundance of caution.
Venezuela latest “Wrong Socialism” country to tell the joke… “its worse than usual, this week they’re out of bullets“.
Massive supernova caused enough climate change to trigger Man to walk upright?
Cue the music.
Comments
334 responses to “Tuesday Afternoon Links”
Your Venezuela and supernova links require logins.
Yeccchhhhh.
He tasks you, BEAM. He tasks you!
Great, now I gotta hack a couple of shitty magazine websites.
Yeccchhhhh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4DnNKKIfrM
They were telling me I could read the article if I whitelist the site. Meanwhile, the ABP indicator was literally running up hundreds of blocked popups, like over 700 by the time I exited the link.
Oh, HELL no I ain’t whitelisting that.
I’ve heard cocaine can be a productivity booster.
*narrows…nostrils?*
You shouldn’t just turn up your nose at quality, plant-based solutions to productivity problems. Your Swiss overlords would probably be delighted if cocaine were more readily available in the workplace.
Seven percent solution.
So if I had some sort of hypobaric greenhouse, you’re saying there’s a chance?
Cocaine+chocolate= profit
I shall call it “Razzle Dazzle Bars”
Mitch agrees.
Mt. Everest is totally for amateur climbers.
Mt. Everest is the Cochella of mountains.
Maybe even the Fyre Festival of mountains.
It has apparently become quite touristy with the vast majority still not making it past base camp (high, but not that high).
I would go do it just to go to base camp. The whole risking death on the upper part doesn’t appeal to me, but getting to base camp and checking things out from there would be cool.
I’d just do a lower mountain. But I’m not a climber, and haven’t done much mountaineering.
I was trapped on a business trip one day and watched a documentary on a guy who claimed to be the only person to climb the full height of the mountain.
He started at the shore of the Bay of Bengal in India and walked 300 miles to the first base camp before climbing to the summit — without oxygen.
Dude was crazy in my book, but he had enormous balls.
^This.
I can’t even get to base camp height. I suffer from anoxia above about 10,000ft. One of my cousins went to base camp about ten years ago, and couldn’t proceed for the same reason (although he was always iffy about whether he’d actually make the attempt anyways . . . ).
I have been as high as the hornli hut, which is about 10700 ft, without issue.
It is “base camp” for the Matterhorn.
You can hike to it, climbing starts above it.
A neighbor is in route back from Nepal. She summitted one of the smaller mountains, Imja Tse, sometime within the last few weeks. “Only” about 21k ft , but she’s still pretty bad ass
I’m calling BS.
Why would elevation above sea level cause eating disorders? I think you are just pretending to have a fancy disease like anoxia … wait … anoxia?
Nevermind
I know I’ve camped at 12,500 ft in the past but it’s been a long while and frankly, I have no interest in sleeping on the ground anymore.
^^^This!
As a kid, I climbed Mt. Whitney (14,500 ft) with my scout troop. I don’t think I’ve pulled the pack out of my closet in 20 years. I keep it because it’s covered in patches which remind me I used to be able to do these things.
I knew a guy who made the summit of Everest in the mid-90s. He really didn’t want to talk about it too much, I’m guessing there were some fairly difficult memories. Since then it seems to have become a lot more touristy than his professional team attempt was.
He should have pushed Jon Krakauer off the mountain.
Mom’s been obsessively anti-Mormon since reading his other book. Yeah, people are weird, especially about their faiths. BFD.
I knew Yasuko Namba – Japanese climber whose death on Everest was covered in Krakauer’s book. While she was fit for her age she wasn’t really an athlete. She trained for that climb by climbing stairwells of tall buildings in Tokyo carrying a backpack filled with books.
After reading Krakauer’s book (Into Thin Air) I knew I would not be interested in climbing Everest. There really is a death zone past which there is no way to rescue you.
I suppose we’re pretending that’s who Germany’s Jews have to be afraid of…?
She wants them totally dependent on her party. Surprised they are that big of a population that it makes a difference to her electoral strategy. And any violence perpetrated against (((them))) will not be the failure of the government to protect them, but will prove that they need more police to round up those troublesome right-wingers.
*facepalm*
Well, that vape juice is a tobacco product.
I think they’re deliberately encouraging the reader to associate vaping with smoking, myself.
…An aside – whoever’s in charge of the paragraphs and paragraphs of anti-vaping propaganda on Juul’s wikipedia page can’t even keep their facts straight.
What? That’s totally accurate. If it has the same amount of cigarettes as one pack, that’s the same amount of nicotine as one to infinite packs. It can’t be as bad as the Truth ads, those are so bad they almost want me to take up smoking again out of spite.
Technically accurate and misleading (as intended).
Saying (accurately) one pack is one thing. Saying one to X packs is misleading, because it invites the reader to believe there is more nicotine in a pod than there actually is.
“[L]et the Jews own guns, and they’ll guard their own synagogues, schools, and day cares.”
Tactical Rabbis.
Plenty of them in Israel and the US.
https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2019/05/28/gop-rep-justin-amash-accuses-ag-bill-barr-of-using-his-position-to-sell-the-presidents-false-narrative-to-the-american-people/
Amash still thinks Trump is a Russian stooge.
It’s not paranoia if it’s true. In this case it’s not true, so yeah, it’s paranoia.
No, he was talking about obstruction, not collusion.
Assuming there can be obstruction in the absence of an underlying crime. I’m unconvinced that Trump did anything beyond assert the full rights and privileges of his person and office, respectively. But I can see where others might disagree.
I’m agnostic because I haven’t had a staff of trusted lawyers review the document line by line, give me an analysis, and answer all my questions. I might or might not come to the same conclusion as Amash- in the absence of real data, it’s not a judgement I can make.
I don’t take seriously the opinion of anyone who hasn’t done the analysis or at least thoroughly and critically read the entire report.
That’s okay, I don’t take my opinion seriously either. Taking all of the principals out of this, I find the whole matter disturbingly banana republic. I don’t believe that Amash has been overcome with Trump hatred. He probably would have done the same to any sitting President who conducted himself similarly. Or Hillary.
Assuming there can be obstruction in the absence of an underlying crime.
There can be. You can obstruct justice without even being involved in any crime before the investigation. Its kind of a talking point (and one I probably have used) that you can’t obstruct justice if there’s no underlying crime, but I can see why the offense needs to be independent of an underlying crime.
I don’t take seriously the opinion of anyone who hasn’t done the analysis or at least thoroughly and critically read the entire report.
I think this is all you need to know:\
With respect to obstruction, Mueller had one decision to make: whether or not to charge Trump. He decided not to.
Ordinarily that would be the end of the matter. In Trump’s special case (as President), though, that decision could have been for the usual reason (not enough/any evidence) or for Constitutional reasons (I understand there is some concern about whether a President can be criminally charged while in office, an issue I have no opinion on). We know (because they told us) that the decision was for the usual reason.
As far as the criminal justice system goes, the question has been asked and answered. There remains a political question, about whether Trump’s conduct during the investigation was so improper he should be impeached. But that’s a political question which really has nothing to do with the legal question. The point of overlap may be whether something can be a “high crime or misdemeanor” if its not actually against the criminal law.
