Nothing much happening in sports this side of the pond.But on the other side of it, there were some earth-shattering fireworks in the champions league, as Arsenal dismantled Real Madrid in their first leg. Let’s see if they have enough Bernebeau magic to come back from 3-0 down. And Inter hopped out to a 2-1 lead in their QF matchup with Bayern. The other two first legs are today. Right, now on to…the links!
I wish they’d have started doing this earlier. But it’s good that they’re finally getting around to doing their job.
Good, then quit. Heaven forbid your agency would share information about potential lawbreaking.
Why don’t you go fuck yourself. You didn’t have the balls to stand up and tell the truth for four years, you sniveling piece of shit. You’re not brave for speaking out now. It was your job and you deliberately refused to do it.
Then the word “star” doesn’t really apply. Does it?
Ah yes, government efficiency. I guess they were too busy promoting cross-dressing luggage thieves to do their job.
Follow the law, dummies. Discrimination is illegal.
LOL, the pettiness. I can’t wait for the lawsuit where they demand to be allowed to ask a question. I’m sure it’s coming.
I wonder why this didn’t get more coverage. Maybe the letter after her name had something to do with it.
Going where the money is. Their shareholders will be happy. Short term, anyway. But they should probably step up security around their facilities, since the tolerant left ain’t gonna like this one bit.
Thank the Lord! Maybe now we can get rid of that assclown.
In honor of Clem Burke’s passing Monday. What an absolute masterclass in that video. He doesn’t feature as much in this song. But it’s still fantastic. Enjoy them both.
And enjoy this lovely Wednesday, dear friends.
IOW: “Chill out and enjoy the 6 month vacation before we reinstate you with full back pay once the case works its way up to us.”
Pre 2020, I would have thought that big of a slap in the face would lead to lamp posts.
Now, I kind of expect it.
So, looks like you are a Berne Bro after all.
“In honor of Clem Burke’s passing Monday. ”
Sorry, I’m just hearing this now. Whether you agree, he was a fantastic drummer.
RIP
I just heard it yesterday afternoon. What a bummer. Cancer sucks.
Cancer really sucks because it won’t take the right ones – like Raskin.
I assume part of their argument is that it will push criminal activity completely into black market areas. Because before — if you were sure the IRS wasn’t going to share details of your income, you at least wouldn’t be Al Capone’d as well as worrying about covering up your criminal acts. Similarly, “As long as they’re here — we want
to get our beaks wetto ensure they pay their fair share of taxes!”Morning, Sloopy… I suppose we should be glad the Champions League isn’t run by Marvin… keep those fireworks just below earth shattering, guys!
I, for one, respect the IRS’ principled stand of protecting taxpayer privacy. The fact that they have been so fastidious about guarding against data breaches and the selective leaking of high-profile taxpayers’ returns to the media is evidence of their sincerity and unimpeachable ethical standards on this matter.
I’m also impressed with their data security measures and that no faulty record keeping has ever prevented Congressional or public oversight or potential criminal investigations into misconduct. A shining beacon of data management, they are…
::rousing applause::
Of course not — there’s book tour money to be made… one last grift off the pathetic old husk of a man now that they and Frau Doktor Jill are done with him.
“We were completely mislead and hoodwinked for four years, here’s our tell all book about it!”
Plausible strategy when your audience has the attention span of a meth-addled fruit fly.
It was a noble lie.
“Tiffany Chan, who boasts accounts on multiple sites including OnlyFans, admitted that she’s been struggling to earn an income selling erotic art on Patreon.”
Why is this even a story?
Is she hot? Do they have pics?
One full body pic with clothes.
Ah, and then you get a pitch for “Daily Mail Premium” if you want to see the good stuff.
No idea. I only posted it because I didn’t want to bother with the fifty tariff pieces they did and that was one of the few other things on their front page.
Sounds rough. That must be exactly how Bach fault sending his brown-nosing letters to the Margrave of Brandenburg.
But hey, if you’re only in it for the happiness, I hear there are lots of places on the internet where you can give away your erotic art to horny dudes for free.
and wake up the next day to create what I can because it’s my source of happiness… happiness comes as a steep cost these days. Too high a cost for today.
That sounds like the opposite of happiness. Somebody ought to give this camho a dictionary.
Until it’s disturbed, asbestos poses less threat to schoolchildren than the carcinogenic radiation they’d be exposed to by the sun, if they were still allowed to walk to school.
Hah! I know of one factory that actually processed raw asbestos. In fifty years, they never had one employee file a workers comp claim related to asbestos exposure. I bet 99 percent of all asbestos injury claims made were tort lawyer grifting.
Depends where they primarily sourced it. Certain mines and types were much more friable than others.
Given my experience on the claims side I’d definitely call it a real risk. Smoking also greatly increased the risk. (Bonus for asbestos used in cigarette filters for years!)
However, encapsulated asbestos is safe, but we’ve created a whole industry remediating where it doesn’t need to be done.
In high school (late ‘70s) I worked maintenance in a processing plant one summer. They had steam lines that apparently needed to be insulated. With asbestos. So they gave me a bag of asbestos (probably some other stuff in there), told me to wet it down and pack it on the steam lines. When dry, it was plenty dusty. No respirators, of course. No asbestosis so far.
In the fourth grade everyone in class had to do a report on a rock/mineral. The teacher gave me a chunk of asbestos. Of course I started picking at it.
The asbestos is far less harmful than the education.
Stephanopoulos made his bones lying to the American people in support of (D)s. Which made him perfect for ABC news.
NPR had a NYT hack on this morning lamenting ABC settled that lawsuit ’cause all Stevie had done was “get a fact wrong.”
I recall he “got a fact wrong” several times, on air, after being told not to.
Trump got a fact “wrong” on his loan application.
Real estate appraisal values are opinions. The appraisers are crystal clear on that in their written reports.
