We had an election in our little town, which encompasses both our village and the surrounding areas. Our village is, of course, Bluer than Blue, the surrounding areas Redder than Red. It involved a school board seat and the inevitable tax increase “for the children.” The candidates were the incumbent, a local contractor who’s been doing work on my house and describes himself as a fiscal conservative, and a tenured college professor (a Californian) from our village who thinks we need to “invest more” in our precious children. To put things in perspective, our per-student expenditure is $38,000, which strikes me as an awful lot. The contractor notes the administrative bloat and ridiculous overhead as well as massive increases in headcount and expenditure as the number of students declines. Two school nurses, at $100k each, for a student body of 500? 145 employees? The professor thinks we are shamefully stingy and robbing our children of their futures because some extreme Right wing radicals think that property taxes of 8.5% of assessed value per year is a… touch high. In the manner of Mamdani, he’s eager to soak the tax cattle.
Well, you know what happened. The tax increase won overwhelmingly (since renters have the vote and are happy to sock it to those fat-cat property owners. The professor from California won because… he’s not some awful Republican who wants to doom our children to a life of ignorance.
“Hold on to your wallets, this is going to be a rough ride.”
Birthdays are the only reason to celebrate, and today’s include a guy who made a deep impression; my favorite of all the popes; another one of our local heroes (and if you visit us, check out the museum); a guy who always behaved; possibly the dumbest person ever elected to the senate; a guy who pitied us; a guy who, in a just world, would have been on Food Network; and the next mayor of Buffalo.
And next we have Links.
See, the war was totally worth it!
“Wah, wah, he said mean things about the retards!”
The Uniparty becomes even more uni. The transition to Team Blue won’t even be discernable.
Gimme da money, gimme da money, or we’re all gonna die.
Sometimes, you just can’t beat reality with parody. The Fleischers are rolling in their graves.
This is what happens when you’re too cheap to hire Gale Boetticher.
“What the Mayor meant to say was…”
These guys were so big for so long and now… almost entirely forgotten. The Old Guy brings the Mandatory Canadian Content.
“To put things in perspective, our per-student expenditure is $38,000”
WTF??
They want to be like the big city!
https://nypost.com/2025/08/30/us-news/nyc-doe-projected-to-spend-over-42k-per-student-this-school-year-the-most-in-the-country/
That figure is so last year.
That’s more than double what my county spends.
Tripple what my state does.
It’s about $28K for the town I live in (southern NH). About 2/3rds of town taxes for the town I live in go to the school.
There is…. discontent but not enough to make big changes.
Teachers are underpaid, they work 9-10 months of the year
https://plainteacher.com/states
JFC. I’m doing life wrong.
And that’s before you factor in the Bennie’s and retirement.
Coach? That’s another 10k.
It’s an investment!
That’s bananas for a town in that location.
But c’mon, you can pump that to over $44K like NYC if you really try.
a guy who always behaved
Happy birthday B.F. Skinner!
Back in your box!
That economic ditz in Seattle was all too happy to send millionaires packing, then just like Hochul and Mandami, she realized that there would only be grasshoppers left to feed and no ants to provide the food.
It’s hard to believe there is a bigger smug prick than Mamdani but I think she actually achieves it. Why are communists so ugly inside and out??
All that hate and envy in their hearts oozes outward over time.
Living on hatred, bile, and envy ages you.
Theatre kids are that way.
Except she hasn’t. Yes, officially, they did some ass covering. But not one policy has changed. There has been no meeting between her and Starbucks to reconcile. There has been no meeting between the Governor and Leg pushing and unconstitutional income tax, the mayor, and Starbucks, and no policy course change.
So she got bent over on X for a few days and mumbled a sorta apology, then went back to doing what drove the employer out in the first place.
And WA will continue to bleed businesses.
They are all coming to my side of the border. Our land prices have tripled since 2020. I want to move and can’t afford to now.
“On Wednesday, Albares condemned Israel’s behavior towards the flotilla activists, calling out National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s treatment of them as “monstrous, undignified, and humiliating.””
So Israel blew the boats out of the water?
You floated a bunch of communist enemy agents at them – WTF were you expecting??
“If only the jooz were really as evil as we want them to be!!!”
They said hateful words, which are the same as violence when spoken by (((them))) (I blame Kabbalah), so this is exactly like the holocaust.
Truly the essence of magical thinking!
I blame this knock-off Ouija board. Introduced in 1967, the same year as a certain war. Coincidence? I think not.
NA, do you know about this?
At this point, I would be tempted to detain them in a room next to a kennel. Just for the lols.
“Those comments were not productive in the sense that they caused more harm than good,” she told the New York Times.
“I’m sorry if you took it the wrong way.”
Exactly.
Now, bend over.
Sorry not sorry
a guy who, in a just world, would have been on Food Network
Spicy
Nah, he was a ‘Sconie. Pepper at the most.
property taxes of 8.5% of assessed value per year
Is that a typo? My real property taxes are 0.7373%.
You just play games with the assessed value.
For example…
https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-jersey-property-tax-calculator
My god.
That buys a lot of brass and lead.
That’s for real.
I’d have to check our assessed value, but I think that rate would mean something like $65K/year for us.
But the assessment isn’t real.
I would have to sell.
Is libertarianism cracking up? Pick almost any contested political issue of the moment, and you’ll find prominent self-identified libertarians on opposite sides of it.
I guess I should read the article to see how many words are required to say “Water is wet”.
For a political philosopher employed at a university, the author could have done a better job of padding the word count.
Argumentative autists argue, news at 11
There are a lot of cites from Reason staff. Yeah, such self-identified libertarians are a problem.
Specifically the ‘self-identified’ part.
I’ve never understood the desire to cosplay as a libertarian. We’re not powerful and we’re certainly not cool…
EvilSheldon:
It has a small amount of outsider cachet, and allows the person to claim to be above the petty partisan battles. I’ve generally ditched it and just say an-cap leaning at this point.
Living in in a deep blue sea, I say I vote third party and let people make of it what they will.
If I’m forced to describe by politics, I usually go with ‘anti-government’. It’s descriptive and succinct.
But, really, aren’t we above the petty partisan battles?
“If I’m forced to describe by politics”
——-
What goes through my head when I am asked this kind of question is “Just listen to the things that I say and pick a label if you feel like it. That’s what you’re going to do anyway.”
I find that most people use labels as a way to figure out who they are going to completely ignore, which messengers they are going to kill before the message has even begun to be unfurled (let alone spoken).
I think it’s pretty simple for me to explain what I believe but I definitely think it takes more than a word.
Good point.