In short, there’s no need to be agnostic depending on a legal review of the report. There is no criminal legal question on the table, only a political one.
We know (because they told us)
IOW, we don’t know. I’m not sure who you mean by “they,” but there is no answer for any of the people involved that I’d trust absent a deep analysis.
I’m not sure who you mean by “they,”
Well, Rosenstein, Barr, and Mueller. If they had decided not to charge because of the Constitutional question, they would have said so. Rosenstein and Barr both said explicitly that it was for the usual reason; Mueller never mentioned, as far as I know the Constitutional question as the reason they didn’t charge, but went to great length to say there was a whole bunch of . . . stuff that didn’t add up to obstruction.
…we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that “the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions” in violation of the constitutional separation of powers…
And apart from OLC’s constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.
…we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes…
Emphasis mine.
If justice is the correction of a wrong, and there is no wrong to be corrected, how can justice be obstructed? I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that’s logical (which is, of course, orthogonal in many cases to legal thinking).
Obstruction happens before we know if there is a wrong to be corrected. Its really wrongful interference with the investigation into a possible crime. Really successful obstruction may deny the prosecution enough evidence to even charge for the “real crime”.
If you can’t charge for obstruction unless you also charge for the real crime, than all you really have done is outlaw attempted obstruction.
How many cases of “real” (as in, someone’s rights have been violated) crimes exist where you don’t even know a crime has occurred, or at least where one hasn’t been alleged? If the only allegation was “collusion”, and that’s disproven, then how can there be an obstruction?
Well they didn’t find evidence of collusion yet everyone knows collusion occurred so there obviously must have been obstruction.
Let’s say I stole a bunch of diamonds, and got caught. While out on bail, I pay off every witness and break into the police property room and remove the diamonds. As a consequence, no charges are brought against me for stealing the diamonds.
Should I be charged with obstruction?
Here’s a very non-lawyerly analogy. Suppose that you’re suing me for something civil, maybe breach of contract. You get a court order for discovery and I destroy some material documents. You lose the suit, or maybe drop it before it goes to court. Now it may be that, even with those documents, you’d still lose the case, but irrespective of the outcome, I’m guilty of spoliation of evidence, am I not?
@RC Dean: You stole the diamonds – presumably the owner reported the theft, so there’s a (known) crime. So clearly, your destruction of evidence, witness tampering, etc. is an obstruction of justice, as it’s preventing justice for the original crime.
@OMWC: Again, there’s a real harm – not a crime in this case, but clearly a (perceived) harm. Hence destroying evidence is obstructing justice in that case.
And before anyone says “but the allegation was there for Trump”, note that in neither case listed above is there any way to say that the crime/tort *never occurred*, just that there’s no longer a way to prove who did it. *That* is my key point.
Ooh, I’ll play. Let’s say a kid goes missing, you’re questioned because you are seen parking your car is in the area at the time on some CCTV, and you act a little furtive on the video. You lie because what you were doing was boning your wife’s bestie. The cops smell your bullshit and wonder ‘what’s this dude hiding’, your story falls apart but you can’t come clean or your wife will shred your willie with a rusty cheese grater. The cops now waste resources chasing down your BS instead of finding out what actually happened. You are obstructing justice, even if it turns out that Timmy wasn’t abducted at all but fell down the old well.
You stole the diamonds – presumably the owner reported the theft, so there’s a (known) crime.
No, there’s an allegation of a crime. No crime has been proven and as it turns out, there isn’t even any evidence of a crime other than the owner’s accusation.
That’s the trick. “Obstruction” is interfering with an investigation to determine, among other things, whether a crime occurred and whodunit. In the jewelry heist, for example, its possible that the owner is attempting to commit insurance fraud, or just misplaced the damn things. An investigation can be interfered with even if there is ultimately nothing for it to find.
On OMWC’s example. its entirely possible that no actual breach of the contract occurred, and that he stupidly destroyed evidence for no good reason. Still spoliation, even though there was no breach of contract.
There can be obstruction even without an underlying crime, which is kind of stupid. Pretty much all the things in the report that could be construed as obstruction were things that Trump talked about, but which never happened, because his underlings ignored him.
Obstruction of what? Seriously – wtf happened to that guy? He used to be against government spying on citizens.
He is saying that Trump is falsely implying that the investigation was unwarranted.
That’s a political question, not a legal question.
Trump is falsely implying that the investigation was unwarranted
And why would that be false? The report conclusively stated there was no “collusion”. I don’t see how its unreasonable to say that the collusion investigation was unwarranted, especially given its origins in the Steele dossier and the coordinated actions of the Hillary campaign and Obama administration.
The report maundered on (improperly) about whether there was obstruction and concluded that he should not be charged. Since it was apparent very early on that the collusion investigation was going nowhere, most of the “investigation” consisted of attempts to entrap Trump in some way. That is also reasonably called unwarranted.
Apparently Trump’s tweetstorms are “obstruction”.
Who got to Amash? Suddenly he’s parroting all the standard prog lines on Trump.
People I know keep saying stuff like “If you liked Amash in 2012 but don’t like him today, you’re the one who isn’t adhering to your principals. Amash is the most consistent member of Congress”
Setting aside that calling someone “the most consistent member of Congress” is like calling something “the wettest desert in the world”, it really does seem to me that Amash isn’t adhering to his stated pro-liberty principles when it comes to Trump.
Am I seeing this from a skewed perspective? I admittedly like Trump (in general) because he’s a breath of fresh air on the political stage and the most (albeit accidentally) libertarian President of my lifetime, even if I disagree with many of his and his administration’s policies, so I’m open to being corrected here but it really seems like Amash giving in to the dark side and letting TDS guide his statements.
I agree with you – sounds like everyone else in the Liberty Caucus is wondering what happened too.
I think Amash’s take is sort of the same thing I attribute to Reason, in my more charitable moments. He’s made the issue one of personality, rather than substance. Trump is “icky” by the standards of polite libertarianism. He’s definitely not “one of us”. And he let’s that personal distaste color his views. So, he misses the possible gains for libertarian policy to oppose Trump. And he overlooks the wildly anti-libertarian nature of so much of the effort to take Trump down. Add to that the fact that the proggies and Never Trumpers are undoubtedly blowing smoke up his ass about how much they admire his “principled stance”, and it’s not terribly difficult to see how he’s gotten his head so twisted around.
Rand Paul is every bit as consistent as Amash. But, Paul’s been able to build a solid working relationship with Trump because he takes pains to make his efforts not about rejecting Trump, but rejecting his worse policies.
Trump doesn’t politely cave to the left then adjourn for cocktails.
It is slowly coming out that Obama’s minions used a software called Hammer that was designed to allow our government to spy on foreigners to be used instead to spy on his political opponents.
Evidentially thousands of judges, politicians, and business leaders were spied on and in some cases blackmailed.
Remember back when everyone was asking what “they” had on Judge Roberts to get the Obamacare ruling ?
