No, just getting over RSV.
Over a week of this @#$%, and I think I am finally pulling out of the RSV lung death-grip. I coughed so much I lost my voice and pulled a couple of rib muscles. Just in time for tonight’s Bears game…my wife will be happy I can only feebly curse the TV, rather than a full shout stream of abuse.
Links are ready, so lets get to it.
- Reminder, there are other flaming crapholes in the world, outside the Middle East and Europe.
- Migrant Distribution Network jammed up.
- Not one parrot or barrel of rum in sight.
- The budget for bribes must be accounted for elsewhere.
Music and Comments are all yours.
Ouch — had a coworker just report that his daughter has it and since his wife apparently has immune deficiencies, he’ll be pulling nursing duty and trying to keep them away from each other for a bit. From the way it hit you, definitely sounds like I’ll be wishing him all the best because he’s in for a rough ride.
Wishes for all the best to you as you pull out of it (STEVE SMITH ONLY PULL OUT OF IT….), Swiss. Happy PC – Load Letter day to you.
Get totally well ASAP, Swissie.
+1 Feel better
Sacramento… San Francisco… Chicago….
Dammit!
Missed this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXhPJEIlY50
Reminder, there are other flaming crapholes in the world, outside the Middle East and Europe.
I was thinking San Francisco before I clicked.
There’s a vaccine for that ya know.
>.>
Comes with myocarditis!
.
Well, all right then…. I just like this one and I don’t think it has gotten play here (or at least not that I recall, Senator…).
Who are they trying to kid? That amount won’t even cover the baksheesh necessary to get IOC officials to award the Games to them.
Indeed, there’s no way they could keep to that budget, even if bribes weren’t required.
That stream of lucre has largely dried up, poor IOC neo-aristocrats. They’ll just have to get by on their inheritances.
“We All We Got”
Please, someone shoot them for crimes against the English language.
Why should any government money go towards these people? Just because they make themselves a nuisance? *Grumbles*
‘U.S. captures 5 in attempted pirating of commercial ship in Gulf of Aden’
Shoot to kill… Sigh.
Since Switzerland is already a winter sports hub, Swiss officials said they are aiming to keep costs down by using existing venues or refurbishing existing venues. They also said they would use existing accommodation rather than building a whole new games village.
Put them in igloos. They can huddle together for warmth.
From what I understand, lots of Olympians huddle in pairs – for warmth.
Young, impossibly fit, single people. huddling? You’re kidding.
Sometime 3 at a time, for extra warmth.
If “you build it” they may not come anyway.
Some one can have my seat
Reminder, there are other flaming crapholes in the world, outside the Middle East and Europe.
The Norks are reportedly moving heavy hardware to the DMZ.
For the diversionary attack on behalf of the Chinese before the Chinese invade Taiwan?
Oh great, can’t wait for Biden to make another tough guy speech and make the situation worse.
You mean they’re not concerned about what president pudding cup might do?
I got the impression that our State / CIA was doing their usual left-wing coup routine when the Myanmar military got fed up and took over. Now I’ll bet we are funding the “rebels”.
The idea is to surround China with countries allied to us (even though it is in direct opposition to their own interests). Similar to the what we tried with the Russians. The Thais and Burmese will be like Asian Lithuanians and Ukrainians poking the Chinese Dragon instead of the Bear.
If there’s unrest in a neutral or unfriendly nation there’s a damn good chance we’re dipping our dick in the soup.
“Past Performance Is Not Indicative Of Future Results”
I wouldn’t bet on it, we seem to get the same end results over and over…
How censorship is going on Youtube
https://twitter.com/scrowder/status/1729227588244037784
Crowder cohosted a segment with Dan Bongino. Bongino was banned by YouTube in 2022. Co-creating content with banned people is not allowed. (Interesting loophole… YouTube can choose to allow banned people if they want to… so you can post videos of Trump and criticize him, for instance)
Anyway, I looked up the Bongino ban. He was banned for questioning the effectiveness of masks. YouTube said he was spreading misinformation.
https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/dan-bongino-youtube-ban-1235164492/
Interesting that YouTube is standing by that ban, since everyone now acknowledges that the science says Bongino was correct. I mean, this was known before the pandemic, so it was always misinformation to claim cloth masks were effective against upper respiratory viruses. But standing by a ban on “misinformation” when it has been proven and accepted even by YouTube that it was not misinformation is pretty ballsy.
