I have about 3 hours of meetings in the middle of my ¡enlaces! time, so here’s the .gif…

¡Enlaces!
That doesn’t sound very elite to me if they got caught.
Small plane crash kills 7. Murdock not involved.
…its called Gulf of America! Fuck your AP style guide.
Mayor Adams goes to Mexico, presumably for nefarious purposes according to NY Daily News. I assume the mayor wants to go on a bender at a resort for a week but whatever ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

In headlines from 1973, Chile rejects a communist and elects someone that gives the Crown News the willies.
Here’s a celebratory tune. Enjoy your Tuesday!

Here’s First in your eye!
Firster-man
Firster-man
Doing whatever a Firster can.
There was a small hole in the ground covered by grass I didn’t see walking the asshole. I tripped and busted my ass in a very un-Firster like fashion.
The little fuck instantly bolted back in the direction of home and almost dragged me with him. It was definitely an ever-man-for-himself kind of moment for him.
“Free at last! Free at last! Thank god I’m free at last!”
At least you didn’t have an obstacle course to deal with. Whenever our pitty would get loose she always took the path of greatest resistance, through brush and briars and deadfalls.
“Smoke a cigar, single malt scotch and having fun,” he said.
Respectable.
“having fun” . Clearly code for Donkey Show.
Commemorating Mayor Adam’s trip
Excellent choice.
The project is expected to add 60 million barrels of oil equivalent to recoverable resources.
Muh Peak Oil!
My capstone project was on that. My professor was not happy with my “flippant” response to his question on an ARAMCO quote where they said they had sufficient reserves to 2050.
“There’s a difference between I can’t produce more, and I won’t produce more.”
Free-market economic policies? *clutches pearls, swoons*
OFFS
To be fair, you don’t get one without the others.
You will be free to engage in commerce any way you wish….or else.
I never got the impression that they really cared about the first two.
There was a time when I was really interested in going to Chile. That time has passed. I don’t want to go anywhere.
I always wanted to visit Europe being a history nerd. Christ, I wanted to go to Afghanistan when I was in the service. Just didn’t pan out and ended up in Iraq instead. Didn’t get to really ‘experience’ much beyond patrols. Had one chicken wrap thing that was made with fresh chicken from the coup right back behind the building. It was shockingly good, though probably wouldn’t pass any health inspections in the West.
I saw a video recently of Rome after dark at a train station where a lot of tourists first enter the country. It looked like some shithole in Africa with armed Italian troops patrolling to create the illusion of safety.
I don’t even like driving into NJ…
I don’t like driving north of the Rappahannock.
Guys named Hooker and Burnside decided they didn’t like going south of the Rappahannock.
There’s an 800K bikepacking race I want to do in Chile, but I think I need to do a lot more training before I attempt it.
I’d like to go to Chile, but the far south.
Fly fish Patagonia?
I think the only thing stupider than the “Gulf of America” kerfuffle would be Donald shitting all over the legacy of some dead celebrity who said mean things about him in the past.
I have a teammate who’s basically a neocon, and he hates Trump because he’s “unpresidential”. It’s times like this when I get it.
I’ve let a lot of his BS slide over the years but that was uncalled for. Maybe he thinks it’s “endearing”. 🙄
7 out of 10 times he doubles down on the stupid and is rewarded for it.
This is not one of those times.
https://x.com/DerrickEvans4WV/status/2000927899277516862
I don’t care…
He’s not unpresidential. He just doesn’t put the lipstick on that particular pig. He hasn’t said anything worse about democrats than Obama m, Biden, or Hillary openly said about conservatives.
Speaking ill of the dead isn’t really great, but is that really more unpresidential than droning American citizens or flooding the country with illegals?
Rookie numbers. Gotta get those numbers up.
lol I take back my criticism.
Trump just had to be an asshole, carrying on the traditions of every president in my lifetime.
Trump has to be an uncouth asshole, as nothing else shows his MAGA base that he is not one of the elites, which is more important than any showing of conservatism.
And that is what gets missed in any criticism of him.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand it’s unpresidential and mean-spirited. OTOH, it wasn’t just Trump that Reiner said mean things about, but everyone who voted for him, everyone who questioned the whole smug, woke agenda. How long to non-communists have to be a punching bag for communists? How long do we let them demonize us then cry about how uncivil we are being when we push back in equal measure?
That is a good point. Reiner pushed every one of the hoaxes, and said many times Trump should be in jail, he’s a threat to democracy, all of it.