It looks like the truth may be coming out
And that we are being invaded by UFOs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJKsp9_L24Q
As long as the roots are not severed all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bcRCCg01I
So I guess this means that Venezeuela has solved gun crime? Another socialist victory!
K2 is where the real climbing is at…
K12 or GTFO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFnWvja81Yk
“German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview airing Tuesday that police have to guard every synagogue, Jewish school and day care center in her country.”
“We have always had a certain number of anti-Semites among us.”
“Merkel’s comments came in response to a question from Amanpour about the rise of political parties associated with nationalism, populism and anti-Semitism throughout Europe.”
Wow. That is some mendacious horseshit right there. I have a question….when two or more guys simultaneously yank each other it is called a circle jerk. What do you call two lying cunts frigging each other at the same time?
Tribbing or scissoring. CJ is generally three or more; with two it’s just reciprocating.
Two points make a line, so I assume it would be a line jerk. But then 3 points make a plane, so should that be a plane jerk? Glibertarians. Where geometry and group masturbation intersect.
There would have to be some impressive flexibility for three or more to engage in tribadism.
By reading “My Secret Life,” I learned the Victorian term was “flat-fucking.”
Tribbing.
who calls two-some mutual masturbation a circle jerk?
Someone who was never a Boy Scout?
And knows what the cookie is for?
Thanks for Pop Chubby and Hey Joe. I’m enjoying it right now. Again.
I went out and got the three disc set that this came from. He is terrific.
Hell, I don’t know the nomenclature for all that stuff.
Tribbing…I guess I have heard that before.
A daisy chain
police have to guard every synagogue, Jewish school and day care center in her country
Stop importing people that hate Jews.
Pretty sure Germany is full of followers of Martin Luther already.
Obligatory
“We have always had a certain number of anti-Semites among us.”
“And when it looked like we were starting to run low, we imported a bunch more.”
Just got my BIF delivery. A nice supply of New England beers hand-delivered by DanG, who won’t see this. But thanks anyway!
He is passing thru BG today while on vacation.
Just picked up my sixer to ship – all pints, baby and on the lighter end of the spectrum, as preferred. Also a gose, which I can’t recall if he said to absolutely under no circumstances send.
Hope to get it out tomorrow.
This Supernova might cause some uprightness.
I imagine the director after the first take or two: “I love her look. I just love it. But could she take her bra off? I think that will really make this video get some airplay.”
It worked.
Bras are overrated, anyway.
This is why directors get paid big money!
What makes you think she was wearing one to begin with? Her public persona has always been slutty, as are her lyrics.
Fair enough. I’m just saying after careful study, it seemed like they were just bouncy enough to be annoying without restraint on stage, but I am not a woman, so it could just be propaganda.
Don’t overthink it, Brett. Just enjoy the girly sound and bouncing boobies.
Just enjoy the girly sound and bouncing boobies.
Wisdom.
Sound? I played it without sound and it looked like (lip reading) she just kept singing “Please fuck me.”
Hush, you. It’s “empowered.”
[golf clap]
At least they all died checking something off their bucket list, right?
IIRC there are several routes and varying levels of stupidity, er, bravery.
I watched Free Solo on the airplane recently. I just don’t understand climbers.
They are crazy. I dated a rock rat once.
My son likes bouldering. I did some canyoneering in Utah (guided) and that was fun, but even the high rappels were pretty fucking scary. I can’t imagine the sedation that would be required to get me up that high.
sedation
I have a huge respect for heights, but I’ve worked my way up to 14k. I probably just let my anxiety get the best of me sometimes because I can crawl all over things I built myself, so that covers structures up to 100 feet . . . after very careful recon and testing of every surface and handrail.
The ascent to 14 included several hundred yards across a sloped ice sheet, but it was so wide that I was sure I’d get an ax planted before I went off the edge. I guess I just need to know that a little bit of my clumsiness isn’t going to result in a huge risk or injury I can’t manage.
And I agree with basecamp as a goal because I don’t want to be on top again. But I’d be glad to schlep the equipment and calories up for another fourteener and just have supper ready when the others got back down. Cooking and whittling and watching the forest go by can be a complete day for me.
Once you get past a certain height it doesn’t matter. If you fall, you’re dead. I climbed Angels Landing in Zion. When I watch the videos, I think, that’s nuts. When I was there it didn’t seem so bad.
I said no way. Give me Observation Point death march instead!
I fucking love Zion.
It’s pretty awesome in the off-season. Too crowded and hot in the summer.
I had to scroll to the top of the Venezuelan criminals story to see if it was the Babylon Bee.
I missed SP’s zoning poll yesterday. Oddly enough, I saw a billboard in western Indiana (not a yard sign, a full size commercial billboard) which said,
“Zoning doesn’t solve problems, it creates them.”
That guy gets it.
“Go back to Illinois!”
Not suprising, Splinter hates charter schools
If you haven’t been living under a rock, you know that conservative legislatures across the country have done a couple things in the past two decades as it relates to public education. First, they started lifting their caps on charter schools, leading to a massive influx. And second, they have—especially since the recession—been starving public schools of proper funding. This has resulted in numerous teacher strikes and marches and some subsequent half-measure budget compromises.
Oregon, Colorado, and LA, super conservative.
Charter schools are a half-measure, an attempt at providing the have-nots of the world an appetizing taste of what it means to be almost rub shoulders with the private school crowd, many of whom will continue on to private universities. What charters do, for themselves more than for the communities they serve, is provide the illusion of “choice” to a select or random few, and then use those testimonials to drive up interest in those left to attend public schools.
The political result is the same, regardless of where you land on the map: More funding is diverted from public schools, those schools regress as teachers are forced to pick up second and third jobs, and inevitable strikes leave room for one enemy, which in most cases is a GOP-dominated legislature.
*eyeroll*
Far better to keep throwing money into an ineffective system than to try something different. Oh, who am I kidding. Far better to keep throwing money into politically powerful teachers unions.
Wow. That’s an impressive amount of misdirection, non-sequiturs, and outright lies in just a few sentences.
leading to a massive influx
It’s not an “influx” if parents vote to convert a failing public school into a charter. An influx is something else which you probably support.
teachers are forced to pick up second and third jobs
“Forced.” Nope. I don’t think schoolteachers salaries go down; positions get eliminated, schools go charter, but that’s just handwringing bullshit.
Also it used to be understood that schoolteachers would get summer jobs if they wanted nice cars, nice vacations, or to save to buy a house.
And second, they have—especially since the recession—been starving public schools of proper funding.
How this is possible when per student spending has been rising since the recession is an exercise for the reader.
I think Mikey, Raph, Don and Leo need to make sure Splinter isn’t using drugs.
Considering that Splinter homeschooled them, it is strange.
Why doesn’t she send a check to the government?
MacKenzie Bezos has promised to give at least half of her fortune to charity, just months after finalizing her divorce from the world’s richest man.
The newly minted billionaire has signed the Giving Pledge, which encourages the world’s richest people to dedicate a majority of their wealth to charitable causes, either during their lifetimes or in their wills.
