Friday morning Memorial weekend kickoff links

by | May 22, 2020 | Daily Links | 548 comments

Think about the folks on the front page as you enjoy your bbq.

 

Sloop is Sloopin’ in. Spud is on the job.

 

This tells me he understands he’s been played.

 

Overall, they’re not very good at this.

 

Between the Wutang Clap and this, not to mention the South China Sea, are we headed to WWIII?

 

How sad is it that Stephen King is a proggy piece of shit?

 

You have to watch it to the end.

 

WAKE UP!!! IT’S FRIDAY!!!

 

 

About The Author

Spudalicious

Spudalicious

Survey says I’m a Paleolibertarian bitches. That means I eat “L”ibertarians for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Soave tastes a little fruity. Wait a minute, that doesn’t sound quite right…

548 Comments

  1. The Late P Brooks

    What would the memorialized say, if they could see what their efforts have wrought?

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Maybe just let it Burn…….

    • Lackadaisical

      I’ve heard both sides trying to stand on their corpses, I won’t presume to know what they’d think.

    • Fourscore

      My cousin in Arlington and two brothers in military cemeteries are among those being remembered today, at least by me.

      Some days are diamonds, some days are…

      This is a stone day…but yet the sun shines

      • Mojeaux

        Rainy days and Mondays.

      • AlexinCT

        Those of us that have lost family & friends/brothers/sister are the ones really being reminded that we shouldn’t let that sacrifice be for nothing. Most others see this just as time to go picnicking and act out, unfortunately.

      • Mojeaux

        I think about my loved ones all the time. I tell stories about them. They live and breathe in my mind and heart.

        I don’t need a special day to commemorate them, so bring on the BBQ and bad behavior.

        They would.

      • Professional Beach Bum

        Lots of remembering buddies that are in the marble orchards. Will drink and BBQ, like we do while telling “no shit, there I was” stories.

      • Fourscore

        You’re not gonna believe this …and this is no shit….

  2. Yusef drives a Kia

    I liked the Stand, sad to see King melt into Proglandia

    • Festus

      Cocaine King was the entertaining King. Much like Aerosmith.

      • AlexinCT

        After his supposed accident the guy went full on stupid and bat shit crazy. The quality of his product ended up going downhill drastically as well. I stopped reading his shit when it got horribly pedantic. That happened to coincide with when he started to act out like a moronic liberal asshat, which was fine by me.

      • Nephilium

        Like the writing of the driver of the car that hit King as a villain in a book?

      • Festus

        Yes.

    • Rhywun

      He’s an aged hippie. It was inevitable.

      • Festus

        A Boomer college instructor from humble roots. That’s flint to iron.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Poor mossy Jordy.

      Those hot dogs above look pretty good. Quite innovative to grill them in their buns.

  3. leon

    You can always count on Trump to realize he’s listened to bad advice 6 months too late

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      He’s better than Reagan, and that says a lot, who has been a better president in your lifetime?

      • robc

        Ford?

      • AlexinCT

        Was that a joke?

      • robc

        He didn’t have time to screw up too badly. So no, not a joke.

      • AlexinCT

        Is that why people think JFK was a great prez too?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        JFK was a drunk dopehead that liked to fuck teenagers in the White House.

        That’s why they liked him.

      • AlexinCT

        Yeah, but the left acts as if he was some kind of saint. I always thought the guy was a fucking tool and had he not been removed he would likely have caused some global nightmare, cause he was too busy banging poon and snorting coke of their asses to actually care, but the usual suspects act like he was something special.

      • Shirley Knott

        He pardoned Nixon. That’s unforgivable.

      • Festus

        *gears failing to engage* I got nothing.

      • Tonio

        Eisenhower.

      • Festus

        Liar. You’re probably like me, “A Gentleman of a Certain Age”…

      • robc

        Interstate Highway System.

        tl;dr: Roadz

      • Lackadaisical

        and within 10 (?) years the feds were using it as a cuddle against states on unrelated issues.

        there is an important lesson there.

      • Lackadaisical

        cuddle=cudgel

        but that’s some funny imagery.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Pre Yusef

      • beer league keeper

        I appreciates Ike for his reaction to the Sputnik launch. The press and intelligentsia lost their shit; Ike went golfing. He understood calm leadership can calm others, despite the pounding he took from the media.

        Not necessarily libertarian, but he was a leader in a way few modern presidents have been.

      • Rebel Scum

        who has been a better president in your lifetime?

        No one. But my time only goes back to Bush the older. So out of that group, Trump wins. But the it is a very low bar, obviously.

    • invisible finger

      As opposed to Dubya and Obama who refuse to believe they were ever given bad advice.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Good businessmen admit mistakes and find solutions, Politicians lie

      • leon

        Better businessman learn from their mistakes. Trumps consistent practice of surrounding himself with snakes and morons tells me he is either a moron who can’t learn or he agrees with them.

      • invisible finger

        Which particular snakes and morons are you talking about?

      • juris imprudent

        Navarro as an economic adviser. His family in general.

      • Fourscore

        Plus Lighthizer, Wilbur Ross

      • AlexinCT

        You forget that the only people playing that game he is forced to play with are snakes and morons, and then in the most iniquitous den of snakes & morons, right? It is not like he gets enough choices to avoid that problem.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        This. Part of Obama’s big scheme was making the Trump administration toxic to any potential qualified advisers.

      • leon

        Well when people start saying they were the MOST LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENT EVAH! I’ll be more critical.

      • robc

        Coolidge? Cleveland? Jefferson?

    • Lackadaisical

      what’s with the narrative that trump shut the country down?

      I don’t think I ever saw that EO from him, and I don’t think he had the power to do it either.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They were screaming for him to be a total authoritarian and he refused.

  4. PieInTheSky

    Between the Wutang Clap and this, not to mention the South China Sea, are we headed to WWIII? – maybe if we get there the semiconductor industry picks up. Unless nukes are used.

    • PieInTheSky

      Apparently latest polls out of Germany show people became more favorable to China and less to the US in this year. I don’t trust pols, then again I trust Germans even less.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        never trust the Germans, have you heard them speak?

      • PieInTheSky

        almost every day

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        See? it’s German Vampires all the way down!!!!

      • Atanarjuat

        How the hell is that possible? Believing the anti-Trump, pro-China media?

      • Lackadaisical

        are you saying that Germans like authoritarian regimes undertaking ethnic cleansing?

        color me shocked.

      • Rhywun

        Meh. You’d probably get the same results if you polled Americans. People are fucking stupid and more easily manipulated by the MSM than ever.

      • Lackadaisical

        I dunno, kind of doubt it since conservatives both hate China and love trump now.

      • invisible finger

        Stockholm Syndrome

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They’re Germans.

        They like a strong leader that beats them a little.

        Seriously, there’s something wrong with them.

  5. PieInTheSky

    How sad is it that Stephen King is a proggy piece of shit? – not at all?

    • Festus

      His first few novels were really good in a ham-fisted way. His shorter stories (novellas?) are fine. He’s talented but he’s like Atwood. Stuck his head so far up his own ass that he can’t hear the world burn around him.

      • Tonio

        That’s a good take, Festus. “Stand by Me” is brilliant.

        The fame and fortune did him in. Hubris, and all. Much like Rowling.

      • Mojeaux

        I always said I’d quit when I started repeating myself. Trouble is, I don’t know if I have. I’m firmly established in my author voice and that may be what I get tired of in authors and think they’re repeating themselves.

        I try to make things twisty turney surprises so that one of my trademarks is I don’t have a pattern and you don’t know what I’m going to do next. I don’t know if I have succeeded or not.

        Cods & Cuntes may be my last. I’m tired, I don’t care if they make the grocery money anymore, and I now don’t want to write for the rest of my life. My well is truly dry and I’ve semi-committed to a followup to this one. I just … don’t care anymore.

        My wants and needs are very simple at this point in my life. My books don’t figure into that.

      • Ted S.

        Have your characters done every position in the Kama Sutra? If not, you haven’t repeated yourself enough to quit.

      • Mojeaux

        I haven’t cross-referenced it, no.

      • Gender Traitor

        I’d say never say never. You’ve obviously had the urge to write your entire life. This latest one is a doozy, so it’s no wonder if what you’re feeling is burnout. Allow yourself a break in order to focus on your Real World at least until it settles down. (That may take a while – maybe until the kids are grown & gone.) Then see what you feel like doing, whether it’s novels or needlework.

      • Mojeaux

        More like golf and travel and a very bohemian wardrobe (which I would sew myself).

      • Festus

        Once you settle into the rental the itch will begin anew. I have faith in you, Mojo.

      • Tonio

        As long as you’re happy. You’ve already accomplished far, far more than most aspirational writers ever will.

      • Gender Traitor

        ^!^!^!

      • Gender Traitor

        What he said! (WordPress does seem to be getting picky. It apparently didn’t like my original “^!^!^!”)

    • EvilSheldon

      He quit drinking and doing drugs, and needed something else to keep the dopimaine flowing.

  6. leon

    No one’s going to war for Hong Kong.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Fair Albion sinks into the Sea,

      • leon

        That ship has gone and sailed. I have a hard time believing that the Brits would defend the Falklands if Argentina invaded again.

      • Chipwooder

        California tumbles into the sea,
        That’ll be the day I move back to Annandale

      • Below Sea Level Hell Centro

        +1 Skunk Baxter guitar solo.