Some slimy nerd decided he or she didn’t like a person and therefore bans them. It isn’t like that nerd is ever going to get called out – they are totally anonymous. What might you do with anonymity and immunity?
Sewer
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has announced she is quitting X, formerly Twitter, calling it a “gigantic global sewer” that is “destroying our democracies” by spreading abuse and misinformation.
After buying Twitter in 2022, the billionaire Elon Musk laid off thousands of employees, including many who moderated content on the platform. Rebranded as X, it has lost several major advertisers and has been criticised, including by the White House, for not doing enough to curtail antisemitism.
“I have made the decision to leave Twitter,” Hidalgo wrote in lengthy posts in English and French on Monday, citing manipulation, disinformation, antisemitism and attacks on scientists, climatologists, women and liberals.
“Twitter, far from being the groundbreaking medium that initially made information accessible to the greatest possible number of people, has in recent years become an impressive tool for destroying our democracies,” she added.
Adios, muchacha.
Read: “they wouldn’t enforce my censorship preferences as a matter of policy. Worse, I got community notes when I lied on X.”
Funny I’ve called it a sewer as well. Not because of the misinformation but because of the people who use it.
Stamp those feet!
You can light a stadium on the moon from all the signaling over “X”.
“ This medium has become a gigantic global sewer, and we should continue to wade into it?” said the Socialist politician, whose failed bid for the French presidency garnered 1.7% of the vote in 2022.
That is a GREAT way of describing her importance in the world.
I’ll agree that it is a sewer, because that’s what people have made of it. And it’s been that way a long time – long, long before Musk bought it. They just liked playing in that shit.
In presidential campaign news, Biden is running Spanish language TV ads that begin with poverty and despair in Venezuela – and Biden is fighting against dictatorship, for democracy and freedom in Venezuela.
Interesting strategy.
Let in a couple million refugees who cannot legally vote… then advertise to them that you are fighting for democracy in Venezuela?
Interesting…
Tried to find a copy of the ad on Google. No luck. Lots of glowing press about how great Biden’s strategy is for Latino votes.
So I went to the campaign website. Nothing there. They ask for money, that is about it.
Their slogan… “let’s finish the job”
Oof.
“let’s finish the job”
The threats are getting more direct.
There is a solution that will not require another one after it.
Direct appeals for more illegals. That’s ballsy.
I guess the economic miracle is over…
https://www.salon.com/2013/03/06/hugo_chavezs_economic_miracle/
Other people’s money ran out
Hiya Swiss…glad to see you linking. You didna sound super great this weekend
From what I understand, lots of Olympians huddle in pairs – for warmth.
I have been told freestyle huddling is the most popular Olympic event.
Not Greco-Roman?
Since Switzerland is already a winter sports hub, Swiss officials said they are aiming to keep costs down by using existing venues or refurbishing existing venues. They also said they would use existing accommodation rather than building a whole new games village.
Get with the program. That cuts down on graft/grift/bribery opportunities.
Your lungs have been STEVE SMITHED?
So… Covered with hair?
I was buttonholed by my neighbor (late of the Ornithology Department at Big College) this afternoon. Apparently, he and a couple of grad students had spent the summer in Missouri researching the range of North America’s smallest falcon. They would capture the birds alive, affix a small RFID transmitter to them, and track their movements over time to establish if they were nomadic or territorial.
They were making some progress, when one of them decided to check the time stamps on the critters flights. What they found astonished them.
It’s evidently been canon in bird circles that owls were the only nocturnal raptors in this part of the world. That count just went up by one.
