Tuesday – My God, It’s Still Only Tuesday – Morning Links

Mediocre Actress Cannot Recognize Mediocre Acting

https://twitter.com/alyssa_milano/status/1176202543237672966?s=21


Life imitates mediocre movie:

Family Charged For Abandoning Adopted Ukrainian Child Who Turned Out To Be Crazed Adult Dwarf

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1148204/

You mean something other than the fact they named her “Esther”?

Mediocre Speaker of the House Pelosi quietly sounding out House Democrats about whether to impeach Trump, officials say

She’ll do it. I swear. She’s crazy! She’s really mad this time. I swear. She’s snortin’, she’s stamping her feet. Watch out!

Also:

Sounding
The practice of inserting plastic or metal ‘sounds’ (long thin and very smooth objects) into yours or someone else’s urethra. Ultimately leads to stretching of the urethra so that larger objects (such as a finger) can be inserted in the penis.


Not a music post, but a movie post…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFD2j_GqeN0

Fun Fact
This wonderfully braless character is played by Kristine DeBell, who starred three years before Meatballs in a porno version of Alice in Wonderland.

Comments

508 responses to “Tuesday – My God, It’s Still Only Tuesday – Morning Links”

  1. Rufus the Monocled

    !

      1. PieInTheSky

        `

    1. blackjack

      You guys are punctual today.

      1. PieInTheSky

        You guys is uninclusive and not longer acceptable on Glibertarins or any of its associated websites

        1. BEAM’s not normal, y’all

          The Glibs have “associated websites?” Huh. The things I learn here . . .

          1. ChipsnSalsa

            see: fuckoffslaver.com

            SP is the best.

  2. blackjack

    EVERY child should be blessed with inaction from “leadership!”

    1. leon

      That’s what stood out to me. Also I hate the notion that politicians are our leadership. It’s like saying a slaves Master is his leader.

  3. Slammer

    The fetal alcohol syndrome potato sez: YOU WILL EAT THE BUGS

    1. Festus

      “They’re watching!”

  4. Slammer

    stretching of the urethra so that larger objects (such as a finger) can be inserted in the penis.

    There are much larger things than fingers. Unfortunately I have seen these things. (Damn you, 4chan!!!!)

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Meh, the progressive scrotal inflation is far more disturbing.

  5. Festus

    I could have gone to my grave secure in my ignorance of what “sounding” entails. This is much worse than the leech and the craw-dad. Thanks, SF, thanks a lot…

    1. SugarFree

      What if if some lovely girl you just went home with said “Want to try sounding?” and in your ignorance you said “Whatever you want, baby” lowering your voice trying to sound super-sexy and then she pulls out these rods and you don’t feel like you can refuse and you end up like a worn-out garden hose down there?

      I just saved you from that. Me.

      I’m a goddamn hero.

      1. invisible finger

        One of my brother’s hospice nurses was an absolute 10. Then she put a catheter in and I lost interest.

        1. PieInTheSky

          No such thing as an absolute 10. Outside God herself.

          1. Gender Traitor

            So, by “God,” I gather you mean Nadia?

        2. SugarFree

          The only time I had a catheter put in while I was awake, it was a guy and we had a very awkward conversation.

          1. straffinrun

            Did you rip it out like an SSP racer?

          2. Scruffy Nerfherder

            Thanks for the flashback of my catheter removal.

            Thanks… no really… thanks…

          3. straffinrun

            But did you make the sonic sound?

          4. Scruffy Nerfherder

            No sound, just a face

          5. Festus

            I had those toys. They did not last long.

          6. Bobarian LMD

            Was it the eye contact that made it awkward?

            And asking him to call you ‘Sahib’?

        3. Festus

          Sorry to read about your brother, I.F.

      2. Festus

        Not the hero that I wanted but the hero that I deserved.

      3. Not a full set….

        Advise I could have used 18years ago, didn’t get laid, but did get stuff in my urethra and a pa by this lovely blond with huge tits.
        Not my finest moment.

    2. blackjack

      It’s somewhat better than injecting vaseline into it, but not much.

    3. straffinrun

      “…into yours or someone else’s urethra”

      Ima take advantage of the “someone else’s” loophole.

  6. PieInTheSky

    Family Charged For Abandoning Adopted Ukrainian Child Who Turned Out To Be Crazed Adult Dwarf – allegedly !

  7. Rufus the Monocled

    Re Pipi Longspieling.

    That wasn’t passion.

    it was a neurotic nervous breakdown.

    1. PieInTheSky

      Some on the internet were comparing her favorably with Che Guevara which is kinda funny

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        She hasn’t murdered anyone (yet) so they’re right.

        1. PieInTheSky

          can she even ride a motorcycle?

    2. Festus

      I hate the message but you have to at least feel some empathy for her and the position that she’s been coerced into. No backing out now for poor, young Greta. That being said I did laugh at the meme where Trump breezes past and she looks like she was about to start “scannering” him.

      1. Old Man With Candy

        I kept thinking of Billy Mumy. “That was a GOOD thing you did there. A VERY good thing. Now put him in the cornfield.”

        1. Festus

          Uncanny, no?

      2. Rufus the Monocled

        I feel terrible for her.

        Her parents and the adults in the room are the assholes.

        I’m not into predicting anything but man it’s hard to not think this won’t end well for her and pieces of shits who shoulda known better are just going to hand shield and put their heads down as if nothing.

        1. SugarFree

          Yeah, two or three years from now she’ll be found with a needle full of carbon in a vein.

          1. Mainlining diamonds gets expensive fast.

          2. Festus

            Turning tricks for Norwegians in an oil rig port.

          3. straffinrun

            “I’ll suck your dick for a carbon credit”

          4. Festus

            She’ll probably keep the “Pippies” to give them sumpin’ to hold onto.

        2. Festus

          “It’s for the greater good! The Greater Good!”

        3. Slammer

          Her parents are or support Antifa, I believe.

          1. Rhywun

            That would explain a lot.

          2. Rufus the Monocled

            There you go.

            Assholes.

          3. straffinrun

            Exactly what I’d expect her parents to look like which is why I’m a bit dubious.

          4. Rhywun

            Right? It is a bit convenient.

          5. Not Adahn

            If you can’t trust a website called “ar15.com” to accurately characterize radical greenies, who can you trust?

          6. Not a full set….

            Her mother tried to claim that she had no idea that it had anything to do with antifa or what antifa was when called out.

  8. PieInTheSky

    No generation should have to deal with inaction from leadership. – see the woman just wishes for a better world while assholes like you people dream of inaction from leadership. Hell some of you even doubt the concept of leadership. And action. And tits.

    1. Count Potato

      I never doubted the concept of tits. If there ever was a proof of concept, it’s tits.

  9. >>Meatballs

    The main teenager who befriends Bill Murray is the same actor from My Bodyguard, an after school whimsical movie with violent fights, wrist cutting, and cheesy music.

    1. Sean

      My Bodyguard

      Also starring the always awesome Adam Baldwin.

      1. straffinrun

        And the always awesome Whitney Houston.

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          Always. I see what you did even if you didn’t.

          1. straffinrun

            I love you, man.

          2. Not Adahn

            You are the wind beneath my wings.

      2. Baldwin, Huh. I’ve been thinking was years that that was Vincent D’onofrio.

    2. Festus

      Chris Makepeace! The only reason I know this is that the Movie Network used to play that movie everyday when we first got cable.

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        My version of that film would have been by the end the bodyguard makes love to her and then kills her because she was so annoying and he was paid triple she was paying him.

        INT. Rufus pitching movie.

        Producer: Wow. Beautiful love story.
        Rufus (eating a cracker letting crumbs fall): Yeh. And then we kill her….

      2. Sir Digby

        Holy shit–same here, Fes. Although, it was prob HBO here.

        Chris was in some Red Barchetta-inspired movie with $6,000,000 man.

  10. Old Man With Candy

    I would once, just once, love to see some grandstanding activist asked the question, “Can you define ‘temperature’”?

    1. Chipwooder

      The number on the thermometer – duh!

    2. blackjack

      That’s easy, stitches in battered meat?

    3. PieInTheSky

      ideally less than whatever goes on in Arizona in the summer but more than Siberia in the winter?

    4. straffinrun

      “Too hot”

    5. My guess is the measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a substance.

      Or something like that. It’s been a while…

    6. Nephilium

      It’s a rising measurement showing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

      Duh.

      1. Jarflax

        Or possibly causing an increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

        Oddly complicated systems get complex.

    7. Rufus the Monocled

      Isn’t that where mum shoves a thermometer up my ass* to see if I have a fever…..LIKE EARF?

      *Is it bad when I say I like when stuff go into my ass?

    8. I don’t need to know the exact technical science definition of temperature to know that human greed is destroying the Earth! It’s just like assault weapons!

      1. Akira

        +1 factually correct

        1. Akira

          Fuck, meant to type “morally correct”… The coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.

  11. Rufus the Monocled

    Wendy & Lisa

    Alyssa. Remember the time when Miceli whispered in your ear and said, ‘who’s the boss?’

    “Verified account

    @wendyandlisa
    15h15 hours ago
    More
    Replying to @Alyssa_Milano
    No better Representive to voice the science behind Climate Crisis!
    She will be remembered forever.
    She is a true Warrior. The most Authentic and self-realized young spirit I have ever heard or seen in my life .”

    Some life.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      Ack. I deserve to be copy and pasted in the face.

      Alyssa. Remember the time when Miceli whispered in your ear and said, ‘who’s the boss?’

      Wendy & Lisa

      “Verified account

      @wendyandlisa
      15h15 hours ago
      More
      Replying to @Alyssa_Milano
      No better Representive to voice the science behind Climate Crisis!
      She will be remembered forever.
      She is a true Warrior. The most Authentic and self-realized young spirit I have ever heard or seen in my life .”

      Some life.

    2. blackjack

      She’s right. No better representative.

  12. Rufus the Monocled

    Caught this in the Retardo Milano thread:

    https://www.apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0

    1. PieInTheSky

      I love the adds on that page

      New Japanese invention allows you to instantly speak 43 languages (could they not have made it an even 50)

      Anti-snoring device everybody in Romania is talking about (literally no one is)

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        43 is more believable than a round number like 50.

        I would have gone with 43.6!

        Which reminds me of a WKRP joke. When Les (I think. I forget) read a statistic in the bull pen stating Americans had sex 2.4 (I forget the exact figure) times a week Dr. Johnny Fever (aka Johnny Sunshine) asked, ‘I wonder how they calculate the .4″

        Again. I paraphrase. But you get the gist.

        1. pan fried wylie

          0.4 sexits = 2.5 handjobs

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      The UN also predicts disaster if they don’t kill all the Jews.

    3. Jarflax

      UNEP estimates it would cost the United States at least $100 billion to protect its east coast alone.

      So like a week’s Federal spending. I hate to hand wave a billion here and a billion there, but when your worst case scenario costs what we spend every 5-6 days already, it isn’t the end of the world.

  13. PieInTheSky

    my ex got mad @ me for posting a pic in a tube top so here is my tiddie (NSFW)

    https://twitter.com/platonicreampie/status/1171920651466285058

    I’d say the tiddie is a 6.5-7 out of 10

    1. Festus

      Loses points for the superfluous jewelry but I’d rate that an 8 on a small framed woman.

    2. straffinrun

      It’s look better when contrasted with that face.

      1. Festus

        I’m old, she’s young. That’s at least one point to the good.

        1. straffinrun

          Young girls don’t get better looking as I get older. My standards get lower. Big difference.

          1. Festus

            That’s the joke.

          2. straffinrun

            So we’re on the same page? Of Seventeen Magazine.

          3. Festus

            Teen Vogue sksksksksk!

          4. Rhywun

            And I oops!

          5. Festus

            ^this guy gets it!

