Not a lot going on around here. Other than the timer for my pool pump is no longer working as designed. I might try to press my luck and change the contacts that are supposed to flip it off, but I assume I need to replace it.
“Perdóname, Chinos”
Anyways, back for what you’re really here for: Mexican links!
Well yes, thats pretty much the norm for any product or service in high demand in Latin America. Lucky for Sen, Guzmán, Peru was willing to use the Army to enforce the lockdown, so there’s no chance they’ll get sick and die.
What? Why? The US is your biggest trading partner. What a bitch.
Maybe they wouldn’t have to worry about it if the rest of the world didn’t lose their shit over say, building a dam. Then again…
If they are smart, countries might want to consider easing immigration restrictions on Chilean ex-pats.
So you’re saying, women in an hyper-masculine culture, can somehow succeed?
Not quite the British anarchist band I was hoping for, but still a decent tune.
” ‘Shocking imbalance’: Latin America’s poorest shut out of vaccine access as COVID surges”
That’s true for most countries.
Just like the poorest everywhere in the world couldn’t protect themselves by staying at home for months and having everything delivered. This kind of protection from the virus could only be afforded by the affluent.
“Mexico’s president presented an apology Monday for a 1911 massacre in which over 300 Chinese people were slaughtered by revolutionary troops in the northern city of Torreón.”
Funny, they didn’t use rifles.
The 1911’s were chambered in .38 Super.
Thats .38 Súper
TJ is Super-ior
Wait, you mean well-off people have more access to goods and services than poor people? Quelle surprise!
I’m glad Chile went to shit before I committed myself to ex-patting there.
I have a neighbor from Chile. Met his American wife while he was a tour guide on Easter Island.
They are a great couple and he is a genius at repairing small engines.
It’s been disappointing to watch, as Chile really has a lot going for it. It’s also been fascinating to see the underbelly exposed.
Needs to rethink xmas/new years in Chile in 2022/2023
Not surprising though, since Chile did need a brutal dictator to pull it out of a slump. If a country doesn’t voluntarily choose the right path, it’s bound to self-destruct sooner or later.
The wife and I had a trip planned last year to look for places to live when the ‘vid hit. After what has happened since, I don’t think we will be relocating there in the future. A Chilean colleague of mine waved me off big time. Still the lakes region is freaking gorgeous.
Unfortunately for them, I read the Chinese vaccine is crap.
You’d think they’d have a better one, having worked with the virus for so long.
*zing*
Well, it’s still made in China.
Although, “designed in China” might be a better description. Plenty of products designed in other countries but manufactured in China are good.
If you manage to find a manufacturer that doesn’t ignore specs for materials and has good quality control.
I was talking with a gunsmith who said he can usually identify parts made in China, often just by picking them up. The metal is crap, the tolerances and finishes are meh. He had a couple of AR charging handles, and the difference was obvious even to me.
One company (maybe Norinco?) is making Remington 870 knockoffs. He said he gets them in because a couple of the parts in the action have bent or warped from being made of cheap metal.
“If you manage to find a manufacturer that doesn’t ignore specs for materials and has good quality control.”
Seems to work for many computer companies.
I doubt I would buy a Chinese gun unless it was an old Type 56.
It works great, but then you’re vulnerable an hour later.
*squints suspiciously*
I wouldn’t be surprised if they did have a better one. It’s just not for export.
Oh, I don’t think they would leave such a lever for concessions lying about.
Now the President of Mexico will have to apologize for that remark!
Does it use chimpanzee poop?
“Poverty levels have dropped dramatically in Chile over the last 20 years, and the country is now the richest in South America on a per capita basis. But it remains one of the world’s most unequal nations.”
How is that a problem or even unavoidable? More prosperity means more economic inequality.
If prosperity can’t be
equalequitable, then it shouldn’t happen at all.A lot of them are going to be more equal soon.
The problem is you have rising expectations and a culture that wants to maintain ‘the old ways’. It isn’t the poor that have pushed this, it is the middle class.
You know what else they dropped in Chile?
Cloves?
Eww…
It’s jalapenos
“The price of helicopter rides” was the answer I was looking for.
I thought it was “Marxists”
The best way to achieve perfect equity is to ensure that nobody has anything.
Income disparity is the drum commies start beating when nobody is starving anymore. Their solution is a society where everyone makes (the equivalent of) $40K-$80K, with guranteed living wages for all (ie, the entry-level employee with four kids will make the same as the CEO).
“Income disparity is the drum commies start beating when nobody is starving anymore.”
Thanks. Stolen.
Their solution is a society where everyone makes (the equivalent of) $40K-$80K
Well, anyone who isn’t in the nomenklatura, or doesn’t have apparat connections.
And then, only for a little while, at best. Because that ain’t the way the world works.
Your senses tell you the world is flat. It isn’t.
Your feelings may tell you that socialism will work. It doesn’t. *Sigh* We’ll never be free of this belief will we.
People talk about going back in time to kill Hitler. Better yet would be to kill those at the roots of socialism. Without socialism, we might have been free of fascism as well.
Rousseau it is then.
*fires up time machine*
People talk about going back in time to kill Hitler.
Apropos.
Ah yes, a classic!
Hitler might have turned out a much nicer man if he hadn’t grown up with time travelers constantly trying to kill him.
Can you blame him for being a pissed off paranoid asshole? It sure didn’t help that so many of the would be assassins were (((you know who))).
LMAO! Consider that burgled.
Say what you will about Hitler, but he did kill Hitler.
This Margaret Thatcher clip seems apropos.
Quit bitching and make your situation better.
As opposed to giving undue weight to the public sector? ‘Cause that usually doesn’t end well.
Some people are bad with money. Details at eleven.
Wait, how do you go into debt to pay for your pension? That doesn’t seem right.
I think in Chile workers must pay a certain percentage of their income into a pension fund. Whereas if it were a government funded system, workers would have to pay in a certain percentage of their income into a pension fund.
To my understanding, they privatized their pension system. Which means somebody was dumb enough to invest on margin.
Last I looked at details, it was “privatized”. Lots of restrictions on how you could invest and what you could invest in. I am pretty sure margin was right out.
Well, then my only other explanation is never underestimate the stupidity of others.