“Hey, I found a hundred dollar bill on the ground. Let’s go to lunch.”
MacKenzie Bezos has promised to give at least half one-quarter of her ex-husband’s fortune to charity.
Fix it.
Well, I meant to say “Fixed” it, but my strikethrough tag didn’t work. What is it again, assuming it didn’t work in this post either?
Strikethrough no workee here. At least not by that name.
I think it’s a WordPress thingy.
Strikethrough no workee here. At least not by that name.I thought it did?
strikethrough>
Rot row. I broke the site again.
Gracias
“del” does strikethrough.
What are the chances the money actually leaves her pocket?
It will go into a charity controlled by her, which will in turn donate 2 – 3% of its assets to other charities each year.
Yep. It will also become a target for professional leftists to seize control of and manage according to their political and personal whims.
See every other long standing philanthropy fund that has ever existed for examples.
“I have an alternative proposal for Chancellor Merkel, just let the Jews own guns, and they’ll guard their own synagogues, schools, and day cares.”
Agreed. Although if the government did NOT have a monopoly and they were offering their services for hire…
“Here it is, the latest scare tactic in the vape wars.”
The problem is not the scaring. It is that they won’t let us make up our own mind whether or not to be scared and act accordingly. They will DO SOMETHING about it for us.
And second, they have—especially since the recession—been starving public schools of proper funding.
*smashes coffee table and lamp with fireplace poker*
The whole meme about public schools being underfunded would be laughable if it weren’t so infuriating.
We know their underfunded because teachers sometimes strike!
^went to public school.
$30k/student average across the US. Every student could afford their own personal tutor for six months and get better results with less graft. But then it wouldn’t be child care for working parents.
$30k/student x 30 students/class is $900,000. Where the hell does all that money go? It certainly doesn’t go towards education.
Bond payments on capital infrastructure, pensions, administration. Also, to be somewhat generous, there has been a huge expansion of speech, physical, and occupational therapy for children who would have been too severely disabled to go to school. It’s Pareto Principle, so getting that next 0.1% of severely disabled children into the public school system probably costs 10% of the budget. Whether that is a net benefit to our society is a question for someone else to answer, but my wife has worked with some of those kids, and I can tell you its a huge benefit for the kids and their guardians. Again, SLD on whether that should be lumped into education.
And don’t forget the personal assistants or whatever the disabled kids get when they are mainstreamed into regular classes.
I can show you some nice administration buildings full of well paid employees with great benefits and retirement packages, who do nothing but collect data that is then used to justify more funding.
^This^
Bingo
Call me when schools actually lay people off, or stop hiring additional administrators at a minimum. Then maybe we can talk about whether the schools are properly funded.
Having gone to public school, they kept jacking up the taxes massively to pay for ever more crap that never went to help educate us. My parents paid nearly $500/mo in property taxes on a $150k house in 90s and 00s, 80% of which went to fund the local school district, and every election cycle they needed more money.
Do they really need that third assistant to the second vice principal?
It’s like that in Barrington too. The school district decided to put a levy on the ballot even though 69 percent of our property taxes goes to the schools. The residents shot that shit down.
My high school age son told me the other day how terrible it is that teachers have to spend their own money on supplies (something his teachers told him). I suggested that it was amazing how perpetual this problem seems to be nationwide, despite countless teachers strikes and union contract renegotiations every year — and how easily a line item for, say, $1,000 per teacher per year for supplies could be added to contracts, it would barely be a blip in the overall cost. But of course, then teachers wouldn’t have this lugubrious issue to bring up every year, and, no doubt, if offered this, would prefer to take the $1K as a raise instead. So maintaining this complaint is always a win-win for them.
Ask him how many vice-principals and assistant guidance counselors there are, and how often he has spoken to any of them.
Our school district got some additional taxes approved by the voters. Now my kid’s school has a new football field. Glad their priorities are straight.
OT: During the US holi-3-day, mexican sharpshooter posted
https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/seasteading-and-international-law-are-floating-ocean-cities-legal/cid/1690891 by Prabhakar Singh.
Do not see any comments posted about it, which is a shame. Its main points are that they “claim” they were past 12 miles, but the government “alleges” they were not; an unnamed now-former seastead is a historic first non-land-government seastead; seasteading by land-based governments are legitimate, but seasteading by people are not; and there is “a cryptocurrency conspiracy to establish” its own country.
This is the first claim I have encountered that the Thai government was disputing the location. AFAIK, they are invoking the so-called “no more Sealands” provision of the “exclusive economic zone” multi-article arc of the United Nations Convention on The Law of The Sea, even though the now-fugitives (“threatening national sovereignty,” a capital offense) made no claims to territorial waters around them. The owners claim they documented the position of their self-sufficient (solar, water purification, hydroponic garden) “houseboat” (their word, but they failed to register it under anybody’s flag) with GPS embeds in communications. It was not unnamed: XLII (Roman for 42, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). Before XLII, there was (not intended as a comprehensive list) the Republic of Minerva (seized by Tonga, 250 miles away), the Respubliko de la Insulo de la Rozoj (11 kilometers off the coast, not to be confused with Isle of Roses, seized by Italy), and the Principality of Sealand (9 miles from Ipswitch, won recognition from the UK in court). The author’s poster child for legitimate seasteading is what China is doing in the South China Sea. See https://glibertarians.com/2019/01/south-china-sea-fair-seas-or-foul-weather-part-1/ (and part 2) by dbleagle for why that is wrong. The claim to a “conspiracy” is presented without any evidence. I will leave it to others to decide if “claim” is more disparaging of the “claim” than “alleges” of the allegation. CWCID, I am surprised that The Telegraph of India included “allege” when a government allegation (in this case, an allegation that may exist only in their own minds) fits their narrative.
There actually sort of is “a cryptocurrency conspiracy to establish ‘an independent nation’”; it’s called Liberland.
A lot of people consider Liberland a PR gimmick, but there’s actually a lot going on there. The entire administration is run on the blockchain and you have to have at least 5,000 merits (the official [crypto]currency of Liberland) staked in your name in order to vote, which you do via the blockchain. The court system is being build on ‘smart contracts’ which are adjudicated on, you guessed it, the blockchain. Most of the funding for all this comes from crypto millionaires and billionaires.
They actually have land, about 3x the size of Monaco, and are building a fleet paid for with bitcoin money. The flagship is the Bitcoin Freedom.
“They actually have land”
I could be wrong, but I thought that armed government employees of Croatia and/or Serbia are keeping the exercise of property rights in the physical Liberland to much less than you could enjoy if you buy real estate in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and/or Switzerland.
By ‘they actually have land’ I mean they’re not a seastead. There is ground associated with it.
But you are right, Croatia has something like 9 full-time armed guards patrolling the region and arresting anyone who enters. This, despite the fact that Croatia assets that this region is not, in fact, a part of their country.
No free speech for you!
In their new book “Must We Defend Nazis?: Why the First Amendment Should Not Protect Hate Speech and White Supremacy,” they argue that in fact regulating hate speech would make the United States a fairer, more equal and less hateful place.