    • robc

      I said in the early 90s that HK should declare independence from England, England should say, “Didnt work out with America, we arent going to war again”, and immediately capiculate and recognize HK as an independent nation. When China complained about them backing out on the deal, claim force majure or something. It was out of their hands, as they didnt control HK anymore.

      • robc

        China might have invaded HK at that point, but in the mid 90s, they werent going to risk a war with the US…assuming we had immediately recognized HK out of solidarity in overthrowing the English yoke.

      • Festus

        England got out while the getting was good. Pity poor HK, this ain’t The Boxer Rebellion no more. This was inevitable.

      • robc

        England stayed around until the end of the contract, Hong Kong should have pushed them out earlier.

      • Atanarjuat

        It’s so sad how many good people have disappeared and will never be heard from again. Those are the real heroes, not twerking CNAs.

      • Festus

        I wonder what happens to “China is Asshoe!” guy. Disappeared, I suppose. We go from tank guy in 1989 to this fellow 30 years later and nothing has changed. It’s fucking heartbreaking.

      • Atanarjuat

        https://youtu.be/DKHhTsHzRfA

        I guess he is alive, as of one month ago. Man, I laugh and smile literally every time I hear him say that.

    • Rhywun

      No one’s going to war for Hong Kong.

      Correct.

      • Lackadaisical

        came here to say this as well.

        they’re not Taiwan in 1950.

      • Festus

        Too much money tied up with the CCP. Almost all of the rail cars carrying double-stacked containers that are marshaling in my local train yard are Chinese. Everybody wants cheap shit that breaks, apparently. I had a Chinese snowblower that Wifey got from a cow-worker. It lasted five minutes.

      • Fourscore

        Agree

  7. The Late P Brooks

    Trump did not wear a mask while touring Ford Motor Co.’s Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti, despite a state law and company policy requiring facial coverings there.

    He should have yelled, “Come and get me, coppers!” from the steps of Air Force One. I just can’t help but like the guy, some days.

    *I know a guy who owns a business who has told me there is no way he’s going to shut it down a second time.

  8. Festus

    Nice music choice, Spud! I needed a little pick-me-up.

  9. leon

    “The public should remain calm, and if you see something, say something,” FBI officials said”

    One of your terrorists get out from under your thumb and you want to make sure it goes away?

    • Below Sea Level Hell Centro

      Yes, I’d like to report some very suspicious behavior with the Obama administration.

  10. Mojeaux

    I work pretty hard not to know what my celebrity favorites say/do/think. Shut up and sing.

    • PieInTheSky

      I feel the same about the girls in the massage parlors I visit. Although singing is not expected.

      • Mojeaux

        “Me rove you rong time” good enough for you, eh?

        I wish my hairdresser wouldn’t talk or ask questions that require me to think. Shut up and play with my hair and give me my ASMR.

      • Atanarjuat

        Are they Chinese? Maybe that’s how the Wutang Clap got in the country.

      • PieInTheSky

        No. Not enough $$ in Romania to get exotics. We export wymmin we don’t import them.

      • Atanarjuat

        Should an American purchase one of your exports?

      • PieInTheSky

        They rarely make it that far.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Last stop London?

  11. PieInTheSky

    You have to watch it to the end.- that was not particularly entertaining.

  12. robc

    MMH is possibly my least favorite song on LZ4.

    When the Levee Breaks, on the other hand, is a great cover song.

    • Festus

      That’s why I enjoyed it just now. I never listen to it so it’s not so hackneyed.

      • robc

        I think I heard it too much as a yute, part of the problem.

    • Gender Traitor

      When the Levee Breaks, on the other hand, is a great cover song.

      Not linked, being sensitive to the residents of central Michigan.

      • robc

        I start humming it whenever I see a story like that. So I have been humming it for a few days now.

        It was tuck in my head as Katrina hit New Orleans.

    • Lackadaisical

      huh, I like both a lot. *shrug*

  13. PieInTheSky

    A Pakistani plane PK 8303 with 107 onboard crashed near a residential area of Karachi, officials said on Friday.

    According to Reuters, while the national carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which operated the plane said that there were 99 passengers and 8 crew members on board, according to civil aviation officials, the total for both may be 99.

    “The last we heard from the pilot was that he has some technical problem,” PIA spokesman Abdullah H Khan said in a video statement. “It is a very tragic incident.”

    https://www.firstpost.com/world/pia-plane-crashes-near-residential-area-in-karachi-pk-8303-with-107-onboard-had-flown-from-lahore-8397731.html

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      must have been a Hairy situation

      • Festus

        Shame on you! And funny.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        /smirk

  14. Trigger Hippie

    ‘State leaders, not the federal government, have imposed harsh restrictions on residents and businesses to try to slow the spread of the disease. But with the U.S. economy straining under the social distancing rules, Trump has loudly called on the country to begin the reopening process.’

    Until Trump and the congressional Republicans close the Monopoly money checkbook, that isn’t going to completely happen. But fat chance of that happening before November. I predict they’ll keep going along with bailouts until election day because they’re scared of any political backlash, thus causing more longterm economic harm to the country and world. Because Trump and a great deal of Republicans have largely shown, IMHO, that once again they prefer to bluster and bitch while ignoring their stated beliefs and principles. This waffling shit is tiresome. You want the states to open? Cut off the fucking spigot.

    • Sean

      As far as I know, they still haven’t spent all of the money from the last package. There’s no reason for another $3T. Open everything back up.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Agreed, but you know it won’t be spun that way:

        FEDERAL COVID FUNDS DRYING UP SOON! MANY PEOPLE STILL STRUGGLING! MORE MONEY OR YOU WANT PEOPLE TO DIE!

        All day, everyday, until another check is cut.

      • Lackadaisical

        they have to ignore the media, simple as that. people forget that trump won that way in the past. could work again.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Unfortunately, this time people’s wallets are directly and immediately affected. We’ll see. I’d love to be proven wrong.

  15. DOOMco

    Can a state ban Trump from entering?
    The ag called him a child while acting more childish.

    More prog-jction.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    Outrageous

    Touring a Ford plant in Michigan Thursday, President Trump wore a mask, as he should’ve. But either his vanity or arrogance or both made him shove the mask adorned with the presidential seal in his pocket when he appeared before the cameras.

    As Trump might say: not good.

    Everyone else, from the chairman of Ford to Trump aides, kept on their face coverings. Don didn’t, contrary to the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control, and the pleas of his U.S. surgeon general, and the laws of Michigan, and the rules of the motor company. By pronouncing himself above it all, he tacitly encouraged millions to act the same.

    On a hunch informed by anecdote, the man will ignore evidence and swallow a pill with potentially dangerous side effects. Yet he won’t publicly show the simple step of donning a mask when experts say it’s one of the best ways to reduce person-to-person transmission of coronavirus.

    More than a century ago, a far better president heralded the importance of the “bully pulpit,” a recognition that the power of the most important office in the land is crystallized in the words and example of the person who occupies it.

    Trump said he put the face-covering away for the public portion of his presentation because he “didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.” Which exactly, completely, misses the point.

    The public should see that their leader prizes public health over personal pride. But, of course, this one doesn’t.

    When you give up your pride, you have nothing left.

    He wore the mask on the “tour”, but that’s not good enough. They want him to bend the knee.

    • leon

      “the power of the most important office in the land is crystallized in the words and example of the person who occupies it”

      And why we have an imperial presidency. Duck that guy 100 years ago.

    • R C Dean

      “his vanity or arrogance or both made him shove the mask adorned with the presidential seal in his pocket when he appeared before the cameras“

      Now do every other politician and bureaucrat with a camera pointed at them.

    • Rebel Scum

      he tacitly encouraged millions to act the same.

      Good.

  17. leon

    So fun fact. 3 presidents have served in office after being president. One SCOTUS, one senator and one Rep.

    • leon

      Follow on. John Tyler was elected to the CSA House of Representatives, after being the US president, but died before taking office.

      • Rebel Scum

        John Tyler was elected to the CSA House

        Well shit. Now we have to change the name of a community college that bares his name.

      • Rebel Scum

        “Bears”, even…

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I know JT’s direct descendant. He’s now a Commonwealth’s Attorney in the state of Virginia. Nice guy, but most certainly got elected on the his name in Tyler’s county of birth.

    • robc

      Fun fact also, that I just discovered. We have never had 4 consecutive 2-term presidents.

      3 times (or 2, depending how you count) we have had 3 in a row:

      Jefferson, Madison, Monroe
      FDR, Truman, Ike (if you count Truman as a 2 termer)
      Clinton, Bush, Obama

  18. Mojeaux

    News thing: Lots of children die every year from poverty/starvation. Now the number of children with malnutrition is going to spike because of the panicdemic and many of those will die.

    Ya think?

    I’m going to gather those numbers (children killed by panicdemic versus by economic lockdown) and start shoving it into Karens’ faces. Did it for the children, eh? Fine. Choke on this.

    • Q Continuum

      This just proves we need socialism! Somehow I know it does!

    • invisible finger

      Obviously parents can’t be trusted to feed their children properly. We needs even more government control.

      /karen

    • robc

      I have already seen a prediction that, worldwide, the poverty deaths are going to dwarf anything from COVID. But I trust poverty prediction models about as much as I trust pandemic models.

      • Mojeaux

        You meet the Karens on their ground. You can’t persuade people if you use sources they dismiss out of hand.

      • Lackadaisical

        I don’t buy it either. I don’t doubt there will bve some effect in that general directing, but the numbers are made up

      • Trigger Hippie

        You guys may very well be right but like Mo said, you have to use their own sources against them whenever possible.