Maybe I should have put “fact” in sneer quotes, too.
Who knows — the misleading headline is clarified in the beginning of the article (which is about as far as I could read). She only makes the pittance on her Patreon memberships. She may well make a lot via OnlyHoes presumably.
Or alternatively, give out your affirmative action spots out of your endowment instead of sticking taxpayers with the bill for your magnanimity.
That’s the other DoE… (I admit, I hovered the link and immediately wondered why in God’s green Earth the Department of Energy was doing asbestos inspections… for that matter, even clarified it still makes no sense…. surely that’s sufficiently handled at the state level in the worst case… local otherwise?)
Shit. This is what I get for being too lazy to read the actual article.
But I’m sure the same applies to the Dept of Ed. Less the luggage thievery, anyway.
It’s the city DOE according to the article.
That makes more sense — my bad for only skimming the start.
STILL APPLIES!
And yes, I continue commenting without reading the article. I’m lazy, but at least I’m opinionated.
Worse, since this is the richest effing city on the continent with a wholly-owned uniparty government.
“Waaah… but we (and a lot of Corporate America) have gotten away with it for DECADES… as longs as it is the right discrimination! Discriminatory hiring policies is our strength!
In their defense, discrimination laws are bullshit, and they should be allowed to proudly advertise “no honkies allowed, and take it easy on the squinties while you’re at it” so that everyone is perfectly clear that they’re racist pieces of shit. But then, taxpayer-financed degrees are also bullshit, and they should be allowed to exercise their right to be racist pieces of shit on their own dime.
I’ve never liked the approach (which I don’t think you are advocating, Pat), that “Law X is bad, so it’s an incremental improvement to not apply it to everyone”.
R C Dean:
That’s one of my complaints about selective prosecution. If there’s too many laws for the prosecutors and police to enforce, maybe get rid of the ones that don’t do any good when applied strictly?
Every law should be zealously applied across the board. Selective prosecution is why we end up with shitty laws being kept on the books rather than overturned and the shitty people who wrote them thrown out of office on their asses.
I agree in principle, and wouldn’t support any carveouts for higher ed for discrimination, certainly – I just think the law itself is an immoral form of thought policing.
If a law isn’t universal it shouldn’t be a law, which is why protected classes are such a farce. But in some instances, I don’t necessarily mind limited relief from bad policy, even while I’d rather see broader changes. Weed legalization instead of abolishing drug controls, for example, or accelerated depreciation giving some industries more favorable tax treatment due to their unique capex requirements.
Start a “rental car” service nearby, pick up a chunk of Hertz’s fleet of Teslas they’re trying to get rid of — and distract them like a Mexico City matador.
I’m going to disagree with you on the IRS. Easy communication/coordination is the highway to the Panopticon. If you thought debanking was bad, just wait until politicians get to use the IRS to automatically withold whatever fines/taxes/badthinkful punishments before it even gets paid to you.
just wait until politicians get to use the IRS to automatically withold whatever fines/taxes/badthinkful punishments before it even gets paid to you.
What, like they’ve been doing already for years?
They haven’t though. Not to extent that I can forsee.
I have to pay my taxes to the town and county and school district. I’m sure they’d rather the IRS take care of that.
Just think if speeding tickets could just be witheld from your paycheck!
And of course, since wypipo are benefitting from systems of oppression it’s only fair that their employers divert part of “their” putative paycheck to the Federal/State/County/Municipal/HOA/United Nations reparations fund.
Pffft… as if they haven’t built the frameworks and “transaction tagging” to outsource it all to the banks already so they can report you or lock up your funds for “suspicious activity”.
Gun control measures in our country, counter-terrorism around the world and Trudeau blazing the trail in Canada…. they know what they’re doing.
NA, I hear you, but I don’t believe that the Usual Suspects are going to say “Well, we wouldn’t have used the IRS that way unless Trump did it first.” I’m not thrilled with this development, but not because it will open the floodgates to abuse of the IRS that people have been holding back on out of their devotion to principles of limited government.
It’s not the principles of limited government that have restrained the abuse so far, it’s existence bias and the general anti-creativity of the bureaucratic caste. Putting “the IRS is a tool of other government entities” into the “normal, thing that exists” box is another click in the rachet.
I mean, yes: eventually there is going to need to be a hard and bloody reset of the limits of government overreach, but I’m not an accelerationist.
So, so many people this could have been about.
Could be a case of an identical ass just with a different clown nose on it.
“As a matter of policy, I don’t respond to people who use pronouns in their signatures as it shows they ignore scientific realities and therefore ignore facts,”
LOL
He’s a grandstander, but sometimes that’s necessary. And the impeachment was more about the internecine retardation of the Texas GOP than anything else, it seemed like. That said, I doubt he’ll be remarkably different from Cornyn once in office, should he succeed (and he probably won’t).
Oh, I was referring to Cornyn the assclown. Paxton would be a massive upgrade. Hell, almost anybody in Texas politics would be a massive upgrade over that milquetoast douche aside from Eyepatch McCain.
I don’t follow state politics here as closely as I ought to, but from what I’ve been able to glean, the state GOP is kind of a weird combination of southern gentry, Rockefeller Republican graft, and Illinois corruption. I wouldn’t mind seeing Cornyn finally able to spend more time with his family…
You are correct Pat. Lots of TX republicans that are secretly democrats are in the ranks too. It’s quite annoying. Half the time is spent preening about social issues and B.S. instead of reducing size and scope of government and hence our property taxes. Just like Florida.
Hell, the TX House is run by a ringer who won the leadership election only because the Dems voted for him. And you know he owes them big for that. He has been instrumental in blocking anything that impairs the quasi-monopoly of government schools and teacher unions.
Johnny Rotten is right: Hamas is a gang of ‘Jew exterminators’
That’s true to form for Lydon and I love him for that.
I saw that there’s some version of the Sex Pistols touring… without Johnny.