“The best way to preserve lizards is not to preserve hawks,” they insist in the book. “Our answer to the question, does defending Nazis really strengthen the system of free speech is, then, generally, no. Sometimes defending Nazis is simply defending Nazis.”…
They point out, in the first place, that hate speech causes real harm. Free speech advocates will sometimes insist that words don’t cause damage. They disregard — or even mock — the concerns of students on college campus who protest speeches by controversial figures like Milo Yiannopolous, who has used his speaking engagements to harass trans students, among other marginalized groups. They argue that victims should toughen up and ignore hateful words, or accept them as the price of freedom.
Delgado and Stefanic, though, argue the price for freedom in this case may be higher than we think. For example, a John Hopkins study published in 2013 concluded that being exposed to racism can lead to high blood pressure and stress among African Americans. Similarly, according to research by Claude Steele at Cornell, negative stereotypes affect African-American self-perception, and can lead to lower test scores. More, the rash of recent stories about sexual harassment in the workplace provide stark examples of how hostile words or technically non-violent actions — like men exposing themselves —can create an intolerable environment, forcing women out of industries and leading to long-term stress and trauma.
Free speech advocates also overstate the benefits of free speech, Delgado and Stefanic argue. The ACLU and its adherents claim that marginalized people who ask for restrictions on hate speech don’t understand the importance of free speech to civil rights movements. But that argument is paternalistic, and also incorrect.
In reality, free speech rights have rarely protected black people in this country — especially activists of color. “The First Amendment co-existed quite comfortably with slavery for nearly 100 years and was never thought to cover abolitionist speech or speech deemed adverse to American interests,” Delgado told me in an email.
Oh, sure. There are too many distortions and logical fallacies and too little time. So how about this: Propose an amendment to the federal Constitution (and those of the several states with freedom of speech provisions) or stfu.
But Europe!
Other countries are willing to take the health and safety of their most vulnerable citizens into account. Were the U.S. to properly recognize the danger of hate speech, we wouldn’t look like Orwell’s “1984.” Instead, Delgado told me, we’d “look like France, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada or Sweden, all of whom regulate hate speech but where the political climate is just as free and healthy as our own, if not more so.”
Except you can be jailed for expressing an opinion about government immigration policy or telling an off-color joke. Fuck. Off. Slaver.
This Delgado character needs to have a long chat with my French cousins.
The political climate in France is “free” for some values of “free” but not all values of “free.”
Canada’s political climate isn’t healthy at all.
Fuck you Delgado.
And we have a government in place that’s just about the least transparent and most incompetent in history.
“we wouldn’t look like Orwell’s “1984.” Instead, Delgado told me, we’d “look like France, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada or Sweden,”
I don’t see NZ on that list. Didn’t they just give a guy 10+ years hanging on a wall in a dungeon for reading a website in the privacy of his own home?
Fuck you bastards. The answer is no.
we’d “look like France, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada or Sweden,”
All countries that are poorer than the US per capita. Let’s be more like them!
nstead, Delgado told me, we’d “look like France, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada or Sweden, all of whom…
…are far more racist than the US and are incapable of assimilating minorities.
Where’s the banlieus around New York? Scarsdale?
“The best way to preserve lizards is not to preserve hawks,”
“… and by some strange coincidence, people who have the same political viewpoint as I do get to decide who is a lizard and who is a hawk.”
This is the first time I’m hearing that “free speech” includes sexual harassment and “men exposing themselves”. Gee, now I’m starting to second-guess myself. I think they’re on to something!
But it causes high blood pressure, hang nails, plantar warts, anxiety and spreads the cooties!
WHOA! Did you say cooties?
Game changer.
…white school district employees being forced to attend toxic-whiteness workshops as a condition of their employment.
Free speech advocates will sometimes insist that words don’t cause damage. They disregard — or even mock — the concerns of students on college campus who protest speeches by controversial figures like Milo Yiannopolous…
No, we ALWAYS say that. Because it is true.
And yes, yes we do, because those “concerns” are attempts to stifle First Amendment rights.
Fuck right off.
But muh hurt feelings!
“The best way to preserve lizards is not to preserve hawks”
Actually… Removing a predator from an ecosystem can destroy a population.
What dopeheaded dips hits like this retard Noah don’t get through their thick fucken stupid fake-progressive whiny snowflaked heads is eventually HIS speech will be regulated.
He *thinks* it won’t because, like all remedial asshats who haven’t thought things through as deeply as they ought to, he believes his speech is ‘right’ speech.
Lick my balls you authoritarians shit head.
But they *don’t* think things through, Rufus. They outsource that to others so they can smugly repeat talking points that comport with their feelz.
I like to tell people who start this censorship nonsense that if their law had been in place back in the ’60s it would have been used to jail MLK. His speeches can arguably be said to have led to violence and physical harm.
The response is always sputtering and hand waving.
Your absolutely right Rufus than none of them think that they will ever be put in the gulag.
But your Holiness, you are going to have to come up with a new one. MLK is out. He is being #MeToo’ed and chiseled off of campus walls.
Yeh, been hearing that too.
Is his statue safe?
Stop venerating people. Or at least making them out into deities of some kind and you won’t be disappointed and become cynical. Or freak out when you find out the person you thought was pure is not….just like the rest of fricken humanity.
Well, now they can just rename all of the MLK Jr streets to Obama Avenue.
Hell, take this censorship nonsense just a little bit further back in time and the same logic absolutely supports anti-blasphemy laws. If high blood pressure and hurt feelings is enough to justify censorship, then eternal damnation clears the bar with flying colors. And yet, faced with that prospect, this country decided that free speech was worth the risk. It still is.
If high blood pressure and hurt feelings is enough to justify censorship
then there is no limit whatsoever to what can be censored. This is an argument for prior restraint of subjectively offensive speech.
Fuck off slaver
You know what? This guy’s right. We have entirely too much dangerous speech out there. We need to create a federal department that creates and enforces speech codes. Congress should fast track this so President Trump can appoint the head of this new department ASAP.
It’s mind boggling that such an anti free speech position isn’t met with the same horror as someone shitting on a sidewalk in public or giving sig heils at a bar mitzvah. I’m glad the Soviet Union is gone, but at the same time it’s depressing that this shit is gaining whereas before it would have been shot down rather quickly.
You mean Reason contributor Noah Berlatsky?
That clown contributes to Reason?
Reason is losing the plot man.
“The First Amendment co-existed quite comfortably with slavery for nearly 100 years and was never thought to cover abolitionist speech or speech deemed adverse to American interests,”
Really? There were laws on the books that outlawed abolitionist speech that passed court review?
United Nations Convention on The Law of The Sea
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
AAMOF, the United Nations Convention on The Law of The Sea does overturn the centuries-old “freedom of the seas” (slavery of the seas?) of a vessel of commerce to travel any waters except territorial waters either in peace or war. Also, you Brooksed that comment, but you are Brooks.