Last time the socialists reared their heads in Chile it didn’t exactly go their way.
“This time it will be different” is another catchy socialist saying that they don’t really seem to pay attention to.
Water rights in the country are more fucked up than ours in the western states.
Who is “they”?
I wonder if this is genuine “power of the people” or just commies seizing power.
*scrolls thru article on the hot smart chicks*
I note they studiously avoided the usage of the terms “Latina” and “Latinx”, instead it’s “Latin American female scientists”
Brown people aren’t as woke as their white saviors.
Latinx is language colonialism and an attempt to erase Spanish speaking culture. I for one will not participate in this attempt by white liberals to denigrate our Hispanic neighbor’s language.
I despise that particular term. But I thinks it’s humorous and telling that they feel the need to avoid “Latina” and replace it with “Latin American female”
“Latin American female”
Whoa. They used the biological term? That’s racist (or something). Shouldn’t it have been “Latin American cis- and trans-women”?
“‘All women’ automatically includes transwomen.” I was smugly informed of this today. Accompanied by an illustration of batgirl. Yeah, when you have to rely on cartoon characters to sell your point…
Latin American female
So a Mexican woman who has 12 daughters and no sons is a LAF factory?
A Mexican baby who is born a hermaphrodite but is raised as a girl is a LAF and a half?
*flings rotten vegetables*
Terri Schiavo is no LAF-ing matter
This is exactly true.
In all fairness, what exactly makes a table (la mesa), or a flag (la bandera) female?
Some guy fucked one of each a long time ago?
That explains how dogs and cats (el perro y el gato) are male.
The word ending.
Ding ding.
You can say that gendered languages are stupid, but trying to change those languages as an English speaker to fit your preference for a non-gendered language (like English) strikes me as the most blatant cultural imperialism possible.
I wrote my own lyrics to the closing theme for the Madrid-based Netflix show “La Casa de Papel” which will give you good practice on your feminine and masculine nouns:
Por el cine
En la cocina
Tenemos nachos
y Gazpacho
Tenemos nachos
por los borrachos
El sistema
(The words of Greek origin ending in -ma are masculine, as I understand it.)
And la mano would like a word.
Most of this stuff reaches way, way back into history, back to Latin and Greek and their ancestors.
Дядя Ваня.
Both words are masculine. But try to decline them…
Кофе.
The is the only word that native Russian speakers have trouble using the right gender.
’cause you wave a flag at a broad to get her to bring your sammich to the table!
*belch*
I remember when my 7th grade German teacher showed the class why a Kugelschreiber was masculine. Frau Schirmer was hawt.
Did she look like Cloris Leachman?
Hopefully more like Madeline Kahn.
Ja.
15 is my limit on Kügelschreiber, Baby.
*snickers like Rob Schneider in Demotion Man*
He doesn’t know why they’re female…
Maybe they wouldn’t have to worry about it if the rest of the world didn’t lose their shit over say, building a dam.
Judging from the video and location of said flooded town I suspect this is not the first time it has flooded.
Reading that m.s. might have to “press his luck” reminded me of when the Jetsons visited Las Vegas Vegas and they started to have slot machines chasing them around begging them to “try your luck”.
“Purge at the Pentagon: Outrage as Defense Secretary’s woke race adviser plans trawl of military personnel’s social media for ‘extremist and concerning behavior’ – using private company to circumvent the First Amendment
The program is being spearheaded by Bishop Garrison, a senior adviser to President Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who has previously said Trump and his supporters are racist and is an advocate for Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project, which teaches that America is an inherently racist nation founded on slavery.
Garrison, a former foreign policy adviser on Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential campaign, is a director of Human Rights First, a nonprofit that wants to ‘demilitarize and promote racial justice’ in law-enforcement agencies and pushes for refugee protection and asylum, among other things.
The Pentagon social media monitoring program has already sparked backlash over concerns about free speech and fears military members could be targeted for ‘lack of wokeness’.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9591775/Pentagon-trawl-military-personnels-social-media-extremist-activity.html
So they want to get rid of the exact sort of people who join the military?
Unfortunately, what he really means is that he wants to politicize the military for his side.
Tomayto, tomahto.
Remember when political officers in the Soviet Army was considered to be a bad thing.
It’s times like these we need Sean Connery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTF5m8pszHQ
Critical race theory put in context; and fairly thoroughly demolished (at least as any kind of intellectual thing).
Whoever is running things had the uncanny ability to have convinced Joe to nominate the absolute worst lefty stereotype in every position, didn’t they.
It’s really strange, because he’s such a moderate centrist…
Swiss take note of this. I’m taking the high road here.
I’m going to completely reject the idea of making a cheap joke about nations not wanting independent thinking immigrants and giving them a Chile reception. That would be a cheap and easy pun that would only annoy you for no good purpose.
Just wanted to let you know that you have nothing to worry about today.
You’re probably one of those weirdos who puts noodles and hamburger in tomato sauce and calls it Chile.
Well sure. But never any human beans. That is crossing a universal line.
….
….
*shakes fist*
Insert Red Chile vs free Chile with beans argument here.
It might be Chile today, but it will be hot tamale.
http://burma-shave.org/jingles/1952/pedro
Andes puns are awful.
You are more of a Yo llama joke guy?
I like Titicaca jokes.
“Moment squad member Rashida Tlaib confronts Biden in Michigan after accusing him of letting Netanyahu commit Gaza war crimes: President tells the Palestinian-American ‘I pray that your grandmom and family are well’
The president is in Dearborn to visit a Ford factory and tout his infrastructure plan, which includes billions in funding for electric cars.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9592359/Rashida-Tlaib-confronts-Biden-Michigan-accusing-letting-Netanyahu-commit-war-crimes.html
I can’t decide which is more stupid.
If Trump had said something like that the media would have claimed it was a threat.
“Sheedy, have you talked to Hamas? Because a lot of their crap rockets are falling short and landing in Gaza. Killing, you know, real people. Not like the rockets that land in Israel and just kill Jews. You might want to look into that.”
I can’t decide which is more stupid.
The Bee can help you there!
So we paid triple price for a fatal light and sound show?!
*stomps foot in anger*
This one makes me angrier.
The other one is drearily predictable.