I’m all for pushback but jeez, the body isn’t even cold yet.
I don’t think there’s a way to spin this in the wake of conservatives canceling people who criticized Charlie Kirk post-death (not all people who were targeted or attacked celebrated it).
There are times when he should just shut his mouth, but I knew what I was getting when I voted for him. Given our choices, he’s still better than the alternatives.
This. We knew, and we also got to sit threw the Obama and Biden years of shit.
I will take this. I mean, it isn’t like he is calling people into the office and taking a shit while they have to listen.
Its certainly bad form, but I don’t want him to apologize either. Sort of like when he insulted that Muslim Gold Star family the dems trotted out in 2016.
Never apologize.
Good point.
Smart garbage
Food waste startup Mill said Tuesday that it has inked a deal with Amazon to deploy its bins in Whole Foods produce departments across the country starting in 2027. Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund is also investing in the startup, though it did not disclose the amount. The company has raised a total of $250 million to date, according to an Axios report.
——-
Mill is hoping that its sensor-laden bins can gather enough data to help Whole Foods reduce the amount of produce it throws out. After the bins have dehydrated and ground the food waste, the waste will be turned into chicken feed that’ll be shipped to Whole Foods’ private label egg suppliers.
You never could have done that in the past.
The municipal company which picks up recycling here is crowing about their new community composting bins. First they do it as a limited voluntary service, then they do it as a universal service, then it becomes mandatory with trash police like in San Diego.
I wish there were a live web cam like they have in San Diego, but I guess following this ship on a map as it makes its last visit to home port will have to do. My youngest is a bit excited this afternoon.
https://www.cruisingearth.com/ship-tracker/united-states-navy/uss-nimitz/
In the Navy…
Sorry Kev. I had to do it. I was compelled to do it. It’s not my fault!
Hey, I have no idea what they do out there for 9 months.
It is pretty cool to see 6-8 tugs right next to it.
It she stopping in San Diego?
Your mission…
The move was criticised by the company’s co-founder Ben Cohen, who called it a “blatant power grab designed to strip the board of legal authority and independence”.
His remarks are the latest in a long-running row between Ben and Jerry’s and its owner over the Cherry Garcia maker’s social activism and the continued independence of its board.
——-
“Anuradha Mittal, Daryn Dodson, and Jennifer Henderson have served this company with integrity and courage. Over many years, they helped the board make bold, often difficult decisions to uphold Ben & Jerry’s social mission,” said Mr Cohen.
Ben & Jerry’s said the move is aimed “to preserve and enhance the brand’s historical social mission and safeguard its essential integrity.”
The Vermont-based firm is now owned by The Magnum Ice Cream Company, after a spinoff from Unilever last week that created the world’s largest standalone ice cream maker.
Do you even work here?
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass fudge crunch flavor.
It’s over-priced shitty ice cream. Everything else is trivial to me.
Talenti is the best store-bought ice cream, but they make the containers ridiculously tough to open. It’s like you have to prove your manhood before consuming it.
Run it under warm water.
Mm, yeah, Talenti gelato is the best.
Mrs. TOK is still fond of Chubby Hubby when we can find it, but neither of us has found another flavor we like.
I’m very disappointed I’ve never found a peanut butter type of Talenti. I’ve never disliked any I’ve tried, but it’s the main thing that keeps me from always buying it over anything else.
A recipe you might or might not like:
Peanut butter whipped cream: combine 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, 1/2 cup of creamy peanut butter, 1/4 cup of powdered sugar (omit if preferred), and a splash of vanilla (or rum) extract. Whip the mixture until soft to medium peaks form, then use it on an ice cream sundae, or whatever.
I can’t make that just for myself. I’ll eat the whole stupid thing.
HEY HEY HEY
FAT R.J. IS ON HIS WAY!
A spokesperson for Magnum said the firm wanted to build and strengthen Ben & Jerry’s “powerful, non-partisan values-based position in the world”.
But Ben & Jerry’s would be destroyed as a brand if it remains with Magnum, Mr Cohen told the BBC.
Non-partisan. Right.
From the rye thread about the Japanese test for “English proficiency” – I took it to test ‘basic’ English and the ability to understand most things. Pretty much, AP style, middle or high school level max. “Abhor” and “boon” etc are collegiate words. Most folk *are* kinda illiterate, but I don’t expect strangers to know those words or use them in everyday talk.