          6. Jarflax

            I believe it is and I oop.

            sksksks

      2. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Piercings and a butterface. Nope.

      3. Slammer

        That hairline, though

  14. I know there are no more beloved characters around here than tax collectors and other thieves, but I’ve been thinking of a story where the protagonist is both a Riding Officer and highwayman who stumbles onto a rennasiance man making dinosaurs.

    1. PieInTheSky

      steampunk dinosaurs?

      1. Maybe, if I can capture the aesthetic in prose.

        1. There was once a man from Nantucket

          1. Who wrote verse on a bucket.

          2. straffinrun

            Put this cob up your but and …

          3. You just had to go there, didn’t you?

          4. straffinrun

            SF links. I’m just along for the ride.

    2. leon

      I am a highwayman…

      1. “Stand and deliver” or “Your money or your life”?

  15. PieInTheSky

    Today I was disappointed to find out that Animal puts pictures of scantly clad readheads on his personal site. And here I though he was woke.

    1. leon

      It’s ok cause he does it to support them, not leer.

      1. Nephilium

        I support single moms. (Probably NSFW)

    2. Wait, you only just noticed that?

      1. PieInTheSky

        I don’t really visit 🙂 Sometimes I forget some of you people have links in user names

          1. PieInTheSky

            Thomas Cook customers in shock over flight prices

            https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49805534

            Price gouging! Profiteering! Usury! Taking advantage of poor people. Capitalism is evil!

            Fraser Mallen and his wife paid £779 in January for Thomas Cook flights to New York for next month.

            But on Monday, he had to pay more than £6,000 for replacements.

            To be fair that is stiff but last minute transatlantic can be pricey.

          2. PieInTheSky

            GODDAMNIT

          3. It only cost me about $800 transatlantic. I don’t remember if that was business class or economy plus though.

            6K+ pounds has got to be a first class ticket. I have no sympathy.

      2. Festus

        How… how did I only just learn of this?

  16. Stop printing conservative opinions

    I told the Montana Public Service commissioners this spring, at their public hearing in Helena, that their children and grandchildren will not be proud of them. These five WAMRs (white, aging, male and Republican) are all, in varying degrees, climate change deniers and fossil fuel industry enablers.

    They should reflect on the recent death of David Koch, a villainous, venal billionaire who, in spite of his billions, could not outrun cancer. Sarah Jones described his legacy thusly: “poisoned water and dirty air, decimated unions and Donald Trump” (commondreams.org, Aug. 27). He died disgraced and reviled by many for knowingly, willfully using immense power and greed to suppress truth and scientific facts. He denied human-caused climate catastrophe.

    It has been almost a year since I had a guest column published, due to Missoulian journalistic standards unclear to me, but I’m compelled by climate emergency to try again. My only journalism class at the University of Montana was with Dr. Nathan Blumberg, dean of the School of Journalism, many years ago (1970). The bedrock tenet of that Beginning Journalism class was “tell the truth.” I learned that you must verify, you must research, you must interview, you must see all sides of the situation, but above all, find facts and then recount those facts assiduously. Climate scientists have been attempting to do just that for decades now. But fossil fuel corporations have put ”30 pieces of silver” above their own children’s livable futures.

    Missoulian, stop printing conservative guest opinions that deny climate science and demean environmentalists. Make that part of your standards. Environmental activists are called radical, extreme, ranting and socialist. Trump is defended, AOC is attacked and mocked.

    1. PieInTheSky

      He seems like a reasonable fella

    2. leon

      “He died disgraced and reviled by many ”

      “He is ​​​despised​ and rejected of ​​men; a man of ​​​sorrows​, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were ​our​ faces from him; he was despised, and we ​​​esteemed​ him not.”

      Clearly the popularity of someone at death indicates how good or bad they were.

      1. Festus

        They should just dis-entomb his corpse, dress it in Papal robes and put it on trial. Later they can chuck his mouldering remains into the Tiber.

        1. Been there, done that, not going back.

        2. Tonio

          Damn, I should know who that was. Help a fellow out?

          1. Bob Boberson

            I’d like to know too. I know they dug up the bones of John Wycliffe and burned them but I’m pretty sure that isn’t the reference….

          2. Bob Boberson

            Ahhh…..what was it about the dark/middle ages and their fetish for relics (body parts)? I was in Germany recently and went to a museum with all kinds of dead saints appendages. Ornately decorated skulls, hands, femur bones, baby skeletons. How something so macabre could be considered sacred seems really twisted.

          3. SugarFree

            It was a combination of a holdover from pagan veneration of the dead and the fact that other than a painting, there were no other likenesses of the dead. That why even among the non-holy, keeping a lock of hair from a dead loved one (or in Mary Shelley’s case, Percy’s heart pressed into a book) was so common.

          4. Festus

            Pope Formosus in the 9th Century. It’s okay, I had to look it up too. I used to read a lot about medieval Europe but his name didn’t stick.

    3. Rufus the Monocled

      To tell the truth…..MY TROOF.

      1. Bob Boberson

        “Everything in the narrative, nothing outside the narrative, nothing against the narrative.”

        1. Suthenboy

          ^This

    4. leon

      “. The bedrock tenet of that Beginning Journalism class was “tell the truth”

      Now you’re just making shite up.

      1. Left Hand of Radar

        The journalism I studied in the 90’s seems quaint.

    5. leon

      “stop printing conservative guest opinions”

      Nothing says I’m right like demanding no one else be heard.

    6. Sir Digby

      Beth Taylor Wilson is a social worker, social justice advocate, an environmental activist and a member of 350MT’s leadership team.

      You forgot “cunte”

      1. Chipwooder

        So, in other words, she doesn’t have a real job.

        1. Sir Digby

          Graft is a real job. Right?

      2. Bob Boberson

        “social worker”

        I have been catching up on “Mindhunter” on Netflix and really enjoying it. The scene where the social worker is going through the house looking through the kids bedroom, the parents bedroom, in places that really have no bearing on anything, had my blood boiling. How you could do that job and not hate yourself is beyond me. If I meet a girl in a bar who says she is a social worker or is majoring in social work, I promptly turn on my heel and walk away.

        1. Festus

          Wiser words were never spoken, Bob…

        2. Akira

          In fairness, a lot of nursing homes and assisted living homes employ social workers to help the old people keep their affairs in order (sign up for new insurance if it expires, etc) if they don’t have any family members doing that for them.

    7. Suthenboy

      Squawking parrot mindlessly squawks and parrots.

      I am sure the Editors at The Missoulian are very pleased to have someone tell them how to do their job and what their paper’s standards should be. Did he mention that the paper would no longer publish him? I wonder why.

      Also, I thought the Kochs were never-Trumpers.

      1. Bob Boberson

        The idea that the Missoulian is anything but a left-wing rag is laughable on it’s face. When it’s not lefty enough for someone you know you aren’t dealing in the realm of rationality anymore

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Threat from within

    A 24-year-old soldier in Kansas who allegedly planned to fight with a violent far-right group in Ukraine was charged Monday with distributing bomb-making information over social media, according to the Justice Department.

    The FBI says Army Spc. Jarrett William Smith, stationed at Fort Riley, came under investigation in March, when authorities learned he had given bomb-making lessons over Facebook. The FBI also says Smith was in talks about traveling to Ukraine, where he wanted to fight alongside the neo-Nazi paramilitary Azov Battalion.

    “To fight is what I want to do,” Smith wrote to an extremist associate, according to an exchange included in the complaint.

    Court documents portray Smith as a young man who has been active in the far right for years, predating his joining the Army in 2017. The case is the latest in a string of recent arrests and investigations related to attempted far-right extremist infiltration of the U.S. military, prompting calls for more thorough screenings of enlistees.

    “Prompting calls for more thorugh screenings of enlistees.”

    NEEDZ MOAR PAJAMABOYZ.

    We should be recruiting antifa warriors from places like Portland and San Francisco. They’ll have to be potty trained, but that’s what Basic is for.

    1. straffinrun

      Don’t trust NPR’s version of “right wing extremist”, so I clicked the link to Azov Battalion. NPR actually found a true scumbag for a change*.

      *Whether Nazis are far right or not is another question.

      1. invisible finger

        NPR is A-OK with far-left extremism so any bad kind of extremism can only be on the far-right

        1. straffinrun

          True. Just saying that in this case he was an extremist in the bad sense of the word.

          1. Festus

            Nah, just one of those “bad apples” that the police keep hiring for some reason.

      2. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Interesting Black Sun iconography on their patches. They’re definitely Nazis or at least very close. I wonder how they square that circle considering the German brutality in Ukraine during WWII

        1. Festus

          Slavic memories are long memories. Nazis burned his barn down but not before Commies starved his ancestors to death.

        2. Chipwooder

          There were many Ukrainian collaborators. Many concentration camp guards were Ukrainian (e.g., John Demjanjuk).

          1. straffinrun

            There once was a guard named Demjanjuk…

    2. Bob Boberson

      I look forward to said investigations. Nothing breeds solidarity and esprit de corps like a thorough witchhunt for wrongthinkers.

    3. Drake

      Why not enlist with a demolitions MOS and keep your mouth shut.

      I was in the first Gulf War with a Marine who was Serbian and told us he was going to go back home to fight for them as Yugoslavia broke up.

      1. leon

        It’s sad that by coming to America he was infected with the racist virus.

  18. Excess of ‘cuddle hormone’ turns people into sex addicts

    An excess of oxytocin, the so-called ‘cuddle hormone’, could be behind the uncontrollable behaviour of sex addicts, a study has suggested.

    The find could mean that sex addiction is recognised as a medical diagnosis, experts say.

    Hypersexual disorder, or sex addiction, affects 3-6% of the population and is recognised as an impulse control disorder by the World Health Organisation.

    It can be characterised by obsessive thoughts of sex, or a compulsion to perform sex acts.

    Lead author Adrian Bostrom, from the Department of Neuroscience at Uppsala University in Sweden, said: ‘We set out to investigate the epigenetic regulatory mechanisms behind hypersexual disorder so we could determine whether it has any hallmarks that make it distinct from other health issues.

    STEVE SMITH CUDDLE HIKER ALL DAY ALL NIGHT

    1. leon

      “Hypersexual disorder, ”

      How do we know, like you guys aren’t the ones with the disorder?

    2. Tonio

      Yeah, and there is no way this could ever be misused. Get convicted of leering or thought crime and get sentenced to medication.

      1. Akira

        Nobody wants to take your guns away.

        Nobody will lose their doctor or health plan under this law.

        Nobody wants to chemically castrate men based on any accusation at all of slight sexual impropriety.

  19. Count Potato

    “Four-time Emmy award winning animation producer J. Michael Mendel, who is best known for his work on The Simpsons and Rick and Morty has died at the age of 54.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7497553/Rick-Morty-Simpsons-producer-J-Michael-Mendel-dies.html

    1. 54? That’s young, what got him?

      1. Sean

        Tax cuts.

        1. leon

          He hung on for a long time.

      2. Bob Boberson

        Net neutrality.

      3. A Leap at the Wheel

        School vouchers 🙁

  20. straffinrun

    “How dare you!” How dare I what? C’mon Greta, don’t leave me hanging.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Indignant is the most popular emotion among teenagers, this is known.

    2. Crusty Juggler

      Why don’t you Greta grip on reality, fella?

    3. Jarflax

      Feed the hungry, warm the frozen, succor the afflicted. You know, the stuff cheap energy allowed us to do.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    I blame the Constitution

    Three Navy sailors assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier committed suicide last week in separate, unrelated incidents, officials announced Monday.

    “It is with a heavy heart that I can confirm the loss of three Sailors last week in separate, unrelated incidents from apparent suicide. My heart is broken,” Capt. Sean Bailey, the carrier’s commanding officer, wrote in the announcement.

    Something something suicide pact.