Sigh. A vessel of commerce not of a combatant nation.
Venezuela’s economic crisis is now so bad that criminals can’t afford to buy bullets
Relevant.
Free speech advocates also overstate the benefits of free speech, Delgado and Stefanic argue. The ACLU and its adherents claim that marginalized people who ask for restrictions on hate speech don’t understand the importance of free speech to civil rights movements. But that argument is paternalistic…..
The wrong kind of paternalism, anyway.
LOL, what a bunch of idiots. They never think that the same law they use to fuck over the opposition will someday be used on them when the opposition gains power.
And that’s when you see them crying after an election.
Mayor and council president ask for federal disaster dollars to clean up IT toxic waste.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/05/eternally-blue-baltimore-city-leaders-blame-nsa-for-ransomware-attack/
Considering the NSA was responsible for creating the vehicle used, that isn’t entirely invalid.
Yeah, they might have a case. Too bad the rest of article centers on “needz moar money”.
And if Maryland did sue the feds over this it would probably be under such heavy seal you’d never even hear about it.
Ironic that Ft. George Meade, home of NSA, is in Maryland. Womp, womp.
enough climate change to trigger Man to walk upright?
Spurious Correlations
Strikethrough no workee here. At least not by that name.
“strike” is what works.
viz,
strikethroughYep.TestingI hate you all.
I
hatelove you all.FTFY
Just for that, I’m going on
strike.Delete[REDACTED]Titty Tuesday revs your engine to redline.
http://archive.li/oUwdj
4 or 5
From the vaping story:
How long does this guy intend to work? If he’s waiting to treat kids when they are elderly adults, he must have some secret longevity drug.
Reading that story, you’d think vaping is just as bad as smoking. It is like these guys watched Reefer Madness and thought it was a great idea to make giant exaggerations about the peril of a product.
The latest bullshit campaign here is one that claims that nicotine is “brain poison”. Just absolute lies. AFAIK nicotine has neuroprotective properties.
It is a powerful poison…but in the right dose so is everything else.
I know it is a poison, it’s used in some pesticides. But, yes, the amounts you would have to take to “poison” your brain are not really possible with vape or tobacco products.
I looked it up. It is approximately 28x more dangerous to rats when taken orally than cocaine. So I advise smuggling more than 2 or 3 condoms worth of vape pods in your stomach at any one time.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/illinois-income-tax-rates-progressive-510514681.html
Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who defeated Rauner in 2018, campaigned in part on a promise to implement a progressive income tax on the state’s wealthiest individuals. Pritzker himself is the richest elected official in the country, with Forbes estimating the Hyatt Hotel heir’s net worth at about $3.2 billion and his 2017 tax forms showing he made more than $54 million that year alone. As governor, he faces the aforementioned bill backlog and pension deficit, while also looking to fund a major capital plan to rebuild the state’s infrastructure, among other initiatives. Democrats largely support the change to what he’s dubbed a “fair tax,” while the generally tax-averse Republicans in Springfield have expressed their opposition – all voting in lockstep against the measure in both chambers.
The paragraph above should be in quotations.
But yeah, they aren’t going to do a damn thing about the corruption, large pension liability, nor the crazy spending. I would like to think that Illinoisians will reject this when it gets on the ballot in 2020 but this state is batting an .1000 average for voting in stupid shit.
Are you still up there? Shouldn’t you be shopping for employment in a no income tax state? They are warmer and have better fishing.
Suthen as much as I hate the state and the politicians, I don’t see myself moving for a while. My intermediate family and good friends are here and so irrationally, I’m attached to this gawd forsaken state.
Saying that though, if it gets to the point of no return, moving to Ohio near my in laws.
WDATPDIM?
Seriously though, Illinois is doomed. They’re beyond the point of no return. Once you’ve crossed the event horizon, there’s no point in even trying to climb back out; it’s impossible, so you might as well live it up with what time you have left.
That’s pretty much where Illinois currently is. The only ways they can be rescued are 1) a federal bailout, 2) kicking out Chicago, making it an independent city-state, and saddling it with all the existing state pension liabilities, 3) a plague which kills off all it’s existing pensioners, or 4) amending the state constitution to prohibit any payments to former employees who no longer work for the state which overrides its requirement to always pay pensions.
None of these are going to happen.
You forgot SMOD. There’s always SMOD.
The only ways they can be rescued are 1) a federal bailout,
Which will happen one way or the other, make no mistake, when the Dems get the Presidency back and one of the legislative houses. The Obama stimulus was basically a bail-out – most of the money went straight to the states to backfill lost tax revenue.
I would not rule out a bail-out, if it meant that the state became a territory (without a state government) and all current and former elected officials of the state became ineligible to hold any government office, elected or not, for life. City and county officials could avoid that fate only if their city or country was not insolvent. The state could petition to rejoin the union, with a new state constitution and everything, after five consecutive years of being fiscally solvent.
Anything they do now is just hastening the demise of the state. The courts have guaranteed that they can’t renegotiate union pension obligations in bankruptcy so there is no other solution that will not drive off their top earners in droves.
The public sector unions in Illinois are ran by the sorriest enviest (sp) pieces of shit on Earth. A former friend of mine was heavily involved in the AFCSME and a former state tax collector. The guy felt like the state’s residence should give the workers whatever they asked for and shuddered at the thought of accountability.
But I’ve learned to not get angry at it all. The towns are slowly losing more and more revenue to fulfill the onerous pension obligations and what will end up happening is that the voters will see their services cut while some asshole state and village worker retires at 61 and gets $ 60,000 + a year for life while only contributing 2 percent of their paycheck to the pension fund.
I can’t see whether they differentiate between capital gains and other income. If not, looks like time for me to sell the condo before all the downtown seniors exit.
“For single and joint filers earning less than $250,000 per year, the first $10,000 would be taxed at 4.75%, then income between that and $100,000 would be taxed at 4.9%. From there, up to $250,000, the rate would be 4.95%, where it stands today.
Above $250,000, the rates begin to differ for single and joint filers. For single filers from $250,000 to $350,000, and for joint filers up to $500,000, the rate would be 7.75%. That increases to 7.85% for single filers reporting between $350,000 and $750,000 in income, and for joint filers from $500,000 to $1 million.”
I’m in California. I wish we had tax rates like that.
A lot of white progressives are saying some pretty vile and obviously racist things about Clarence Thomas today because he recounted Planned Parenthood’s history in the eugenics movement.
Here is a link to his concurring opinion if you’re interested: https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/052819zor_2dq3.pdf
There are good arguments for opposing a law that bans women from acquiring an abortion due to a child’s sex or physical abilities. There is a good argument in defense of abortion, in general. But, there is no argument that changes the literal history of Planned Parenthood. I have no idea how people could get so upset by someone recounting history verbatim.
They’re upset because they have no logical response.
“Planned Parenthood’s history in the eugenics movement.”
History IN? It is the eugenics movement’s executive arm.
Thomas is always going to be a target. Wait until Kavenaugh does something that strikes at the heart of the prog movement. Get. your popcorn, slickers and umbrellas ready.