The punk scene is really sensitive to accusations of Antisemitism, you know… what with the whole Nazi punks, bonehead movements, and the like. It wasn’t a rock and roll show where I saw a crowd turn away from a band shouting for a free Palestine.
There was a lot of Nazi imagery in early British punk and post-punk, due mostly to wanting to shock and take the piss from the older generation. Band names like The London SS (Mick Jones was a member), Spandau Ballet (named after the dance a body does when machinegunned at the infamous prison), Joy Division (named from women forced sexual slavery in wartime Germany), etc.
“That means the overwhelming majority of jobless men nowadays are NILFs (for “not in labor force”).”
https://nypost.com/2025/04/08/opinion/7-million-young-men-dont-want-to-work-we-must-force-them/
As reported by the BBC?
So, after they get a job, do they become MILF’s? Man in labor force?
Creditable Upstanding New Taxpayers!
They’re not using the NEET designation anymore?
Well, dammit.
NILFs gets more clicks for some reason…
Great interview with the author from a couple years back
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/376-all-the-unemployed-young-dudes
The fact that the numbers keep going up, regardless of the state of economy, is troubling. It points to a serious cultural problem
Horrible reportage. If they had visited r9k they would know the correct term is NEET (“Not in Education, Employment, or Training”).
Akushally, NIITO…
https://jlearn.net/dictionary/%EF%BC%AE%EF%BC%A5%EF%BC%A5%EF%BC%B4
*That’s* what ‘NEET’ means. I was actually wondering about this. Thanks!
““So I had to go around the country and educate people about what immigrants do for this country, or the fact we are a country of immigrants,” she said on video captured by Brass City Community Television. “The fact is ain’t none of y’all trying to go and farm right now.”
OK, I’m lying?” Crockett, 44, said. “You’re not, you’re not. We done picking cotton. We are. You can’t pay us enough to find a plantation.””
https://nypost.com/2025/04/08/us-news/texas-rep-jasmine-crockett-suggests-us-needs-migrants-because-black-people-are-done-picking-cotton/
Do black people buy that act? She has a law degree.
I am sure some do. Most find it appalling. People like her keep making blacks migrate to the republicans.
Not enough of them, besides it isn’t like we tolerate Graham because he’s white.
Yeah, Trump’s an asshole for wanting to kick illegal immigrants out of the country, but you’re a paragon of virtue for wanting to keep them here as the new slave class.
“You can’t pay us enough to find a plantation.”
Sure you can. The current package of welfare benefits seems to be enough to clear the market.
When I was in college, the black students who were the most ardent about the campus and society being a racist hellhole were the middle to upper class black students who wouldn’t step foot in the hood if you paid them.
The real issue is who will clean Kelly Osbournes toilet?
“Trump uses golden shovel to plant replacement for historic magnolia tree planted by Andrew Jackson”
https://nypost.com/2025/04/08/us-news/trump-uses-golden-shovel-to-plant-replacement-for-historic-jackson-magnolia/
I’m thinking he has more important things to do.
Play golf? Eat ice cream? Take a nap?
Live footage of the event
Did you know if you are in the US on student visa and advocate violence you have 0.003% chance of be deported? If you believe the MSM it would seem like they are deporting students left and right.
At least 300 visas had been revoked, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed last month, adding that the department would continue to identify student visa holders who it felt had abused its parameters. There are roughly 1.1 million international student visa-holders in the U.S. When international students lose their visas, they are immediately vulnerable to deportation.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/student-visas-revoked-trump-administration-82fd8059?st=edUJJQ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Pedantic bastard alert:
a) You’re off by a factor of 10.
b) You’re also assuming everyone on a student visa is advocating violence.
Windows calculator does scientific notation. I hate using it.
OTH, maybe I can do a study showing the health effects of black plastic cookware tools!
We have met the enemy…
How else can they attract the top talent if they aren’t allowed to pay them accordingly? Everybody knows teachers are underpaid public servants…
“plus entrée into an elite academic unit …”
This sounds like a threat.
Feel free to swap nations and/or identity characteristics of the people involved.
https://thenationalpulse.com/2025/04/08/trial-of-american-accused-of-fatally-stabbing-migrant-who-assaulted-her-begins/
Sort of. If it is true she pursued him after he ran away, that’s an issue. I somehow doubt that is what really happened.
There’s also the issue that ‘being groped’ is something that you can respond to with force, but probably not with deadly force. At least that’s the statutory law in most/all of the United States, but I somehow doubt that Germany is more lenient in this regard.
20/20 hindsight and all, but this is the kind of thing I carry pepper spray for.
I somehow doubt that Germany is more lenient in this regard.
I have a vague memory of watching a video run-down on German self-defense laws. My memory is that they are more lenient and allow lethal force in many more situations than US laws. HOWEVER:
– The tool (knife, gun, etc.) you use to defend yourself could get you in hot water if you don’t have the richtige Papieren. You could be in the clear on the self-defense law with your actions, but get whacked by their weapons laws for whatever it was you used.
– The law as written and the law as enforced aren’t always the same. Consider it a variation on the process is the punishment.
Now I’ve read the article.
What my vague memory of that video I mentioned in my other comment said, is if he didn’t run away, then I think she would be in the clear on the self-defense law. If he ran away, and yeah I kinda doubt that given the prosecutor is claiming it, then I think she’s in trouble with respect to Germany’s self-defense law. And of course, weapons charges could be extra.
Too bad it couldn’t have been Amanda Knox.
Kass tells it like it is…
A pretty good read.
“A transgender ‘Zizian’ member accused of murder and attempted murder had to be restrained by deputies after uncontrollable outbursts about transphobia….