Parties on the left want greater state control of mineral and natural resources – Chile is the world’s largest copper producer – and more public spending on education, health, pensions and social welfare.
What could possibly go wrong?
Sounds like the mining industry in AZ is about to have a field day.
Not in the foreseeable future. The Biden EPA will make sure of that. And when Biden is gone, the EPA abides.
Well, then if Phelps-Dodge can’t increase output it’ll just drive up the price of copper along with damn near everything else. It won’t be me, but somebody wins.
The price of copper has doubled in a year.
Copper comes from Arizona
Peaches come from Georgia
And lobsters come from Maine
The wheat fields are the sweet fields of Nebraska
And Kansas gets bonanzas from the grain
Old whiskey comes from old Kentucky
Ain’t the country lucky
New Jersey gives us glue
And you, you come from Rhode Island
and little old Rhode Island is famous for you
“How Tim Cook agreed to hand over the data of all Chinese Apple users to the Communist government and allow its servers to be run by state officials in return for being able to do business with Beijing”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9592467/Apple-allows-state-officials-process-personal-data-Chinese-users.html
Terrible, but not the least bit surprising.
But he would never do it here.
All of these companies have the ultimate excuse: they are bound to follow the law, and they all act as good citizens. Once the law becomes evil, they have the excuse for being evil.
Well, he’d never do it again, right?
“Apps said to have disappeared include foreign news site and gay dating services”
And how in the hell is the gay mafia not coming for his head right now? Cook is selling out gays in China when he is a member of the community here.
The US gays have never really stuck up for gays in those icky countries.
Muslims get a pass. Chinese get a pass. I’m sure Russian gays are also not all that important to the Gay Agenda.
And lets not even mention those Log Cabin kind of gays, because they don’t even exist.
“‘Jews cannot move freely in Germany’: Merkel condemns anti-Semitic abuse and attacks on synagogues during pro-Palestine protests across the country”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9591141/Jews-freely-Germany-Merkel-condemns-anti-Semitism-pro-Palestine-protests.html
Aren’t Arabs a Semitic people too? We need a better name for discrimination and abuse toward (((them))).
Meh. Everyone knows what it means.
I had a professor in college indignantly explain Arabs by definition cannot be anti-Semitic and no other discussion of the matter from that point in the course would be entertained.
How about “Jew-hatred/Jew-hating”?
The Germans have a word for it…
Fahrvergnügen?
…Gott sei mit mir.
I’d say it’s just about time for Jews to leave Europe again.
4 miles 90 minutes.
I started down the route for a 5th mile, but I knew I wouldn’t have the endurance for it yet, so I turned for home within the margin of error.
Good work!
Thank you.
Good for you! Now try to pick up the pace a little and rather than increase the distance shorten the time.
My two barely 16 year olds want to move out. They feel we are ‘oppressive and that they can’t live their lives the way they want’.
One spends his measly paycheck on video games and the other ran back to his girlfriend. Anyone want them?
Sending thoughts and prayers your way. My 23 year old was once like that, she is now living with her boyfriend and working part time at a grocery store and barely making ends meet. But she has moved out.
My 20 year old just failed another college course, and decided she’s going to quit school and continue working at Dominoes while living here. Even though she hates our oppressive rules. She will be paying rent soon.
If it’s any consolation, there is a large part of that age group with the same problems you’re having.
Not a new thing, my kids are much older and are barely getting by. Never really got a career going. Retirement is galloping towards them.
When I was young I understood that living at home was great. I hated to leave at 19 but once it was done I found my niche (in the army).
That’s pretty much the definition of living with your parents at 16. Do they have the means to live their lives the way they want? If not, what’s stopping them?
That is what we have started to do. Dinners? Nope, they are for my wife and myself unless you specifically ask for dinner. They will enjoy when I start charging them utilities and internet and rent. You want the real world that badly, its coming.
It is weird. I want them to be independent, however, they don’t even grasp the basic skills. I know where it is coming from too and we can thank Daddy Government for that. They have a few friends that are 18 and living ‘large’ on government dime. I cannot compete with that.
I’m sorry to hear that. The example of their deadbeat friends is probably a strong draw to the dark side.
Ouch. Sorry.
Ugh. My sympathies, buddy.
Thanks. Its just a headache and teen-aged hormones I know.
They have learned that I will shut off their power to their rooms, block the A/C vents, label food (and if need be, lock the fridge).
“As soon as you hit 17, we’ll go down to the recruiter’s office…”
Heh. One has thought of joining, but is lazy. I told him they get that out of you real quick but you have to want it.
As someone posted earlier, if they don’t like it, they can just take the bus home.
Sigh… Yes indeed. “Your mom tells me you like computers; there’s a computer on the Vulcan cannon.” He gushed, while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and showing photo albums of his time as a combat engineer in Hofflinstufffendorf or wherever and the time he saw Van Halen in Berlin.
That recruiter had game!
I remember watching a documentary on Naval carrier operations and one seaman was recounting similar tails from his recruiter while he was mopping the head.
https://www.pbs.org/weta/carrier/full_episodes.htm perhaps?
I think that was it!
I started to watch that – I should get back to it.
As a non-military guy, the difference between enlisted life & officer life was pretty eye opening.
My Dad was an enlisted man in the Navy and told me when I was in high school that if I ever went into the military, I should make sure to do it as an officer or not at all.
That is not bad advice. Had I stayed in, and I pondered it for about ten minutes, It would have been an OCS try for me. In retrospect I should have done it.
More of a difference in the Navy, and at sea.
On land….*shrug*
Can confirm.
Me too.
My thoughts on it were as a BM2 running a 44′ MLB for helo ops training in sideways rain so the really dry warm and comfy officers in the helo above got some high wind and rain training in. Sure we were training for shitty conditions too, but I wasn’t the one warm and dry. I get that in the ground pounder realms even the field officers are in the mud, dust and heat but seriously you never thought you shouldn’t have gone into the air area of whatever idiotic move you made to join the service in the first place? I get they kept you guys alive but never a tinge of jealousy and rethinking ones life knowing that they would be in their nice tent at the air station while you were still trying to figure out where the next asshole who wanted to kill you was?