They really hate being reminded of their embrace of eugenics.
Wait until Kavenaugh does something that strikes at the heart of the prog movement
I’m not holding my breath on Roberts Jr.
Me, neither. Although we still haven’t gotten to the real big cases this year, and he’s the newbie, so its early to say.
But I have a bad feeling he’s another establishment squish.
It’s similar to how they howl in outrage and call it harassment when their own words are used against them.
I understand where they are coming from. It’s similar to conservatives defending the NRA even when they’re shitty on guns. You don’t want to undercut organizations that agree with you.
But, it’s ludicrous because the NRA doesn’t have racist roots and conservatives don’t go around calling gun control activists racist (although they really should). But, PP really does have very racist and vile roots and yet they attack opponents of abortion as racist. It just makes no sense
Massive supernova caused enough climate change to trigger Man to walk upright?
So what I hear you saying is that climate change will lead to super-powers. I’ll have to let the car idle a little longer today, so that my descendants have a chance at being X-Men.
In regards to Everest to each his own. I can’t imagine ever wanting to even go to base camp there. I’ve been to about 18000 feet in Bolivia and it makes your body feel utterly terrible. The only way to do so is with a large bag of coca leaf. The stars are utterly amazing though, there’s almost more light spots than dark spots in the nite sky at high elevations.
I think the highest I have ever been is 12,000 feet.
That’s plenty, thanks.
Yup. I regularly go to close to 10k to ski, but I think 15k is my upper limit I’d ever want to get to. I remember saying, “so this is what it must feel like to be really old” when I was up that high. And I was 23 then.
I’ve been to the top of Mt. Evans which is 14,130. I don’t think that I ever got that high in a non-commercial airplane.
Anything north of 12 is really tough on the body.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen 15k on my altimeter in something turboprop – probably a super otter, but that was a very short time before jump run.
Where did you go in Bolivia?
Same here…not 18K though. 15 or 16 was more than enough for me. There isn’t a damned thing to see up there. Rock, ice and no air in a place that wants you dead.
If I ever get the chance again I think I will stay home and drink hot chocolate. Whoever goes can tell me all about it.
I went from the Atacama in northern Chile overland through the Solar de Uyuni and onto Potosi. We hit about that height on one of the off road passes through the desert there. Yes, it is utterly stark up there, like a different planet really. Lots of meals of potato and llama jerky. After that spent about 6 weeks throughout Bolivia before going to Peru. I chewed coca the entire time to keep my head right.
Where were you there?
Half time in La Paz, the other half zig-zagging all over. Everything from The Beni, Titicaca, take your pick on the Altiplano. Most places there you have to go to the middle of nowhere to start your journey.
Llama jersey? You bastard. You had meat? Fuck. It was potato soup with rice and one green pea alternating with rice soup with potatoes and one green pea for me. The Swiss and German Clubs were the only places in La Paz I had real meat. I made the mistake of showing up early for lunch once there….the meat delivery showed up. A Taco showed up with a five gallon bucket 1/4 full of beef and walked right past us in a cloud of flies to the kitchen. I think I use a cleaner bucket to keep fish bait in.
Heh, heh. When were you there? I was there in the late 90’s. It was backward as shit then, I can only imagine what it’d have been like a couple decades before that. Were you working there? I was just solo traveling. Went from Chile to Colombia overland. What a trip. Experience of a lifetime, but I caught several types of dysentery, salmonella and cholera in Colombia.
Holy crap, late ’90s? I bet it was sophisticated and cosmopolitan by then. That’s why you had meat.
Me? No roads. No bridges. We just drove over whatever was drivable and following tracks usually led you to a ferry which amounted to a reed mat and little Indian boys bailing like mad with coffee cans to keep the shit-rig afloat until you were poled across.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kamala-harris-wants-states-to-get-doj-permission-before-passing-anti-abortion-laws
Maybe fuck you states are sovereign, and such oversight power is not allowed by the Constitution. Maybe all executive orders should be reviewed by SCOTUS before going into effect.
I suppose the precedent is the Voting Rights Act.
I suppose the precedent is the Voting Rights Act.
Excepting that the Voting Rights Act is covered pretty explicitly by the 15th Amendment enforcement clause giving Congress the “power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation”.
Something about emanations and penumbras…
Well, I have arrived in Thunder Bay. Along the way I took some nice pictures of Lake Superior, found that the White River Heritage Museum was closed today, and visited a tourist trap, where I paid too much for some rock.
Now I need to go find some dinner, since lunch was at 11, and consisted of a small sandwich.
White River? So Racist.
White River? So Racist.
That’s nothing.
LOL
True fact:
There is a White City not far from where I grew up. The urban legend is they called it that because they didn’t want no darkies. But, it was actually just named after a guy named White.
Also
My God, the UnWoke are everywhere.
Not to mention.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/nuPUqegKK7TvQTJn9
I live a few minutes from the Whiteface Reservoir
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Whiteface+Reservoir,+MN/@47.1107023,-92.5185326,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x52af97cd4cf8b67b:0xf85a82430f9bb5a0!8m2!3d47.1543922!4d-92.1872565
where I paid too much for some rock
Just say no UnCiv.
You want me to give up Quartz?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries)#Production
Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic hailed the series as a “grim disquisition on the toll of devaluing the truth”; Hank Stuever of The Washington Post praised it for showcasing “what happens when lying is standard and authority is abused”.
But nothing like that ever happened before Orange Man Bad. Well, maybe during the Chimphitler administration, a little. But that’s it.
Yeah, that’s it. Not a totalitarian government is fucking incompetent, kills millions let alone a couple dozen without a second thought, and everyone even at the top is shitpantsed to do anything other than their kabuki role.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Mazin
Well, no one would know about lying, devaluing truth and abusing authority more than the WaPo.
It’s just a coincidence that all that lying and devaluing of truth and abusing of power happened to a society organized under socialist principles. Who could possibly have foreseen that?
The miniseries is excellent despite Mazin’s retarded political views.
However, I listened to the podcast that goes along with each episode and was stunned at Mazin’s appreciation for the “sacrifice” that the Soviets imposed on their populace to control the incident. At any time, the Soviets could have asked for help but instead they chose to preserve their pride at the expense of their people.
Mazin contends that a similar incident in the USA could not have been dealt with because we are not willing to make the hard choices. He’s obviously a believer in the Top Men theory of government.
I’m sure someone’s posted this. But, it is a damned good piece.
Pence’s talk was of no importance. Everything I read about this year’s graduation at the Point had to do with how many Women of Color were graduated.
Pence is a neocon asshole who would love to inject America into a few more shitholes across the globe.
Long live Trump.
You know who else lnjected themselves on shitholes?
Every male porn star who ever lived?
An Atlantic contributor states the obvious: Self-censorship on Campus Is Bad for Science. It’s a pretty good article:
Seems like they are begging the question of what they mean by equality.
equality and equal opportunity for all should be the default position, regardless of potential biological differences.
No problem, then, with biological males competing in women’s sports?