They are both members of an extremist transgender leftist “rationalist” vegan cult linked to at least eight deaths. The members follow the teachings of a trans anarchist named Jack LaSota, who uses the alias “Ziz.””
https://thepostmillennial.com/andy-ngo-reports-member-of-zizian-cult-on-trial-for-murder-disrupts-court-with-outbursts-about-transphobia
Self-ID is retarded. A male with facial hair, who wants more government, is not a “trans anarchist”.
That trial is resembling the Manson trial more and more. Might end up being a cultural turning point just like that one too.
This trial is better entertainment than anything on Netflix right now.
Joe Exotic ain’t got nuthin on Ziz.
These particular transfolx would perforate you for saying that.
I think I’d prefer the E-Bike over the buggies which are a serious PITA to pass on the road. I still don’t get how this is different from a car, but religious belief. Logic need not apply.
Are E-Bikes a Godsend or the Road to Perdition? An Amish Community Is Torn.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/are-e-bikes-a-godsend-or-the-road-to-perdition-an-amish-community-is-torn-9f4f6b86?st=LQqfdN&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I somehow doubt e-bikes are going to go widespread among the Amish, as the Amish communities in Ohio are fighting a law requiring lights on buggies.
I like the term “Amish eBike enthusiasts” though. That’s great. “As rare as an Amish eBike enthusiast” has a nice ring to it.
Amish eBike Enthusiasts would be a solid band name, with their debut album being Confessions of a Middle Age Man in Lycra
Twee hipster album name.
*sigh*
Hostile Omish has been a band here for decades. Back in the day they advertised with real live butter churning action on stage!
I was in Amish country around Sugar Creek OH last month and e-bikes are everywhere.
Not sure if it was Amish or Mennonites on them, but definitely more than I saw last year up there.
Electric Amish…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GHxGWO79Ow&list=PL9qGwY6-1OGAf2a9kUQqHWDUt9VqyOQq_
Judge Orders White House to Restore AP’s Access
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/judge-orders-white-house-to-restore-aps-access-d8f48028?st=c9Kwa9&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
The judge put it on hold because he knows he’s on thin ice. However, virtue must be signaled.
The president can exclude of course, but not for this reason – seems to be the judge’s “reasoning”.
They could’ve picked something other than the dumb reason they did.
Still can’t find the first amendment right to “access”.
They could’ve gone through the long history of the AP being deeply misinformed or biased but instead decided to focus on how they refused to use the term “Gulf of America”. Effectively making them look like the free speech violators.
Truly stupid.
Is it just me, or does this tariff war seem out of hand already?
How dare you not recognize Trump’s genius!
Except for China, I gather a lot of countries are trying to cut deals to reduce tariffs. Of course, that’s reporting out of DC, so grain of salt.
I have seen video of Ursula VonNazi, she wolf of the EU, saying she is ready for tariff equality, and that it was Trump holding out for energy purchased from the US to be included.
This covers it as well: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/07/von-der-leyen-offers-trump-zero-for-zero-tariffs-deal-on-all-industrial-goods
Daily Ray of Sunshine
It’s budget season in NH
The New Hampshire House of Representatives will vote on a two-year spending plan this week. The budget, approved last week by the House Finance Committee, significantly cuts spending from Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s proposal, as lawmakers eye low revenues from New Hampshire business taxes.
House Bill 1 and House Bill 2, which have spent weeks in the House committee, go for a vote before the full House April 10, and then on to the state Senate. The final budget bills will not emerge until June.
But the House Finance Committee’s proposal reflected a sour outlook on tax revenue for next year — and a difference of opinion between lawmakers and the governor’s office. At the beginning of the process, House Finance Chairman Ken Weyler said that his committee would need to make nearly $800 million in cuts to Ayotte’s budget in order to get it in line with the revenue projections of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Last week, the committee passed a budget that achieves that balance, imposing a number of cutbacks to make it happen. Democrats slammed the proposal, and Republicans defended it, arguing that the circumstances required hard choices.
Well, obviously they need to raise the business taxes then.
Down at the end of the article is coverage of all the fees the budget raises.
NY’s budget is overdue, with Hochul holding out for giving prosecutors more tools to railroad people.
What a lovely person.
In NH, the House leadership wants car inspections (safety and emissions) done away with. The standalone bill is in the Senate with dubious prospects. House leadership put a version of the bill into the budget, which they can because it also terminates a fund funded by the state’s cut of inspection fees. From what I’ve heard, House leadership has made it a priority to end car inspections this year. I’m expecting the standalone bill to die in the Senate or be vetoed by the governor followed by an ugly fight over the budget bill due to inclusion of the end of car inspections.
Why do seem to always hear the same anecdote from various coworkers, “I got my COVID booster this year, but I still got sick”.
I had another fully vaxxed coworker out sick for three days.
Yeah, but just think how many times they would have died already if they hadn’t gotten the vax!
I never bothered getting the vax (although I do lie about it occasionally,) and I’m about the only person I know who’s never gotten COVID.
#MeToo
J&J for me.
I got quite a nasty cold when I first came back to the office. It put me out of the office for two days, but despite multiple (crappy) OTC COVID tests I never tested positive.
But otherwise, knock wood, nothing for me despite quite the exposure base of taking public transport into and out of NYC and office exposure.
I had J&J too, I had to hunt it down but that was my minimal compliance solution. I needed a jab to play hockey.
I had confirmed COVID once, but after that I stopped testing and I think I had it one or two other times.
I got the vax, two stage, and have “confirmed” Covid. I put confirmed in scare quotes as it was just the nose swab, which, lets face it, could mean anything.
I never bothered, am an introverted shutin (as is my wife) who works remotely so don’t have much exposure… and other than being pretty sure we had it in the February 2020 timeframe (it swept the Bay Area and surroundings around that time before folks knew what it was based on my observations / people having a nastier flu than usual), haven’t had it since.
And while I don’t pry into my coworkers’ vax status and acknowledge most of them live in metro areas, have kids in daycare, etc…. I have noted several of them being down with or just “positive for COVID” regardless, yeah. (The latter amuses me since it is surely ubiquitous now…)
Never got the shot, did get Covid which for me was a relatively mild cold that lasted a couple of days.