Get the paperwork for emancipation. Let them know that you will sign it whenever they move out of the house, and you’ll even cover the court filing fees. But that its permanent, and releases you from any obligation to provide any kind of financial support – food rent, college, you name it.
Yeah, but I wouldn’t do that unless I could really follow through. That’s a bluff you don’t want called if it’s just a bluff.
May I gently remind you that your job as a parent is to prepare them to live in this world. And sometimes the world is well prepared to deliver lessons you might not want to do yourself.
I know. I’m just saying if that’s the play you choose, you have to go all in. Making a threat like that and then backing down will destroy a parent’s credibility.
Both would call that bluff so I am with you db, I would have to be all in and that includes my wife and one of the kids real dad.
and one of the kids real dad
Hmm. That changes the dynamics.
That makes it even more complicated, that there are two of them simultaneously. And also that there are external pressures at the adult level, as well.
Yep. Fun times at House OBE. Ill get them out to the lake this weekend but even that is becoming more of they wanting to stay home and beat off to a computer game.
Taking them to the lake? Does that mean you are going to drown them or are you just going to leave them there to see if they find their way home?
https://youtu.be/oSyF–mMyu0?t=12
If they come back, now you can renegotiate as equals.
“House payments are $2K/month. I’ll go easy on you, and say that as the third person living in the house, you owe 1/3. I could have gone with you owe half, because your mother and I are a single household, and you would be the second household.”
“Car needs work and you need it to get to work/school? That sucks. I’ll front you the money at the very good rate of 2% over prime, payable monthly over a year. Or we can set up a revolving loan, where you owe interest every month and 1/12th of the principal. That way we’re all set if, who am I kidding, when you need more money. Sign this promissory note, oh, and this lien on your car.”
We are close to that. They will be getting a bill for things in two weeks as it stands since they both have established their jobs.
So far
“Why do I have restrictions on the internet if I am paying for some of it!” “My house, my rules”
“Why are things labelled now in the fridge?” “Cause I bought them”
So, yeah. Emancipation.
We vaguely explored that option for XY. Rarely if ever happens in Missouri. I mean, there’s a mechanism for it, but it’s almost never granted. Got that from two VERY reliable sources. One source said out of 200 kids he worked with on emancipation, one kid got it—after his 18th birthday. It took over 2 years to get through court.
They’ll be back once their hungry.
See above, they have friends that are getting guv-bucks.
Hmmm. Get them a passport, and leave them in Mexico, the shitty part.
LOL. That is true, they don’t know real hardship.
X 3. My kids came back 1. No job 2. Divorce 3. Need a temp place ’til they (husband and I) get jobs/find a place. These were temp situations.
After my first tour I came home. After about a month my Dad and I had the only father-son talk we ever had.
“Have you thought about getting a job?”
“Yeah, Dad, I’m waiting on orders to go to an electronics school”
I had neglected to tell them I had started the process about 4-5 days after I got home. Another week and I was gone, was always welcomed home when I was on leave for a few days.
Chin up.
My mom used to like telling the story about the time I threatened to sue her for mal-parenting and look how well I turned out!
I remember my son being 16 and thinking he won’t live to see 18 – either by my hand or someone elses.
Dad? Is that you?
Pater Dean eventually shared that with you?
It got shared in real time.
And not without justification. I was a raging prick as a teenager, I freely admit.
I blame my third testicle. Sure, it come in handy now, but man, that first blast of testosterone was something.
There was one time it took every ounce of restraint I had (and probably a bit borrowed) to not deck him. We laugh about it now.
” I was a raging prick as a teenager”
WE were……………….s…………………….s……,
I just had an Uber ride with a bright young chap of 22 years. Our conversation was wide ranging, and it turns out he’s the son of an Afghan refugee from the Soviet war in the early 80s.
Immigrant dad (17 at the time) got shipped off to Bulgaria where he then was imprisoned for criticizing communism and the Bulgarian regime. He was slated to be hanged along with a dozen others, but Germany managed to intercede and got them out.
He languished in an East German “camp” for a while with only an English dictionary to read. Finally when the wall fell, he came to New York and worked like a dog for everything he has now.
So now the dad is wealthy and successful in San Diego, but very depressed that Americans are dabbling in socialism. He’s an avid pro-Trump guy, even though he’s uncouth.
He had to drive through a crowd of BLM idiots in San Diego proper last year and is afraid America is on a downhill slide. His son (my Uber driver) says that dad asks “If the US succumbs to collectivism, where can I flee to for freedom? These fools don’t know the value of what they are throwing away.”
I hope his dad is overly pessimistic but as he says, he’s seen it before: government graft, red tape, bribery, “protection”, all perpetrated by the state through little minded bureaucrats who suck the life from the net contributors.
We need immigrants like that guy, not the hordes of handout seekers who will be stuck together in ghettos managed by lefties.
I have a friend who is from Bulgaria, who was drafted into the army and served with the Soviets. He defected to Sweden, and later came to the US, earning his citizenship years later. He is rather forlorn at what he sees as our country’s slide into socialism. He takes every opportunity to tell us how the things he sees happening in the US mirror what he saw under the Soviet regime. He has spent a large portion of his life trying to escape socialism and now it’s catching up with him again, and he can’t see where else to go to continue running.
My wife says the same thing.
We have thought of running and still might get a backup location for SHTF scenarios. That said, we are probably going to need to fight to take back what is our right here.
Nope. Not a fucking chance. My kid didn’t start being a dick until he was in his 20’s so I lucked out in the teen years. He took after his dad. I was awful to my folks in my early 20’s but was already out on my own and just never kept in touch. They would have to call friends, ex girlfriends and old roommates to find out if I was still alive.
I have a friend who went to the same high school as me, in the 80’s. His family moved around a lot, so one time he told them he was done moving and wanted to stay where he was. He got emancipated, got an apartment, a job, a car, and drove himself to high school every day. I still marvel at that. I can’t imagine anyone doing that, especially not in this decade.
The one son, which is my step, I get it. He has to play both houses and it sucks kids have to do that. The other, which I was able to wrestle from his probably dead by now mother, has those issues to deal with. I was the same way at that age though, I wanted out, but I also enjoyed free food and a roof over my head. So I waited until 18 1/2 before I bolted and it was a terrible rocky road until I was in my late 30s; minus my 6 year spring break in the military.