    1. The USS Consitution wasn’t sailing anywhere near that carrier group.

    2. Bob Boberson

      Capt. Bailey called on sailors on the carrier to come up with “suggestions and ideas” for how to prevent another suicide among its ranks.

      OooooH, Ooooohh! Pick me! End the forever wars and global policing that needlessly separates military members from their families for extended periods of time? Downsize and eliminate the vast majority of the soul crushing bureaucracy comprises the kafkaesque labyrinth that is military service? Stop putting military members in no win situations and telling them that murder-droning innocent civilians is somehow protecting their freedom?

      1. leon

        Why do you hate America?

        1. Bob Boberson

          http://freemanbeyondthewall.libsyn.com/episode-309

          This episode resonated with me and reminded me of my own service in many ways….worth the listen.

      2. Somehow I don’t think bringing families on naval vessels would improve anything.

        1. Rhywun

          +1 Shut up, Wesley

      3. Chipwooder

        Sailors are always apart from their families for long stretches , even in times of peace. Nature of the business to be at sea for months at a time.

        1. Bob Boberson

          But markedly less if we aren’t participating in a police action; blockading some country to enforce no fly zones or sanctions.

      4. Jarflax

        BZZT I’m sorry Bob, the answer we were looking for was “What are floating brothels?”

        1. OBJ FRANKELSON

          +1 General Hooker

      5. Akira

        Are you insane?! We have to do that stuff, or else the Middle East will turn into a backwards hellhole full of extremist nutjobs who are committing daily acts of medieval violence – oh wait…

  22. Drake

    An adapted child who turned out to be a crazed adult? Was her name Finster or Rocky?

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      I miss ultraviolent cartoons.

      1. Ultraviolet Cartoons?

        This means you must be claiming to have vision outside of the normal human spectrum.

        Burn, Mutant!

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

    The state is entering the height of fire season, with a dangerous mix of strong winds and temperatures approaching triple digits forecast across its valleys and foothills. For the first time this year, several Northern and Southern California communities simultaneously are facing preemptive blackouts to reduce the fire risks.

    This is adding a new element of uncertainty and controversy in scores of communities.

    “It’s the new normal we expect to see,” Brown said. “These shut-offs — they understand it, but it’s frustrating. It disrupts their lives.”

    Pacific Gas & Electric has vowed to power down to avoid a repeat of last year’s Camp fire, in which thousands of homes were burned and 86 people were killed. Investigators identified downed PG&E equipment as the likely cause of the deadliest blaze in California history.

    But the power shut-offs have generated debate, with some residents saying they create a whole new set of dangers as they try to watch out for news about fires. There has been heightened concern about those with health issues who rely on medical equipment to stay alive.

    Some state and local officials have also complained that utilities don’t always give enough notice before turning off the power. And they have expressed concerns about communications and evacuations if the power is out, especially if traffic signals don’t work and cellphone service is affected.

    They should just bury all those power lines.

    *Something I have actually seen.

    1. tarran

      And disturb holy Gaia’s sacred dirt?!?!?

      I think he have a heretic here who needs immurement!

    2. Not Adahn

      We did that in Oklahoma.

  24. Slammer

    I need your opinions on this legal stuff. This is the Flavored E-juice regulations for NYS.

    (c)The term “possession” means having physical possession or otherwise exercising
    dominion or control over flavored e-liquids or a product containing the same. For
    purposes of this definition, among other circumstances not limited to these examples, the
    following individuals and/or entities shall be deemed to possess flavored e-liquids, or a
    product containing the same: (1) any individual or entity that has an ownership interest in
    a retail, distribution or manufacturing establishment that possesses, distributes, sells or
    offers for sale flavored e-liquids, or a product containing the same; and (2) any clerk,
    cashier or other employee or staff of a retail establishment, where the establishment
    possesses, distributes, sells or offers for sale a flavored e-liquids or a product containing
    the same, and who interacts with customers or other members of the public

    Section 9-3.2 Possession, Manufacture, Distribution, Sale or Offer of Sale of Flavored E-Liquid
    Prohibited.
    It shall be unlawful for any individual or entity to possess, manufacture, distribute, sell or offer
    for sale any flavored e-liquid or product containing the same.

    So what’s possession? An individual who has the e-juice with no intent to sell, just private use? Or has the stuff and wants to sell it to someone else?

    1. Tonio

      IANAL, but “possession” means under your control. So, on your person, in your apartment, in your car, etc.

    2. Crusty Juggler

      You know the rule: if you have it and a cop finds it and the cop is being a dick you’re in some sort of trouble.

    3. Rhywun

      The hoops they jump through to avoid defining “tobacco” as a “flavor” are ridiculous. What a bunch of signaling nonsense.

    4. Count Potato

      That law is insane.

    5. A Leap at the Wheel

      An individual who has the devil’s e-juice in his or her pocket, with no intent to sell, sounds like they have “physical possession” to me. An individual who has the devil’s e-juice in their nighstand drawer, with no intent to sell, sounds like they have “dominion or control” to me. I am not a lawyer.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    End the forever wars and global policing

    *reports Bob Boberson to FBI*

    1. Sir Digby

      It’s like he never saw Team America!

  26. Tres Cool

    In the interest of research, I took a few moments to watch the more salient parts of “XXX Alice in Wonderland”.

    Jesus- that thing is a full-production show, complete with songs & dance. No wonder the 70s are the the Golden Age of Porn.

  27. Crusty Juggler

    This weekend I was at a hipster bar in Georgetown with a highly diverse group of friends from New York. I started chatting with a nice young woman next to me at the bar, only to notice that she had Ruth Bader Ginsberg wallpaper on her phone. I was not dissuaded. After all, I’ve never met a woman who wasn’t an ardent Trump supporter after two or three dates. But then she did something truly unthinkable… She opened a “Fantasy Football” app on her phone and looked at it with the focus of someone who’s performing surgery. That was the dealbreaker. If young woman would spend more time reading @TomiLahren and less time watching ESPN, tragedies like this could have been prevented. P.S. When the young lady asked me to enter my phone number into her contacts, I saved my name as “Coach.”

    1. straffinrun

      Don’t understand whose voice I’m supposed to read this in. Morgan Freeman?

      1. Festus

        Gilbert Gottfried.

        1. Bob Boberson

          Smeagol.

          1. A Leap at the Wheel

            WWE announcer Jim Ross.

  28. Rebel Scum

    So I’m home sick. It’s ok, I’ve got like 5 weeks of accumulated pto. Only one of my cats actually cares. But she is being kindof a nuisance. Just knocked over a lamp. The other one is indifferently lounging on the rug in the living room. I guess this what they do all day on weekdays.

    1. Festus

      See, this is why you guys lost that war…

  29. PieInTheSky

    Thomas Cook customers in shock over flight prices

    trying again. I blame the website.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49805534

    Price gouging! Profiteering! Usury! Taking advantage of poor people. Capitalism is evil!

    Fraser Mallen and his wife paid £779 in January for Thomas Cook flights to New York for next month.

    But on Monday, he had to pay more than £6,000 for replacements.

    To be fair that is stiff but last minute transatlantic can be pricey.

    1. PieInTheSky

      Germany is considering issuing financial aid to the Condor airline after Thomas Cook declared bankruptcy.

      Thomas Cook, which has a 49% share in the airline, collapsed on Monday.

      Condor has applied for a bridging loan from the federal government and is awaiting a response, with German media reporting the amount requested was €200m ($220m; £176m).

      Thomas Cook’s collapse has reportedly left 600,000 tourists stranded, including tens of thousands of Germans.

      German economy minister Peter Altmaier said that the government would make a decision on financial aid within the coming days.

      The government in the state of Hesse has already promised its support, a statement from the airline said.

      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49807954

      1. You know, I’d never heard of this airline until the news that it had collapsed and stranded thousands of customers.

      2. Jarflax

        Germany is considering issuing financial aid to the Condor airline

        Holy crap! The Nazis are STILL flying Condors across the Atlantic? It was hard enough doing that while the Allies had complete air supremacy in WWII, but to still be doing it 75 years after they lost the war is impressive.

    2. Rhywun

      I knew of Thomas Cook but I had no idea they ran planes. That is an… interesting business plan.

  30. Crusty Juggler

    This City Is A Multiracial Mecca

    “Black. Ivory. Shadow.”

    I repeat the words to make sure I heard them right.

    “Black. Ivory… Shadow?”

    “Yeah.” Jasmin Baker, 25, is cracking up.

    “When I was younger I made it my thing.” She lowers her voice, making it seductive. “Like… yeah. I’m black ivory shadow.”

    “Right.” Now her boyfriend, Grant Wyena, 28, is laughing too. “Real dark and mysterious.”

    We’re at the Evergreen Café in downtown Tacoma, Washington early one July morning where they’ve agreed to talk to me about multiracial identity in Tacoma. Unlike many places in America, this is a city where Baker and Wyena can stroll along the Tacoma waterfront hand-in-hand and not be seen as the least bit unusual.

    Baker identifies as African-American, although her great-grandmother was Irish, and Wyena’s family is enrolled in the Yakima band of nations. He comes from both Muckleshoot and Wanapum descent, as well as additional Native Canadian tribes on his mother’s side. His father is from Tijuana, Mexico. He identifies as both Native American and Hispanic.

    “I only bring it up when people ask me, ‘What are you?’” says Baker. “I say, ‘I’m Black.’ Then when they’re not satisfied with that answer, I say, ‘Black and Irish.’ And they say, ‘Ohhhhh, okay.’ Like there has to be an explanation for why I’m light-skinned.

    ”South of the Chinese Reconciliation Park, there is a sanctuary called Point Defiance where, rising above the rocky shoreline and the black-beaked ducks, you can climb a wooden staircase and walk past a 10-inch shell from the USS Maine used during the Spanish-American War. There is a Black Samoan family along the way. Then, past the weeping sequoia and a witch hazel tree trimmed to look like a bonsai, you settle in. A deer grazes by, slowly. You survey the manicured gardens built by early Japanese strawberry farmers with wonder. This place — Tacoma, Washington — is one of those rare cities in America where it almost seems like no one cares about race.

    Note to self: avoid Tacoma.

      1. Count Potato

        OFFS!

    1. Festus

      Honk fucking Honk

      1. straffinrun

        Only a superior race could pull off such a scam over centuries.

    2. Rhywun

      one of those rare cities in America where it almost seems like no one cares about race

      Two observations.

      1. It is always 1950 with these people.
      2. I thought “not caring” about race was bad? Seems like all we hear is how much we have to “care” about race now.

      1. Tejicano

        This “not caring” about race is a similar social calculation like “male gaze” – it’s only “male gaze” if she doesn’t find him attractive.

      2. Chipwooder

        Your first point- seriously! Where exactly in the US are interracial couples unusual now? I lived in rural Alabama for several years and there were white girls with black boyfriends all over the place. In fact it seemed like half of the babies you’d see out and about were clearly mixed. To read this thing, you’d think there were pasty, brylcreemed gangs who look like extras from Hoosiers roving around, hassling interracial couples.

    3. Semi-Spartan Dad

      Unlike many places in America, this is a city where Baker and Wyena can stroll along the Tacoma waterfront hand-in-hand and not be seen as the least bit unusual.

      It’s getting old. No one here in the deep rural south gives a shit about multiracial, interracial, or any other kind of racial words. My wife’s cousin grew up in a singlewide trailer in the Appalachian mountains, and yet no one in her entire extended family blinked when she married a black dude other than to remark that he was too good for her. Later events proved them right, poor guy, but at least he got sole custody of the kid.

      This never ending obsession with race seems to be strictly the domain of liberals in blue strongholds.

    4. Jarflax

      According to the U.S. Census, people of multiracial descent in America are just 2.1% of the population but a groundbreaking 2015 report by the Pew Research Center found that the population was closer to 6.9%.

      Hate to break it to you, but pretty much the entire black population is of mixed ancestry, and a big chunk of the Hispanic and White populations as well.