The I want to buy drugs and whores contingent of theatre kids.
lol
I haven’t followed the goings-on there much since I moved away a few years after college. I do recall every mayor after Jimmy Griffin being a crushing mediocrity.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a mayor, or a governor, who wasn’t a crushing mediocrity.
Griffin was one of those old-school Dems in the model of Koch – a “colorful” figure who mostly didn’t take shit.
RC, we’d be happy with a mediocrity, that would be like moving on up to the east side.
I am shocked that a loose aggregation of individuals fail to cohere to a single monolithic dogma.
The Dems manage to do it, to the entire country’s detriment.
A hive mind does have its advantages…
It’s easier for them. Let’s say you are a warmed over commie like Bernie Sanders. Any bill that increases spending, regulation or subsidies (so just about all of them) move the needle in your direction. Now, as Bernie, you really want full nationalization of everything, but you aren’t going to win many big battles since that is not what the country wants. But you can win, win, win dozens of small battles every year. Eventually those small wins add up.
But what if you are more of a realist/pragamatist so-called Bill Clinton Democrat? One that doesn’t want to go full commie. Well all those little fixes that you and Bernie voted for are just tweaking the system to be “more fair”. So you never get Bernie filibustering your bills.
The Greater Good!
Every party is unified when out of power.
If that was backpack funding, an enterprising teacher who set up a kind of one-room schoolhouse, for, say, kids within a 3 or 4 year range, would have a gross income of $450K for a dozen students. Run it using any of the resources available for homeschooling, and even after renting a storefront (if desired; a dozen kids could be accommodated in a home classroom as well) and buying whatever supplies were needed, would be way ahead of where they are now for takehome pay.
I think you forgot to budget for the gender awareness counsellors and white privilege alleviation administration personnel in your hypothetical. Add them in and you will see why it is hard to make ends meet on a mere $38k per student!
The whole point of backpack funding is, of course, to not have gender awareness counselors and white privilege administration personnel anywhere near your child.
Unless you want to, of course.
Sounds nice but yeah it would come with an enormous number of strings attached.
Eventually, maybe/probably, yeah. But you might get a generation of kids who don’t have shit educations out of it, and that would be worth it.
There is absolutely nothing that is completely immune to bureaucratic overreach/government rot. Saying that “X could get taken over by government bullshit so we should not do it” is a recipe for never doing anything.
I was making a joke about the public schools not arguing against backpack funding, although my preference would be to simply end government involvement in education outright.
In said scenario, who dresses up as a candystriper to play school nurse? Your spouse?
There’s a woman in my wife’s Christian women’s business group who is doing just that. She just bought a bigger piece of property with a house and a separate building for the school because she’s expanding to handle more students.
My wife and I have had the same discussions.
Sadly to donit even here in Idaho one of us would have to have a teaching certification.
Which is wholly unnecessary. It’s simply the unions pulling up the ladder.
“On Israel and Gaza, Walter Block has been an unabashed defender of Israel’s military operations on libertarian grounds; Dave Smith, working from what he takes to be the same principles, has been an equally vocal critic.”
I’d like him to be less vocal. He did a response video to Gad Saad on JRE. I thought it was going to be about toxic empathy, but no it’s about Israel for the millionth time.
I find the sudden eruption “the Jooz run everything” to have a . . . non-organic . . . feel to it. A lot people who didn’t ever seem to have Joo problem suddenly couldn’t shut up it, and a lot of people who had a Joo problem suddenly got platformed in ways they weren’t before.
Personally, I find the notion that a cabal of Israeli Zionists run the US government to be absurd.
Could be foreign influence.
If you want to understand the people with JOOOOS! obsession, all you have to do is ask them about other conflicts or problems across the globe and watch the blank stare or the lack of information. I for one can’t stop inferring there is an issue when you claim to be against conflict, but then, only have one side in one conflict you care about. A lot of these types now feel it is cool to openly show their hate, cause they get warm welcomes from other haters. And our own schools are teaching the young this hatred to serve the marxist oppressor vs. oppressed matrix.
A clue to what is going on is that every antifa riot is populated with keffiyeh cosplay commies. They have made common cause with Islamists and guess who they hate.
It’s really the Gnomes of Zurich that are running everything.
Can someone please fix this website so it stops checking my browser over and over and over again? No other site does this.
The problem is that for most of the rest of us the site isn’t checking our browser.
Or they got fed up and stopped trying to comment.
I have been getting logged out every time I leave the site to look at something else.
So, no, you might not be the only one.
Same here. Running Safari on a tablet.
I’ve not been having any problems at all. I’ll occasionally get logged out once every couple of weeks.
But I have been getting numerous cloudfare checks on another site.
Logged out every couple of weeks as well.
Safari on phone.
Links not opening in new tab organicly is my only gripe.
Without snark, I can say my primary and secondary browsers (Brave and Firefox) never seem to do that. Something is amiss.
I primarily run FireFox (ABP and NoScript, no VPN) and Chrome (ABP) on desktop (Windows 10 Pro) , and do not get prompted. I’ve also used FireFox on Android and have not gotten prompted.
I use Brave with no VPN, and I get logged out every time I leave the site.
Win11, no addons, nothing special (basic bitch package.)
ZWAK:
Doesn’t Brave do aggressive cookie management? That would log you out. I don’t use Brave, but can you tell it to keep cookies from glibertarians.com?
What browser, what version, what extensions?
Do you have a console log showing what’s requesting the refresh? Are you allowing cookies?
I’d like to see the US have this level of dedication. But we don’t. Also aside from satisfaction I don’t see what this gains Israel other than more hatred both in the region and from our European talking classes.
Inside Israel’s High-Tech Campaign to Kill or Capture Every Oct. 7 Attacker
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-gaza-ceasefire-attacks-55c889b7?st=fTnZG2&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I would say that sending a message to other would-be 10-7 attackers would be a useful result.
But there’s an argument to be made that Islamic terrorists really aren’t smart enough to understand any message other than being dead.
They are either too dumb or uniformed or happy in their virgin filled paradise.
Another benefit of killing every single on of them is that is the only way to achieve any sort of justice. Doing the right thing shouldn’t need any other justification.
Its the same play book from after the Munich Olympics and the Holocaust.
Yep. The Gazans played FAFO with the wrong people.
Every Oct. 7 Attacker
The Dems tried for every Jan. 6er!
Great point!
Just wack every male over the age of ten and be done with it.
TMZ has it in for Spencer Pratt. I know that have to be progressive to keep their Hollywood access, but it seems a bit much for a celebrity news outfit.
They opened up an office in DC didnt they? They are pivoting from dying Hollywood to politicians.
Smart move honestly
I mean, I’m guessing that a search for his name appearing on TMZ prior to the date he declared his candidacy for Mayor returns approximately a bajillion results. It’s not like TMZ just suddenly got in the business of covering/taking a position regarding Spencer Pratt, this really shouldn’t be surprising.