    • Nephilium

      It’s the seen and the unseen in large print.

      • robc

        And yet they still can’t read it.

        Bastiat should be required HS reading. I don’t know in what class though. I had a HS Econ course, but I know that isn’t standard. And it didn’t cover Bastiat.

      • Raven Nation

        I’ve started including Bastiat in World History. Last time, there was an exam question on the Broken Window Fallacy.

      • Atanarjuat

        Someday, you will be mentioned in one of those “what first opened up your eyes to libertarianism” questions. Excellent job.

      • Nephilium

        I’ve had some mild success pointing out to people that with the small businesses closed, it effects a lot more than just the people who work or want to shop there. Bars/Restaurants are the easy ones, by pointing out that their suppliers aren’t working either (there’s a large Sysco distribution center near me), the cleaning companies that the bars/restaurants work with aren’t working, the guys who come in to run trivia/karaoke aren’t working, the local bands who play there aren’t working. What happens when those companies start going under, not because of bad management/service/etc. but because they didn’t have enough ready cash to survive for over two months of no/limited income. It keeps it a little more sympathetic than going down the landlords and commercial real estate crash route.

      • R C Dean

        I tell people it’s like trying to restart a car that has been sitting for a year.

        Young people don’t get it.

    • Trigger Hippie

      I’ve been throwing around the UN prediction of 270 million people facing acute hunger by the end of the year, millions of which will most likely die, due to the governments of the world’s actions in some people’s faces when they acuse me of being the one who’s flippant about suffering and death.

  19. Certified Public Asshat

    Suicides on the rise amid stay-at-home order, Bay Area medical professionals say

    Doctors at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek say they have seen more deaths by suicide during this quarantine period than deaths from the COVID-19 virus.

    The head of the trauma in the department believes mental health is suffering so much, it is time to end the shelter-in-place order.

    “Personally I think it’s time,” said Dr. Mike deBoisblanc. “I think, originally, this (the shelter-in-place order) was put in place to flatten the curve and to make sure hospitals have the resources to take care of COVID patients.We have the current resources to do that and our other community health is suffering.”

    The numbers are unprecedented, he said.

    “We’ve never seen numbers like this, in such a short period of time,” he said. “I mean we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.”

    Probably not a real doctor.

    • Rebel Scum

      So you are saying that these are even more to add to covid death statistics.

    • Tonio

      FTA: Not only suicide attempts, but actual suicides have gone up. This is an important distinction because those attempted suicides, particularly with cutting or pills, is often just a cry for attention and those people call 911 or family on themselves before they go unconscious.

      Doctors at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek say they have seen more deaths by suicide during this quarantine period than deaths from the COVID-19 virus.

      Again, I wished they’d have contextualized this by telling us what the normal suicide rate is, and what the current rate is.

      • Idle Hands

        I wished they’d have contextualized this by telling us what the normal suicide rate is, and what the current rate is.

        I don’t think I’ve read a news story with actual context in it in 5 years.

      • Festus

        I’m thinking closer to twenty, Idle. It’s opinion pieces written for a willing audience.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Eisenhower.

    The poster boy of infrastructure spending.

    Of course, nobody talks about the difference between the marginal return of building the building the highway system then, and fixing the potholes now. Not that pothole-fixing isn’t necessary or beneficial.

    • Lackadaisical

      the interstates prove we need high speed rail at any price. /progs

  21. Rebel Scum

    China’s Communist Party will impose a sweeping national security law in Hong Kong by fiat during the annual meeting of its top political body, officials said Thursday, criminalizing “foreign interference” along with secessionist activities and subversion of state power.

    It’s a shame the Brits are such cucks these days.

    are we headed to WWIII?

    We are probably overdue.

    • Pine_Tree

      I won’t say WW3, but I do think we’re headed for a chest-thumping outside-the-borders push by China, by the end of the summer. It won’t turn into WW3 because nobody has the will or ability to do anything about it. HK move is cleaning up internal irritations before stepping out.

      • Rebel Scum

        Definitely a lot of saber rattling, but China doesn’t have force projection abilities such as a blue water navy. So I agree that not much will actually happen. It is sad about Hong Kong though.

      • Tonio

        They have an aircraft carrier I believe.

      • UnCivilServant

        Aircraft carriers are outdated tech.

      • bacon-magic

        You say that but I bet drone tech will bring about an update on that tech.

      • UnCivilServant

        A drone carrier would be a relatively tiny craft.

        Even if it were useful.

      • bacon-magic

        Have you seen the size of military drones? They have some big ones.

      • R C Dean

        People have been saying they are useless or outdated since the first one.

      • juris imprudent

        It is far easier to destroy a carrier than to build and protect one. They aren’t ever going to match ours, but they are damn likely to sink them if we push ours forward.

      • Idle Hands

        But they can’t land airplanes on them.

      • Rebel Scum

        We have a dozen super carriers and a bunch of smaller ones. And more tonnage in the seas than the next, what, ten or so countries combined. Not to get all rah rah but we are pretty much untouchable because of our airforce and navy.

        easier to destroy a carrier than to build and protect one

        Especially since theirs is barely afloat anyway.

      • Pine_Tree

        Unfortunately, USN capability is in serious atrophy in a lot of ways – strategy, systems, and seamanship (see Fitz/McCain). Submarines are probably the exception for now. If it got hot, the PLAN’s plan wouldn’t be carrier-for carrier anyway – it would be some subs and lots and lots of missiles. Everything south of Japan inside the first island chain is China’s if they want it, and probably the second very soon.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Obviously parents can’t be trusted to feed their children properly. We needs even more government control.

    Give money directly to the children.

    • Q Continuum

      Candy and video game sales reach record highs.

    • Trigger Hippie

      This comment is Nikki approved.

  23. Rebel Scum

    Trump says he won’t close the country if second wave of coronavirus hits

    He didn’t in the first place.

    This tells me he understands he’s been played.

    Hopefully.

  24. straffinrun

    Top o’ the morn, Spud. China still wants HK to stay somewhat autonomous due to all the cash that gets funneled into the mainland. It’ll be a massive wake up call for Taiwan if HK is swallowed up.

    • robc

      Wake up call? I doubt Taiwan has slept with both eyes closed in 75 years.

      • straffinrun

        Time for them to nuke up.

      • Q Continuum

        Since we won’t give it up, I wouldn’t blame them at all if they went shopping around. Same with Japan.

      • R C Dean

        Japan and Taiwan both. Hell, South Korea, too. Why should the commies be the only ones with nukes in that part of the world?

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^^

        Want to end China’s bullshit? Allow Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea to go nuclear.

  25. Not Adahn

    I was confused when Forgotten Weapons had a Banshee on. But it looks like CMMGis doing some sort of promotion. They put out a video of just a bunch of guntubers shooting and mugging, Kind of useless, except since none of the ones on it I’m familiar with annoy me (except maybe gun drummer) it provides a nice roster of new mid-tier guntubers to check out. So, good job promoting I guess?

    Warning: yokel as fuck – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXru51LALhE

    • DOOMco

      This beats the regular infighting.

      • Not Adahn

        Yeah. Unfortunately I’m so cynical today I can’t help but notice the ones who chose not to participate.

    • Tonio

      Harley WOULD!

      Also not-named reactive target guy.

  26. Q Continuum

    Hong Kong has been fucked ever since the UK gave them back to the ChiComs. It was always going to be 2049 (or whatever year, I forget) but likely much earlier. We’re now seeing it’s “much earlier”.

    It makes me sad because I never got to go there when it was still a unique place. Now it’s just going to be another shitty ChiCom city/vassal state.

  27. straffinrun

    Talcum X’s Dolezal moment?

    https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/1263794836026675203


    Shaun King
    @shaunking
    Guess who made the single strongest statement on the ludicrous no-knock warrant used to murder Breonna Taylor from a national politician?

    It was RAND PAUL.

    The Republican Senator from Kentucky. Not a Democrat.

    He said they should be banned altogether. Nationwide.

    Painful.

    • Q Continuum

      It’s painful just because he’s on the wrong TEAM?

      Partisanship turns people into retards.

      • Unreconstructed

        Republican, from Kentucky – wrong team, wrong location.

      • Viking1865

        I think it’s painful because, from his POV, some prog politician should have been the one calling for it. Of course, I recognize that the Dems will eagerly use no knock raids on deplorables once they get back in power, which is why they don’t want them banned.

        Although, painfully, I think if you banned no knock raids the cops would just knock really softly at 3 AM, wait 30 seconds, and then say “HES REFUSING TO OPEN UP, NOW WE CAN BREACH IT.”

    • Gender Traitor

      Painful that it was a Republican who said so?

      • Mojeaux

        That’s the way I’m reading it.

    • robc

      Moron clearly knows nothing about libertarianism.

      Of course, it probably pains him that Rand/libertarians have that position without any consideration of race involved.

    • Lackadaisical

      he just doesn’t understand how democrats are more racist than republicans.

      clearly not the brightest.

      • Chipwooder

        He’s starting to get some edumacation on it, though.

        Shaun King
        @shaunking
        ·
        2h
        It pains me to say this, but I have found the Georgia Republicans in leadership to be far more responsive under pressure in the Ahmaud Arbery case than the key Kentucky Democrats in leadership in the Breonna Taylor case.

        Every single decision maker in Georgia was a Republican.