I never got the vax. I also never got a test so cannot confirm that I got Covid but I did get sick twice during the pandemic with illnesses that matched the symptom list, including a significant and persistent alteration and diminishing of my sense of taste and smell. One of the illnesses wiped me out for over a week.
I never got the vax.
I had the Rona, with pneumonia on top of it. This was after the vax came out and I made my decision to not get the vax. I do not regret the decision to not get the vax at all.
I sidestepped the Biden vax mandate by switching jobs to a new company. That company unfortunately went under. I ended up back at my old employer, but by that point the vax mandate was done.
My dog is up to date on bordatella & all but still got kennel cough. Quarantine is ruff.
Just wait until they start saying they’ve got long COVID.
[Edited to add a better link]
I can’t believe people are still getting boosters and are surprised they got sick. When I first saw that happening a few years ago, I knew that was the beginning of the end of the jabs. They could lie all they want about the shots stopping transmission, but people still getting sick were no longer buying it.
I took the first shots just to comply with work rules but never got the booster. When we were planning our annual family meet up in Michigan a couple of years, both of my sister in laws wanted everyone to be boosted included the kids. I drew a hard line in the sand and said that while my wife can do as she pleases, me nor the kids will get a boosted shot. They backed down because they knew that I didn’t give a shit and would rather stay home than comply with their bullshit.
One of the girlfriend’s Facebook acquaintances did one of the two step shots, had heart problems after the first step, and went in to complete the shot process. During the second one he had a full blown cardiac incident.
He still got boosters.
Was he wearing a mask? ‘Cause that would have stopped the heart attack!
I had heart palpitations after the Covid shot that required visiting a cardiologist and elected not to get anymore.
None since.
Does the booster knock everyone on their ass like the original two dose?
I ended up getting the 2-dose original for $reasons but didn’t have any issues – didn’t knock me down. Didn’t do the booster.
I did, of course, get covid later on. It was the end of June, so just a few days of low-energy, sitting in a sunny bedroom. No issues since then (recent cold was just a cold – those still exist).
Same. Get the shot or get fired. Someday there will be lawsuits.
“President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth want more money for the U.S military.
Trump said the Pentagon’s annual budget could soon pass the $1 trillion mark.
“$1 trillion, and nobody’s seen anything like it,” Trump said. “We have to build our military, and we’re very cost conscious, but the military is something that we have to build, and we have to be strong, because you got a lot of bad forces out there now.””
https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/trump-hegseth-look-boost-defense-spending-1-trillion-year
Some things never change.
because you got a lot of bad forces out there now
If anything ever begged for the “are we the baddies” treatment.
Remember when military spending ramped up to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, then returned to peacetime levels once we left those shitholes? Yeah, me neither.
Call me crazy but maybe they should roll those DOGE savings from the DOD into the budget and save some money next time around.
As long as the budget comes out of Medicaid.
Is it just me, or does this tariff war seem out of hand already?
It’s hard to sift through the manufactured hysteria put out by people deeply invested in business as usual.
In many cases the “war” consists of the United States raising tariffs to about the same rate that the trading partner upon whom the tariff is levied have been imposing on imported goods from the US for the last 30 years or so. Tariffs are definitionally bad economic policy, but if the rest of the world has managed to not only trudge on, but also greatly surpass the United States in metrics of health and happiness, as the story goes, then perhaps they won’t end civilization after all, and commodities traders can start earning back their losses on crypto speculation or something.
I think the issue, economically, is that, under certain conditions and for certain outcomes, tariffs are bad.
Outside of that set of caveats there are so many variables to track that you can put all sorts of spin on them, good or bad, and make a cogent argument.
“Speedy Gonzalez, 40, was caught on surveillance footage stuffing an empty trash can full of other goods and then scanning just the trash can at the self-checkout aisle at a Walmart in Gainesville, an hour northeast of Atlanta.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-14583639/walmart-shopper-arrested-trash-trick-name.html
I blame the parents.
“The Fastest Mouse in All of Mexico”
As stated earlier this week, it’s going to be interesting to see if the money saved by eliminating human cashiers is offset by the losses from people stealing in this manner.
Locally, this is why they have an associate standing by, and a scale to check that the weight matches.
To be fair to the self checkouts — as I remember from my days at Wally World (some time back, mind you) part of the training for anyone running a register was to lift containers like this while scanning them and check the weight / rattling for just this sort of scam.
It shouldn’t be / wouldn’t be rocket science for the scanners to require placing such items on scales to check against known weight if nothing else. (The scan area is a scale — I think the bagging area is as well… and if there isn’t room / customer won’t do it, it can require human sign off or something).
I was wondering how he got around it. Was the can too big to put on the scale?
Same – the ‘bagging area’ is a scale and it gets pissy if you don’t put things on there after scanning and the weight doesn’t match.
Plus there’s someone standing there overseeing about 10 scanners.
I’m not re-reading the article to check… but yeah, R. J. — that was my assumption from the initial read. “I’ll just use the handheld scanner and leave the trash can in the cart…” type activity.
Should have been flagged by the scanner programming / overhead cameras if the lid was on it as needing an associate check, imho….
I recall one time I was having an issue with a self checkout, and it started pinging for an associate. Turns out I had grabbed a bottle of tonic water (IIRC) that was underfilled (by about 15-20%) without noticing. The weight difference (being under) was enough to ping an alert.
I was actually thankful for that rather than getting home and finding an underfilled (and likely flat) bottle of something.
where was Slowpoke Rodriguez during all this? I assume committing armed robbery.
I used to work there. Most folks who used to shop in Gainesville now shop in Dahlonega because that part of town is a bit of a crap hole now. Yay progress.