Not even much of a pivot. Most politicians are little more than celebrity spokesholes at this point anyway. The saying that DC is just Hollywood for ugly people goes way back for a reason. Most “news” out of DC is essentially gossip anyway.
Damnit, I don’t want to stock another caliber.
Amish Walnut? A plain name for American Black Walnut?
It does look interesting.
FALs are strange rifles. They’re big, heavy, not particularly accurate, and less durable compared to their peer competition (the M14 and HK-91).
But for some weird reason, they’re just amazingly fun to shoot.
I have two gear logo Imbel Stg-58 receivers sitting in my safe, waiting for me to be properly motivated to build them up.
I’m still kicking myself for not picking up a PTR91 fifteen years ago.
7.62 NATO is a new caliber for you?
It would be, yes.
I don’t have any 7.62×51 guns either (save the aforementioned receivers.). It’s not a popular caliber anymore.
Seeing it is the H&R version, I hope they are keeping it inch based, like the exceptional British L1, and not metric like the less accurate Israeli version.
Anyone else have X links mute? Only from here. If I get one from some news site there is audio.
Happens to me too but if I pause it and then play it the sound comes on.
I see there is an X war between people who have struggled in the past and made ends meet and the Zoomers who demand $20 lunches every day.
Sandwiches are for peasants.
Taylor Lorenz is beclowning herself. Supposedly she responded by limiting who may reply to her.
Surprised she hasn’t entirely fled to Bluesky.
I suspect that Taylor has a humiliation fetish.
She should date Paul Krugman, make the circle complete.
Both sides are right, and both sides are also extremely cringe.
The Boomers are entitled, out of touch, and largely responsible for our present political-economic calamity.
The Millennials and Posts are incompetent, whiny little bitches with zero coping skills.
We always knew that it was going to be up to GenX to slack our way to salvation…
I laughed at people claiming grocery food will give you cancer while chowing down Chipotle as if its clean food is peak retarded for the day.
also that groceries are expensive as if dining out is less expensive
You can do a lot worse than Chipotle. It’s hardly health food, but it’s a viable option if you’re keeping track of your macros.
Clean food made in canola.
This is correct. That said, I’m leaning boomer here. That grocery store food is expensive is not a justification to buy even more expensive restaurant food. And the same applies to everything else. That a suburban apartment in a smaller city has high rent is not a justification to live in a trendy area with higher rent. That your job sucks because you have a useless degree is not a justification to fund a lavish life via credit cards.
But the Zoomers have a point too. Even making 6 figures is often not enough to support a family, especially as kids get older, and it’s only gotten worse since Covid policy. We used to live fairly comfortably. Kids in private school. Regular vacations. But after inflation ass fucked all of us with Steve Smith’s dick, and after a 50% raise in household income, we’re now struggling to make ends meet. Our HELOC payment almost doubled. When I had to buy a new (used) car because my former car took a shit, interest rates were at their peak.
But, as they’ve been taught via their commie indoctrination, where Zoomers have it wrong is the whole cOrPoRaTe GrEeD schtick, and not blaming Covid fallout on government policy. It’s not corporations taking thousands from our income every paycheck, then demanding thousands more every April so that Learing Centers can be a thing.
$20 today was $9.15 in 1995.
Not cheap but not crazy like $20 today “sounds” but really isn’t.
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/when-the-experimenter-fails-the-marshmallow
Good comment:
Simple psychological explanation: recency bias. For boomers, working and saving up worked. That’s their most recent memory: I worked, saved, and now I’m rich. They fail to see all the money printing that helped them and kicked the cost down the road to be paid by their children. They couldn’t fail. For Xers and down, it’s the opposite. The most recent memory is: no matter what we do we’re in debt and constantly trying to catch up. It’s neither genetics nor ‘character’ but simple psychology.
If the debt they are bemoaning most is education that is one thing. If it is about financing their consumption at Boomer levels, that is another.
DoorDash is a human right!
It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Develop a 6 cylinder that nobody in the US wants and is too fuel inefficient and large for other places in the world. Develop the heaviest least space efficient EV platform. Create a crazy expensive SUV that nobody wants. Kill your popular V8. And make as many fully optioned vehicles as possible driving up per unit prices to insane levels. Also don’t invest resources into quality. Take that money and give it shareholders. WTF could go wrong?
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/stellantis-to-focus-on-jeep-and-ram-in-the-u-s-with-under-30-000-vehicles-coming-d66a8b8f?st=uDoeGU&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
MAKE AUTOMOBILES DANGEROUS AGAIN
They expected government mandates that would favor their business model?
Needs a bailout or needs to bail out. Capitalism is a harsh critic.
Tavares totally fucked them. I got one of the last basic model Grand Cherokee L models during lockdown. Basic V6, cloth interior, etc.. for $40K. Would not have done it except they gave me $25K trade in for the paid-off Durango. Base model Grand Cherokee now has a turbo 4, costs more, sucks.
They could save the company by building the XJ again.
It sounds like a big gamble, but here’s the thing – if that nutjob strategy pays off, they get huge profits. If it fails and bankrupts the company, the taxpayers bail them out. Again.
So, if you are playing with an unlimited line of house money, why not go all in?
Over his four years as CEO, Tavares garnered a total of approximately $113.6 million, with a peak income of $39.9 million US in 2023.
https://citroenvie.com/stellantis-ex-ceo-nets-more-than-current-ceo-in-2025/
Wish they could take it all back.
Not mentioned – exactly when, and why, the US became responsible for curing African disease outbreaks.
White Man’s Burden is burdensome…
Probably because many of them are coming here and claiming “asylum”.
It is an opportunity for all the enlightened countries to show the US how it is done.
How the hell does NYC accomplish an autopsy this fast when the usual time seems to be months.
What an awful way to go for this woman. Fuck NYC once again.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/woman-who-fell-into-nyc-manhole-died-of-scald-burns-and-other-injuries-676c76fa?st=BZY4zJ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Well, I am going to be there tomorrow night, so, I got that going for me.
Which is nice?
Watch your step!
Libertarianism keeps splintering into factions for the same reason communism does – both suffer from flawed views of human nature. When people demonstrate that they will not act in ways aligned with these ideologies, a faction forms in response.
💯%
What exactly is that flawed view? And which libertarians have it?
You may recall that I wrote a whole post on this awhile back. In a nutshell, libertarians tend to have adopted a fundamentally Marxian view of humanity as more-or-less purely economic actors, and that anything that isn’t fundamentally transactional is basically invisible to them. Handwaving about freedom of association* aside, they wrongly view people as hyper-individualists with no fundamental drive for belonging, community, whatever.