They feel we are ‘oppressive and that they can’t live their lives the way they want’.
“
I think you probably hit submit too soon but that was my reply to that statement.
*sigh*
“I’m glad you noticed. Baby birds don’t leave the nest because they’re excited about the world. They leave because mom and dad push them out. 500 days and counting until you get to test out your wings”
One thinks he is going to be rooming with 7 of his high school buddies. I applaud that cause it shows a generation that wants to get out into the world and do something and not live in mom’s basement.
However, as we have given advice on roommates and such, they cannot fathom that their friends would just leave them hanging with the rent. “What about when you went out to eat and the one friend said they ‘forgot’ their money?” That isn’t the same dad!
Sounds like a very delicate balance between “it is normal that you feel this way” and “stop being a cocky teenager or you’re gonna get steamrolled by the real world”
12 years until I get to deal with that shit….
I commiserate.
So the tack we’re taking with XX is she can chill here for a couple of months after graduation this week, while she figures out what she wants to do next (she has a problem with becoming easily overwhelmed). When she turns 18, we’ll have another chat. She’ll be able to go full time at Walmart then. As long as she’s here she pays rent and 1/4 of the utilities, plus her car insurance and phone line. She will also pay her copays on doc appointments and for her own rxs.
Are employers that offer health insurance required to provide it as a benefit to employees under 26 now? Honestly asking because I have no idea what the rules are in this ridiculous world.
I don’t know. All I know is she can stay on our health insurance until she’s 26, but I don’t mind because it stays at the “family rate” whether she’s on it or not.
I have encouraged her to get her own health benefits if she can so that she can control what/where/when/how etc. Unfortunately, she’s still hesitant about making her own appointments.
She is getting a taste of the real world. You are a good Mom.
It wasn’t so long ago you were concerned about the kids for other reasons. Sounds like they have grown up a lot in the past couple years. You’re doing a great job, MJ
Thanks, Fourscore. I appreciate that more than you can know.
XY has settled down quite a bit, but things came to a sharp head last summer and fall that (I hope) scared the shit out of him. I haven’t talked a whole lot about that. Also, he’s with a good therapist.
Mr Mojeaux and I have no idea what we’re doing. We try to do what’s best for them, but we are clumsy and ham-handed at best.
I feel like a bit of a fraud saying this since I don’t have kids, and am unlikely to have them, but Fourscore is right.
Your daughter is going to do fine.
It’s good to hear things have settled down with your son.
Thanks, DEG. ?
Mr Mojeaux and I have no idea what we’re doing.
*whispers* I’m pretty sure that’s true of most parents.
What? Why? The US is your biggest trading partner. What a bitch.
FTA:
Because the 50% effective chinese knockoff vaccine was dumped on them as a loss-leader.
Other reason why it’s not 100% from their biggest trading partner
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-12-11/pdf/2020-27455.pdf
Tuesday Tetas!
https://archive.is/Ti979
“A lawyer for the QAnon Shaman who claims his client was following President Trump’s invitation when he stormed the US Capitol says a lot of the MAGA rioters are ‘retarded’ and on the ‘goddamn spectrum’.
Jacob Chansley, the self-described QAnon Shaman who was pictured inside the US Capitol wearing a horned hat, is among those awaiting potential prison sentences after being charged over the January 6 riots.
In an expletive-laden interview with Talking Points Memo, Chansley’s attorney Albert Watkins suggested that his 33-year-old client’s mental state and Trump’s so-called ‘propaganda’ would play a role in his case.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9592693/QAnon-Shamans-lawyer-says-Capitol-rioters-retarded-spectrum.html
IANAL, but I don’t think “my client is an idiot” is a defense.
is among those awaiting potential prison sentences after being charged over the January 6 riots
I like the way we’ve skipped straight to sentencing. Very Red Queen.
QAnon Shaman needs a new lawyer, stat.
He should have a grand time when he gets beefed to the fathers of the bar…
If it was valid, it would be the most popular defense in the country.
Our prisons are not filled with Lex Luthor type criminals.
When my brother was a public defender, he got a steady supply of clients who pretty much blabbed a confession right after being read their Miranda rights.
The most he could hope for in some of these cases was to get the county jail trial waiting time counted as time served so they wouldn’t have to go to state prison and fall into a life of real crime.
My dad the probation officer would laugh about how many times the criminals on his caseload would confess to the cops.
According to him, they would fall for the old “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the whole truth” lie that cops tell suspects over and over. Even though they were currently on probation because the confessed to a cop and instead of helping him, the cop used his testimony against him, it wouldn’t stop them from confessing again.
It’s just remarkable how many people are naive or stupid enough to talk to LEOs without their lawyer present to remind them to STFU. Nothing good comes from talking to cops asking you questions.
a lot of the MAGA rioters are ‘retarded’ and on the ‘goddamn spectrum’.
I laughed.
When it comes to people like Buffalo Guy, he’s probably got a point.
“It has become subject to numerous conspiracy theories including one that state elections officials shredded ballots, fed them to chickens, and then had the chickens incinerated to cover up the evidence. ”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9591657/GOP-official-slams-claim-Arizona-ballots-eaten-chickens-killed-cover-up.html
Bricktop Poultry denies any claims.
That’s a chicken shit theory if I’ve ever heard one.
This old trick again? Find the most ridiculous conspiracy theory and use it to smear the entire thing?
Tedious.
Hey Count, good to see you here and active today, I hope that means you are doing much better.
I don’t know if you saw but I responded to your query late Sunday night California time in the Cake post, the first time I’d seen it — my apologies, but I was working all weekend and hadn’t been able to cruise Glibs.
Oh, hey, I saw that, and thanked you in the next post. Much appreciated. I had two covid tests, the rapid test, then PCR, both negative. Doctor thinks it might have been some other virus? Still, I’m thinking two negative tests that it isn’t covid.
I didn’t know you were into cruising.
Has anyone else noticed a hack to skip the ads on Hulu (not the hack of “paying Hulu to not run ads”)?
When a commercial starts, press the back button to exit viewing. Press play. Hulu will restart at some random point before the commercial break. Press fast forward button until you’re zipping forward at 32x speed, and press play once you’re past the dot indicating the start of the commercial break. Rewind to just after the commercial break, and press play. Viola!