Meanwhile…
You can buy devotional candles bearing Mr. Mangione’s image and a “Prayer of Saint Luigi” on the back. A Saint Luigi “Sherpa Fleece Blanket” for $69.99. A coffee mug for $12. A necklace for $45. A “Patron Saint of Capitalism’s Victims” T-shirt or a “Luigi Mangione Our Patriot Saint Of Healthcare” T-shirt, both for $22.99. St. Luigi Christmas ornaments for $16.99.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/luigi-mangione-deserves-no-devotion-assassin-killer-murderer-healthcare-ceo-b36139e3?st=yqQWpm&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Meh. Just because someone made it doesn’t mean people are buying it. Especially now, when you can upload a design to Amazon or other places and print on demand with no overhead.
Looks like people are buying them, and the Church is upset that it’s the lay people doing the selling.
Don’t they know only the priests, bishops, and cardinals are supposed to make bank selling body parts of saints?
Light the Luigi candle next to the Saint Fauci votive.
Not a St Ruth of Ginsburg?
At least he’s not a greedy capitalist like some insurance executive though.
It’s worth reminding everyone that Mangione’s family was richer than Thompson by a considerable margin.
Apparently, some of these tariffs are based on some sort of formula related to trade imbalances. I have never really understood the obsession with trade imbalance. other than the mercantilist(?) “captive markets” model in which some country like England extracts resources on the cheap from their colonies and sells back expensive manufactured goods.
From yesterday:
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/woke-tariffs
For the US, trade imbalances matter less due to the USD’s reserve currency status. We import cheap shit and export dollars, which sit in foreign banks or get pumped into our real estate and stock markets, which helps to sustain our multi-trillion dollar budget deficits without touching off hyperinflation. In and of itself a trade imbalance doesn’t really spell doom. Countries less rich in natural resources than others will necessarily have to import what they cannot obtain, for example.
Trade imbalances don’t matter for anyone.
That’s probably an overstatement, but they’re basically self-limiting.
Trump has a moronic fixation on if we buy more from X, X is screwing us. Real fuckin’ genius that one.
The Florida Nobody Knows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXWWCEP2UgE
Well I didn’t know it but I have to assume *someone* does
Get off most any interstate and it’s rural US. Empty storefronts, declining population skewed towards the old. The jobs have moved to transportation hubs.
Elon Musk opined on the internet Tuesday that White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is “truly a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.” Mr. Navarro had told a TV show that Mr. Musk, CEO of Tesla, isn’t a real car manufacturer but a mere “assembler” of foreign parts. In another interview, Mr. Navarro denied a rift between them. But then Mr. Musk called him “Peter Retarrdo.”
I haven’t followed this closely, but Tesla is the most vertically integrated US manufacturer of automobiles by a wide margin. It’s not a point in Navarro’s favor.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/elon-musk-peter-navarro-tariffs-donald-trump-white-house-e65d2467?st=bSBEqv&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I haven’t followed this closely, but Tesla is the most vertically integrated US manufacturer of automobiles by a wide margin. – this is a frequent talking point on the pro Musk side, so obviously you followed this and are repeating it 🙂 . I do not know this Navarro fella but my baseline assumption is that his is a moron, like most.
Navarro is a socialist dipshit that any decent administration would’ve kicked to the curb a long time ago.
Yeah, I was baffled by that appointment.
Could have been worse, he could have appointed Dave Navarro.
No Dave might actually be preferable to Peter.
Kick Me To the Curb?
Point of interest, Navarro was a far left “no growth” guy back before all this.
It makes you wonder if this guy really wants America to thrive.
Navarro studied Economics from Ron Nara, they are very close friends.
Navarro went downhill after banging Carmen Electra.
There seems to be a shortage of young Asian ladies of negotiable affection in Europe compared to America. Can you put a tariff on those, maybe more come here?
Crank your retail up to 11. The higher end stores in Vienna seemed to cater to an Asian shopping segment. The two (Chinese) store clerks working in the luggage department were chatting in Mandarin between helping me.
You know who else shopped in Vienna?
You know who else shopped in Vienna?
Me
Falco?
Anyone who wants a small sausage?
“Maine’s Total Coverage previously covered a double-murder case in which the convict was transgender. Andrea Balcer, who went by Andrew at the time of the crime in October 2016, was sentenced to 40 years in prison in December 2018, nearly three months after pleading guilty to stabbing their parents and the family’s dog to death.
A search of the Maine DOC online database shows Andrew Balcer, who has another name listed of Andrea Balcer, is serving a sentence at the Maine Correctional Center’s Women’s Center…
But Amy Whelan, a senior executive attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, says the DOJ’s actions are part of a pattern of targeting transgender people across the country.
She says there’s a reason why transgender inmates are placed in a women’s facility.
“Prison officials have known for years that transgender women, in particular, are at extreme risk of violence in men’s facilities,” Whelan said.
According to Maine law, jails must respect an inmates gender identity, and their housing must reflect what gender they identify as. However, that isn’t the case when their placement would pose security threats.”
https://www.wmtw.com/article/maine-department-of-corrections-funding-pulled-pam-bondi/64419570
So went to National Center for Lesbian Rights website, and the front page has a picture of Charlotte Clymer.
Prison officials have also known for years that women, in particular the kind with vaginas, are at extreme risk when sharing facilities with men, in particular the kind with penises. Which is why men with penises who like to wear dresses have historically not been housed with women with vaginas.
If you put males presenting as female in men’s prison they will have an increased risk of being raped. If you put males claiming to be female in women’s prison the women will have an increased risk of being raped. This is obvious, and sounds like it cuts both ways, but the difference is that putting men in women’s prisons incentivizes rapists to claim to be female leading to more rape, whereas putting the males presenting as female in the men’s prisons either has no effect, or (assuming rational cost benefit analysis by the criminal which is a BIG assumption) acts to discourage criminality by those men.
That’s the utilitarian approach. The ontological approach yields the same answer because the increased risk is born by the person who controls the variable.