      1. Defined “Mixed”

        Lizze Warren Mixed, or Tiger Woods Mixed?

      2. Rhywun

        Do you even one-drop rule, bruh?

  31. The Late P Brooks

    More:

    In the town of Paradise, news of the preemptive measure provided little comfort.

    PG&E announced — then canceled — a power shut-off just before November’s Camp fire. Investigators with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection later determined the blaze was sparked by a transmission line, which PG&E said would not have been included in any preemptive shutoff.

    “It’s frustrating,” Paradise City Councilwoman Melissa Schuster said Monday. “We heard this before the Camp fire. Power was not shut off. So rather than being relieved — and we’re coming up on Nov. 8 again — it’s a little bit of a trigger for most of us, I think. It’s where we were a year ago.”

    The only big difference, she said, is that there’s not much left to burn.

    She said that as residents rebuild, more are outfitting their homes with generators and solar panels to serve as backup power sources “because electricity is just not dependable anymore.”

    “It’s kind of crazy,” she said. “It’s just one more thing that we all have to address in this ‘new now,’ being prepared for this type of thing.”

    Oh, no. They might have to accept responsibility for themselves, instead of depending on Society.

    The first thing I thought of when I started reading that was, “I bet generators are selling like hotcakes, out there.”

    1. invisible finger

      Let me guess: the rates charged by PG&E are set by the government and are artificially low which caused more building to take place and more money to be spent on additional electricity infrastructure and less capital investment in maintenance of existing infrastructure .

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Their rates are controlled by the California Public Utilities Commission. So yeah.

      2. Drake

        PG&E rates are far higher than an unregulated company’s would be because they’ve been forced to do all sorts of stupid shit by their regulators – like shutter all their nuclear plants.

        1. Prices are simultaneously too low (due to price regulation) and too high (due to various other regulation). It’s a shit show.

      3. blackjack

        Mother Fuckers demanded rate increases to cover the liability from starting the fires. When they were denied, they came up with the blackout plan. It’s extortion plain and simple. They’ll shut down the grid a few times until everyone’s pissed and then go back for the rate increases.

    2. leon

      I’d be pissed if iwas paying for a service and it was routinely being cut and throttled.

      1. Jarflax

        Sometimes cutting and throttling are just part of the service.

    3. Rhywun

      They might have to accept responsibility for themselves, instead of depending on Society.

      The New Normal! *SHUDDER*

  32. My partner tells other men that she loves them

    After a lifetime apart from my college darling, we reconnected by chance and picked up again, each of us divorced with grown children. I thought we were happy and in love until, scrolling through photos on her iPad in search of more of her selfies, I found a recent full-frontal nude of another man. I then discovered torrid writing between her and at least two men, one of them the naked one, which she has apologised for but defended as “merely a joke”. While I love this woman, not least for our past, I cannot get over how she has told me she loved me, while saying the same thing to at least two other men. Can we really have a future?

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      If you’re willing to have a future as a cuckold, sure.

    2. Festus

      Thomas Wolfe said it best – “You can never go home again.” I tried twice to re-up relationships with high school sweethearts in my twenties and both ended in disaster.

  33. Crusty Juggler

    Ex-Dallas cop who fatally shot neighbor was distracted by sexting: prosecutors

    Prosecutors, on the first day of the trial, contend a former Dallas police officer accused of murdering a man who she wrongly believed was in her own apartment was distracted by sending sexually explicit text messages to her police force partner.

    Yet another reason why sexting should be illegal.

    1. leon

      I mean, i remember the last time i was sexting, i really just stopped paying attention to what i was doing. I don’t remember what happend. Only remmeber that it was in El Paso.

    2. Bob Boberson

      So I’m guessing that will translate into ‘Good shoot’? She was in a vulnerable position & feared for her life + totality of the circs?

      1. Festus

        “Some people did something”

        1. ChipsnSalsa

          furtive movements.

  34. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Tard Tuesday: Fear and Loathing in Blue America

    My reaction to Ivanka’s UN outfit

    This is evidence that America…and possibly the entire fucking world has not only crashed through the Looking Glass, but we are now using the broken shards to slit our fucking wrists.

    Every fiber of my being, from the deepest depths of my soul, to the tips of my male nipples in the frozen-food section at Harris Teater, knows with a crystalline, pure spar certainty, that I should NOT BE REQUIRED to give ONE-FUCK what this soulless, hell spawn “Netherworld Barbie” has to say about fucking anything.

    My intellect, my psyche, my conscience, my decency and grace…all tell me that I shouldn’t even be required to know who in the fuck these people are.

    I know that these lifeless, grifting, vapid, empty vessels deserve NOT ONE NANO-SECOND of my serious thoughts.

    These spray-on-tan, Loreal of Bakersfield, plastic, Axe-Body Spray wearing morons SHOULD BE THE MOST FUCKING INSIGNIFICANT PEOPLE WE EVER ENCOUNTER.

    Their impact on our lives should have the same effect of a fucking gnat blocking the path of a charging rhino.

    I will NEVER forgive fucking Donnie Shit for Brains voting morons for requiring me to take seriously A FUCKING BUNCH OF IGNORANT FUCKSTICKS that should NEVER be taken seriously

    This fucking family and their supporters, are like dog-shit stuck in the grooves of your tennis shoes.

    The outfit in question

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Don’t sweat it too much, the DU is just a catch all for those who are too mentally ill for Huffpo.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m just sweating the Q-worthy outfit. Yowza!

        1. Crusty Juggler

          She’s a petty lady.

        2. straffinrun

          Just think about it. We could be looking at Chelsea’s nipples if it weren’t for the electoral college.

          1. Sir Digby

            Watch it, SF–straff’s gunnin’ for your spot.

          2. SugarFree

            I assume Chelsea’s nipples are really just two gnashing mouths.

          3. Sir Digby

            OK, OK…you’re spot’s safe!

          4. Festus

            I envision two lamprey’s maws but yours will suffice…

          5. straffinrun

            I was thinking Gene Shalit’s mouth.

          6. SugarFree

            Why not both?

          7. Not Adahn

            No need to stop at two.

        3. Stinky Wizzleteats

          More women (in their 20s and early 30s) should dress like that.

        4. commodious spittoon

          Pokies.

        5. Rhywun

          Honk honk! Jesus.

      2. Jarflax

        Daytime running lights

    2. Rebel Scum

      A FUCKING BUNCH OF IGNORANT FUCKSTICKS that should NEVER be taken seriously

      I take you seriously. It would behoove you to take me seriously.

      1. straffinrun

        He can always become an AnCap, but I’m guessing that he doesn’t have a problem with power per se.

    3. kinnath

      She had points of her own . . . .

      1. SugarFree

        Way up firm and high.

        1. Festus

          Yep. Happy to be there.

    4. I, um, couldn’t help but notice a couple of things about that top she’s wearing…

    5. Festus

      Wow. The “tennis shoes” quip is a dead-giveaway to someone that remembers voting for McGovern, though.

    6. Akira

      I will NEVER forgive fucking Donnie Shit for Brains voting morons for requiring me to take seriously A FUCKING BUNCH OF IGNORANT FUCKSTICKS that should NEVER be taken seriously

      See, it’s shit like this that pops into my mind when I hear Lefties whining about how Donald Trump is “divisive”.

  35. Rebel Scum

    No generation should have to deal with inaction from leadership.

    Real leaders don’t by into faux science. And speaking of, as I approach 30 I am wondering what I am doing with my life. The founders of the US were only in their lower/mid 20s. What the fuck am I doing? I may have taken too much Dayquil. . .

    1. Nephilium

      Meh. You’re not even an Evan old yet.

    2. leon

      The average age of the Signers of the Declaration was 44, so i wouldn’t worry about it too much.

  36. Is the Life Expectancy of Trans Women in the U.S. Just 35? No.

    This statistic is frequently recited by activists, allies, and the media, and it’s not hard to see why. Globally, life expectancy is around 74 years for females and 70 years for males. For trans women, according to this oft-recited stat, it’s less than half that, which is clearly indicative of something horrendous going on. It is a truly shocking statistic.
    …snip…
    Ok, so let’s parse this out. First: “Latin American organizations report that the life expectancy of trans women in the region is between 30 and 35 years of age.” There are no data attached, but evidently outlets and people who repeat this claim are extrapolating the life expectancy for trans women in the United States based on organizations that have made that claim about an entirely different region, one with some of the highest murder rates in the world. Sounds airtight.

    As for the second claim, that 80 percent of trans persons killed during a 15-month period were 35 years of age or younger, that’s not particularly surprising. Homicides drop precipitously with age across all demographics: Globally, over 80 percent of all homicide victims are under the age of 44, with the bulk of victims being 29 and younger. But still, that statistic has nothing to do with the average trans woman because the average trans woman is not the victim of murder.

    The IACHR did not respond to requests for comment, but this seems to be an example of reporters and activist groups failing to do basic due diligence.

    1. Homocides? No, these were likely suicides because ‘trans’ people off themselves at shockingly high rates. It’s almost as if there’s an untreated mental condition there.

      1. Akira

        It’s almost as if there’s an untreated mental condition there.

        Or maybe it’s the despair that sets in after the realization that you permanently destroyed your genitalia because you were confused about your sexuality and thought that this irresponsible surgery would “make me who I really am”.

      2. Raston Bot

        i can fathom a high homicide rate. prostitution + drugs = short life for anyone.

  37. Crusty Juggler

    Gripping video shows furious judge in Amber Guyger murder trial LOSING IT when she learns the DA jeopardized the case against the cop who shot dead her black neighbor by doing a TV interview

    The veteran district court official lost her temper at least twice during Monday’s proceedings, starting with the moment she found out Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot violated a gag order the night before the trial’s start.

    Sabotage the case!

    1. robc

      Is the DA in jail for contempt until the end of the trial? He can hand out with the reporter’s laptop.

      1. leon

        You’re Funny.

        1. robc

          I guess there is a reason I am not a judge.

          1. Never won the election?

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      That’s called poisoning the case.

  38. Any of you miscreants know a good derogatory word for Hawaiians? Google keeps telling me Haole, but as I understand that’s for non-Hawaiians.

    1. In what context do you need it?

      Is it only for native hawaiiand or non hawaiians born on the islands, or anyone living in the state?

      1. I want to insult Michelle Wie.

    2. Sir Digby

      “Poi-lets”?

    3. Rebel Scum

      Nothing comes to mind. And I have canned responses for just about everyone else on the planet. But I guess I have never heard of people hating Hawaiians.

      1. Bob Boberson

        I have. I’ve heard school can be hell for white kids there because you the natives despise the haoles and like to fight. Reportedly there are certain places whites are very unwelcome. I’ve been told they really hate being called Samoan and/or Polynesian (because many of them are no more “native Hawaiian” than the white people they despise. Just what I was told.

    4. SugarFree

      Spam-slapping chichisuckers.

    5. Rufus the Monocled

      Pineholes?

    6. straffinrun

      I bet the N word would work in a pinch.

      1. Shirley Knott

        Naggers?

    7. What I understand of the social hierarchy of Hawaii:

      Japanese
      White

      Hawaiian



      Samoan
      Tongan.

    8. Tejicano

      Kanaka – I forget the origins but that’s kinda their N-word

      1. Tejicano

        I spent boot camp in a Hawaii state platoon – I sometimes lapse into Dakine when I’m around a bunch of Hawaiians.

    9. Thanks everyone, Inspired by Sir D and SF I went with “Poi slurping”.

      1. Sir Digby

        I’d like to thank The Hyperbole for the lovely award. And, Sugar Free…I couldn’t have done it without ya!
        Shout out to my mom! You always kept me on the straight and narrow. Except for your irrational hatred of Hawaiians…

  39. Nephilium

    OT: So in beer news, Weyerbacher (based out of PA) filed for bankruptcy a while back. The first news coming out for their plans after bankruptcy don’t fill me with a lot of hope for them moving forward:

    Weyerbacher to Release White Castle Collaboration Beer as Part of Post-Bankruptcy Reorganization Plan

    Isn’t White Castle where you go after drinking all night? Hell, I didn’t even think they could sell alcohol at them (at least here in their home state of Ohio).