*Freedom of association tends to come mainly, if not entirely, in the context of “I want to do business, and refuse to do business, with whoever I want.” So, still economic/transactional.
What exactly is that flawed view – open borders for example
And which libertarians have it? – many
I quit being a libertarian because of all the purity tests…
There are many that are under the delusion that one day we will elect the Chosen One, love child of Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand, who was prophesied. The Chosen One will somehow win the Presidency, and use executive orders to establish Ancapistan.
I’m afraid I don’t recall that article.
I’m not going to argue about what libertarians believe only a few paragraphs after complaining that (self-styled) libertarians don’t believe anything with any consistency.
But I will say that your understanding of economics as a purely financial/monetary science is wrong, or maybe incomplete.
My freshman Econ201 professor (who was not in any way libertarian) really put it best when he said, “Economics is the study of why people do the things they do.”
When you understand that, an economic understanding of human behavior makes perfect sense.
“Economics is the study of why people do the things they do.”
When you understand that, an economic understanding of human behavior makes perfect sense.
yeah this much broader than what economics usually cover. In encompasses culture religion philosophy etc. Which seem beyond the scope of usual economics/
I wasn’t criticizing the academic study of economics. I was criticizing the libertarian understanding of human nature.
And I gotta say, defining economics as encompassing the entire study of human behavior is, well, arguable at best. I think its just another way of saying that there is no dimension of human nature that can’t be perfectly explained by economics (which is to say the use and exchange of resources), which was my criticism of libertarianism in the first place.
That’s because economics is a social science, and as such is flypaper to midwits.
Do me a favor. Hit me with an example of human nature that is not in some way transactional, even if it’s just a transaction of feels or good vibes.
Economics is the study of motion, not finances. Money just happens to be a good way to simplify (some) motion to be able to study it.
Human nature, as RC says, does not revolve entirely around money, and that is a failure of (us) libertarianism. Big or small L.
I know it is chic to attribute all loving or altruistic actions to people seeking good feelings, and thereby to argue that they are transactional, but it is an extremely broad definition of transactional if true, as the other person does not give those feelings, so the whole ‘transaction’ occurs internally. So I will put my objection this way, arguing that economics is the study of all of human action expands economics to include a number of things that are not-quantifiable, and not subject to falsification and therefore makes it no longer a science, even in the soft sense.
I prefer to acknowledge that not all human action is purposeful in the transactional sense, and restrict economics to those areas where some measurable exchange is in fact present. That does not mean ignoring those other areas, just recognizing that they are not necessarily going to follow the same rules as external, measurable exchanges do.
Easily done:
I am currently redoing the landscaping around my house, just because I didn’t like the former owner’s landscaping and want it to be different. Certainly, I am buying plants to do this, but to call this an economic activity is to reduce it to its most insignificant component.
Is doing something because it brings you enjoyment or pleasure an economic activity for that reason? I would say no, it is not. Such as, for another example, participating in this website. Calling every human interaction a “transaction” is just extending the error of thinking everything boils down to economics.
Okay, but *why* not? You’re performing labor, for a benefit, correct? Why does it matter if the benefit is only in your mind?
I suspect that a lot of the desire to exclude human actions from the realm for economic calculation, is just an aesthetic reaction to ‘filthy lucre.’ Which I’ve never felt.
ES, if masturbating is an economic activity, then the term has lost all meaning.
If we’re using triviality as a yardstick to determine what is and is not an economic calculation…then me buying a pack of Tic-Tacs at the corner store isn’t an economic activity either.
Not to say that masturbation is trivial. For some of us it’s extremely important…
He didn’t say masturbating was trivial.
I think you’re just substituting “economics” for “psychology,” maybe because you think the latter is icky.
I would say that psychology is the science of the human actions that can’t be explained economically. And yes, I think that’s icky.
Economics is the study of why people do the things they do.
That wasn’t even true for political-economy in the 19th century. It is an interesting conceit that prof had.
I never made it to liberation over drugs, borders, death penalty, whores, and government controlled marriage.
https://youtu.be/-BL7vu0994U
both suffer from flawed views of human nature – I also think there is another lesser factor. People who think for themselves for better or worse reach a variety of conclusions. People who follow the group think do not.
Libertarianism is properly seen as a vector, not a destination.
I do think that libertarian-ism is much better as a school of thought than a political policy (or party). That might not be exactly what you’re saying, but I think it’s close.
It is good enough for government hating work!
But, I am referring to it as a way to approach a destination.
I’m not closing the books on Iran quite yet.
nuke it? how bloodthirsty of you. there must be a better way.
Sorry not sorry, corporate version.
CEO Walks Back Comment About Replacing ‘Lower-Value Human Capital’ With AI
https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/ceo-walks-back-comment-about-replacing-lower-value-human-capital-with-ai-15bdfc5c?st=WaCH87&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
To Be Faaaair… corpos do have a bunch of Lower-Value Human Capital. But not always fired if they have the right networking.
Leave HR alone.
I’m shaking my head over these CEO’s. These are the top guys, mind you, and they’re saying:
“AI will eliminate all your jobs.”
“Unemployment will be so bad we will need to have UBI.”
“AI will probably destroy humanity.”
“Why are people opposed to my data centers?”
I’m convinced about 15% or more of the population is only suited for jobs like digging ditches by hand.
No carpetbaggers.
No foreign born officeholders.
Multiculturalism was one of the most evil lies put upon my generation.
My culture is that I have no respect or outright animosity to other cultures. What could go wrong?
Nothing, Sensei. As long as those other cultures stay where they belong, that is.
It was obviously a commie plot all along – and they weren’t shy about it at the beginning, either.
As long as those other cultures stay where they belong, that is.
Um, that overlooks the Wilsonian-progressive project to redeem the world by remaking it in OUR image. We’ve been exporting democracy for over a century.
I will come carrying a leather bag and hold office over you and raise your taxes
Virginia is for carpetbaggers.
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Elk and exotic species
One of the most abundant Osceola turkey populations in Florida
Natural beauty and ecological significance anchor the experience. Little Haw Creek forms the eastern boundary, connecting into a pristine watershed system that ultimately feeds the St. Johns River—offering a true “Old Florida” landscape of cypress, oak hammocks, and pine flats.
With over 7 miles of paved roads, 20+ miles of internal roadways, and development-grade infrastructure throughout, Phillips Ranch is engineered not just for today—but for generations to come.
This is more than a ranch.
It is a legacy asset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5-1v-HbjmY
5,110± Acres
Flagler County, Florida
Offered at $42,000,000
🎶 “I use antlers in all of my decorating” 🎶
The number of great shooting facilities in Florida just boggles the mind.