The little falcons pounce on prey at any time — not just daytime, because instead of just roosting at night, All Kestrels Manoeuvre in the Dark.
*narrows gaze*
Fair, but props to Shpip for doing that on a Swiss post.
I was the last to figure it out but I have an explanation.
Indeed. That was a long road to travel. But it was rewarded by a narrowed gaze. Worth it.
Booooo! Booooo! Boo.
o.O
A. That was a long way to go to intro that video
B. Using “buttonhole” as a metaphor in a post about pigeon-eating raptors instead of the more common “pigeon hole” formulation was an odd choice.
Enraptoring!
OMFG dude!
Those are beautiful birds. The pun, not as much.
it will be the cheapest Winter Olympics ever — after adjusting for inflation
I’m gonna need to see the math on that one. “Strains credulity” is an understatement.
NYC law banning discrimination based on height and weight goes into effect
https://nypost.com/2023/11/26/metro/nyc-law-banning-discrimination-based-on-height-weight-goes-takes-effect/
Also mentions NJ doesn’t want to be left behind NY. Aside from the feels – this should be fun. Since I’m below average height for a man does this mean that if I’m denied a raise or promotion I’ve got a case?
All I know is the Trial Bar should be happy, but I see l else.
Shit, man – I’m short-ish, over 50 and Irish. I gotta have some sorta grounds for a discrimination lawsuit. The American Dream!
Boy are the Knicks going to suck.
winner
I don’t want any of that Tres bait crawling around my attic.
Ten thousand lawyers just got so fucking drunk with glee, they could not be reached for comment.
Be nice if the article you know, cited the fucking law so people can go read it.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/media/height-and-weight.page.page
Not the actual text but we (well NYC citizens) pay for this shit.
Thinking of all of the time I wasted staying in shape while I was in the NJ National Guard…
The 400 pound sewer workers are going to have a pie job.
I never get tired of midget flight attendants.
The carve-outs must be glorious to read. Climbing gear has weight/height min/max… That 5’0 140lb worker being denied the promotion to a lineman? Lawsuit! The 265lb man requesting to be able to be confined space trained to clean out tanks? Lawsuit!
Here come the 300-pound Hooters girls.
Stop getting me excited here.
I see we are back to “You’re not fat, you’re big-boned!”
Why not both?
I’m both fat and big-boned. Seriously, my skeleton is huge, and I’m fat.
Amateur wing walker
A Southwest Airlines passenger has been taken to a hospital for an evaluation after he opened the plane’s emergency exit hatch and exited onto the plane’s wing on Sunday, officials said.
The incident happened at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport as the plane was still at the skyway and was not moving, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office said.
It’s not clear what prompted the passenger to open the emergency exit.
Maybe he saw a furry hominid out there.
Pish tosh. There is no “running out of money”.
I’m not following any of this. How can I twist it to fit my radical politics?
Silly UnCivil. It says “It’s Monday”
???
All you New Yorkers look alike.
“You”? Join the club, pal.
Yemen was once divided between a communist ruled sector and a democratic ruled sector.
Then they split on religion and sponsorship (Iran v. Saudi) in a great advance for humanity.
Did they at least ditch the communism?
Now that’s something I can work with!
Uncompetitive
Volkswagen’s original brand is “no longer competitive,” the company’s brand chief warned Monday, owing to high costs and low productivity.
“With many of our pre-existing structures, processes and high costs, we are no longer competitive as the Volkswagen brand,” Thomas Schaefer told staff during a meeting at the German carmaker’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, according to a post on the company’s intranet site seen by Reuters.’
——-
Volkswagen Group owns several brands including Porsche, Audi and its original brand Volkswagen, founded in 1937.
Among VW Group’s mass-market brands, including Škoda, based in the Czech Republic and Seat, based in Spain, the VW brand had the highest sales volumes, by far, but the lowest operating profit margins during the first three months of this year, according to a corporate presentation.