    1. invisible finger

      White Castle is where you go after drinking six Mickey’s Malt Liquor Big Mouths.

    2. robc

      I know I have had their beer, but I don’t remember anything.

      Refilling the power law is hard business. Getting back to equilibrium is going to have some interesting shake outs.

      1. robc

        I am hoping starting next week when I am funemployed, I can work on my Beer Wars series I started about 2 years ago. I have two more prelude articles before I get to the actual Beer Wars meat of the series.

      2. Nephilium

        My favorites from them were Insanity, Blithering Idiot, Old Heathen, and the old Double Simcoe (it was brought back with a different recipe, and they did release the old recipe at a homebrew scale).

        If I remember correctly, they had a pumpkin beer that was a big seller, and fairly early to market. They expanded expecting the volume of that to grow, right around the time that everyone and their brothers went big on pumpkin beers (it didn’t help that Southern Tier is close to them with their Pumpking). They weren’t able to ramp up their sales enough to cover the cost of the expansion after that. It’s interesting to me that now we’ve got breweries that have been around for over 20 years that are all getting squeezed out by expanding too fast. Another example would be Arcadia Brewing which just ceased operation in the past couple of days.

        1. It’s just the realities of a compeditive market. Misjudge your expansion and you’re in debt over your ability to pay. Time it right and you strike paydirt.

          1. Nephilium

            It’s interesting to me because the last shakeout was in the late 90’s. So some of these breweries that are starting to fail now already survived one downturn. There’s even a couple of the national craft breweries (Stone, New Belgium, Green Flash, etc) that are either pulling back or showing signs of troubles.

          2. robc

            The 90s shakeout was a bit different…it wasn’t about too much expansion as it was too many startups who didnt really know what they were doing.

            It did lead to the great thing that breweries starting in the early 2000s were able to get equipment cheap. Those starting 2010+ had to pay full price.

            The thing was that someone was going to expand and succeed, but if 20 breweries expand and 10 grow properly, that is another 10 that screwed up. And it is very hard in the brewery business to expand with cash flow. The expansion steps are too large. It is very easy to grow incrementally until you hit the production limit for your equipment. Then the next step is large.

          3. Nephilium

            Here in Cleveland, we’ve only had a couple of breweries close so far (most due to mismanagement, or other issues). For the couple who have made the successful jump up the production facility chain, there’s then huge rumors/stories about who’s going to buy the old location. Fat Head’s old production facility went up for sale last year. In that time, there have been two different breweries who purchased it and applied for a license (one a startup moving from contract to their own facility, the other moving from a different production facility). No one has brewed a drop of beer there yet.

            Of the breweries that went under, one of the locations was picked up as a production facility for a smaller regional brewpub that needed to expand production for years. To my knowledge, the equipment at the other locations may have been sold, but not to any local brewery that I’m aware of (one was engineered poorly enough they had to use low-DMS precursor malts, the other was in a brewery that had a massive infection problem).

  40. The Late P Brooks

    This place — Tacoma, Washington — is one of those rare cities in America where it almost seems like no one cares about race.

    If by “no one cares” you mean “everyone is obsessed by”, sure.

    1. Crusty Juggler

      The stupid author isn’t everyone.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Not caring about race is racist. This is known.

  41. Crusty Juggler

    Trump Told Officials To Withhold Military Aid To Ukraine Days Before Call With President

    resident Donald Trump reportedly instructed his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to delay more than $390 million in military aid to Ukraine. According to The Washington Post, Trump’s demand was made at least a week before his July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president in which Trump allegedly urged Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on his potential election rival Joe Biden.

    The call was reportedly part of a whistleblower complaint concerning Trump that was filed by someone working in U.S. intelligence. Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, has refused to turn the complaint over to congressional oversight committees despite facing pressure from Democrats to do so.

    It’s impeachment time! It’s impeachment time!

    On Monday, seven freshman House Democrats said in a Washington Post op-ed that if the allegations related to Trump’s call with Zelensky are true, “we believe these actions represent an impeachable offense.”

    “The president of the United States may have used his position to pressure a foreign country into investigating a political opponent, and he sought to use U.S. taxpayer dollars as leverage to do it,” the lawmakers wrote in the Post. “He allegedly sought to use the very security assistance dollars appropriated by Congress to create stability in the world, to help root out corruption and to protect our national security interests, for his own personal gain.”

    “These allegations are stunning, both in the national security threat they pose and the potential corruption they represent,” the Democrats added.

    President Pence, it’s your time to shine.

    1. leon

      Reminds me much of Johnson’s impeachment. Johnson was impeached because he picked Cabinet Members that house leadership didn’t approve of.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    Only one of my cats actually cares. But she is being kindof a nuisance. Just knocked over a lamp. The other one is indifferently lounging on the rug in the living room. I guess this what they do all day on weekdays.

    I always assumed my cats were on the computer, trading yen futures.

  43. The Other Kevin

    I’m from Indiana, but I still don’t know what to make of this dwarf thing. Seems too Florida for this state.

    1. leon

      I wouldn’t worry about it to much. You’ve got to be busy supplying the world their Guns.

    2. The Other Kevin

      To be sure, this is a distraction we don’t need right now. With all the talk of gun bans we need to step up our exports while the gettin’s good.

  44. Crusty Juggler

    He’s Got an Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie

    Dear Care and Feeding,

    I’m a new mom to a wonderfully happy and healthy 5-month-old son. My mother, who only had girls, occasionally watches him, and is increasingly disturbed by him grabbing and pulling at his penis during diaper changes and baths. I tell her that this is normal for boys—but is it? Having only sisters and never babysitting baby boys, I’m not 100 percent confident. Which leads me to other questions: At what age is this not appropriate? Do I try to distract him from grabbing his penis? Should I give him more “naked baby time” outside of diaper changes and baths? Anything else I should know?

    Five months…

    1. Bob Boberson

      Clearly he’s trying to rip his dick off because he’s trans……just to be safe they should start with hormone therapy immediately

    2. Drake

      When he starts to guide her hand down there, she’ll know he’s okay.

    3. My son was born with a stiffie.

    4. Tejicano

      Sounds like mom has gone without for a while

    5. A Leap at the Wheel

      Wife, when Thing 1 was about 5 months old: “I know he’s supposed to do that. How long do you think this phase is going to last?”
      Me: “Probably about 80 years.”

      She thought it was a joke.

    6. Idle Hands

      wtf.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    I know that these lifeless, grifting, vapid, empty vessels deserve NOT ONE NANO-SECOND of my serious thoughts.

    And yet….

    This person should be free to focus on truly worthwhile, important people, like the Kardashians. Instead the Trumps have taken up residence in its head, like squatters on a run-down plantation after the Civil War.

    1. B.P.

      This person claims to have serious thoughts.

  46. Crusty Juggler

    The Dudes Who Love Their Wives’ Pregnancy Pillows

    For dads, falling in love with a pregnancy pillow is a bit like having an affair. They enter your marriage surreptitiously, as one of the many dowry inanities bestowed upon a happy couple during delirious baby showers. Their names are matrimonious and deeply goofy, like Snoogle and Queen Rose, fashioned as lush, swooping bands of cushion that fit between your thighs, run parallel to your waist and rest above your head. The design is intended to prop up pregnant people who need extra support for an inflating womb, because it’s hard to sleep facedown or faceup when carrying around a beach ball in your stomach. But like all soft things encountered after dark, pregnancy pillows can also catch the leering eyes of curious husbands, who are eager to test-drive a different sort of nocturnal embrace.

    Back in my day when we cheated we fucked a diner waitress or the wife’s slutty friend, not a pillow! This is why we lost Afghanistan.

    ~ef~

    1. Festus

      Hey man! A beer belly is kinda, sorta like a Baby Bump! Stop othering the Dad-Bods!

  47. Count Potato

    “Climate change reflects our common flaws as a civilization, and can only be fixed by penitence and penance. To even talk about the possibility that it could be fixed cheaply, without penance, indicates you are planning to defect on your part of the penance.”

    https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1079641245503221760

    Totes science.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Climate change is a problem with a spiritual dimension – it’s about bad actors hurting the Earth and us failing to prevent them. Treating it as just a mundane engineering problem means refusing to take part in a common emotional frame that’s meant to bring people together.

      Jesus, the guy’s serious.

      Seek help.

      1. leon

        Just once i want to see a respectable “Scientific” voice (I’m looking at you Hank Green) call this out as non-scientific bullshit.

        1. Rhywun

          You’ve got to be pretty secure in your position in order to risk your career like that.

    2. A Leap at the Wheel

      A guy who spends an inordinate amount of time telling us that one current activity (AI research and development) is going to lead to the Apocalypse (paperclip factories literally killing us all) if we don’t amend our ways repeats the pattern with another set of activities an Apocalypse.

      Ladies and gentlemen, the Rationalist Community (TM). Totally not driven by inborn instincts they deny and don’t understand!

  48. Crusty Juggler

    China planning to join other countries with controls on e-cigarettes

    China is reportedly looking to roll out rules to control e-cigarette products as early as next month, joining other countries in responding to deaths and illnesses health officials blamed on vaping.

    China’s state news agency reported the planned move Tuesday, citing unidentified sources at the State Tobacco Monopoly, according to The Associated Press.

    China, with an estimated 350 million smokers is the most populous tobacco market, according to AP. India, which banned sales of e-cigarettes this month, is second.

    China’s reported plan followed the country’s ban on e-cigarette sales to people younger than 18 in August 2018.

    The U.S. has been looking to take action on flavored products that many say target the youth. The Trump administration is looking ban all non-tobacco flavored e-cigarette products, and Michigan and New York recently imposed statewide bans on the products.

    A lung disease tied to vaping products has sickened 530 people nationwide and resulted in eight deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

    President Trump, China is doing it, which is why we shouldn’t!

    1. “You can’t vape that! You’d be breathing gasses cleaner than our air!”

      1. Nephilium

        As president of Planet Spaceball, I can assure both you and your viewers that there’s absolutely no air shortage whatsoever. Yes, of course. I’ve heard the same rumor myself. Yes, thanks for calling and not reversing the charges. Bye-bye.

        /opens can of Perri-air

        1. Chipwooder

          I told you never to call me here! This is an unlisted wall.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    “The president of the United States may have used his position to pressure a foreign country into investigating a political opponent, and he sought to use U.S. taxpayer dollars as leverage to do it,” the lawmakers wrote in the Post. “He allegedly sought to use the very security assistance dollars appropriated by Congress to create stability in the world, to help root out corruption and to protect our national security interests, for his own personal gain.”

    I get it, now. NOT burying allegations of impropriety or outright corruption on the part of politicians’ family members constitutes a breach of trust.
    Laws are for little people.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      At least they aren’t advocating execution for treason a la Bill Weld.

    2. Rhywun

      security assistance dollars appropriated by Congress to create stability in the world

      How’s that working out?

    3. B.P.

      We’re sending money to foreign governments to help root out corruption?

  50. grudgebearer

    Anybody know what to do when you work in a crowded employment market, tick off everybody’s requirements but still can’t make it to the fucking interview stage? Goddamn it’s enough to wanna fucking hang yourself

    1. Don’t do that, it won’t solve anything.

      1. straffinrun

        Don’t do that. Agreed. It won’t solve anything. Never understood that unless you’re religious.

      2. Certified Public Asshat

        No sense holding a grudge either.

        1. Grudges are everything.

          *records CPA in book of grudges*

    2. Bob Boberson

      Think of it like the woman who rejects you for some stupid, superfluous reason or no discernible reason at all; she probably did you a favor in the long run.