1,000-yard long-range – no one needs more than 50 yards
Shooting my 6 Dasher bolt gun at 50 yards is like masturbating without being able to climax.
no way you could hit at 1000
I can, I have before, and I will again.
I’ve hit a 20″x40″ E-silhouette at 1050 yards with a 5.56mm AR-15 shooting mag-length ammo (not with the first shot, but still…)
See? You would have done better with a 308 🙂
Ehhh, probably not. The external ballistics of a 77grn. .223 Sierra MatchKing going out at 2750, and a 175grn. .308 Sierra MatchKing going out at 2600, are not all that different. The .308 might retain a little more downrange energy, for whatever good that does, but the .223 is going to be a lot lighter to carry.
Now I absolutely would have done better with my 6 Dasher or 6.5 Creedmoor bolt guns. Both of those will stay supersonic well past 1000 yards…but this was a semi-autos only match.
Sorry, long-range rifle shooting really brings out the ’tism.
Palma is 1000 yards, .308, iron sights.
That is real shooting.
“The external ballistics of a 77grn. .223 Sierra MatchKing going out at 2750, and a 175grn. .308 Sierra MatchKing going out at 2600, are not all that different.”
It’s a significant difference in momentum.
Palma is for wimps and old people who have to lie on their bellies to hit anything.
Real shooters shoot ISSA-Schuetzen standing up.
Momentum only makes a difference when it comes to ringing the steel hard enough that your spotter can see it.
The terminal ballistic difference (i.e. what happens after the bullet hits someone) between .308 and .223 at 1k is barely measurable.
“Momentum only makes a difference when it comes to ringing the steel hard enough that your spotter can see it.”
Only in a vacuum.
I have a schtuetzen rifle https://ibb.co/k2kp89HN that I am restoring, and in the process getting rid of the pussification ie scope mounts and bringing it back to the original style of iron sights, like this https://www.gunbroker.com/item/1176473874
The guys in that video are using Unertl 20X scopes, and even standing, they are pussies. Scopes are for hunting, not target shooting.
Okay Fudd.
(That is a nice rifle though. How’s the barrel?)
Rifling is good (got lucky, the cosmo job was crap) but I am going to have to have it skim cut to get rid of the rust pits. There is plenty of room to do it, damn thing is 24mm thick!
Enough room to do an octagonal profile? I’ve always thought Schutezen rifles look best with octagonal barrels…
Everything is better with a 308.
This needs to be posted from time to time. Bottom line, the more you build the more housing costs. Correlation is not causation but my god!
https://x.com/pmcondon2/status/2056848180910891440
“Bottom line, the more you build the more housing costs.”
If no one built housing it would be free.
If we stop building housing prices will drop …
Imagine going through life being that stupid.
Let me guess. He’s a professor?
By the balls of Thor why oh why did I click on that?
“Temple that has housed Japan’s ‘eternal flame’ for 1,200 years is destroyed by fire”
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15837135/Temple-housed-Japans-eternal-flame-1-200-years-destroyed-fire.html
STIJLTH
Susanna Hoffs hardest hit
heh. heh heh. heh heh heh.
If there is a video of that then I guess it is time for me to trust OnlyFans with a CC number…
Rt Hon Nadine Dorries
@NadineDorries
The Online Safety Act should be repealed.
The principle at its core, to protect children and young people has been abused and used for political advantage.
https://x.com/NadineDorries/status/2056624345594679301
helluva reader note
Too late. Into the woodchipper with you.
“Tulsi Gabbard’s glamorous right hand Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, a former CIA officer married into the Kennedy clan, is out at the White House as whispers swirl of a Trump feud with his top spies over Iran.
Sources familiar with Kennedy’s plans say her resignation stems from her disagreement with Trump’s decision to launch strikes on Iran, according to the Washington Post.”
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15837395/Tulsi-Gabbards-glamorous-ex-CIA-deputy-RFK-Jr-s-daughter-law-QUITS-White-House-amid-whispers-bitter-Iran-war-rift.html
glamorous?
Washington 10?
Anna Paulina Luna throws off the curve.
I can see her official portrait from my house.
Well, she was a Fox, before she married a Kennedy, so there’s that.
Did she demand they keep killing IRGC commanders and all the mullahs, instead of this shitshow of trying to negotiate with this goat fucking death cult?
I mean she is a Kennedy in law, did you think that they wouldn’t use all of the adjectives? I’m surprised it didn’t say “regal”.
RFK Jr has damaged the brand.
Without love, it ain’t much.
in 1974, World Cup results were seemingly so tough to find in the US that the New York Times had to beg readers not to phone them up to ask, and directed them to a dedicated hotline run by @lufthansa
https://x.com/Zonal_Marking/status/2057135074689024165
It was just a recording that said soccer is gay.
I still find it amazing that anyone cares about soccer in the U.S.
Or any sport really.
“The married former leader of a gay conversion ministry was caught in a police sting while trying to arrange sx with a 14-year-old boy, according to police.
Alan Chambers, a 54-year-old father of two, allegedly sent sexually explicit text messages and attempted to arrange a meetup over Snapchat and Telegram with an undercover officer posing as a teenage boy, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in Florida….
He is charged with solicitation of a minor via computer, transmission of material harmful to minors, and unlawful use of a two-way communication device.”
https://nypost.com/2026/05/21/us-news/former-gay-cure-ministry-leader-busted-trying-to-meet-14-year-old-boy-for-sex-cops/
“an undercover officer posing as a teenage boy” no idea how that’s legal
Gotta say, not sure what a “gay conversion ministry” is these days.
I legit wondered for a moment if this was ‘convert the gays to straight’, ‘queer up the straights’, or something completely different.
Gay Conversion Ministry
“gay conversion ministry”
——-
That’s what happens when an NFL placekicker misses a few on national TV and his team calls in a few guys for a tryout.
Dog bites man
Happy birthday Durer. I studied his stuff a lot when I first got into portraits and figures. I have a book of his sketch book pages.
Democrats in Congress released thousands of pages of his tax returns for the years covering 2015-2020, showing how Trump used the tax code to lower his tax obligation
His accountants looked at the tax code in order to determine how much he owed. Shocking.
He’s not as noble as the Democrats who refuse to take credits, deductions, or exemptions.
Holy shit. More Toyota owners fucked.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/toyota-turbo-v6-recall-campaign-grows-to-include-more-than-250000-trucks
Bonus. Hybrid owners don’t count because they still have propulsion after engine failure so it’s not a “safety” issue. This is not the Toyota of the past.
Boy that new CEO didn’t take long to screw things up.
Manufacturing a Camry from the 90’s is now illegal.
When my Tacoma wears out (hopefully not for a while) I won’t be buying another one.
Maybe a 4Runner. Those are still running the 4.0L naturally-aspirated V6, right?