Sounds complicated, but it’s not. Ten to 15 seconds to skip a one and a half minute commercial break.
Hulu is playing on gas pumps now?
I have the unenviable task of notifying a couple of my staff that they are laid off on Thursday.
Can anyone recommend a resource that might help? I’m going through “how to” notification training today, but I am looking for resources on resiliency and on how the people who aren’t laid off can cope healthily.
I remember surviving a layoff years ago and there was a good handout on resilience but I can’t find it now.
Do it on a Friday if you can. Studies have shown it gives a cooling off period.
It’s going to be Thursday. I have very little say in how it goes down. They won’t even tell me what the severance package is.
They also picked the guys they’re laying off my staff while I was out on family medical. I have been fighting like heck to save one of them but to no avail. The company is being short sighted.
I just want my team to be ok and bounce back.
They won’t even tell me what the severance package is.
Your HR Dept sucks.
I have been fighting like heck to save one of them but to no avail.
Donkey balls.
It was a poor reference to a movie. Yeah it sucks laying people off. Gustave said it best, lay out and don’t let the rumor mill churn.
My worst was I had the day off before Turkey day when the rest of the selectees were notified. I came into work T-day (it was a 24/7 operation) to hear from co-workers both the layoffs and that I was one of them. And my management chain was at home enjoying dinner with their family.
It pissed me off at the time but it was actually kind of good. When I got tapped on the should Friday, I was past the shock phase and had a little fun with it at the bosses’ expense (“Oh, what’s this about? I’m not getting fired, am I?” and so on). I still recall the carefully positioned tissue box in the center of the table when I walked into the conference room.
That’s pretty shitty. I was once at a company where we had a round of layoffs. We we all told a week in advance that it would be happening, but not exactly when. On the day of the layoff, we were all told to be at our desks between 0900 and 1000. If the phone rang, we were laid off. If not, we weren’t. That was an excruciating hour, as phones rang all around those of us fortunate (?) enough to keep our jobs, watching the unfortunates walk by on the way to HR.
Unless it’s a company wide thing. Once the notifications start going out, it’s better to rip the bandage off than leave people stewing in rumors.
And for the love of god, don’t be like one of my managers, and express how hard it is to lay someone off during the notice.
I’m sorry HE, one of the worst tasks as a people manger.
Ah shit, that stinks. Are they getting retraining or any sort of transition time, or is it “pack your desk and stop by HR on the way out?”
I haven’t had to lay anyone off yet–I’ve fired people for cause, but never had to deal with telling them their job’s been eliminated, or whatever. There’s a book I read years ago called “Crucial Conversations” that has served me well in difficult discussions with employees, but I haven’t cracked it for years, and can’t remember if there’s anything specific to laying off an employee or if it’s just generalized.
HR isn’t doing the dirty work themselves?
I’m surprised by that. The last two firings I was part of, my role was to be there but let HR do all the talking. (I was there because the firee was one of my direct reports). HR is usually pretty uptight about the prospect of you saying something during the firing that can get the company in legal trouble.
Is the axe dropping because they are not working out? Or because the company can’t afford them anymore?
Company tried to coast through Covid 2020 without layoffs, but we didn’t win a major contract this year that the senior leadership team thought we would.
So too many people on overhead now. Culling the herd.
Are you going to be okay? “Now that you’ve done the dirty work…”
I had an old boss of mine tell me about a contract he was working on in Texas.
The client decided to lay off a huge amount of people. Every manager was given a schedule that pretty much filled up his day with employees who were going to be fired. The manager had to give them the news and get them to sign the necessary forms.
All the fired employees were out in the parking lot drinking beers and getting pissed off.
The last thing on the schedule for the day was for the managers and HR to meet for a debriefing on how things went. When the managers showed up, they were all fired too.
My boss said it might have been for the best. The ex-employees might have beaten the shit out of the managers when they left the building if the managers hadn’t also been fired. My boss said he stayed at his desk until very late because he didn’t want to face the mob.
That sucks. Resiliency for those still employed? Tell the ones who still have a job they are lucky and better shape up.
Sorry – sucks to hear and sucks to be the one to communicate.
Honestly, I think it depends on the employee. I fully recognize I’m an “at will” employee and while PO’d when I got canned my first words were, “what’s the severance?”
Best response I ever got when firing someone (and I was a contractor doing it for a client): “Can I still be on the company softball team?”
I told him I didn’t see why not. And that was a guy I was a bit worried about flying off the handle, so it caught me completely off balance.
Why wouldn’t you just say, “We don’t have enough profitable business coming in, and so it would cost us money to continue employing you”?
When they try to object and bargain, say, “It’s not my call. I can’t change the decision. I’m sorry.”
Then tell the people who still have a job the same thing, and say, “I’d suggest you work your tail off. That’s the best way to keep your job.”
I said the second thing time and again to my coworkers when I was working sales. Most ignored the advice, and were soon gone.
Always be closing.
Sorry.
In one of the acquisitions I survived, the acquiring company pulled the plug on the project I was working on, laid off most everyone on the group, and reassigned the survivors (me being one) to other groups.
Here’s how we found out about it.
On the day the acquisition closed, Word Came Down From On High to managers about whom the company was laying off and whom the company kept. Included was severance information for the laid off folks and information about new job/new manager/whatever-else-was-necessary for those the company was keeping. The information would come down at a particular time.
My whole group was remote. My boss said she’d sort people by time zone (same time zone as her first then working West) and then alphabetically by last name. She’d call everyone. I got the first call.
My boss told me the acquiring company was keeping me. Same salary, new boss. Uhhh….
I asked her what was happening to her. She said, “I don’t get to stay.” I was only able to stammer out “Sorry.” Then she said, “Don’t worry about it. Just warning you, most of the group was laid off. Keep this to yourself until later and remember you are one of the few.”
It was a rather depressing day. The company only kept four of us out of maybe twenty people. One of the four quit during the transition period.
During my two year stint in sales, my 15 or so member team had perhaps 200 people brought onto the team from training who were subsequently fired or, less often, quit.
Firing consisted of management handing the firee a white box to put their personal stuff in, and five minutes later escorted out of the building.