        Shaun King
        @shaunking
        ·
        2h
        I’m not about to become a Republican, but I’m also not going to have Democrats slap us in the face and pretend I like it.

        Democrats think they can half ass, or flat out ignore the needs and demands of Black folk, and that we will take it silently.

        I refuse. They must step up.

      • juris imprudent

        He’ll shut up and get back in line or an overseer will have a “talk” with him.

      • Rebel Scum

        “I’d much prefer to remain on the plantation, massa.” – Would be funny if Talcum X was actually black, I suppose. But w/e.

    • Atanarjuat

      I think he’s saying that it’s painful the Democrats wouldn’t make that same stand.

  28. PieInTheSky

    Free market capitalism has failed Romanian patients looking for the drug Euthyrox. There is non to be found.

    • Q Continuum

      My tit post this morning is something special for you Pie.

      • PieInTheSky

        Euthyrox is for thyroid gland not for tit gland.

      • AlexinCT

        Before we clap, do we have any studies proving that to be the case?

      • AlexinCT

        I asked because I know toilet paper is to clean asses, but from the way it has made some people’s asses grow, I think we should start asking ladies to rub their breastesses with TP to help grow them healthy…

    • bacon-magic

      Why? If it is hard to buy because of regulation it would not be free market capitalism to blame.

      • PieInTheSky

        Well a patients association blames the evil distributors in particular because they don’t want to sell for the price set by the Romanian government (about one sixth of the price in the rest of Europe)

      • UnCivilServant

        A price ceiling does tend to cause shortages.

      • bacon-magic

        Your reply indicates it’s a lack of free market.

      • Agent Cooper

        “price set by the Romanian government ”

        I think we found the problem.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    I guess “the nation” will lower the flags to half staff in honor of the victims of the plague. Will they be turned upside down, as well?

    • Lackadaisical

      I told my wife I was going to hang the flag upside down to signal the distress the country is in, she told me not to get the house egged.

      • straffinrun

        Hoist up a US flag made of surgical masks. Should get the point across.

  30. Rebel Scum

    Naval Air Station Corpus Christi shooting terror-related, person of interest may be-at-large

    Oh come on. It is just a little workplace violence, or so I have been told.

    • AlexinCT

      Wrong administration.

    • Mojeaux

      Hollywood?

    • Trigger Hippie

      A geriatrician in South Florida?

    • Drake

      I think Jesus had 12 of them on a list.

    • Tonio

      Country club admissions committees in the fifties?

      • Agent Cooper

        Try the 80s in Florida.

  31. Rebel Scum

    It’s global cooling global warming anthropogenic climate change what done it.

    On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) discussed the flooding in her state and said that 500-year floods, like the one that the state is currently experiencing, are “becoming more and more frequent. We’ve got climate change as a part of that.” And that “old infrastructure” is also an issue as well.

    Whitmer said, “Well, we are concerned and we’re watching it very closely, and we know, too, that there is more precipitation in the forecast. And so, we’re taking this very seriously. I’ll just acknowledge, the fact that we’re in the midst of a global pandemic. On top of that, dealing with a 500-year flood event, which are, of course, becoming more and more frequent. We’ve got climate change as a part of that. But also, old infrastructure is, as well.”

    Infrastructure is poorly or not maintained but climate change is the culprit. Sure.

    • Q Continuum

      If 500 year floods are significantly more frequent than 500 years, then it’s not the climate that’s fucked up, it’s your definition of a 500 year flood.

      • PieInTheSky

        These 500 year and 1000 year flood claims are meaningless. There is not enough accurate data to tell. Also, if over a million years you have 1000 floods it does not mean they are spaced 1000 years apart. There is not enough info to apply the law of large numbers. You cannot analyze 1 million years because the climate has shifted radically through ice ages and interglaciars over that time.

      • Lackadaisical

        ^this.

        people don’t understand the uncertainty inherent in hydrologic models. especially with <100 years of good data in many areas.

      • Rebel Scum

        And it is information used to estimate. And the process assumes saturation. So it is fairly conservative but it is still and estimation.

      • Rebel Scum

        It is a designation based on measured rainfall intensity measured from locality to locality. NOAA is a decent source for data. 1, 2, and 10yr intensity storms are the usual design storms for storm-water infrastructure, at least in my experience. 100yr is always a consideration, generally for plotting floodplains, and is the maximum I have ever had to account for in a design. 500yr storm is not the norm and not accounted for.

      • Tonio

        100 and 500 year floods are used for bridge elevation planning.

      • Lackadaisical

        heh. I build and help operate dams and flood walls, we look at storms out to ridiculous return periods (like 10000 to 1 million years)

      • Rebel Scum

        I do subdivision infrastructure. So I only know from that perspective. But that stuff sounds interesting.

      • invisible finger

        What’s the fucking point of looking out 100x farther than the goddamned lifespan of the product? Unless you’re looking for reasons not to do the project.

        I know, I kn\ow. People just want the filthy lucre and don’t care about any easily-projectable problems if they can be easily blamed on others.

      • Lackadaisical

        There are two different reasons why, and it depends on what analysis you’re doing and why.

        If you’re assessing risk, then you want to know what it takes to make the system fail, even if it is a 1-in-a-million storm.

        If thousands of lives are on the line, then looking out to 10k years probably isn’t unreasonable*, especially given the unknowns in modelling. That does of course mean you may build fewer systems and they will be more expensive, everything is a trade-off.

        *or at least, there is an argument to take a look at some pretty extreme cases

      • R C Dean

        Yeah, it doesn’t mean there won’t be a flood for 1,000 years. It means the chances of a flood every year are 1 in 1,000.

        Low probability high impact risks are the hardest to manage. It’s a big part of my job.

      • invisible finger

        I guess I’m really bitching that phrases like “1000-year flood” are dramatic and convey absolutely no useful information whatsoever. “Odds of 1:1000” are better and convey a certain “commonness” that I understand better. Even so, it still conveys nothing regarding magnitude. I’m not a dam builder, but I’d want to know things like an ability to withstand something like “20 inches of rain in a 24-hour period” which you can at least provide actual worldwide data about how common that it is on the planet – I would guess that happens hundreds of times a year on earth even if the odds of it happening in a specific area are 1:1000.

      • PieInTheSky

        Also Taleb would say these people to not understand fat tails

      • Rhywun

        Or, she’s talking out of her ass. Just a thought.

    • Drake

      500 years ago, the natives were smart enough not to build tepees next to the river.

      • UnCivilServant

        Fun fact – teepees are portable.

      • Agent Cooper

        Pick up your house and … RUN!

  32. Unreconstructed

    Wow…the only thing worse than being in a meeting with India starting at 6:45 is when the presenter (Indian) has shitty audio.

    • Not Adahn

      They should kindly do the needful.

      • Gender Traitor

        Well, maybe do it, just not kindly?

      • UnCivilServant

        I will never do the needful.

        Hearing or reading that phrase pisses me off.

      • AlexinCT

        We expect that you will do the needful in some time UCS…

      • Trolleric the Goth

        kindly revert back at your soonest convenience

    • Festus

      My direct superior is Chinese and her boss is Indian. Fun times on the phone.

  33. Mojeaux

    I really really need the art gallery to open. I am in dire need of some Zen time.

      • Mojeaux

        That is … kinda disturbing, yes.

      • Fourscore

        There’s a killer Afric, oops Chin…oops South American bee that will kill that and take it home to its babies for lunch. Saw it at a check out counter news stand

    • Lackadaisical

      art galleries are the perfect place to keep open.

      you’re not supposed to touch anything and if you’re within 6 ferry of someone yer doing it wrong.

    • Gender Traitor

      Can’t help your eyes, but here’s something for your ears. For maximum Zen, you might hunt up the (temporary) Calm channel (on actual radios, currently running on the channel normally occupied by “The Spa.”)

      • Mojeaux

        Yes, I’ve been glomming new age/ambient music. It’s my email that causes distress. If I take my phone anywhere, it’s always with me. So I go to the museum and leave my phone in the car.

      • Festus

        I listen to a guy that talks about battleships. His voice is very soothing and some of his pod-casts can last for hours. I’m weird.

      • Not Adahn

        One of the guys from the link above does gun reviews in a Bob Ross voice with Enya in the background. Here is is reviewing my main competition gun:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpL5gbxk9hA

  34. Rufus the Monocled

    Now this is depressing in its possible inevitability:

    Contact tracing.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXVKhGQ3SXg

    Are we really going to be governed by medical bureaucrats?

    I’ll tell you one thing. The last TWO class of people I want anywhere near me are politicians and health officials. The doctors I’ve interacted with during this scam have proven to be completely off their rockers. We’ve made them rock stars and when you fondle them this way it doesn’t do wonders for the God-complex some of them possess.

    That that little prick Fauci – who has been wrong a few times – talked to Julia Roberts who came within whiskers of licking his ass is concerning to say the least.

    Will CT be the next TSA? Makes sense no?

    • Tonio

      The reopeners I know are going totally ballistic over the idea of contact tracing.

      • Idle Hands

        The contract tracers are insane. They act like the last two months didn’t happen. The amount of mild cases, asymptomatic cases and rnot make contact tracing this out impossible fantasy. it takes a year to properly contact trace a flu strain might as well just light the money on fire.

      • Lackadaisical

        don’t throw me on the briar patch mr. hands! /every mainstream politician

    • Idle Hands

      None of this can stand up in court it’s stupid. We used to have all this in place aids destroyed that, they don’t have legal standing for any of this. It’s already seen it’s day in court.