Thank you for using “begging the question” correctly. #PetPeeve.
That begs the question, is the right usage the original outdated one or the one 98% of the population thinks it is.
Is the right political philosophy the old outdated one, or the one 98% of the population thinks it is?
That is a literally egregious question.
Interesting conclusion, but sans premises, it sounds a bit like question begging
That depends on whether you want to be correct or not.
Meh, language is about conveying meaning, if my ‘wrong’ usage of a phrase accurately conveys my meaning to the listener and you’re ‘correct’ one doesn’t whom is using language properly?
*Consults The Academy’s handbook*
With all due respect Sir, you are wrong.
I’m not phased if some loosers want to literally be assholes and use it the wrong way. It doesn’t effect me, they are equally as good.
Nice
“Begging the question” to refer to an argument that assumes the conclusion is outdated?
What do people use the phrase to mean these days, anyway?
That the argument calls forth another question, raises another issue.
I never could understand the difference between circular reasoning and begging the question.
Does someone assume facts / consensus not in evidence while presenting an argument?
Admittedly, they can both be present at the same time, and often are.
It will be simple, all sports are open to all comers (with some PED discussions).
Like the PGA. If you can make the cut, you play.
Now, some people without a Y chromosome may benefit from forming their own leagues based upon such chromosomal differences, and their obvious affect on musculature and development. That is their free choice. Mixed doubles?… one with a Y one without. But nothing other than performance stops them from competing in the open league.
Those new leagues may not be permitted in government sponsored sports, but [standard libertarian disclaimer] we didn’t want to encourage those leagues anyway.
Or having only unitary sports where anyone can compete. End gender apartheid!
Chess.
There’s separate male and female chess competitions. I cannot fathom why.
My son’s former chess tutor was a female IM. After seeing her picture, I knew he chose well.
European patriarchy.
Equestrian. Shooting sports.. Croquet.
Mixed teams still require the identification of XX for team creation.
“…biological males competing in women’s sports?”
I find it hard to get my mind around how something this batshit, howl at the moon, bug fuck crazy can be accepted as normal by so many people. Scary as hell but hard to get my mind around.
We’re both old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9e_Richards
If what used to be considered mental illness is now considered normal, was the past diagnosis incorrect or has society at large become mentally ill?
Yes.
Interesting that Richards now believes that she (I use “she” since Richards did undergo sex reassignment surgery) had an unfair advantage, and that if she had done it at age 22 (rather than at age 41), she would have dominated the women’s tour — this according to Wikipedia.
Local news report about Oklahoma case against Johnson & Johnson and opioid Crisis. Of course they have an addict saying “how dare they not take any responsibility for the crises they caused”
I heard a similar sob story on a news report this morning.
“I was just a poor kid in an accident, then I was prescribed opioids. After that ran out, I was taking 4-6 a day, and buying them on the black market.”
I wish they would just shoot themselves instead of screwing up the lives of people in real pain.
I have some sympathy for being addicted, but I lose that sympathy when they try to blame the fact they were prescribed them, which obviously led to addiction.
Also heard on the local news: China’s social credit policy is an example of extreme government overreach.
I turned to my wife and said: the whole Chinese government is an example of government overreach.
As the years have slipped by, I’ve become less of a fan of Mark Steyn, but every so often he still manages to hit one out of the park.
Babe Ruth was also the strike out king. Keep that in mind.
^This
You could really say the same thing about the mass immigration throughout other european countries. The left got greedy and now they’re paying the price politically. Had they gradually increased the immigration numbers, no one would probably have noticed and the elitist wouldn’t be fighting for their political lives. Their response of calling the opposition names isn’t going to help them.
Yep. There is a hell of a difference between “I fucked up. Goddamn, this is a bear.” vs “Look what you made me do.”
How to deal with hate mail
Class act. An inspirational message contained in a sick burn.
OT: During the US holi-3-day, OMWC posted:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/owners-of-a-noahs-ark-replica-sue-for-rain-damage
Do not see any comments posted about it, which is a shame. FTA: “The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages. The encounter was not damaged and the guests have been unaffected, but the road had to be rebuilt.” The Noah’s Ark replica is Floodworthy. Alles ist in Ordnung.
And everyone missed my Cosby reference.
Hey! Hey! Hey!
You’re more like Old Weird Harold than Fat Albert.
“Noah?”
“Yes, God?”
“How long can you tread water?”
“Cubit? What’s a cubit?”
Bill Cosby is a very funny fellow. He said a lot of funny things. To what are you referring?
“Noah?”
“Yes, God.”
“I want you…to build…an Ark.”
“Riight. What’s an Ark?”
*Zvooba Zvooba Zvooba*
*ding*
Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Fellow was “recorded live at the nightclub The Bitter End in New York City’s Greenwich Village” That’s where the Noah stuff comes from.
First comedy album I ever listened to. I still remember a good bit of it.
“Zip, zop. See that? My face is ripped to shreds. All I wanted was a close shave, not a self sacrifice!”
Some of us just rolled our eyes.
So far today, as I remember, I have seen whiskey bottles wearing tuxedos, cars with headlight eyes discussing the best motor oils, M&M candies engaging in cannibalism, cartoon robots with expressive faces human motives and reactions etc…
Discussed the difference between an anthropomorphized Mother Nature and the actual complete indifference to human values the universe displays, etc.
the one exception? Dogs. They have evolved what appears to be parallel to somewhat parallel emotions, motives, behaviors and reactions to their host species. Which (not gonna beg, just ask) brought up the interesting observation that that host species susceptibility is psychological rather than physical, unlike any other parasite/host relationship.
Yeah, most anthropomorphic nonsense is both telling and eye rolling.
Noah. THIS IS THE LORD!
Whaat now!?
Ha ha ha ha. ‘Answers in Genesis’ suing for an Act of God.
Disturbing lack of faith on their part if you ask me.
I thought this was everyday?
https://quillette.com/2019/05/27/party-for-one/
Today was a really annoying day at work. I’m glad it’s over.
*Raises glass of bourbon*
Cheers Glibs.
Oooooh, good idea. Hmm…what shall I have?
I’m mixing mead and Gewürtztraminer at the moment.
Yeah, I know, it’s weird, but the totality truly is greater than the sum of its parts in this instance.
Too sweet for me, but I get the idea
Neither are sweet as examples of their respective types. Mixed, they cancel out each other’s “issues” (in particular, the mead style I’m using has an overtone that can best be described as rhubarb-like).
Hopefully you don’t work in a high school open office environment. I’m dying over here.
My old CEO trying to be discrete on why his numbers are going to be real good this year.
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/28/arms-manufacturers-investors-iran-business/
Did a little searching on what is that Donny wants to sell to Our Friends the Saudis and HF. I should have hung on for a few more years and I’d be putting that Lotus on order.
When I was in BD I would joke we could save a lot effort by just giving most of our budget directly to Lil’ Kim. Nobody laughed.
Heh, I worked for a company that made missile guidance systems for a while. The second Gulf War was very good for business, particularly since the product was one-use only