Pretty sure it’s nothing but 2.4 liter 4 cylinder turbos right down the line now.
*sob*
We bought our 2022 Highlander because it was the last model year they made the V6 for them. I don’t know if they kept making V6s for 4Runners (or Tacomas) after that.
Ridgeline is a 3.5 V6.
A couple friends have Ridgelines. I’m definitely keeping them in mind.
Sorry, Archive isn’t working on my tablet, but we may have peak NYT for the week.
Paywall. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/magazine/partner-fired-gun-in-home-ethics.html
The gun’s will overpowered hers?
Former police weapon, probably.
Looks like Archive.today may be d-e-d at the moment. I was able to get to it, but it’s been stuck in a queue for pulling that for a while now.
You could light a sun with the burn of that irony
And the writer asks if it’s ok for her to keep with therapy and training?
Is there anything that combination can’t solve?
The sex must be amazing to put up with that amount of crazy.
I remember when Timothy McVeigh was concerned about the federal government’s actions.
I’m sure the letter writer is just as crazy.
That is probably the most r/LiberalGunOwners thread in history.
True confession – in twenty years of high volume shooting, I have had a handful of accidental discharges. A few times I’ve let off a round before I intended to while practicing limit speed draws, and I once had the hammer slip from under my thumb while making ready – Not Adhan got to witness this…
But not once have I ever felt ‘an overwhelming compulsion to pull the trigger that I could not resist’. If I ever did, I would turn my guns over to a trusted friend for safekeeping, and check myself into an intensive course of psychiatric treatment.
I think if you start feeling overwhelming compulsions that you truly cannot resist to do anything, you are either lying because you don’t want to resist and don’t want to own up to your action (99.999%) or are actually insane and need to be hospitalized probably for life (.001%)
No kidding. If you have overwhelming compulsions to pull a trigger, you should never pick up a gun, probably ever.
Keep in mind, this is (probably) a person who thinks that repeating progressive talking points is intelligence. She could be lying, could certainly be insane, but in all likelihood is simply stupid and unable to think through the results of her actions.
JFC. I don’t even do dry practice if there’s a live round in the same room, much less in the gun itself. Actually chambered? WTF is wrong with people?
This is a person who bought a gun over ICE.
Sub-text: if even someone as smart and well educated as my elite partner can be overwhelmed by a gun’s magic allure, what hope do rubes have? We must ban guns now.
See also, Maureen Dowd and marijuana edibles.
Correct!
You guys don’t even know when you’re being trolled by Alec Baldwin.
Everyone knows Hilaria isn’t the slightest bit loca.
News from 8th grade Missouri standardized tests: Our team’s graded 59,606 tests so far, with 16,290 remaining. (These were yesterday’s numbers, so about 63k done and 13k remaining.) Something like 3200 a day, so we should be done by Wednesday, and we *need* to be done on that 27th.
Hopefully will be getting word of my interim gig at Meijer as well, today. Talked to ’em yesterday and apparently “Receiving” is the only area that needs hours, on their end. That’ll be interesting and may not last long, titanium hips considering, but I’ll certainly be fine enough to give it a few days go. (I’ve not done that part of ‘the gig’ at any location, so we’ll see.)
Getting out of this contract, new work search’ll begin shortly. It kinda does feel like Minnesota Munch may try this American leg of our journey ‘together,’ with her in similar straits. That’d be oh-so lovely (and terrible?) in equal proportion. If she can find something in IN that may be a remarkable change of pace for ‘us.’ She wants to ship off to Austin and try anew there, but that’s a thought process she’s making, expediting, under duress.
I rather like my current gig. Interesting things await, however. (They always do.) Today, I’m 30 essays in, so far, with ~120 to go. I’m glad I’m documenting their answers more than last time. Many of them really are good, but the accidentally funny ones are fantastic, and the don’t-give-AF and half-illiterate ones are both damning in their own ways.
Onward, heathens. The Rock is a fantastic film. Oh, it’s stupid. But oh-so much fun. Now go home and fuck the prom queen.
who thinks we need to “invest more” in our precious children.
That word…
We aren’t getting much of a return lately.
Our
What’s funny is, “that word” could apply to almost any word in that phrase:
“thinks”
“we”
“need”
Etc.
while practicing at home with a live round in the chamber, she felt an overwhelming compulsion to pull the trigger that she could not resist. The gun discharged, putting a hole in our wall.
She forgot to give the cylinder a spin?
Gazing forlornly
Standing in his laboratory, Harvard professor Sean Eddy gazes at a row of vacant work stations. More than a year ago, this lab was filled with over a dozen researchers. On a given day they might be working independently on analyzing genomic sequencing or gathered around the group table, drinking coffee and helping each other troubleshoot questions about genomic data from different species.
Now, after his funding was terminated under the Trump administration, the computer screens are gone and the room is silent. He’s one of the last people left.
“ Seeing these labs empty — this is not the way it’s supposed to be,” he says. “This was a very vibrant lab.”
Mad King Donald has killed science. It’s worse than the Spanish Inquisition.
That’s nice. What did you produce, with all your vibrancy?
Published works on his CV.
That way he gets more money to publish more works on his CV.
Science is just going to have to wait for the next Dem administration to throw billions of dollars at it.
And how big is Harvard’s endowment?
I don’t understand, I voted to tax landlords, why is my rent going up?
Just freeze rents like Mamdani is claiming he will do.
“Why is my apartment falling apart?”
“Because shut up.”
“we will get the heat fixed next summer. Pinky swear!”
The deferred maintenance on NYC public housing is in the tens of billions of dollars and rising rapidly every year.
Commies like Mamdani want to turn all housing into “public housing”.
The simple fact that business entities never pay taxes, because the people buying their products/services are the ones that do, never registers with the tools that believe they should use other people’s money to give them free shit.
They forgot the clause that prohibits landlords from passing costs?
Need to put a tariff on the property owners, make them pay the property tax.
The very idea of passing it on to the renters, for shame.
To be fair, a lot of housing is being bought up by the Blackrock-type people, creating a death spiral to people whose wages are not going up commensurately.
Now, I’m not talking about people who make bad financial decisions. I’m talking about people who’ve been careful who are getting the shaft. This is not imaginary, not conspiracy, not tinfoil hat territory.
a lot of housing is being bought up by the Blackrock-type people
That presumes there is profit in renting it, because there is no profit in holding it unoccupied and off the market.
From Brave AI:
Yeah. That’s not a major driver.
In 2025, Eddy received a letter from the National Institutes of Health, informing him that his work “had been determined to be of absolutely no value to the US taxpayer, and therefore it was being specifically terminated,” he recalls.