      • invisible finger

        All it takes is one 5-4 bout of utter bullshit.

      • Idle Hands

        true.

      • The Last American Hero

        I admire your optimism.

    • Drake

      I would refuse to answer, give them my lawyers contact information, or just lie. They can fuck off.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I wonder if it will be like the census, where lying to the census taker is a bigger fine than refusing to answer the census taker.

        Last time the lump of a lady was harassing me about filling out the long form and threatening me with how answering it was “the law” I pointed out that I was willing to pay the stupid fine, just go process the paperwork and stop bugging me.

        She stopped coming around finally, but I suspect she might have badgered my wife into answering while I was away on a business trip.

      • juris imprudent

        My wife filled out the census form in 2010 and I was not happy about that. I made sure I filled it out this year.

  35. Rufus the Monocled

    Re the golfer. I hate golf and golf culture. But then again, I hate a lot of things.

    To me, people who take social distance literally are deemed sheep.

      • Chipwooder

        One of the more fascinating 180s of all time was the LPGA swinging from a tour dominated by large, generally mannish women to one loaded with really hot women.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I thought it was Koreans.

      • Festus

        Most of those Koreans resemble fire-hydrants but the camera always seems to focus on the above. Who knew sex sells?

      • Chipwooder

        well, them too

    • Raven Nation

      Not related to your comment, but it looks like the San Siro is going to be torn down and replaced.

  36. PieInTheSky

    For some reason this site occasionally pops up in my internet adventures and it always seems to me to represent a branch of conservatives that are almost as annopying as the leftist, writing these overly long post, probably mistaking lots of words and namedropping philosophers for intellectual depth, and in the end I don;t leave feeling any insight. And they all have some sort of deep explanation of culture which is well meh at best.

    https://americanmind.org/essays/inside-the-very-online-war-on-liberalism/

    First, the origin of today’s cyberpolitical subcultures can be found through the postmodern concept of self-constructed identity, which spilled out of the elite university system into mainstream culture. Most people today have accepted the idea that we can define who we are through branded consumer goods and services marketed by major corporations. Cyberpolitical illiberalism is deeply averse to this postmodern consumerist ethos while adopting the core concept of the self-created identity. – I do not think at all most people accept the idea that we can define who we are through branded consumer goods. I think this is mostly in the heads of anti-consumerists

    Illiberal cyberpolitics did not emerge out of a void. It found fertile soil in the transformation of the 20th century, which was essentially formed by Christian cultural and religious symbols, into the 21st, in which those symbols are dead outside of certain subcultures. – actually it was the whole internet thing

    The result is an array of online subcultures devoted to helping participants create their own identities, in large part through transgressive behavior against the mainstream “normie.” – meh such cultures existed for a long time in one form or another.

    Instead, modernity rejected any form of non-personal sources of knowledge, especially with regard to identity and politics. Modern philosophy and political science collapsed Voegelin’s differentiation into either a positivist mode, which makes these things objects of external study rather than participatory social self-interpretation, or else into the gnostic mode of utopian political revolution. – right…

    And it goes on and on and on

    • AlexinCT

      You need a hobby Pie… I would rather get nails driven through my nutsack than read this sort of shit..

      • PieInTheSky

        it has been a boring day of work

      • AlexinCT

        No access to pr0n?

    • Fatty Bolger

      Reads like typical think tank argle-bargle to me.

  37. Drake

    I doubt we’ll get WWIII with China. They are led by practical people who know they have no ability to project power far enough to achieve any kind of ambitious war objective. They might even sink a carrier (while losing theirs instantly) – but U.S. subs would block the China Sea and choke them to death.

    • Drake

      I do think we are headed to Cold War II with China if Trump is reelected. That’s fine with me. We will need to make friends with Russia again in that case.

      • Trigger Hippie

        I just giggle that the CCP still floats that cobbled together Soviet era ski ramp they call an aircraft carrier out into the South China Sea as a display of power.

      • UnCivilServant

        Maybe they’re hoping to pull a remember the maine on one of the smaller countries when it sinks of its own accord.

      • Trigger Hippie

        They may as well. The thing is next to useless without the catapult launcher thingy they have on US carriers. The ramp is too short for the already crappy, underpowered jets they use to achieve liftoff with a full fuel or weapons load without the catapult, making them also next to useless. Seriously, that thing is a freaking joke.

      • The Last American Hero

        Doesn’t stop the Pentagon from waiving it around every year complaining about how the gap is closing. Seems to work too.

      • l0b0t

        There were reasons the Russians sold it. Being broke was not the most pressing one.

      • Drake

        Their real problem is they lack the sea lift capacity to land even a single division in Taiwan or anywhere else. That ain’t gonna get it done. The PLA is not an offensive army.

      • Rebel Scum

        make friends with Russia

        Russia investigation 2: Putin’s Puppet Boogaloo

      • Tonio

        Also, India. Not for their military capabilities, but for their manufacturing.

    • juris imprudent

      This is the thing that gets me with all the talk about Great Power competition. OK, China as a great power is asserting itself within its sphere of influence. We shouldn’t really get our panties twisted up about that. They aren’t asserting themselves in OUR sphere of influence – that is what GP competition means. Unfortunately, the reality of American thought is that our sphere is the whole fucking globe, meaning no power – great or small – dare assert itself anywhere if we don’t like it.

      • invisible finger

        China is asserting influence in Africa and South America. Hardly their sphere of influence. The sphere being the whole fucking globe was never unique to the US.

      • juris imprudent

        I’ll believe their “influence” is at our level when they mount a full expeditionary operation in either of those theaters. I’m sick as shit of the great DC consensus on foreign policy and the extent to which, for all his sound and fury, Trump has signified nothing substantially different there.

      • Trolleric the Goth

        wait till one of those debt traps they laid in Africa springs and the locals fight back.

      • UnCivilServant

        China trying to project power into that quagmire is going to be a comedy of errors and blood.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yup

        It will be interesting to see if China is willing to use military force to hold on to their mining acquisitions in Africa, because that is what it is going to take.

      • Pine_Tree

        I think their answer is “we’re kinda looking for practice”, so I think that yes, they’re willing.

      • Rebel Scum

        They aren’t asserting themselves in OUR sphere of influence

        US Navy keeps the sea lanes open.

      • Rebel Scum

        What I mean by that is that it would be our business if they affect our trade.

      • Unreconstructed

        Of course it would be. And IMNSHO, anti-pirate (private or state actors) activities are one of,if not the only, extraterritorial uses of the US military that I approve of personally. In my libertopia, the ability of the navy to project force – big carrier groups, battleships, etc. – would be smaller than it is today, but the ability to protect commerce from raiding – destroyers, cruisers, and such – would be bigger.

    • AlexinCT

      They might even sink a carrier (while losing theirs instantly) – but U.S. subs would block the China Sea and choke them to death.

      You are assuming they believed we have the gumption/willpower to do that sort of thing. The Chinese leadership and military were certain that the US leadership was too fucking pussified (and they were correct) to fight back. Their strategy was to wait till an opportune time where they balance was totally in their favor, and then do a quick strike to achieve their goal. They, and I think rightfully, believed that the fucking noodle spinned American presidents of the past would have just accepted the new reality because they were too worried about their/our own losses.

      Trump came as a huge surprise to the CCP after decades of idiocy starting with Clinton. Like Reagan did to the USSR, Trump has become a conundrum to the Chinese that has the potential of causing them to come apart from within. Their most recent gamble around hiding their role and third-world-like response to letting lose a biological agent and causing a world pandemic is not just a major setback for them, but looks to be a killer to Xi’s plans to act with force to retake Taiwan and expand Chinese influence in that region by 2025 as their military papers showed.

      Now China faces a pissed off world, a USA that looks to disengage and drop them as the major trading partner, a phenomenon that allowed the ChiComms to use and to fuck over America and American industry/military while pretending to be friends, by bringing back key industries that had moved to China and were critical part of China’s strategy to have the US in such a weakened position that it simply couldn’t risk counteracting the CCP’s moves, which now looks like it absolutely will collapse the system that allowed the CCP to legitimize their power by giving the people a promise that their future would always be prosperous. Not being able to predict Trump’s response, and especially that he will back down, is why I think they will NOT act now. However, I assure you that if Biden (or whomever they plan to replace him with) wins, that the CCP will move to act expecting more of the same kow-towing as before. Especially if they feel even the new leadership will not help their cause to keep their power.

      • bacon-magic

        ^^^
        Do you have a newsletter to subscribe to?

      • AlexinCT

        The CCP is facing some serious woes, and things like this show it. Key note:

        On Friday, China said it wouldn’t be setting a target for economic growth for this year. That’s unprecedented – the Chinese government hasn’t done this since it began publishing such goals in 1990.

        The CCP tools are fucked. China is a divided country. Out of a country of some 1.5 billion people, about half a billion Chinese live in the urban areas and expect the CCP to deliver year-over-year growth that will allow them to always & perpetually look at their property/wealth growing. The CCP holds power and can keep up the corrupt practices that enrich itself and its members as long as these half a billion urbanite Chinese feel they are also getting a decent share of the loot (kind of like we did back in the early 20th century in the Western world before our leadership went from being crooks that delivered value to crooks that regularly fucked us over and demanded we accept it). The other billion still live in the 19th century BTW, but that’s not important to either the CCP or to this discussion. What now comes out of the CCP’s mishandling of the Wu Tang Clan Flu is going to make it impossible for the CCP to keep their side of the deal. Yeah, they can use force to keep the people subservient, but that will not last very long. Unlike most westerners that have gone soft after over half a century of having too much wealth and succumbing to first world problems, China’s people are still fucking hungry and angry, and the CCP not delivering will result in pushback.