I quit shortly before the company went under, when they yanked the bonuses right before they were scheduled to be handed out.
I got pretty inured to the process. Fatalism FTW.
That bites. I’m sorry, HE.
How often are layoffs done in your company? This is the second year in my five here that we haven’t had a layoff and, frankly, we’re all getting nervous. The other year without a layoff was the year that 50% of the department left of their own volition.
Needless to say, layoffs are viewed as an eventuality in this environment. The most senior person in my department (besides the head of the department) has 10 years with the company. I think the best thing to do is make clear that you’ll provide good references, you’ll leverage your network, whatever it takes to get them in a good position as soon as possible.
I survived two or three rounds of layoffs during the coronavirus panic, and now we’re understaffed and working obscene amounts of overtime.
Ah, the unpleasant “I have some bad news for you” moment. My best: I was newly hired and on my first day was being introduced to my direct reports. My boss said, “When you meet so-and-so, tell him he’s terminated.” Boss then left for lunch off premises. So I got to fire a guy as I met him. He asked “Why” and I said, “Dunno; I was told you weren’t working out. Here’s your severance package, and best of luck.”
Nice boss.
That’s particularly shitty.
Hire George Clooney?
Sorry you have to do that.
All the subsequent stories are depressing as hell.
Running companies is harder than it looks. Most aren’t cut out for it, I think.
HE, since you are here, I laughed my ass off at your redefinition of the DFL.
Thanks for that!
Wait? What?
Dish! I love hearing bad things about the DFL.
Tundra wasn’t supposed to mention it but too late now. Oh well, Jimbo knows it now. Too late….
It was glorious:
Priceless.
Heehee.
It’s tickles me too.
I missed it.
SCIENCE! is what Democrats say it is
A GOP-led revolt over masks is brewing inside the House as the Capitol wrestles with how and when to return to pre-pandemic routines.
Rep. Brian Mast of Florida stood up during a GOP conference meeting Tuesday morning and told his colleagues that he’s “done” wearing masks and will refuse to wear them on the House floor going forward, even if it means being fined, according to multiple sources in the room.
Mast, who has been vaccinated, confirmed his closed-door comments to POLITICO and added that “many” other Republicans have said they will follow suit, teeing up a showdown with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy informed the conference he plans to introduce a privileged motion on the topic Wednesday, though language is still being worked out, sources said.
And Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas and top House Republicans — including McCarthy and committee ranking members — pressed Pelosi in a new letter on Tuesday to ease proxy voting measures and to lift mask mandates in light of the new CDC guidelines released last week, which loosened rules for vaccinated individuals.
“It is time we follow the science, lead by example, and fully return to work to serve the American people,” the letter states.
Nancy and her cabal of Seers will cast the runes and get back to you.
A pissing contest with Pelosi? Yeah, that’s going to go about as well as attempting to knife McConnell in the back (damn turtle shell under his jacket).
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Republicans using the “Follow the Science” trope is just as annoying as when Democrats do it.
Neither party is following shit aside from the political winds.
Please, sir. In this party we believe that Science is real!
Someone here said it best the other day:
“Following the Political Science”
Especially when Science Says “You don’t have to wear a mask, except in certain settings, if you have been vaccinated.”
That assumes a premise which is not Sciency at all – that masks do much of anything. Assuming faulty premises is not Science.
Our HR blankety-blank, who gets her rocks off enforcing the coronavirus shit, went through the office today to inform us mask policy still hasn’t changed.
I’ve seen her alone in her car with her mask on while I’m taking my walk around the building on my afternoon break.
Danville, NH selectmen walk out of meeting
Three Danville selectmen walked out seconds before Monday’s board meeting was about to begin after a mostly maskless audience of about 25 residents defied the local COVID-19 ordinance.
The abrupt departure of selectmen Dottie Billbrough, Kim Farah and Sheila Johannesen followed a 3-2 vote at an April 19 meeting to require masks in all town buildings.
The three supported the mandate. Selectmen Shawn O’Neil and Steve Woitkun, who is the town’s fire chief, opposed the measure.
The crowd should have yelled “We accept your resignations” as they walked out.
^^^ this ^^^
Why did the ones that won the vote walk out?
Because there were unmasked people there who would surely infect them with the Death Rona!
The town charter isn’t a suicide pact.
The heated debate over masks has also been playing out at the committee level. Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), a military doctor who has done vaccine research, raised a parliamentary inquiry about masks during a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on Tuesday.
Green took issue with updated guidance from the Capitol physician, who initially issued advice last week that seemed to suggest masks would no longer be required for committee hearings and meetings. But then on Monday evening, the physician issued revised guidance to clarify that face coverings are indeed still required in such settings.
“Will this committee base its decision on the wearing of the mask in the committee on the science, or on the policy being pushed from the leadership of the House?” Green asked.
I think we can drop any pretense of relying on empirical evidence when making decisions about the plague.
FEELZ, FTW!
NH is #1
Based on data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which analyzed five categories of firearm production (pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns and others), the report identified the states where most firearms are manufactured. In 2019, New Hampshire accounted for the most firearm production of any state, with 1.2 million guns, followed by Missouri, Florida, North Carolina and Mississippi. Those five states made up more than half of all licensed firearms produced in the country.
WTF is a “licensed firearm?”
A gun that knows how to drive?
Starring Corey Haim and Corey Feldman
Journalists aren’t very smart.
If that’s not the understatement of the week, it will do until a better one comes along.
A firearm not manufactured in Indiana?
Winning the new military pistol contract will do that.
IANAL, but I don’t think “my client is an idiot” is a defense.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time, Your honor.”
Make QAnon Shaman a victim of Trump’s mind control tricknology and get him sympathy, a suspended sentence and/or time served, and a circuit on the cable news network apology tour is the likely play.
That is the way I read all that. He is playing on the “propaganda” angle. My thought when reading it was whose propaganda? OMB was not the only one selling shit in that election and half the hard core Trumpistas anger was as much directed at propaganda shelled out by the media as it was a love for Trump during his whole presidency.
I think you’re absolutely right about the strategy. If the whole “insurrection” claim is BS (it is), “getting this guy off the streets” is a minor concern. The key objective would be getting him to re-enforce the “insurrection” claim and get him to contend he did so because Bad Orange Man said so. If he’s willing to sing that tune, he’s more useful free than behind bars. Whether they decide to screw him anyway, if he’s no longer deemed that useful, remains to be seen.