    3. Drake

      I hear you, I’m there too – made it to several interviews, then things go silent. Taking some classes right now to update my skills.

      I just need another 5 to 8 years of decent income, then I can ditch this place and become a gentleman farmer in a free state.

    4. straffinrun

      Only thing I’d say is “connections”. Find people that are in the business and make friends.

      1. The Other Kevin

        This. I’ve been looking for 3 years for a job either close to home or remote. Close to home didn’t work because there are very few tech companies in my area. But remote wasn’t good either because I was competing with people from all over the country. Once, I got an email from Indeed saying there were 300+ applicants for a job I applied for. With those numbers, the employer can be super picky about checking every box.

        I did end up getting a remote job, which I start next Monday. I just happened to find it on Indeed. I got it because I’d applied to them in the past, and they liked me, but that job wasn’t remote and the commute was too much for me. They still had me on file. I also have a former co-worker/buddy who works with my new team, and he gave me a great recommendation. Without that, I think I’d still be looking.

        Outside of that, have someone look over your resume and cover letter and see if they can enhance it for you. I had two people do that and I think it got me more attention.

      2. Tejicano

        Connections for sure.

        I got my last job through a friend who knew the top manager at the place that was hiring. I got through the multiple interviews with flying colors.

        Unfortunately, the guy who I was hired to work for quit seven months later and his replacement wasn’t a good fit with me.

    5. Sean

      I’m having trouble getting people to come in for an interview. They make an appointment and never show or call.

      I did manage to hire one guy recently, and he started last week. I still need to hire 2 more.

      1. What kind of work?

        1. Sean

          Not wanting to dox myself too much. Let’s go with field tech – experienced or will train.

    6. Nephilium

      Keep on sending in the resumes and applications. If you can, network with people to get a step above the competition.

      What type of position are you looking for and where at?

    7. robc

      One of my co-workers sent out over 1000 resumes.

      His situation was different, as he is H-1B, so that excluded him from most of them.

      He ended up with a decent job. He isn’t living in an area he really wanted, but apparently CT > India.

      1. From what I’ve learned about India, there are a lot of places here that still manage to be better.

    8. Semi-Spartan Dad

      A lot of job openings are disingenuous. The hiring manager already has an internal candidate selected for promotion into that role, but HR often requires the dog and pony show regardless. An external candidate can sometimes still win but you have to overcome the incumbent.

    9. Semi-Spartan Dad

      Also, I had a lot of success using LinkedIn for my last job hunt. I paid for the premium account and it showed me the number and breakdown (education, experience) of all other applicants for the job. It also made my applications stand out and let me directly contact recruiters. It might depend on your field, but I was able to land several interviews and ended up accepting my current position all using LinkedIn.

      One note about LinkedIn, there is a lot of shit to sort through. A ton of recruiters wasted my time with jobs that didn’t fit my criteria. There are diamond recruiters there though and solid connections to be made.

      1. The Other Kevin

        Paying for the premium version of LinkedIn, and changing my status to “actively looking” got me a lot of attention from recruiters and a lot of interviews.

        1. Even just moving to “kinda interested” got me a ton of attention from recruiters. That said, I find recruiters to be in the same strata as realtors and used car salesmen, so I haven’t bothered to use one.

      2. invisible finger

        I would say this is one thing the internet might have fucked up. It used to be you’d work with a few headhunters that had personal contacts (and contracts) and they’d separate the wheat from the chaff for you, you just had to get rid of the headhunters that were chaff – once you found a good one you stuck with them. When the first internet job boards came along they killed the headhunters, but now that HR is using the internet you don’t have a professional running interference for you anymore. And there’s more chaff than ever before to sift through.

    10. A Leap at the Wheel

      Get in touch with everyone and anyone you’ve had a good interaction with professionally and let them know you are looking. Most experienced hires seem to have internal referrals. It can be as simple as a vendor you’ve exchanged a few emails with, or whatever.

  51. Drake

    Just a random thought. Why does every depiction of a Neanderthal look exactly like Richard Marcinko?

    1. leon

      He own’s a time Machine?

    2. Idle Hands

      I’ve read some of that guys books. It has to be 90% hyperbole 10% bullshit. If the special forces are as dysfunctional as he said in the 80’s it must be horrific now. Fucking wildman.

      1. Drake

        I used to get his books-on-tape from the library. His highly creative cussing had me laughing so hard I had trouble driving.

  52. The Late P Brooks

    At long last, someone who is willing to take on the plutocracy

    Senator Bernie Sanders on Tuesday unveiled a proposal to create a new tax on the wealth of the richest Americans, including a steep tax on billionaires that could greatly diminish their fortunes.

    With the proposal, Mr. Sanders is embracing an idea that has been a centerpiece of the campaign of his top progressive rival, Senator Elizabeth Warren. But while Ms. Warren came first, Mr. Sanders is going bigger. His wealth tax would apply to a larger number of households, impose a higher top rate and raise more money.

    Mr. Sanders’s plan to tax accumulated wealth, not just income, is particularly aggressive in how it would erode the fortunes of billionaires. His tax would cut in half the wealth of the typical billionaire after 15 years, according to two economists who worked with the Sanders campaign on the plan. Mr. Sanders would use the money generated by his wealth tax to fund the housing plan he released last week and a forthcoming plan for universal child care, as well as to help pay for “Medicare for all.”

    “Let me be very clear: As president of the United States, I will reduce the outrageous and grotesque and immoral level of income and wealth inequality,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. “What we are trying to do is demand and implement a policy which significantly reduces income and wealth inequality in America by telling the wealthiest families in this country they cannot have so much wealth.”

    Asked if he thought billionaires should exist in the United States, Mr. Sanders said, “I hope the day comes when they don’t.” He added, “It’s not going to be tomorrow.”

    Go, Bernie! Cut them wealth hoarders down to size. They stole it all, anyway.

    1. leon

      Did i miss something? Like a 28th amendment to the constitution, that would make a wealth tax possible? This is where i think it gets funny. The Left is going gaga over promises by people who not only have no intention of keeping them, but can’t keep them.

      1. So long as they apportion it among the states, it’s doable.

        What that would look like on the ground, I’m not too sure.

      2. Bob Boberson

        The Constitution?!? That old thing? What are you, some kinda Tea Bagger?

      3. Drake

        My question too. Or do they simply plan to pack the Supreme Court and outright ignore that old piece of paper?

      4. Rebel Scum

        Like a 28th amendment to the constitution, that would make a wealth tax possible?

        How quaint. The plain wording is ignored elsewhere. It shall be ignored here as well.

        But in all seriousness I am actually concerned about the lack of questions of constitutionality in the Democratic debates. They aren’t even pretending anymore.

        1. Bob Boberson

          They haven’t for a long time. Look at the chicanery whenever it’s time to nominate a new SCOTUS pick; as we all know the end game is a court that will nod along with whatever insane shit they come up with

    2. Akira

      Asked if he thought billionaires should exist in the United States, Mr. Sanders said, “I hope the day comes when they don’t.” He added, “It’s not going to be tomorrow.”

      You ever notice how Bernie used to say “millionaires and billionaires”, but after that fiasco where he got called out for becoming a millionaire from his book sales, he shortened it to just “billionaires”?

      Also, fuck these people. They are literally communists at this point. I no longer believe the whole “I vote 3rd party because the Democrats and Republicans are equally bad”. It’s Trump 2020 for me unless he does something incredibly terrible between now and then.

      1. leon

        Asked if he thought billionaires should exist in the United States, Mr. Sanders said, “I hope the day comes when they don’t.” He added, “It’s not going to be tomorrow.”

        “Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

        This is known as “bad luck.”

        -George Orwell

        1. B.P.

          Robert Heinlein, I believe.

          1. R C Dean

            From his classic allegory Charlotte’s Web, I believe.

          2. I thought WEB Dubois wrote that one.

          3. No, I’m pretty sure it’s from TS Eliot’s Pride and Punishment

          4. leon

            No. I’m pretty sure he wrote “A Brave New World”

        2. Ozymandias

          “Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

          This is known as “bad luck.These are known as… JEWS.”

          FTFY. (It’s also a big party of the slips of tongue and under-the-cover motivation for the Dems anti-semitism. It’s hard to keep up the “inequality” schtick as a party when some members of the keep outperforming other members. Looking at you Mr. Lee! And you, too, Moishe!)

  53. I’m not nearly as amusing in the mornings. I shall go do some actual work, since I haven’t since I started writing this book.

    1. Speaking of actual work, what would your rates be if I were looking to contract out a historical verbiage check of a story?

      1. Not quite sure I understand the request. You want someone to look up words and phrases for anachronisms and then find a different way to capture the meaning with contemporary language?

        1. If the contemporary was say the early 1700s when the story is set to avoid sounding like the narrator stepped out of the early 21st.

          1. Oh, sure I can do that. The language timeframe makes the vocabulary rich enough, but I have no idea how I’d go about setting a price.

            Not the same timeframe, but close enough.

            Scroll down to the sample and see if you like what I did.

          2. Arg, scribd is blocked at work.

            We have time to discuss details, since the work isn’t finished yet. It probably won’t be that long.

          3. I’m not able to do that for this one, set in 1420, because I have no written records to go on.

            For the pirate book, I depended heavily on phrasing and syntax in Fanny Hill and Pamela.

            Fanny Hill was particularly florid because Cleland’s goal was to write smut without using vulgarities, which he did, with hilarious results.

          4. Smut without vulgarities? Sounds like a challenge.

          5. Not Adahn

            When I read My Secret Life I noticed how few euphemisms were used, and also the term “gamahuche.”

          6. I’ve read that, but it wasn’t helpful in the way I needed it, which was to get a feel for the rhythm of speech (or a close approximation so that I could wrangle it to at least sound like plausible speech).

            Gamahuche is from the French (i.e., not on etymonline.com) and is late Victorian, and I was writing in late Georgian (a difference of 100 years).

            So, one author I love wrote a romance in which she made up medieval syntax, but I’m not that invested in this book. This book was sheer cliched fun, which I have never written (and I do something different every book).

        2. He doesn’t want to use ‘bespoke’ wrongly again.

          1. Thus bespoke zarathustra?

          2. I made that mistake once.

            Once.

          3. Jarflax

            He’s asking for bespoke editing.

          4. All editing is bespoke.

          5. Jarflax

            MS Word’s grammar suggestions hereby presented as a counterpoint.

          6. Let me rephrase: All human editing, those editors one pays scads of money to to edit, is bespoke.

          7. Jarflax

            Hmm, I was joking around, but now that I think it through, I disagree. If you hang out a shingle as an editor, and just provide general editorial services, that would not actually be bespoke editing. There needs to be something specific to the client in the service. See bespoke tailoring. Using your definition, all tailoring would be bespoke as it is always done to clothes which are sold to specific individuals, but we do not use the word that way, we use it for tailors who are individually crafting the garment for a known person, to suit that person’s needs and tastes.

          8. Jarflax

            Further let me propose that calling your service bespoke editing justifies a rate bump….

          9. When I say editing, I mean, going through the manuscript line by line in exacting detail. A content editor makes sure the story is consistent. A proofreader catches mistakes. They are not the same thing.

            Each manuscript is unique. Each author is unique. One must tailor one’s critiques and corrections to the manuscript: If it’s fiction, it has to serve that story. If it’s nonfiction, it has to serve the thesis. A story concept or thesis may not be unique (never), but the author’s voice IS. The editor’s job is to make the manuscript the best it can be without sacrificing the author’s voice.

            Men’s Wearhouse may have tailors on staff to alter suits, but I would argue that everyone thinks “tailor” means bespoke. We simply don’t have another word for an alterator who works at Men’s Wearhouse, whom nobody thinks of as a bona fide tailor.