        We are lucky Trump scares the CCP by being such an unpredictable rogue, I say, because otherwise, I think we would have seen the CCP already act using force (think Argentina’s junta in 1982 trying to distract the people). Things are at a critical junction. I really hope Trump decides to let Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea go nuclear as we speculated in one of the abve threads. Nothing will put a stop to this Chinese ambition as much as the risk to China becoming a nuclear exchange if they fuck over their neighbors like they are planning to.

    • bacon-magic

      That would sink any Republican candidate.

      • leon

        well yeah. Telling a whole demographic to vote for the other guy would be a bad move…

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Whitmer said, “Well, we are concerned and we’re watching it very closely, and we know, too, that there is more precipitation in the forecast. And so, we’re taking this very seriously. I’ll just acknowledge, the fact that we’re in the midst of a global pandemic. On top of that, dealing with a 500-year flood event, which are, of course, becoming more and more frequent. We’ve got climate change as a part of that. But also, old infrastructure is, as well.”

    Clean and articulate, she is.

    • invisible finger

      ” But also, old infrastructure is, as well.”

      So, a failure of your government then.

      • Agent Cooper

        Privately-owned dam. However! Under state guidance since last fall.

    • The Last American Hero

      She’s running for president in 2021. She has to look “authoritative” and like “she’s doing something”.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    First, the origin of today’s cyberpolitical subcultures can be found through the postmodern concept of self-constructed identity, which spilled out of the elite university system into mainstream culture.

    Gibberish in, gibberish out.

  40. Oy the Billy-Bumbler

    No doubt Stephen King is a big proggy but I do appreciate it doesn’t bleed into his writing much. He’s not one to make his heroes flaming proggies and the villains aren’t all redneck Republicans.

    • Oy the Billy-Bumbler

      Agreed

    • Agent Cooper

      I’ll text this right to my wife. It will make her so happy.

      /sarc

  41. The Late P Brooks

    what’s with the narrative that trump shut the country down?

    TRUMP’S ECONOMEEEE! herpitty derp! SAVE US, JOE BIDEN!

    • Rebel Scum

      It’s shameless. But that is the narrative shift that I have already seen signs of.

  42. Tundra

    Good morning, Spud!

    Thanks for getting up early to deliver the piping hot lynx!

    Two-Scoops didn’t shut us down, so I’m not sure how he’s gonna stop our cunt governor from doing his damndest to punish the productive.

    King was a fave of mine when I was young. Now, I find him almost unreadable. Except for Salem’s Lot. That’s a great book (and movie).

    WAKE UP!!!

    In honor of my gramps, now resting in Fort Snelling National Cemetery:

    Me: “How are you, gramps?”

    Him: “Kid, every day above ground is a damn fine day!”

    Truth. Make it a great day, people!

    • Drake

      Donnie did declare a 50-state emergency, turn on the money spigot to the states, supplemented unemployment, and give them all kinds of help. Next time none of that happens and they have to pay the whole bill while crippling their economies.

  43. PieInTheSky

    Real democracy is inconceivable to most Americans. The idea that, for example, the workers themselves might vote on when they want to re-open a factory can’t even be discussed or thought. The only choice the workers have is obedience or unemployment.

    https://twitter.com/existentialcoms/status/1263229623669686272

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        We’ve developed the belief that inflation doesn’t exist anymore among a large portion of the population.

        That pretty much guarantees we’re going to get it. In spades.

      • R C Dean

        A majority of the population doesn’t have first hand, adult experience with inflation. Yet.

      • kbolino

        Money is an abstraction does not mean money of consistent value is in infinite supply.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I understand real democracy quite well.

      And I loathe it.

    • leon

      Real democracy is inconceivable to most Americans. Women The idea that, for example, the workers incels themselves might vote on when they want to re-open a factory get laid can’t even be discussed or thought.

      Democracy means you don’t have any ownership claim over yourself.

    • kbolino

      That’s not “real” democracy (any more or less than most other forms), it’s just local democracy. And it is funny to see a communist talk about local democracy. The first thing the Soviets did was ban trade unions and neuter their namesake soviets, i.e. local workers’ councils. They expressly said all decisions had to be made at the highest, most centralized level. This meant that if you and your local factory workers voted against the central party’s wishes, you were sent off to the gulag, or just shot. In our not-real democracy, at least, nobody gets shot for refusing to go to work.

      If the workers vote not to return, that’s also a vote not to get paid. You always want to have it both ways: stay home and get paid. Well, if the business is not producing, and has run out of cash, there’s no more money to make payroll. And even if it hasn’t run out of cash, spending it all to keep making payroll while people aren’t working is not the most responsible use of that money; there are other accounts payable besides payroll.

      Again, I am amazed at how wrong Existential Comics guy consistently is.

      • leon

        What he’s really complaining about is that every aspect of your life is not up to a vote. He’s complaining that factory owners have the final say about opening the factory. He’s complaining that you have a say on what you eat, and who you sleep with. what car you drive. Everything. He means to rule you.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        He’s an evil shitbag, although he most certainly doesn’t see it that way. Nobody is the villain in their own life story.

      • R C Dean

        *raises hand*

        It’s quite . . . liberating, really.

  44. Idle Hands

    I’m really struggling to understand how the municipalites in my state(northern VA) don’t understand the fiscal apocalypse in prorated property taxes from empty strip malls and office buildings that they’ve barred from opening and suspended rent for. It’s totatlly and utterly baffling.

    • Idle Hands

      Even the most unaccountable and disconected drone must understand where the money comes from.

      • Lackadaisical

        The printing press?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        No. They don’t.

      • Pope Jimbo

        The Feds?

        That seems to be what Minnesoda officials are counting on. They want to keep the Lockdown going on and on. Don’t worry about the economy or budgets because the Feds will just drop cash out of a helicopter (actually they want the Feds to give them the money first so they can distribute it to the rubes who bend the knee and obey)

    • R C Dean

      They’re betting on a bailout. The bailouts so far have prohibited states, cities , etc from using the money as general revenue. The pressure to lift that restriction is intense.

  45. Drake

    Last night I was in a virtual meeting with the Boy Scout Troop Committee my church sponsors. The obvious stuff came up – when can they meet in person and camp again?

    A lady who teaches at a local school told us the state is throwing around ideas of limiting class-sizes to 7 kids in September. That would mean kids would rotate through and only come to class every third day. The other parents on the committee were stunned – their kids would be home 2/3 of the time and not learning crap (one of them is a single-mother, the others are 2-income families). I could actually see it starting to sink in that our Governor is insane and literally mad with power.

    • Idle Hands

      The school thing is hilarious fantasy some of the proposals I’ve seen in va. People do realize that they are having school in fucking montana right?

      • Drake

        My kid is out of high school, but I could see the other parents’ eye glaze over while they imagined that dystopian nightmare.

      • Idle Hands

        All of this is going to last till property taxes are due or until november, I can’t decide which is going to be first. All you have to do is be against this and you’re going to get elected.

      • Drake

        Unfortunately most NJ state elections are in odd years.

  46. PieInTheSky

    Belief in an afterlife is a malignant delusion, since it devalues actual lives and discourages action that would make them longer, safer, and happier. Exhibit A: What’s really behind Republicans wanting a swift reopening? Evangelicals.

    https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/1263463995870269440

    • Idle Hands

      Ugh….. These people realize that belief in god/religion is a necessary part of the human condition and they’ve just replaced it with science, complex models that don’t work and top men demi gods who have proven themselves totally incompetent right? Or are they that delusional?

      • invisible finger

        You got a problem with false gods?

      • Q Continuum

        Idolatry is a helluva drug.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      happier

      I’d venture this person’s definition of happiness differs from my own.

      • Trigger Hippie

        For some people, schadenfreude is as close as they can get.

      • Mojeaux

        “Some people are not happy if they are not happy.”

    • Chipwooder

      I generally find Pinker an interesting read, but this is really, really stupid.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I didn’t even notice that was Pinker. That’s disappointing.

  47. Pope Jimbo

    The Boy Mayor of Minneapolis has issued a proclamation mandating all citizens to wear masks when indoors in public spaces. No idea where the legal right for this comes from but it wouldn’t be Minneapolis if they didn’t do it up right.

    Whereas, it is a priority that race and equity be of paramount consideration in enacting and carrying out emergency regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic; and

    Whereas, the data shows that older individuals and those suffering from underlying conditions are prone to more severe disease, and also shows that in Minneapolis Black, Indigenous, people of color, and immigrant community members are testing at a higher rate with Black community members accounting for 35 percent of cases and Hispanic accounting for 18 percent of cases; and

    • Rhywun

      Hug a person of color!

    • invisible finger

      The law requires you to compromise your immune system.

    • Fourscore

      You don’t get old by being stupid.

      • Mojeaux

        Heh.

        One of the themes of my pirate book is that my pirates will do whatever is necessary to get what they want. This includes disguise and working for the enemy. Now, in my growing-up bodice-ripper-reading days, REAL heroes did everything with straightforward warfare and blasted their way through everything and he was the baddest-ass of bad-asses. He was an HONORABLE pirate and didn’t stoop to such tactics.

        Then I grew up. They’re fucking pirates. Why WOULD they adhere to some strange romance-novel code of honor and warfare?