My point was that it seemed an odd position for an allegedly lesbian organization. It’s like the ASPCA saying the dog had it coming.
Charles Clymer was an abusive male feminist asshole, who also worked for the HRC.
So no one there is thinking about what is the best thing to do. It’s a bunch of commies intent on disruption. Who gets raped or whatever matters nothing to them.
It’s always commies intent on disruption. I was just trying to acknowledge both sides while thinking through the problem, something that seems to have been abandoned on all sides of the culture war. We (collectively as humans, not specifically we glibs) spend to much effort on rhetoric and too little on reason.
The parents of the kid who brought the gun to school have been charged with felony child endangerment. The child has not been charged. The school was locked down for a couple hours. Counseling was made available at the school.
Last night there was a shooting in a neighborhood a mile from the nearest county school. All county schools were delayed two hours. Counseling services for all staff and students are available.
Counseling. Good grief…
I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the parents in this case, though. If a gun is not on your person or under your direct physical control, it needs to be locked up. There aren’t really any other acceptable options.
Nigel Farage MP
@Nigel_Farage
Reform UK will nationalise British Steel and protect British workers.
https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1909635595598491832
Ah the new british right wing…
You know who didn’t even go that far?
Cues Thatcher rising from the dead.
There is no right wing in Britain, France, or Germany. The parties called right wing tend to be nationalist, at least with regard to immigration, but they are just as socialist as the left in economic terms.
Classical liberalism for the time being is dead in the Western world. Parties like the Conservatives in the UK and the Republicans in the US killed it because while they wore the banner of economic liberty, they were just statists and cronyists who went a little slower towards statism.
The Conservatives where a perfect example of why we as libertarians can’t ever depend on parties who claim to be carry the mantle of free enterprise. They had nearly 15 years of being a majority in Parliament and they basically became Blair Labour lite instead of cutting down the oppressive regulatory apparatus and eliminating most of their taxes and tried to play it safe. And the only reason why they stayed in power for so long was because Labour was nuttier and venal.
But they will accuse us of wanting to kill grandma.
Maybe I do, but only if Grandma is a commie.
Helicopter rides for Grandma?
Commie senior discount! Half off the flight.
KFA-UK
@Korea_Friend_UK
Free school milk and other dairy products are supplied to kids in People’s Korea
https://x.com/Korea_Friend_UK/status/1909877635880038469
Hate to admit it, but all children in America used to get free milk too if they are not well off. 10 cents if you were middle class.
When I was growing up.
It’s how we attracted the good Asians.
By giving people, who are almost all lactose intolerant, milk?
Yes.
They need to stop being pussies. Clearly.
This begs for an image of rooftop Koreans, or Jackie Chan.
Apologies for the horrific link, but I’m not going to see what is required
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fpeople-are-going-ham-using-studio-ghibli-filter-with-the-v0-rpxzcn9xl2re1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1536%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D7d6541cec6efe64005a9577f1a1c38403c197eb2
I am only joking.
But my brother does insist that lactose intolerance is not a true allergy and can be somewhat detrained.
Not sure if that’s true.
I am generally joking. You can tell when I am not when my replies are long, boring, and spend an inordinate amount of space rehashing ideas that are probably obvious to everyone reading my pedantic rants.
I don’t think it needs to be de/retrained. Cow’s milk is not really very good for babies or non-calf animals (goat’s milk is MUCH better). The fact that SOME people adapted to it is not a sign that it’s good. Milk snots me up terribly, so I just stopped drinking it, even though I FLUV it.
Now, cheese … I’d sacrifice that opinion to de/retrain for the sake of cheese.
I don’t believe the low-carb community considers butter a dairy product, but a fat product. (I mean, nobody considers wine “grape juice.”)
Uptight protestant teetotalers who insists against all historical evidence that Jewish wine in the first century was either unfermented, or was consumed after being diluted with water until it contained near-beer levels of alcohol, and consequently serve Welch’s grape juice for communion, notwithstanding…
We use water and don’t quibble over fermentation in the Middle East in 24 A.D., so …
Horrific
Americans seeking retirement or survivor benefits from the Social Security Administration will no longer be able to apply over the phone, starting on Monday.
Instead, they will have to seek services online or travel in-person to a local Social Security field office, which a new analysis from the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, or CBPP, found amounts to a “45-mile trip for some 6 million seniors.”
The group wrote this change “will close off an important mode of service for millions of people” who are eligible for services.
Muh rights!
I don’t care one way or the other, but is there a reason? Was it really expensive? Prone to fraud?
Prone to fraud, I suspect.
They gloss over just how widespread fraud is. Number I saw was a huge percentage of the calls (40%+?) were deemed to be attempts at fraud.
That’s an insane amount of inbound contact volume being fraud. As a point of reference, we’ll get complaints about issues that are happening at a below 1% rate, most guidelines go to either a 1-3% failure rate as acceptable for various things. 40% is where you shut down the line and build a new one.
Hrm:
https://www.rawstory.com/jd-vance-social-security/
Conflated “40% of direct deposit fraud involves phone calls” with “40% of calls are attempted fraud” – but they don’t actually provide a number for the latter, just X% of fraud is caught.
So, I dunno.
This drives me nuts on multiple levels. You can apply online, but the just assume old people are too dumb to do so.
Second, I hate this distance to services stuff. For example, the social security office in Newark, NJ is 10 miles from my house. But thanks to traffic that is going to be a 30 minute drive plus finding parking. In metro NYC nobody discusses distance to anything. You explain distance by drive time and drive time by time of day.
When I tried to report my mother’s death online, it told me call, then robot that answered the phone told me to go online.
My mom and dad thought they were victims of yet another scam this week, this time from someone posing as the IRS. Older people are just not good at noticing these things, so doing things in person and requiring an ID are going to prevent a lot of fraud.