            There are two different words for women: dressmakers (bespoke) and seamstresses (not bespoke). Dressmakers are seen as professionals. Seamstresses are hobbyists or tradespersons.

  54. The Late P Brooks

    Mr. Sanders’s tax is projected to raise $4.35 trillion over a decade, while Ms. Warren’s is projected to raise $2.6 trillion over the same time period. Those estimates were produced by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, two economists at the University of California, Berkeley, with whom both the Sanders and Warren campaigns consulted as they developed their proposals. (The projection for Ms. Warren’s plan differs slightly from their original estimate of $2.75 trillion earlier this year.)

    “The Sanders plan is really pitched at the idea that we don’t want billionaires and decabillionaires to be billionaires and decabillionaires for as long as they currently are,” Mr. Saez said. “It’s going to erode their fortunes much faster than the Warren wealth tax.”

    Mr. Sanders included several steps in his plan to enforce the tax, including creating a “national wealth registry,” increasing funding for the Internal Revenue Service and requiring audits of many taxpayers who are subject to the wealth tax, including all billionaires.

    “National wealth registry” just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

    Vote for me, and I will punish the bad people. I will strip them naked and drive them before me. , like swine to be slaughtered.

    This country has gone insane.

    1. Let me guess, those estimates assume that the tax won’t drive assets offshore into foreign companies, and that those subjected to it will both contually replenish their holdings and not restructure to avoid it.

    2. The Other Kevin

      The concept of a wealth tax is bad enough, but you just know that money isn’t going to go to paying down the debt or balancing the budget. It’s going to go to more government boondoggles that get bigger, less efficient, and more expensive as time goes on, thereby causing bigger problems down the road. For once I’d like to hear a candidate propose making the government do more with less, instead of just blindly throwing money at it and making it bigger.

      1. Bob Boberson

        “Eventually we’ll all have cushy public sector jobs and the debt won’t matter!!!”

        /level on which most Bernie supporters think

      2. Fatty Bolger

        We’ve already cut to the bone, man! Nothing left to cut! Austerity!

    3. leon

      Emmanuel Saez

      The man of “Venezuela is a rousing socialist success” fame?

    1. Rebel Scum

      Calling out bitches for their shenanigans by name, including supposed allies.

  55. Idle Hands

    If the democrats impeach Trump they can’t possibly have Biden continue to run….. can they? Would they go Hillary due to Obama’s and establishment dems hatred of Warren? We truly live in the greatest timeline.

    1. The Other Kevin

      Yes, let’s impeach a person for the “crime” of calling for an investigation into corruption, and then have another person who is tied to that corruption be the party’s nominee. Those are some great optics right there.

  56. wdalasio

    Again, with the Democrats, I don’t get it. The policies they’re pushing (wealth taxes, gun confiscation, reparations, Medicare-for-all) aren’t something that the mass of Americans have been crying out for. They’re really not something that has much popularity outside of an insular circle-jerk. As I’ve said before, all they’ve really had to do is not sound crazy. I’ve got to imagine that even a reliable lefty like Pelosi has got to be thinking, in the back of her mind, “What the hell is wrong with you people?”.

    1. Rebel Scum

      Pelosi has the political acumen but she is getting too old for that shit. She has pushed back against that stuff but not enough.

    2. Bob Boberson

      “Insular circle-jerk” pretty much sums it up. They aren’t making many bones about it; it’s not about finding compromise and checks and balances anymore; it’s about putting the deplorables in their place and ruling over them.

      1. wdalasio

        it’s about putting the deplorables in their place and ruling over them

        That sounds plausible. But, it seems to me that “sound so batshit crazy that the deplorables’ champion seems like a reasonable alternative to anyone who hasn’t drunken the whole pitcher of Kool-Aid for your side” might not be the best strategy to that end.

        1. Bob Boberson

          If twitter has taught me anything it’s that being far-left is synonymous with grotesque hubris

    3. A Leap at the Wheel

      In the primaries, everyone runs to their base. This shit is popular with the base, ergo the Dems run to it right now.

      You think the normies are going to know or care what their party’s candidate said 9 months ago? Is this your first election season?

      1. wdalasio

        No, it’s not. But, these guys aren’t running to their base, they’re running to the utter fringes of their base. And most of the campaigns I’ve seen, the promises to the base are vague enough that they can be re-interpreted in the general election. They’re pushing concrete far, far-left policies here that they’re not going to be able to walk away from in the general election. If Trump has an ounce of sense, he’s downloading videos of just about every comment the Democrats are running on right now. The campaign ads write themselves.

        1. R C Dean

          I’m with w on this. The Dem primary so far has been pretty unprecedented. It will be very hard to run to the center with any credibility, especially with Trump as the opponent. He’s not your typical Romneyesque Cuckpublican. He will absolutely hang all this crazy shit around the nominee’s neck during the general. And he’s the President, so the media can’t just ignore him. If they even try, he’ll just endrun them on Twitter and they will chase that laser pointer.

    4. Stinky Wizzleteats

      “Insular circle-jerk”

      So you’re saying they’re just like us.

      1. Bob Boberson

        SHUT UP LIBTAR…..

        Oh.

      2. wdalasio

        Maybe. But, the day that the candidates for the GOP nomination for president sound like Glibs hasn’t quite come around.

      3. Bob Boberson

        In all seriousness, I’ve lurked over at TOS a little bit to see what is said about us and the word “insular” is the most common pejorative. While it may not be wrong I don’t miss the mendacious fucks like Hihn, Tony, et al shitting up the place with their diversity of thought.

        1. Well, TOS is insular. You can tell by the way n00bs are treated. Nobody wants anybody else to break into their big/little coffee klatsch.

          1. Dissent is much more well tolerated here than back there. Granted, outright trolling is modded out here, so some of the worst abuses don’t have a chance to be thrown about.

          2. R C Dean

            We have very high standards for trolls. Hyperbole could have been grown in a troll lab, his troll game is so strong.

          3. pan fried wylie

            Here I was, thinking trolls were grown in haunted mushroom farms.

  57. Rebel Scum

    Calling out socialism/communism by name in front of the UN (!)…

    1. Wow!!! This is EXCELLENT!!!

  58. The Late P Brooks

    One last little tidbit:

    Mr. Saez and Mr. Zucman calculated how the Warren and Sanders wealth taxes would have affected the fortunes of the richest Americans had each been in effect since 1982. The fortune of Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who Forbes said was worth $160 billion last year, would have been $87 billion under the Warren plan and $43 billion under the Sanders plan.

    Over all, the economists found, the cumulative wealth of the top 15 richest Americans in 2018 — amounting to $943 billion — would have been $434 billion under the Warren plan and $196 billion under the Sanders plan.

    Totally legit. Bezos and Gates and those other targets of confiscation would never have modified their behavior in response. And those numbers can be assumed to be Treasury receipts in exact dollar amounts.

    1. wdalasio

      And those numbers can be assumed to be Treasury receipts in exact dollar amounts.”

      Oh, and of course, none of the resulting behaviors by the tax’s targets might ever have any effect on the expenditure side of the income statement.

      I swear, today’s Democrats must have decided they love the Great Depression. They’re doing everything they can to bring us back to that situation.

      1. Tejicano

        I imagine Pol Pot being tortured in Hell with the information that the developed world is itself in a race to the 12th century, not with an armed revolution like he tried, but with a twisted line of BS parroted from top to bottom. If he had only known how to package this message back in 1975 he would have been hailed as a visionary.

        1. invisible finger

          “he would have been hailed as a visionary.”

          The pioneers are the ones with the arrows in the back. Or in this case the saws on the neck.

    2. R C Dean

      Did they take into account the second order effects of wealth confiscation? As in, stripping all that capital, and its compounded effects, from the economy?

      1. Akira

        The scary thing is that they don’t even care about economic effects. They have pretty much admitted that this anti-wealth mentality is a virtue thing. They think wealth itself is immoral. Whether you were a fraudster or an honest businessman doesn’t matter. You’re still a filthy kulak who will be cleansed in the glorious people’s revolution.

        They’re going to blast our country back to an agrarian fiefdom and call themselves heroes for it (while they clink champagne glasses in their opulent mansions).

      2. invisible finger

        Have you not noticed every Dem-controlled city over the last 60 years? The power is based on a fucked up economy getting even worse.

        1. Ozymandias

          I’m eventually going to write something with this as the thesis: cities are not the pinnacle of civilization, but instead they are (almost) universally the harbinger of a civilization’s demise. Someone find me a metropolis anywhere that isn’t plagued with outsized rates of mental illness, crime – both violent and white-collar, by both the citizens and the authorities – and a complete loss of the virtues that produced the wealth that allowed the city to be built in the first place. And if you thought “Hong Kong!!” as a counter-example, I would only point out that it’s the exception that proves my point. What is it about Hong Kong that has made it unique? Freedom. Liberty.

          1. Shirley Knott

            Well, except for etymology and history.
            Civilization means living in cities. Cities aren’t the pinnacle of civilization, they’re the roots.
            Cities are marvelous engines for division of labor and comparative advantage.

            It’s not “cities versus freedom & liberty” it’s politics vs. freedom and liberty.

          2. R C Dean

            Civilization means living in cities.

            I guess if you don’t live in a city, you are uncivilized. Perhaps even deplorable and irredeemable?

  59. Stinky Wizzleteats

    I may have missed this being posted already: Wal-Mart is discontinuing the sale of e-cigarettes.

    https://abcnews.go.com/business/walmart-longer-sell-cigarettes/story?id=65754680

    I say good, it leaves more shelf space for real cigs and dip which you can still get at Wal-Mart.

    1. Rhywun

      The black market sellers of sketchy juices thank Walmart for their support.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    The concept of a wealth tax is bad enough, but you just know that money isn’t going to go to paying down the debt or balancing the budget. It’s going to go to more government boondoggles that get bigger, less efficient, and more expensive as time goes on, thereby causing bigger problems down the road.

    Diminishing returns, like slippery slopes, are figments of libertarians’ imaginations.

  61. Tejicano

    Back to the topic of dreams…

    This morning I woke up at 4 AM in the middle of a dream. It was another of those “military deployment” dreams but as I woke up in my own bed at home I was completely disoriented. I felt like I was waking up from a nap but didn’t understand why I was where I was. I had to take a leak but took a while to remember where the bathroom was. That hasn’t happened for a long time.

    1. Drake

      You get those too? I’m usually running around trying to make sure they issued me all the right gear before some crazy half-assed mission that makes no sense.

      1. Tejicano

        Mine have always been me and the other 40-60 guys in my unit (somehow it reflects my active duty days in the infantry – no women, rather than the last Army reserve unit – both sexes) all of us with the 120 pounds of gear piled in loose formation, waiting for a flight or some other mindless milling about. Not any real stress, just the usual no idea what’s going on, waiting for the word, picking up to move to some other place for some unknown reason, etc.

        1. Drake

          My simplistic dream battles have us marching up to nice straight trenches and doing 2-way rifle-ranges for a while like it’s WWI with M16s. Then we march some more down country roads looking for the next fight. I have these dreams despite having been in actual battles that were absolutely nothing like that at all.

          1. Fourscore

            I’m telling you guys, those weird flash back (and totally unrelated to any lived experiences) dreams are never ending. Less often as time passes but still are there and vivid but fortunately are always short and easily forgotten when you wake up.

    1. The problem is that what he says and what is actually happening/will continue to happen are two entirely different things.

      1. Tejicano

        Ah, you’re focusing on what he says. That’s your first mistake.

      2. Rebel Scum

        True. And way to harsh my buzz. Then again, I think he is largely holding to his words. Take guns as an example. He just gave a large shoutout (to the entire world…) to 2A after rhetorically flirting with laws that would be anti-2A. Actions > words. (yes, I know bumpstocks, but that was largely meaningless)

        The whole speech was one big middle finger, and I appreciate that.