        One of my (pirate) hero’s lines is, “Stupid men don’t live as long as I have, much less thrive.”

      • Pope Jimbo

        I was listening to the Pirate History Podcast and while he was covering the Barbarossa brothers, he mentioned that one of the things that caused the Europeans to hate them so much is because at that time the Europeans really did believe in marching out and honorably offering battle. The Barbarossas and the Turks were mostly “fuck that noise, let’s cheat to win”.

        But overall I agree, most pirates were all about maximizing profits without losing men.

    • R C Dean

      “it is a priority that race and equity be of paramount considerationL

      Not practicality, effectiveness, affordability or legality.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Sounds like Shitlord talk to me. How dare you try to impose your colonialist mindset on us? Solving the problem only counts if it is done in an equitable way.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Also, anyone want to take bets on the demographic breakdown of who gets cited for not wearing masks? Want to bet that once again a silly law will have a disparate impact on our “communities of color”?

    • juris imprudent

      Others have noticed too.

      Mary Mayhew had daily calls with the hospitals, with people involved in discharge planning on the line. “Every day on these calls,” she says, “I would hear the same comments and questions around, we need to get these individuals returned back to the nursing home. We drew a hard line early on. I said repeatedly to the hospital, to the CEOs, to the discharge planners, to the chief medical officers, ‘I understand that for 20 years it’s been ingrained, especially through Medicare reimbursement policy, to get individuals in and out. That is not our focus today. I’m not going to send anyone back to a nursing home who has the slightest risk of being positive.’”

      Take note of the point on the Medicare incentive.

    • creech

      Sure it will go away; the media is already attributing failures by state govs and state health departments to “a lack of leadership by President Trump.”
      A guy on Fox last night was bloviating that Trump was directly responsible for at least 36,000 of the deaths at nursing homes.

  48. The Late P Brooks

    I understand real democracy quite well.

    And I loathe it.

    #METOO

    *just got a lesson in localized mobocracy, good and hard

  49. Idle Hands

    Rick and Morty is back on and I’m once again reminded how insufferable their fans are. I enjoy the show but for the love of god it’s fanbois are the worst.

    • Rhywun

      Watched an episode for the first time the other day and recoiled in horror when I realized it’s the same shouty characters from that annoying af Pringles commercial. The hyperventilating kid is impossible to listen to.

    • Q Continuum

      To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer’s head. There’s also Rick’s nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they’re not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Rick & Morty truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the humour in Rick’s existential catchphrase “Wubba Lubba Dub Dub,” which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev’s Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Dan Harmon’s genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them. ?

      And yes, by the way, i DO have a Rick & Morty tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It’s for the ladies’ eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they’re within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid ?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Dude, I didn’t know you were an incel.

      • UnCivilServant

        Sounds like something the insufferable fans of that show would make up to placate their own fragile egos.

      • Trolleric the Goth

        :100:

        10/10 delicious copypasta

  50. PieInTheSky

    I think I expressed my puzzlement before at this but.

    Update: All AZ House Democrats, and a few Republicans just voted to kill a civil asset forfeiture reform bill that would’ve required a conviction for most forfeitures, protecting the due process rights of innocent Arizonans. Sad to see them put petty politics over good policy

    https://twitter.com/laurenkrisai/status/1263624661432258560

    How is civil asset forfeiture constitutional? I always found it strange. Or it depends on ones definition of due process of law?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Dammit

      Just one more example of how things are not going to get better.

      • Lackadaisical

        It is a bit surprising to me, I’m not one to follow AZ politics, but I had heard of this bill and it sounded like it was going to be a winner.

    • Lackadaisical

      How is civil asset forfeiture constitutional? I always found it strange. Or it depends on ones definition of due process of law?

      I suppose so, but I don’t see how it is consistent with my understanding of due process, the constitution or common law.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Civil asset forfeiture is based on a perversion of the law where the state proceeds with charges against the physical assets instead of the owner.

      Even the originators of it think it’s gone too far. But let that be a lesson for everyone. No incremental gain in power for the government ever gets rolled back, but always built upon.

    • Viking1865

      The two quoted Dems explained it very clearly. The money goes to government employees. That’s it. That’s the important thing. That’s all that matters.

      I’ve said it many times: if government employees couldn’t vote, the Democrats would have to drastically change their political message. If you made it so government employees and government dependents couldn’t vote, they’d have to pretty much scrap their whole platform.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        At least they’re making it clear to the electorate what they think of them, a funding source for their re-election campaign.

      • Viking1865

        The thing with CAF is that you can really extract a ton of cash for very little political capital expended.

        You pull over a brand new SUV coming out of the golf course. You pop the construction company executive for DUI. You search the vehicle and find his Vicodin or Valium, you hit him with every charge you can think of. He calls his laywer, who tells him “They want your truck, that brand new 60,000 dollar truck they can turn into cash for their operating budget. Give them the truck, go to DUI school, and you’re clear.”

        That golf playing construction company executive wasn’t voting Democrat before, and he’s not voting Democrat now. If he complains about it, everyone will just call him a drunk driving pill popper.

    • juris imprudent

      How is civil asset forfeiture constitutional?

      Because Congress said we could! /the beneficiaries

      • Pope Jimbo

        Hmmmm… was there any person in Congress who worked extra hard to make asset forfeiture a real thing?

        The Comprehensive Forfeiture Act fixed all of these problems. Biden introduced the new bill in 1983, and its provisions became law the next year. Under this law federal agents had nearly unlimited powers to seize assets from private citizens. Now the government only needed to find a way to let local and state police join the party.

        Biden’s bill was passed as part of the 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act . In addition to a slew of new powers for prosecutors, the burden of proof for asset seizure was lowered once again (agents had to onlybelieve that what they were seizing was equal in value to money believed to have been purchased from drug sales). More significantly, the bill started the “equitable sharing” program that allowed local and state law enforcement to retain up to 80 percent of the spoils.

    • Q Continuum

      “How is civil asset forfeiture constitutional?”

      It’s not.

    • The Last American Hero

      Property doesn’t have rights, people do. So basically the same reason a slave didn’t have rights.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    A lady who teaches at a local school told us the state is throwing around ideas of limiting class-sizes to 7 kids in September. That would mean kids would rotate through and only come to class every third day.

    They have completely forgotten the primary function of the school system is the provision of daycare, haven’t they?

    • invisible finger

      You have completely forgotten the meaning of union featherbedding.

      • Rhywun

        This. Its primary function is “jobs program”.

    • invisible finger

      I’m sure they’ll acquiesce to their proper job function after the taxpayers agree to 45% raises for teachers.

      • R C Dean

        But the unions will settle for tripling their membership.

  52. Rebel Scum

    Well, yes. leftism requires everyone to be suffering and/or on the dole.

    “We need to work smart here, help the people who are desperately in need, try to save as many jobs as possible, and begin to open up the states, which are decisions by the governors that are going on all over America now, and get this economy growing again,” McConnell added.

    Widely panned by Republicans as a “messaging bill,” McConnell said another drawback of that effort was it incentivized unemployment.

    “The problem was, by paying people more not to work than to work, it’s making it difficult to get people back to work,” he explained. “You can understand that. We do need to continue unemployment insurance. It’s extremely important at a time like this. But to pay people more not to work than to work doesn’t encourage resuming your job. And that will end in July. And we think that, in order to create jobs, we need to incentivize people to go back to work, not encourage them to stay home.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I personally know people who received PPP loans that will be forgived if they spend it on payroll. But they can’t spend it on payroll because they can’t get anyone to come back to work because of the Federal unemployment add-on benefit.

      It’s so damned stupid and utterly predictable.

      • creech

        I’ve heard that at my former employer (an essential manufacturing business that stayed open) many of those allowed to work from home are now resisting coming back to the office, and this is building resentment among those who did return from WFH.

      • invisible finger

        I suggest they shut the fuck up and let the annual pay increases do their work.

      • UnCivilServant

        Who gets annual pay increases?

      • invisible finger

        The people who show up at the office.

      • UnCivilServant

        I showed up at the office for years and have had the same absolute salary for years.*

        *thankfully inflation hasn’t been that bad.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I can’t believe I typed “forgived”

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Yeah, it’s “forgaven”.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Wrong! He meant “fivegived”

        Don’t try to put words in Scruffy’s mouth

      • RAHeinlein

        There was widespread outrage when Graham + other Repubs tried to challenge the incentivized unemployment – including lots of mocking on these very pages.

    • leon

      The problem was, by paying people more not to work than to work, it’s making it difficult to get people back to work,

      Why do you think they want to push it out past november? The unemployment scheme that the senate unanimously agreed to was guaranteed to make sure the recovery was slow.

  53. Lackadaisical

    Okay reprobates! Today is my day off (thus all the posting this morn)- have a great one, I’m going to go enjoy the great weather.

    • Festus

      Have a great one, Friend! I just cleaned up seven puke spots from the faux hard-wood flooring. I’m worried about my aging Kittehs… They’re only 14 and 12 and obese.

      • Fourscore

        Headed for the garden

      • Festus

        That’s harsh.

    • Nephilium

      I’ve got the day off as well. Unfortunately, it’s supposed to rain all day. Looks like we’ll have some decent weather tomorrow (then more rain for the next week).