VW Group hopes to increase the VW brand’s return on sales from 3.6% last year to 6.5% by 2026, according to an investor presentation.
Don’t they own Bentley? They should focus on the Bentley flying car.
And also the ground version.
Do you know who else was concerned with Volkswagen’s bottom line?
Nicklas Bendtner?
The lever arm that controls the drain stopper on my bathroom sink has rusted out. Anyone got a recommendation for a replacement? I don’t want to change the faucet, or do more plumbing than I had to.
Oh, good, looks like I can just swap the pivot arm. $8 part, screws in
Phew
I was able to push the excess remaining rod through the plastic pivot ball and get another 5 years or so out of mine before I had to buy the replacement part.
I just got a new one and swapped out the part. I feel better now that I understand how the internals of that drain work.
Just stop using it. Get a rubber plug.
But… I just fixed it.
Glad we could help, Unciv. We’re always here to lend a hand.
Yeah, I really feel like we handled that well.
Speaking of plumbing. OBE 4, New Kitchen Sink and Plumbing 3. It was a close game but I really dug deep and found a way to pull out the win
Woohoo
I know my plumbing task was much smaller in scope and difficulty.
I’m glad you managed to get everything working.
The worst thing was I was so done with dealing with it yesterday that I thought I had the wrong size. So I swung by the store to get what I thought I needed and while there, after a night’s rest, thought… Let’s try that piece again, it SHOULD work. It did. Took me 30 more minutes to finish it up. Its a single basin sink and I will never go back to a split basin.
You guys are like whatever the opposite of nerds are.
I can’t ever remember needing to fill my bathroom sink for any reason, so I never use the drain stopper. When the arm rusted away, I just pulled out the drain stopper, threw it away, and haven’t missed it at all. Fourscore’s solution below seems to be the most practical.
I don’t like the gaping hole of dropping things down the drain at the bottom of the sink.
So, it is official. My cold, which I thought I had cast off last week, has circled around and now I feel like crap again.
I blame islamophobia.
I had this recently. Probably covid.
Then I went out drinking and was fine the next day.
Whiskey cured it. I recommend mandatory whiskey vaccinations for everyone. Particularly children and the elderly.
*eye roll*
Listening to a candidate for a a mid-level admin position at our school. Some interesting thoughts, BUT, so very predictable in many ways: college grads make more money; universities are under attack by people who really don’t understand what we do. But the new selling point (which I’ve heard from other candidates) is that college grads are more likely to go into public service and vote.
Sorry about the RSV, Swissy. That’s a nasty one.
Big deal. I’ve been battling seconder’s disease for a week now and no one sees me complaining. And I’ve still been Firsting.
As the zoomies know, I drink water almost exclusively. I love water. However, after stomach surgery, I am only supposed to SIP at my water. This is a problem for someone who used to be able to chug a quart or two. Anyway, so sometimes I forget that I’m supposed to SIP. I forgot just now. It hurts. So bad.
Even for someone who hasn’t had surgery it just sometimes tastes so refreshing that you’ll endure the pain of instantly putting 16-24 ounces of water in your belly.
universities are under attack by people who really don’t understand what we do.
The ones to look out for re the ones who understand exactly what it is universities have been up to.
I know there are some Doctor Who fans on here. For the love of god or at least your own sanity, stay away from the new run.
When the BBC’s own review of the show is that it’s no more than a delivery system for The Message (yes, The Drinker’s phrase made it into a BBC review of Doctor Who), it can’t possibly get much worse. Even the progs are finding this all a bit tiresome at this point, though they are loath to admit it.
And what the fuck is this?
I stopped two doctors ago.
I think some people had hope for this because it was bringing back familiar faces. At least a hope that they’d try to repair the damage done and extend an olive branch to old fans.
That was horribly naive in modern day as this thing appears to double down on everything killing the show and serve as a giant fuck you. Though the show runner also is willing to just directly tell old fans to go fuck themselves, as well.
Yes, it was absolutely inevitable. Everything you used to know is getting shit on.