        1. The whole speech was one big middle finger, and I appreciate that.

          Symbolically– THIS IS WHO WE ARE, SUCK IT –it was wonderful.

          And the subtext– THIS IS WHO YOU WANT US TO BE SO SIT DOWN AND STFU –is also glorious.

          But.

  62. “Yang Gang’s Tulsi Gabbard Apologist”

    White progressivism distilled:

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/white-woman-caught-on-video-lecturing-hong-kong-protesters-safety-is-more-important-than-freedom/#.XYlOR0vQ98s.twitter

    “White woman caught on video lecturing Hong Kong protesters: ‘Safety is more important than freedom’”

    1. Bob Boberson

      Everything wrong with modern political thinking summed up in one phrase.

      1. “Yang Gang’s Tulsi Gabbard Apologist”

        Watch a video like this, it’s hard not to root for the West’s demise.

      2. Bob Boberson
        1. R C Dean

          The officer claimed that West tossed a gun and then fell to the ground.

          Uh-huh.

          The report found that Giese failed to activate his body camera.

          I’m shocked, I tell ya.

        2. “Yang Gang’s Tulsi Gabbard Apologist”

          Rawstory is an anti-war Left wing publication, so there’s much to like on their pages, but a whole bunch that will also make you cringe.

    2. Ed Wuncler

      I have a lot of respect for the Hong Kong protesters. I mean they know what’s going to happen and what the end result will be but yet, they are still protesting. People like this lady haven’t the clue about what real freedom is so she’s perplexed about why these students are willing to risk their lives.

      The Progressives’s idea of freedom is having your life dictated by some government bureaucrat and given some substandard health care and shitty education in exchange for their complicity and obedience.

      1. Bob Boberson

        I often wonder if there is some tangential link to the rise of feminism; there seems to be a lot of misplaced maternal projection on the role of government. ‘Mother knows best’ gone completely sideways.

        1. invisible finger

          You’ll also notice that if these women have borne children they have only borne one. They have no clue about having a family where attention has to be divided to two or more children.

      2. “Yang Gang’s Tulsi Gabbard Apologist”

        The Hong Kong protesters are the bravest and most inspiring people of the 21st Century, by far. And they are all being red pilled in real time. After the crackdown, the survivors will realize that all this talk of “liberalism” from the West really just means “rule by elites” and that’s why none of them are going to do anything more substantive than wag their finger when China mows all these people down.

        1. “Yang Gang’s Tulsi Gabbard Apologist”

          Also, by far, my favorite video of an ethnic Chinese man protesting China and offering advice to President Trump.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy_ITQy9OpU

          1. dbleagle

            Beautiful on many levels.

        2. R C Dean

          I wonder if Trump isn’t using his trade skirmish with China to put pressure on them behind the scenes over Hong Kong.

          The Chinese economy is suffering, and as some production is shifted to not-China, is taking long-term damage. The timing for putting serious economic pressure on China was good.

          1. “Yang Gang’s Tulsi Gabbard Apologist”

            I can’t imagine that being true. Trump could have shut down his tariff on China critics by simply renaming them “sanctions” after the Hong Kong protests (not to mention the fact that China runs literal re-education camps and its continued forced sterilization program) and then daring anyone to contend that sanctioning China was not called for. But, in reality, Trump did no such thing and has largely avoided using the Hong Kong protests as a bludgeon against China and his critics.

            I suspect that Trump’s tariffs are only informed by his perverse economic understanding on trade. It would be a lot cooler if this weren’t the case, but I don’t see any evidence to suggest otherwise.

          2. R C Dean

            I absolutely think the tariffs were put in place for economic negotiating leverage. And I think it would be stupid to publicly link them to Hong Kong because that would set up a bad dynamic as the ChiComs get all “save face”. Its not like Trump, as far as I know, to do something smart on the down-low. Still, I wonder. The ChiComs are showing more restraint than I would have expected, and I wonder why.

          3. invisible finger

            Are they really showing restraint or are we just not getting the story?

          4. R C Dean

            Are they really showing restraint or are we just not getting the story?

            There’s way too much crowd-sourced video coming out of Hong Kong for a true ChiCom crackdown to be hidden.

            The APCs full of paramilitary goons haven’t rolled. The mass arrests, deportations, and camps haven’t happened. So I would say the ChiComs are showing restraint.

          5. Fatty Bolger

            And doing that would be guaranteed to piss off the Chinese on a much more fundamental level, and possibly even force them into action against the protesters. If you want to pressure them behind the scenes, tariffs are a much better choice.

        3. Ed Wuncler

          Wished American students valued and fought for their freedom like the Hong Kong students do. But that’ll never happen because freedom in the West means freedom from responsibility and choice. American students are tearing down schools and terrorizing their professors because of some vague notion of injustice and mispronouncing their genders, while the students in Hong Kong are fighting against a no shit tyrannical government. It gets me angry.

        4. I get the sense that there is still much resentment about the handover from British to Chinese control, and that this is a cultural memory and a deep grudge.

          Mormonism has a cultural memory (and grudge) of being chased out of the country by the US Army, who kept coming even though we were out of their jurisdiction (amongst other things).

          1. “Yang Gang’s Tulsi Gabbard Apologist”

            “Mormonism has a cultural memory (and grudge) of being chased out of the country by the US Army, who kept coming even though we were out of their jurisdiction (amongst other things).”

            The attempt to exterminate Mormonism by the American government, though, made Mormonism a better religion, in my opinion. The fact that Utah was lukewarm on Trump after his proposed a “Muslim ban” during the election and that they soured on Gary Johnson (who was almost tied for first at the beginning of the general election) after he pulled the “religious liberty is a black hole” shtick (he ended up dropping to third place after that little game) speaks well of Mormonism and its ecumenical outlook toward other faiths.

            It’s horrible what happened to early Mormonism, but adversity clearly builds something better. Hopefully, the same will happen for the people of Hong Kong, in the long run.

          2. That’s an interesting take. I hadn’t thought about it. I live in Clay County, Missouri, where a fuck-ton of violence against us happened. Interestingly, Jesse James was a staunch Mormon ally. He and his family helped a lot of people eat when they were starving and get out of town still alive. We have a long history with gold-hearted rogues, too.

            I knew a dude once who said if his church membership depended on whether he thought Brigham Young was a prophet of God or not, he wouldn’t be a member. Brigham Young himself didn’t think he was, as he despaired that he didn’t hear God’s voice the way Joseph Smith did. (Go with me here and assume God spoke to Joseph.)

            I said he was the right leader at the right time. He didn’t agree.

            Brigham’s strength was in mobilization and organization. That is what they needed RIGHT THEN and that is what they got.

            Now… It’s been several prophets who’ve gone through my life whom I would not say were chosen of God. The current one especially.

          3. “Yang Gang’s Tulsi Gabbard Apologist”

            The people who like to mock the notion that Joseph Smith talked to God also still seem to believe that one man is the heir to St. Peter or that all that is true is found in a single book. I just find such criticism to be lazy.

            I live in the state where Joseph Smith was killed by a mob and where a Mormon temple still stands. Any faith that produces people as decent and as dedicated to their faith as the Mormons I’ve met in real life is lucky.

            And much like orthodox Jews or Coptic Christians, adversity is what helped sustain this strong faith community.

          4. I live in the state where Joseph Smith was killed by a mob and where a Mormon temple still stands.

            It’s not the original, but everybody was super excited when it was announced that it would be rebuilt.

            I’ve been to Carthage Jail many times. Had to go to Carthage to get my marriage license because…. I got married there. 😀

          5. I mean, I got married in Nauvoo. Not Carthage.

          6. “Yang Gang’s Tulsi Gabbard Apologist”

            “I mean, I got married in Nauvoo. Not Carthage”

            I was just about to accuse you of being a fake Mormon before your correction. Haha

          7. Chipwooder

            It’s horrible what happened to early Mormons, but their hands weren’t always clean, either.

          8. Oh, no! Never said they were.

            The Book of Mormon starts out with God telling Nephi to go ask a dude for plates of gold. WTF? Who is this guy and why are we getting his loot? So Nephi says, “What if he won’t give them to me?” God says, “Kill him.”

            So Nephi robbed and murdered a dude for his gold plates because God told him to.

            Soooooooo then there was Porter Rockwell, who was the prophets’ enforcer. And he did. He was called the “Destroying Angel of Mormondom.” He is our folk hero.

            We don’t talk about the MMM much.

          9. Chipwooder

            I only know about it because I stumbled across a History Channel program about it (you know, back when it wasn’t all aliens and reality shows) and I remember being dumbfounded – “A massacre by Mormons? The incredibly polite people who go door to door in coat and tie trying to get you to join their church?”

          10. back when it wasn’t all aliens

            There is no bad mood ancient astronaut theorists can’t lift.

          11. Nephilium

            /looks over to Kirtland

            When my parents were in Salt Lake City, they kept saying that all of the locals asked them if they had visited the original temple in Kirtland.

          12. Yep, it’s a sacred site for us.

            Jackson County, Missouri is thought to be where the Garden of Eden was. To us, it is Zion and where Christ will come again, and the harbinger is when a temple is built in Jackson County.

            Clay County is right next door to Jackson County. I live in Clay County, where there is also a rich history.

            When the temple to be built in Clay County was announced at General Conference, it was preceded by a dramatic pause. Then he said it. You never heard a louder gasp of thousands of people. Utahns moved here by the hundreds.

            So yes, our cultural memory is long and detailed, and that was almost 200 years ago, so that is why I think Hong Kong has a long, rich, detailed cultural memory of before they were under China’s control.

          13. Rebel Scum

            of being chased out of the country by the US Army, who kept coming even though we were out of their jurisdiction

            I didn’t know this was a thing. Any good reading on the topic?

          14. Rebel Scum

            You know how I like it. *winks*

          15. Rebel Scum

            Interesting. One would think it might warrant even a passing mention in a school history textbook.

          16. I went to a Southern Baptist private school.

            Mormonism was ALL OVER our history books and assemblies and revivals, along with back-masking, 666, and live animal sacrifices.

            I walked out on an assembly when a visiting preacher started to spew. I should’ve gotten in trouble for it and I would have for any other reason, but nobody said a word.

    3. Tejicano

      Actual white privilege in the flesh

    4. tarran

      She waded into a popular uprising and tore down the revolutionaries’ posters?!?!? Yes…. This person truly believes that safety is the highest priority… 🙄

    5. Raston Bot

      Safety? Where the FUCK’S that? Her aunt in the Eyrie’s dead! Her mother’s dead! Her father’s dead! Her brother’s dead! Winterfell is a pile of rubble! There’s no “safety,” you dumb bitch.

      1. Ed Wuncler

        Sandor Clegane being savage as fuck.

        1. R C Dean

          I gotta watch that. Maybe after I catch up The Expanse.

  63. Raston Bot

    any suggestions for a porch cam? someone with a deathwish slashed the tires on 75 cars last night in my hood. no shit. 75 cars. multiple tires per car.

    1. Rebel Scum

      I understand this one is good. But you have to do the watching, it won’t watch for you.

      1. Raston Bot

        a suppressed .300 blackout with subsonic ammo would be a much better option so as not to wake my neighbors’ babies.

    2. Raston Bot

      neighbor’s cam has video of criminal act and full-face pic. my money’s on insane hobo.

  64. The Late P Brooks

    Did Public Enemy Number One conclude his address to the U N by announcing they have thirty days to vacate the premises?

    A man can dream…

    1. Rebel Scum

      That certainly would have been the cherry on top. “You all have 30 days to vacate the premises. I’m turning this dump into a hotel.”

  65. Don Escaped Texas

    Representative Tulsi Gabbard has qualified for the Democratic presidential debate next month in Ohio, widening the lineup to 12 candidates https://t.co/R3VVu6tRmG— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 24, 2019

    so the conspiracy crowd can switch to decaffeinated for the rest of the week