Eddy is one of thousands of researchers across the U.S. still grappling with the damage inflicted on science in 2025 under the Trump administration — despite a restoration of funding earlier this year.
He invented a model. It doesn’t get any more valuabler than that.
I have my own good news today. Last week my coach asked pretty-please if I could play in next week’s MN tournament. He only asked that I attend ONE practice. Last night I got my kid to drive me up. I was rusty and the cardio aspect was a challenge, but I’m still fast and I can still get the puck off the ground. I passed that test pretty well (last practice a few months ago I had to stop after an hour because I got dizzy and queasy).
Our B team played 6 tournaments this year. This will be my second playing, and I was coach for one. Unlike my car, the season wasn’t a total loss.
Keep kicking ass and taking names TOK. As Stiffler told the gang in American Pie: “You don’t score until you score”…. You are not out of the game until you take yourself out.
Good to hear, TOK
Go you!
Thanks! For the first time we are bringing two teams. I’m playing at the lower level which is probably going to be perfect.
I keep saying, it wasn’t my choice to be out this long, but in the long run that delay was probably for the best.
This is good to hear!
This makes me happy.
$38,000 per student.
8% of accessed value.
Good god.
Idaho is about $13,000 per student and it’s honestly a factor of ten too high compared to what we spend as homeschoolers. We’re about 1.2% accessed value and I’m about to go postal over that as it’s a massive rip off.
How do people afford their property taxes there, let alone a mortgage?
Indiana is about $13k as well. Our test scores are pretty decent. (Of course the teachers here are constantly bitching about “no funding”).
I highly doubt that district is getting 3x the results for 3x the money.
Government Education spending is typically inversely proportional to results
I checked the profile on the local schools. With a 22K per student, 17 students per class, the schools were given an F rating. Habitual absenteeism was 35%
Kick those kids out.
Buy them a shovel.
“Scientists have warned that an imminent ‘super El Niño’ could be even more powerful than a previous event which caused over 50 million deaths.
The 1877 El Niño was one of the most severe climate events in recorded history, triggering a global humanitarian disaster known as The Great Famine.
Climate reconstructions suggest water temperatures in a key region of the Pacific Ocean rose by 2.7°C (4.86°F), which caused disruption to rainfall patterns around the world.
Estimates indicate the resulting scarcity of food and disease outbreaks killed up to four per cent of the Earth’s population at the time….
Now, forecasts suggest water temperatures could potentially exceed 3°C (5.4°F) above average later this year – making the upcoming super El Niño even more powerful than the one nearly 150 years ago….
‘What is different now is that our atmosphere and oceans are substantially warmer than they were in the 1870s, which means the associated extremes could be more extreme.'”
https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/article-15836649/Super-El-Nino-1877-2026-event.html
I don’t even believe in Super Mario.
““We’re in a bit of a mess with bowel cancer,” says Verma. “We are seeing more and more people with these cancers under the age of 50, with high profile-cases such as Deborah James and Adele Roberts. We are still not fully sure why these cancers are rising among younger people, but some have suggested, without concrete evidence, that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) may be a component of that.”
“It is virtually impossible to have a UPF-free diet,” continues Verma. “Having a burger is not a terrible thing: having a burger twice a day, every day for a week, is a problem. Make sure you are having regular meals, that a proportion of them are fresher, and you have plenty of fruit and vegetables, so you are getting all the vitamins and minerals you need.””
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/may/21/how-often-should-you-go-to-the-toilet-how-can-you-get-the-better-of-wind-experts-tips-for-a-healthier-gut
Burgers are ultra-processed?
I suspect that ‘ultra-processed foods’ are whatever they say they are.
Now I want a burger.
“Ultra-processed” might be defined in their religious catechism somewhere.
What possibly could have changed in the last six years…
A fast food burger? Yes.
I don’t eat those.
Some. Not all. McDonalds burgers are almost completely unprocessed (the burgers themselves, not the buns or sauces.)
EvilSheldon:
Back when I worked at McDonald’s, we were able to “drop” some quarter pound patties to take to a cook out. They were really damned good burgers (and the price was right for a group of teenagers).
I had a friend in collage who often “lost” a bag of McNuggets.
Good eating!
McDonald’s dropped the margarine and went to regular butter back in 14-15 as well.
Both Sirianni and Eddy say for them, it’s too late to restart their research. “That means that the therapeutic development work that taxpayers previously invested in is now hitting a brick wall,” says Sirianni.
“Even as just a citizen of the country, this frustrates me,” she says. “It’s a loss of investment. It’s a loss of momentum for the families that have children that are affected by these tumors. Every month, every week — that matters to them.”
Muh sunk costs!
We have to keep these phony baloney sinecures funded in perpetuity.
Regarding the teacher salary link Fourscore posted…
Not going to disagree with overall idea that many teachers are overpaid. But a broad average such as that site has doesn’t tell us much. The average salary listed for my state is about 2.5 times the starting salary of a middle-school social studies teacher.
Median was included.
The wages ramp up very fast as well. Benefits packages are gold plated.
NOTES:
1. My 2006 Hyundai Sonata needs a new radiator (~$550). I told my mechanic I needed to keep that car running as long as possible because I refuse to have a Big Brother car. “Safer.” Right. Besides killing you, there are too many ways this could be exploited for money manufacturing and government control.
He said he got rid of a new car he’d bought because the nag for the lane monitoring was a) too tight and b) couldn’t be shut off.
Too much computer, not enough car.
2. I am turning actively anti-big business. They crush everything in its way with government sanction, but little people will get put away for life for this stuff. This is basically a fascist economy.
“If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing.” I’m giving the side-eye to this, but I’m leaning more that way. I’ve start buying physical media again.
“You’ll own nothing and you’ll like it!” See #1. Also, see John Deere and fuck your subscriptions, MS and Adobe.
3. I’m formatting a book for a long-time client.* It’s a roman a clef. In it, he tells an anecdote about why people are so upset about the trans issue. The interlocuter says,
This is delivered in a consultant’s amoral (where “amoral” is simply neutral) analysis.
*Apologies to client.
4. You know, they never really tell the parable of the prodigal son from the dad’s point of view.
On point. I often say I hate corporate bullies as much as the ones in the government.
Didn’t that already start with Google Books?
No. Started with Napster.
I don’t remember big tech defending Napster.
Radiator is $100, hoses will be another $40-50 on the high end, new coolant and a flush, $60-80. The rest is labor.
Better throw a thermostat at it too.
This is basically a fascist economy.
People want managed competition. None of that dog-eat-dog stuff.
One of my favorite pastimes is calling democrats out as fascists. Which, as we know, is 100% accurate.
Dems think any sort of totalitarianism that they do not control is Facsism. Which is a debasement of the term, but, well, sometimes language drifts.