The socialist BBC can afford to make loss leaders to push their odious message. They have all of Britain’s money.
Yeah — I certainly wasn’t going to sign up for Disney+ for it, but I was holding out some hope with Davies and Tennant coming back that there would be at least decent writing and characters again.
Everything I’ve heard and the clips I’ve seen make it clear that was naive.
And then I saw that when Davies made Davros walking around in the Red Nose Special it wasn’t because he was younger, hadn’t been exposed to radiation yet / didn’t need the life support (as I assumed, though it didn’t entirely fit with the “Mark 3 travel pod” (aka Dalek chassis) being designed yet… Davros in Genesis of the Daleks pretty clearly trotted out the Mark 3 as a new thing, and he had been incapacitated for years at that point.
But no — the man is on camera stating that he did it because he didn’t want people to associate people with disabilities with evil.
At that point I realized he’d gone so incredibly fucking stupid there’s no hope. I’m sure the Beeb is full of writers just like him — it doesn’t matter. So, relapsing to “don’t care anymore”. I still have the old shows to watch.
Sure, everyone was thinking “Getting confined to that chair certainly made him evil”
No, wait, only stupid people would think something like that.
I reviewed a book (on a very popular blog) once where the villain was in a wheelchair. He was an asshole before he broke his back in a rock climbing accident.
Anyway, people were upset about how I characterized the guy as an asshole because apparently, people in wheelchairs can’t be assholes.
I take it they didn’t know many people in wheelchairs.
Turns out… they’re people. Assholes, saints, evil, good, the only thing about them being in a wheelchair is that stairs are a problem.
The loudest screamer was somebody who professed to be wheelchair-bound.
By the way, the NuSpeak is “wheelchair user,” which implies to me that everybody who uses a wheelchair can choose when they want to use it.
So, the assessment of the “wheelchair-user” being an asshole must have struck too close to home for them.
😛
She frequently proved that wheelchair users could be assholes. I’m not sure she had a setting that wasn’t “asshole.”
I stopped after Capaldi.
I wandered away sometime during his run.
Me too.
I think I dropped out before Capaldi’s last. By that point the overarching plot was so contrived I had no idea what was going on.
Stuck it out through Capaldi and the first couple of episodes with Whittaker (she’d been OK in Broadchurch) but then gave up and checked out.
Her standard getup reminded me of Mork
LOL I’ll never unsee that
I stopped at the theme music.
I take that back. I stopped before companion Bill.
Yeah, Bill was remarkably forgettable.
I left well before then, as I still couldn’t stand Clara.
I loved Clara. I couldn’t stand Amy.
Not as much as I loved Donna Noble. BEST companion.
THIS IS UNDISPUTABLE TRUTH!!
(Honorable Mention to Sarah Jane Smith)
Only of NuWho.
How can you be so wrong, GT!?
It’s clearly the other way around.
I have really, really tried to watch episodes of Classic Who, and I almost always fall asleep. 😕
Of course, as we have this discussion I’m watching “Horror of Fang Rock” where Leela gets the bright idea of hunting a fog monster with a knife.
So instead of minis I should have brought a collection of classic who serials?
Better Leela moment:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YKKvHxD_FmI
No, you did the right thing.
I prefer the pace of original Who.
NuWho gets way too frantic.
Got as far as “my pronouns are”.
Yup, dead. D-e-d spells dead.
Just say No to NuWho.
There were a handful of individual expisodes where the storytelling got good.
There were a lot where it did not.
If I’m hearing some of that correctly – I hate vids so I was just skipping around – this sounds like NuNuWho.
NuWho was quite good for long stretches. It slowly got worse over the years.
The rehabilitation of JNT continues.
No, he was still a coked up madman.
Purposeful or just the state of ‘education’ in America? You decide.
https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1729234939315687488
¿Por qué no los dos?
The only way it would be able to stand I guess and the only way that it is attributed to Reagan and not just some witticism that was floating around and he captured it and branded it.