This is the sound of me getting off my ass and going to Hobby Lobby and Michael’s again. The only real hardship here is the shower and bra.
I think it was RC Dean who posited that China just got tired of Amazon being the middle man for their goods. Well, it worked! However, they do have things I want but can’t find here at all. (Or at The Container Store, which, ugh. Have you SEEN those prices?)
Despite my love for Temu, I like this philosophically.
Most of what Trump is doing right now I like philosophically, but NOT personally.
It’s like the COVID lockdowns. Do I care that many people are going to die? Certainly. Do I care more that the exponentially more in number living are being persecuted, imprisoned, and impoverished for what amounts to a cold? And that it’s a test run for how the public responds to government control? Absolutely.
Why, YES, my TDS-addled friends and family, I AM thinking of the greater good. It’s just your and my definition of “greater good” are not the same because you don’t give a shit about the icky people.
“your and my definition of “greater good” are not the same”
That’s why we need politicians, they are smarter than us.
We need to go back to a really old idea. Politicians as Sin Eaters or Sacred Kings who we sacrifice to bring back the sun at the winter solstice.
-.-
I’m going to have to order the rest of the z80 computer boards before May then. They fly in from the UK.
Instead of an insane tariff war, perhaps America could bring more manufacturing back to our shores just by cutting the damn corporate tax rate to zero? Sure, if personal income taxes are still in force, then tax dividends as ordinary income. Bottom line: every incentive to invest in more plants, more infrastructure, more on-shore pharma, more jobs. If other countries want to screw their citizens by putting tariffs on U.S. goods, then let them.
Bringing manufacturing back by any method will take a long time.
I believe tariffs are a stop-gap measure to buy time. Time for what? Don’t know, because I’d sure like some movement toward removing all those regulations, and I don’t see that.
Tariffs, IN CONJUNCTION WITH repealing regulations and fast-tracking approvals for/permitting factories, would be ideal.
Good idea – get congress on it, since they control the tax code.
A group of 150 Southend United fans hired a ‘party boat’ to take them down The Thames to their match away to Sutton on Saturday, and they soon noticed that an American tourist called Evan was sitting quietly by himself, so they asked him if he was OK. It turned out that he had got on the boat by accident and thought he was doing a sightseeing tour of London 😂😂😂
They instantly adopted him as a new Shrimper, got the beers in, and even gave him a ticket to the match that ended 1-1. If you kept hearing the chant ‘Evan is a Shrimper’ on the radio – now you know why!
https://x.com/footyawayday/status/1909145376600322386
Evan from Evansville has some cool adventures
I enjoyed meeting a young guy from Portugal who flew over to watch his first Browns game. Too bad that the game he went to was last season, and against the Giants. But for the disappointment, he’s one of us now.
Isn’t disappointment the norm for Cleveland sports fans?
Hey they just added 8 championships! No one else has managed that in one year!
Ted S.:
That would be why he’s one of us now. He truly knows the pain of going out of his way to cheer for a team that just shit the bed in front of him.
Jarflax:
The only good thing to come out of that is that the Browns have more championships than the Stillers now.
That’s oddly adorable.
I had acquaintance that did a rotation in Japan. He is a huge baseball fan so he went to a lot of Japanese games for a local team close to where he lived.
He was similarly adopted by regular fans there. He was easy to spot!
I don’t care one way or the other, but is there a reason? Was it really expensive? Prone to fraud?
I assume it has to do with re-opening the offices which have been locked down for five years.
Do I have Trump Derangement Syndrome?
The US president is going to give us a thousand years of woke
https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/do-i-have-trump-derangement-syndrome
I try to avoid expressing strong opinions on foreign party politics, because I enjoy the luxury of not having to. From an outside perspective, American politics seems dominated by two quite extreme fringes, the only difference being that the mad things believed by Democrats tend to be aped by British elites, and therefore have an impact on our everyday lives here.
The Republican Party’s insane ideas are in contrast a punchline to Europe’s governing classes, and indeed tend to cement support for the opposing views. Trump’s rhetorical excesses and breaking of political norms – loser’s consent being the most outrageous example – may suggest poor character, but they have little effect on our politics other than as a source of horrified amusement.
Now, with both the stock markets plunging and the American president’s aggressive rhetoric towards fellow NATO members, I fear that I finally have full-on Trump Derangement Syndrome and, having been uninfected during the first wave, have no immunity. I genuinely now worry, years after everyone else, that he is a catastrophe, not just for American politics but for the western alliance generally, and for the political Right everywhere. Not only are we all going to be a lot poorer and the world a lot less safe, but we’re also going to end up with a thousand years of woke after Trump is finished; he will truly be the Julian the Apostate of our time.
If Trump successfully blows up the “Western alliance” whereby effete eurocucks such as these regain some semblance of self respect and stop depending on Officer Sam for their sense of security, the dearth of computer chips for the next decade caused by his tariffs and trade policy might just be worth it.
Lights the Evil Sheldon signal.
You can’t ever predict peak NYT either.
Americans Are Preparing for When All Hell Breaks Loose
https://archive.fo/RV3C4#selection-513.0-513.54
Actually not a bad article, for the Times. I like that more and more people in the ‘gun culture’ seem to be figuring out that it’s not just about having a bunch of guns and ammo, and it’s not even about being proficient with them – things like emergency medical training, food/water/fuel prep, distributed communications, small-scale permaculture, and community organization, all play a sizable role in the big umbrella of ‘being prepared.’
Paul T. Martin’s books ‘Pivot Points’ and ‘The Prepared Citizen’s Guide’ are very much worth checking out here.
I’m assuming SF is being held captive in an alternate dimension by Eldrich Horrors?
Your horoscopes didn’t predict this?
What part of “beyond the stars” is unclear?
Held captive, or marshalling his forces for the invasion.
Trump’s fault.
Tariffs on R’lyeh interrupted the trade in horror.