Yes, this is an indictment of govt schools, but especially to test non-native speakers? That *is* fucking hard. That test seems designed to see if one can ‘think’ in English. Also of note: Asian testmakers are brutal, nasty fucks, purposefully making it so hard that only a smidgen can pass.
That’s maybe a good strat in a 1.3B nation, but cultural inertia keeps it alive in Korea, I s’pose.
That’s similar to what I thought as well.
My problem with most tests is the failure to be open ended (at either end).
It would probably take computer testing to do it correctly, but SAT Math, for example, should be open ended. If someone scores an 1100 out of 800 max, so be it.
Generally about 1% of takers get an 800 on the SAT math, sometimes as high as 2-3%. That is insane, the test needs to distinguish between the 3rd and 4th and 5th standard deviation students. And probably should do the same at the bottom, but that might not be as necessary.
My idea is a test that could be used for standardized testing at all levels to test skill. Maybe not too young, but starting with 3rd grade or so, which is when a lot of state’s start their testing.
An open ended test that adjusts for the skill level of the student. Questions increase in difficulty as they get them right and decrease as they get them wrong, into it settles into some balance point. With 4 choice multiple choice, that point, for me, would be where they are getting 50% correct. Guessing would only get 25% correct, so its at a level that they show some knowledge, but not consistent knowledge. Maybe it should be 75% correct?
But the idea is the testing could be used to judge improvement over time. The score would show the approximate “grade level” of the student. But it would go well off the charts for the top students.
Like I said above, to do it right it would have to be done by computer to adjust on the fly. Using sort of an Elo system for ratings.
Along the lines of adaptive testing? I remember when that was the new hotness for certification tests.
Maybe not too young, but starting with 3rd grade or so, which is when a lot of state’s start their testing.
One would hope the English tests test for the ability to use apostrophes correctly. :-p
And what about semicolons, huh??
(Narrator: No one really knows how to use semicolons.)
Pretty much, AP style, middle or high school level max. “Abhor” and “boon” etc are collegiate words.
But do you know the difference between exasperate and exacerbate?
Please use in a sentence that includes “a dead hooker in my bed”.
Tim Walz had the look of a retard fucking a football when he said, “Those rotten bastard Somalies left a dead hooker in my bed.”
I was close to exasperation when I found a dead hooker in my bed because that exacerbated an already bad situation.
My head was throbbing from the night of heavy drinking as I climbed over the dead hooker in my bed, but what really confused me was all the livestock in the room.
Call girl!
***
“Ernest Hemingway has no courage, has never crawled out on a limb. He has never been known to use a word that might cause the reader to check with a dictionary to see if it is properly used.”
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”
***
In Swahili, dawa means drug, chemical, or medicine, depending on the context. The word for hot also means sharp, or spicy.
Too bad Faulkner couldn’t tell a story.
Or at least an interesting one.
IMO if a reader has to keep stopping to look up a word, the writer has failed his reader. I don’t need to learn how erudite the author is, I want to know what he’s saying.
Not a fan of Lovecraft I take it?
I understand Lovecraft fine. Still not a fan.
Context, you can throw a obscure word at me, as a reader I don’t care too much especially if I can grok the meaning from context, and if I have to google a few just to see if I’m getting the correct gist , that’s cool. Learning shit isn’t a bad thing. This is assuming the word actually exists outside your fantasy land. Now you writers who think your entire job is to make up new words for things in your imaginary land so us readers have to get invested in your fabricated nomenclature can piss right off. I’ll give you three, four at the tops, completely made up terms for your precious world building but it should be obvious that they are made up words and for fucks sake try to make them readable. “FIPNARPHNUX” may seem like a cool name for the soul sucking demon in your Sword and Sorcery seven part saga, but you would be much better off going with “Frank” with one letter transposed or replaced. “Farnk” or “Framk”
But you manage to know the word “grok” w/o any definition from Heinlein, right?
Amanda Seyfried. Very pretty. Very stupid.
I shall continue my long streak of not caring what actors think.
OK Amanda, you have more than me. Give me some.
“That’s great, Amanda. How much money do you have, and how much do you spend on total strangers?”
Animal Farm – This Was Probably A Bad Idea
Critical Drinker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hyX3d9z7vs
You’ve got to be kidding.
Apparently not.
I will be curious to see if it bombs.
I will not watch it.
I say less Animal Farm and more Animal Crackers.
What do we want? Derp!
When do we want it? Now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pr-xzajQo0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9D4V3JDHHk