It’s the slush fund, stupid
Electric vehicles are a “hoax,” they do not work, and they are strengthening China’s economy at the expense of American jobs.
Those are among the criticisms that contenders for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, including former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, have leveled on the campaign trail in recent weeks.
But while EVs have emerged as a common foe for Republicans seeking the country’s top job, they are increasingly a source of tax revenue and employment in the states that will determine the winner of the 2024 presidential election.
That has created a potential opportunity that President Joe Biden and some Democratic congressional candidates are seeking to exploit to win support before next November’s vote, according to 25 Democratic and Republican strategists, local officials, labor leaders and a review of campaign literature.
There have been roughly $128 billion in investments in domestic EV and battery manufacturing announced since the 2022 passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA. That law, supported by Biden and congressional Democrats, created tax credits to boost domestic EV manufacturing.
I don’t believe that’s the winning strategy you think it is.
“investments”
What’s the ROI on those, pray tell?
Votes for Democrats. It’s the first play in the Democratic playbook. Create a slush fund, welfare program, or subsidy that gets some demographic reliant on you for its next fix and then cry bloody murder when the evil Republican threatens to cut it off.
Suckers! I took the tax credit and still don’t support the assholes.
It’s a numbers game.
On agregate, spread enough other people’s money around, you’ll buy the support you need.
Middle America thought the Biden campaign was out of touch, but then they started banging the drum for electric vehicles and won in a landslide.
I don’t know about “hoax”, but they are absolutely doing this:
Those billions of dollars they’re throwing out the window won’t mean jack unless the US gets serious and starts strip-mining the landscape for the required minerals the way China does.
From time to time I wonder why I own next to nothing from Mac/Apple. And then I hear this.
What if I believe in it but don’t think it’s a big deal and don’t think the government can successfully do anything about it?
Then you are a filthy heretic who shall be burned at the stake in the name of reducing your carbon footprint!
I think my favorite chart is the diagonal line graph of co2 emissions with the dates of famous climate agreements dropped upon it.
As far as one can tell, not a single molecule of global co2 has been prevented by any government or intergovernmental policy.
You know when he says “climate change” he means the full monty “humans bad; repent sinner” bullshit.
Did he say it from the depths of his titanium and lithium strip mines in China?
lol
Boom.
That’s real? All I see is a screenshot.
You are right to be concerned. This is the closest to the alleged claim from Cook. It’s from 2014.
Which actually is fair i guess.
Well, fuck him. I don’t give a shit about Climate plus ca change, and I use an iPhone.
Keep using it. You don’t want to that Uighur slave labor to have been in vain.
Am I “a part of Apple” if I buy one of their products?
Apple CEO Tim Cook says if you don’t believe in Climate change he doesn’t want you being a part of Apple.
Do they make you sign a loyalty oath when you buy an iphone or mac?
Ok! I just got a de-googled phone to play with. Once I get maps working in the car, he can fuck off.
We are an Android family, Samsung in specific.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is on tonight, 7 central on CBS, for those of us GenXers who need a nostalgia fix.
Second only to the original animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas for best classic Christmas special. 👍
A Charlie Brown Christmas waves hello.
I’m as cynical and sarcastic as they come, but Linus’s monologue from Luke II makes the room all dusty every year.
I only like shows these days with positive whole male role models.
Like Napoleon and Killers of the Flower Moon.
goddamit
white male
fuck this apple phone
Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is bullshit.
Apparently both films had a remarkably similar opinion of the historical figure too.
Everyone knows the one true Napoleon is… Dennis Hopper.
I figured “whole male” as opposed to castrati.
My question: RSV has been around forever, but I’m only now hearing of adults getting really sick with it (it’s always been an issue for infants).
Has the bug mutated? Is this just hangover from trying to make RSV the Next Pandemic (as in, they are testing for it now and sort of fronting the disease in a way they didn’t)? Are people’s immune systems getting weaker?
Covid made people weaker?
Covid vaccine made people weaker?