Anyone need some ventilators? I was in the basement of a big hospital today for and unrelated project. Dozens of ventilators stashed down there for historians to find in a couple of centuries.
My wife and I refer to that as The Great Ventilator Shortage of 2020. That’s where elderly patients had their ventilators ripped out to save young people clinging to life.
Just stumbled across this. I kind of dig it.
This sounds interesting.
If you dig that check out Shake Hands With Shorty by the North Mississippi All-Stars (If you already haven’t, I’ve probably linked to them before)
Will do, listening to a Dave Smith youtube thing now.
In the Province of Quebec, the mask mandate will be lift by the end of August, but only if we all play nice and 75% of adults get their 2 doses by then.
That’s going to be a fun summer, won’t be any political pressure at all. And you can be sure that they won’t keep nor make public stats about vaccination. No sire.
Also! In his great gratitude, the PM announced he would lift the curfews on Friday the 28th, just in time for, well, his birthday (26th). What a generous man!
The end of August? Sacre bleu!
The end of August? This year?
Watching the news and there was an normal-ish accident, 3 cars, rush hour, one very bad decision. 2 people died (including the one at fault) and one’s on the edge of death. And here I was feeling sorry for myself about the dents in my car doors.
There but for the grace of God go I.
It’s scary when you realize how much your own life can depend on the decisions and reactions of complete strangers that come together in completely random moments.
Because some asshole decided to pass across a double-yellow line. https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/wreck-shuts-down-u-s-40-highway-in-independence
“Asshole” is right, in that case.
Well, he died, so…karma?
I find it is best not to think about that. Or I would be a masker.
https://twitter.com/SenatorSinema/status/1394772784232927233
Don’t read the comments.
Can’t help myself I always read the comments. She is a bit all over the place isn’t she?
I wonder if she will take it back in shame like that Yang fellow who thinks he has a shot at being NYC’s next mayor.
How many Arabs are there in Arizona who can vote in a Democratic primary?
Well, Yang didn’t take it back because Arabs, he took it back because progs. But yeah, she probably has less to fear on that score too.
She’s been better than expected. Many of those comments are far worse than anything I’ve tweeted, yet somehow they don’t get pushed down to the offensive material section.
Yeah, she has been better than expected. She seems to have a pretty good idea that AZ still has a lot of conservatives and Repubs, and going full proggy would put her outside the margin of fraud for re-election.
Speaking of fraud, I’d love to know how the big Maricopa County audit is going. All I hear is basically rumors, as far as I can tell, that its going like shit (unsealed boxes, ballot counts off, voting machines without passwords for admin access, some really hinky numbers of mail-in ballots v total votes, etc.). One of our lefty columnists had a long article in the paper about how it won’t prove anything because it can’t be “verified”. I’m thinking he doesn’t know how audits work, but the fact that they are trying to pre-emptively discredit it makes me think it actually is going like shit.
Don’t forget: our Secretary of State is a Soros front who called Trump voters neo-Nazis, so I have around zero confidence in the integrity of the election here.
The “establishment” had a presser yesterday and pretty much shat on the whole thing, They released a 17 page report that reportedly refutes a lot of the questions that that Fann? lady was harping about and Trump trumpeted (so to speak), I only skimmed it and it seemed to go into quite a bit of detail about chains of custody and how the ballots are stored etc….someone with more time on their hands and better under standing of routers and passwords and databases than me would have to parse it to determine if it actually answers the questions or is just more bullshit.
Hardly anyone is covering this story.
Releasing a response before the audit is done, to issues raised by a third party, smells of desperation to me.
apparently a lot of their responses are misdirected and don’t relate to the right issues. Such as the chain of custody referring to something different in their document.
The Fann woman brought up these objections before the audit was done, don’t know why responding to accusations as they are brought up is desperation, Anyway Here is the letter, as I said a lot of it is over my head but they seemed to at least on surface answer the questions raised, I’ll leave it up to more informed people than I to determine if they really did or not.
And if it’s not clear “the Fann woman*” is one of the people pushing the audit, not some third party.
* and yes I should call here by her official title and not be a snarky asshole but I’m drunk and I don’t want to look up whatever her official title is (or not be a snarky asshole).
“Other than the timer for my pool pump is no longer working as designed.”
Didn’t I see this in a horror movie? The one without any fancy special effects?
“After nearly four months in office, Kamala Harris faces criticism that she hasn’t struck the right balance, that she’s focused more often on being the United States’ first Black vice president than the first Asian American one”
https://twitter.com/politico/status/1394714730644787201
WTF does that even mean?
From whom does she face this withering criticism? And how will her legacy ever recover?
What’s the advantage of being the first Asian VP? They’re the white people of minorities.
It means the left is chasing its tail again.
Can we just be honest that her real culture is privileged white chick?
She rode a bus to school you monster!
https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2021/05/oregonians-can-go-maskless-outside-must-be-fully-vaccinated-to-forgo-masks-indoors-state-says.html
And the idiots are back to shooting themselves in the foot, and making businesses either be the mask police or get fined/get licenses yanked.
Have any of them even thought this through?
Even New York isn’t being that ridiculous.
Unfortunately, I think they have. They’re loudly saying if businesses don’t want to physically verify paper, then they can leave their blanket mask policy in place.
So fucking ridiculous. On the honor system that a piece of paper is genuine, but can’t do the same for just going maskless. At this point, who cares? I feel like leaving a message, but I’m afraid my profanity will get it ignored rather than ignored because of what I’m saying.
I’ve been listening to this for awhile and I feel I need to smoke a joint. Not something I regularly do.
Hey hey, the Jim Henson Company is hiring puppeteers:
https://twitter.com/hensoncompany/status/1392679812834156549/photo/2
Notice who they are NOT currently seeking. If you’re a white guy who likes vaginas I’m afraid there’s no need to apply.
a/k/a “Saying the quiet part out loud”
The Feds were a little slower than usual in cashing my theft check.
Texas governor just announced that in a month public schools are not allowed to have mask requirements.
of course this will mostly pertain to next school season and summer schoolers but still.