I just skip the middleman and call them totalitarians.
For Threedoor:
https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/trees-shrubs-vines/trees/fast-growing-trees/
“https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/”
You forgot to add your discount code.
I need to make a trip to south of Salem OR and buy some big trees while I’m there.
“A progressive coffee chain, Busboys and Poets, is being sued after dropping a mixed-race author, over his novel featuring a fake gender transition.
Jordan Randall’s 2023 novel Pinkface follows Alfred Hall, a wealthy suburban high school senior who, after being rejected from his backup college, pretends to transition into a woman in an attempt to gain an advantage in admissions—only to go viral and unexpectedly become a prominent public figure within the trans community.
Randall, who is not transgender, later signed a contract with the Washington, D.C.–based coffee chain, which initially agreed to promote, showcase, and sell the book before abruptly canceling the arrangement after he submitted a photograph of himself….
The chain is owned by Iraqi-born artist, activist, and restaurateur Andy Shallal. Busboys and Poets has previously drawn attention after being listed as a black-owned business and participating in Black Restaurant Week events, despite Shallal not being black.”
https://dailycaller.com/2026/05/20/busboys-and-poets-pinkface-transgender-andy-shallal-jordan-randall/
LOLOLOLOLOL
Holy shit satire is dead
The Bee wouldn’t even ATTEMPT this.
I’m slightly ashamed to admit that I’ve visited Busboys and Poets on a few occasions. They used to have Delirium Tremens on tap.
Speaking of managed competition
While voters see some benefits to AI, most have some fears about the effects the technology will have on jobs and humanity writ large.
Steve M. said his big fears are the “displacement of large sectors of jobs,” as well as the effect AI is having on students.
“It’s teaching an entire generation that they don’t need to have original thoughts, think critically,” he said, “because AI is going to do it for you.”
Steve said he’d ideally like to see the technology “shut down,” but that is unlikely to happen. Instead, he said he’d like to see global leaders work together to regulate the technology, which many of the voters agreed with.
More nonsensical claptrap about “critical thinking”. AI will wreck thinking skillz, but Maoist indoctrination by union school teachers opens the floodgates of curiosity and honest inquiry.
Let Big Nanny pick the winners and losers.
MOAR NOTES:
1. GOOGLE. I’ve never used Google products too much. Calendar (best product I could find we could all use), Google Play (because I have an Android phone), maps (also the best product on the market), and wallet (because I’m lazy sometimes), and (until yesterday) Chrome (because I got tired of websites going blank on me because I’m not using Chrome or, worse, Edge) are really the only ones. I only have gmail addresses because I need to for my phone apps and also Google Play Books where I upload my books to their ebook store. I honestly just never trusted my shit to somebody that big. I also don’t trust Proton because they’ll get big too and start doing the same shit.
I have my own domains, a webhost, and email addresses. I use Thunderbird client, but I don’t have to have a client at all. I didn’t start using them for everything until Roadrunner became Spectrum and Spectrum decided to stop supporting POP3, which I LIKE and keep for a REASON. My webhost still supports that. I’ll have to be more careful when they stop, because they will. Eventually.
I lurk r/degoogling. Google is taking away the ability to side-load apps (if I understand this correctly), does shit without your consent, locking your account for mistaken reasons and no appeals process, among other
Don’t BeEvil things.I spent a while trying to figure out which browser to replace Chrome with. Tor is too labor intensive. Firefox has too much bloat, which is why I stopped using it years ago. Brave is weird. I only use Opera on my phone because it reflows instead of making me scroll left (see my recipe site) if I zoom in. In fact, I went looking for a browser SPECIFICALLY for that purpose.
Anyway, I decided to use LibreWolf, which is so far so good. Built on Mozilla, not Chromium, but without the bloat.
2. CLOUD. I have my own cloud box, but Western Digital stopped supporting (i.e., providing web access) to it because it’s old. Fuck you. It works. Stop interfering with my workflow because you need to plan your obsolescence and if you can’t plan it, you’ll force it retroactively. Anyway, I use Dropbox, but, in my opinion, sparingly. I’ve always known “the cloud” is just someone else’s computer, and they can turn on you at any time. I really need to get another cloud box.
3. TURBOTAX. Stopped providing support for Win10 this tax season (i.e., for 2025 tax year). My husband had to retrofit an old desktop with Win11 so I could do taxes.
4. MICROSOFT. I had to get MS subscription for the last transcription job I had but I didn’t need it after that company lost their contract. I let it lapse, but it still lives on my computer and I can’t figure out how to get rid of it without borking my previous installation.
5. ADOBE. I was using Pshop 7 (yes, from 2000), but it started doing weird shit, so I went to trusty old eBay to get me a physical copy because I’ll be damned if I pay one more dollar to Adobe.
6. AI. I’m not really talking about AI slop. I’m talking about businesses replacing actual humans with it. Because there’s this: The Illusion of Thinking: Understanding the Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models via the Lens of Problem Complexity by Apple. And it’s damning.
Why do people adopt untried things with “unforeseen” consequences? What’s that iron law? I have NEVER “upgraded” or “updated” until forced because what I had worked for my processes.
This goes along with my car notes above.
I have spent countless hours the last 2 months trying to fix what I didn’t break, trying to get the computer to do what *I* need and not what someone else wants to force me to use because they know better than I do.
I’m learning how to code just so I can get around all these assholes and I DON’T WANT TO. Can I do it? Yes. Can I figure out the problem and how to fix it? Yes. Can I find people who’ve already solved my problem and built a utility? Yes. Will it break something ELSE in my setup if I install it? Probably. I am so sick of this.
It’s like GenX’s natural instinct to stay wary of the internet never got passed on, even though we may have tried (well, *I* did anyway) to warn our kids not to let these people have too much of you.
“If you have nothing to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Mom, you’re just paranoid.”
“No, I’m future-proofing.”
When I had FB I never posted pics of my wife or kids. I never named them.
My dad puts his wife’s grand kids on blasts and posts their entire life. It’s weird.
people who have been told repeatedly that their feelings are not legitimate
*Gnashes teeth*
In this case, it’s legitimate. The right FEELS that they’ve been dismissed as white trash because they HAVE been, treated thusly, they have no power to fix it, and LOGIC isn’t working.
If LOGIC doesn’t work, it defaults to feelings and the FEELINGS are CORRECT.
Instinct is a thing.
If LOGIC doesn’t work, it defaults to feelings and the FEELINGS are CORRECT.
There is an ongoing war on objective reality. “Feelings” got nothing to do with it.
People scream, “Men are not women!” all the time into the void.
“Men are not women” is objective reality that is being dismissed by courts as, “Nuh uh.” What do you have left after “If they say they’re women, they’re women,” and force you to play along?