  54. PieInTheSky

    the university of waterloo pharmacy building looks like this

    i found out well after it was built that apparently the graphic panels were supposed to line up into complete images of plants and when they just got ~installed wrong~ nobody ever talked about it again

    https://twitter.com/seanmaciel/status/1263530224223956993

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Eh, it’s pretty as it is. Someone could digitally rearrange it. It might look pat.

  55. Rebel Scum

    Nancy, you disingenuous cunte.

    Instead of holding a vote on The #HeroesAct, Senate Republicans are engaging in a clear act of political retribution designed to help the President keep his job.

    The Senate must stop playing along with the President’s dangerous tactics & take steps to save lives and livelihoods.

    As if you are not simply trying to pass the leftist wishlist of crap that has zero to do with the commie cough.

    “The reason is, I think Speaker Pelosi overplayed her hand. I mean her bill is so grandiose, it’s not a coronavirus bill. It’s basically a remake of Western civilization bill. And I think that the Republicans in the Senate were so shocked when they saw it that at this juncture she could take her bill and eliminate every other word, and cut the cost by 75 percent, and it still wouldn’t pass,” he said.

    Kennedy also indicated his feeling that if she did adjust to that extent, there then may be members in the House who would not support it once it were sent back.

    Mhm.

    • leon

      Indeed, radical liberal House members see this as their last chance — perhaps in a generation — to “transform” America into a socialist paradise. But the panic has passed. We may still be in a crisis situation, but the sort of measures that were necessary two months ago aren’t needed now.

      Did it occur to you that the “Measures” you are talking about were vastly unnecessary?

  56. The Late P Brooks

    Don’t worry, they’re SCIENTISTS

    A team of Canadian scientists believes it has found strong strains of cannabis that could help prevent or treat coronavirus infections, according to interviews and a study.

    Researchers from the University of Lethbridge said a study in April showed at least 13 cannabis plants were high in CBD that appeared to affect the ACE2 pathways that the bug uses to access the body.

    ——-

    “Our work could have a huge influence — there aren’t many drugs that have the potential of reducing infection by 70 to 80 percent,” he told the Calgary Herald.

    While they stressed that more research was needed, the study gave hope that the cannabis, if proven to modulate the enzyme, “may prove a plausible strategy for decreasing disease susceptibility” as well as “become a useful and safe addition to the treatment of COVID-19 as an adjunct therapy.”

    Cannabis could even be used to “develop easy-to-use preventative treatments in the form of mouthwash and throat gargle products,” the study suggested, with a “potential to decrease viral entry” through the mouth.

    Sounds legit.

    Don’t let you-know-who find out. He’d probably tell people to shoot hash oil into their eyeballs.

    • LJW

      Seems like every day there’s a new potential cure. I’m starting to think most are PR stunts in hopes of obtaining government funding.

      • Viking1865

        That’s what it’s all about. A local company got 350 million bucks from the feds for Commie Cough research.

  57. The Late P Brooks

    “While our most effective extracts require further large-scale validation, our study is crucial for the future analysis of the effects of medical cannabis on COVID-19,” the research said.

    “Given the current dire and rapidly evolving epidemiological situation, every possible therapeutic opportunity and avenue must be considered.”

    Well, ALMOST every avenue, anyway.

    • UnCivilServant

      There’s a biological mechanism for that competition.

      Let it decide.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Not enough prenups in the world…

    • Pope Jimbo

      Thanks, now I feel like some reactionary dinosaur for instantly thinking “If those two make a baby, they better get married and raise that kid right!”

      Then I realized that I’m hopelessly old fashioned for thinking that a kid should have two parents. And that it is morally reprehensible to purposely have a kid who won’t.

      I’ll fuck off to the local camp then I guess.

  58. Trigger Hippie

    *eyes blinking rapidly from pain*

    Say what now?!

    • leon

      There are plenty of guys on here who will talk about how Women who hold out on their man are breaking their vows. I’d say likewise a married man looking at porn and holding out on his wife is in arrears.

    • AlmightyJB

      Dumbass. Lol.

      • AlexinCT

        Seriously, I was disappointed the fucking gator didn’t rip that idiot’s head off and made sure he never got to do something that stupid again.

    • AlexinCT

      Funny how the appeal to science by team blue only uses arguments and “science” (meaning bullshit pretending to be science) that favors their narrative, huh?

      • juris imprudent

        We can’t help it if reality has a liberal bias. /actual proglodyte

  59. robc

    On a note related to Scruffy’s last link:

    11 deaths due to COVID in my county. In the same time frame, 1 due to gator.

    By more super accurate model, that means there have been approximately 8800 alliggator induced deaths in the US in the last 2 months.

    • AlexinCT

      I hope more minorities see this shit and realize team blue is playing them for fucking suckers.

      • juris imprudent

        They know plenty well enough, but team loyalty is a helluva drug.

    • leon

      As long as were talking about narratives around trump that don’t make sense: I was reading a response on twitter to this from a “Brit” who said “Looking at their past you can see that [Trump and Biden] don’t give a shit about black people”.

      Why do they think Trump has a history of being anti black? I can see the “He hates Mexicans” stuff, cause of his speeches and immigration stance. But the only reason i can see for “He hates teh blacks” is that hes a republican, QED. The guy was freaking held up by Jessie Jackson as a great man before he jumped into politics.

      • kbolino

        Trump’s company, founded by his dad, owned apartment buildings in New York and openly refused to rent to Section 8 tenants, a policy Trump continued when he took over. There was some evidence that the company applied different levels of scrutiny to potential tenants by race, or at least by race proxies like name, and was not so openly refusing to rent to black tenants. DOJ conducted an investigation, prompted by activists, and determined they were biased against black tenants and potential tenants, then reached a settlement with the company.

        That is the extent of it as far as I have seen, and no such issues have recurred since the 1970s.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        There’s city-run Section 8 housing directly behind my place of business.

        Guess what? It’s full of unemployed petty criminals that dump litter everywhere and generally have no respect for property. There’s also the occasional murder and/or shootout.

        I wouldn’t want them either.

      • kbolino

        Section 8 itself has always been a mess and continues to be to this day. Today it mostly occurs in the form of subsidized rent which, like subsidized tuition in the form of student loans, drives up the costs for everyone, though especially the unsubsidized tenants, forms a dependency cycle since the qualifications have a hard-line cut off, and generally removes agency from either the landlord or the tenant since HUD gets to make all the judgment calls but bears no responsibility for any of the consequences. On top of all of that, in some states (mine, Maryland, included), a landlord cannot refuse to rent to Section 8 tenants. How that interaction between state and federal policy is legal is beyond me (FYTW).

        None of this is to say that I think racial discrimination is justified (though the landlord should have the right to choose his tenants). Section 8 is about money not race per se.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I realize it’s about money and not race.

        My observation is simply that a lot of Section 8 renters are generally the last people you would want as tenants.

        I feel sorry for those who are trapped in it. I do see them in the housing development and they appear to hate it.

      • kbolino

        It is a trap. The rules are designed to make HUD look good, not to help tenants in the long run. They play games with eligibility to meet dubious targets, and once you make too much money, you get cut off completely. On the flip side, there are whole housing tracts that are essentially Section 8 farms. As long as the vouchers clear, the landlords (slumlords, in this case) don’t care about anything else.

      • Mojeaux

        In looking at rentals, I can find no area in the metro that will take Section 8, even in the blighted areas.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Section 8 in our area is almost exclusively run by the municipalities.

        With the according attention to upkeep that you would expect.

      • Mojeaux

        Not that we would qualify, but it’s something I note.

      • Rhywun

        Huh. I always assumed landlords were required to take them everywhere.

      • kbolino

        You can’t refuse Section 8 where I live, so instead landlords that want to exclude them set rents above where Section 8 tenants can pay. You can’t qualify for Section 8 with above 50% median income, and you can’t pay more than 40% of your AGI on rent beyond the subsidy, so if a landlord sets rent at more than 20% above the HUD payment standard you won’t be able to take your Section 8 voucher there. Of course, eventually HUD adjusts its payment standard to reflect the higher rents, and so landlords seeking new tenants drive up rents some more.

        In general, rent >> mortgage where I live and nobody knows why.

      • kbolino

        For clarity, the formula to price out Section 8 is:

        Rent > HUD payment standard + 20% of median income

  60. The Late P Brooks

    wut

    Why not have multiple rounds of pay-per-view gangbang action, and pay the winner based on matching him with the baby’s dna. She looks like she’s ready to be the ticket taker on an excursion railway.

  61. PieInTheSky

    I occasionally get youtube recs of the show What’s My Line? and honestly it was not a bad show for the 60s. Although I think it would seen as rather sexist these days. But in a way it seems classier than many things today.

    • Rhywun

      I love those old B&W game shows. And yes, they project a “classiness” – men in hats, ladies in gloves, etc. – that completely disappeared by the end of the 60s.

  62. Drake

    ‘I got all of my hits’
    Las Vegas – “victim” scores a perfect 10. 9 hits to the chest, 1 to the head.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      You missed the important part.

      Baldwin, 40, said he takes firearms training seriously and hopes that those with concealed-carry permits take inspiration from his story to undergo more training. Baldwin said he trains more than the average concealed-carry holder, often training with tier one military operators and professional sports shooters like his girlfriend, Tori Nonaka, 25. He estimated that it took him about a second to draw his gun and land the first shot.

      The girlfriend

      • Drake

        He’s on a winning streak.

  63. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Freaky Friday: Why You Shouldn’t Ever Sit On Gramp’s Lap

    An 81-year-old man is accused of killing a 65-year-old relative who died on December 2, 2019, from severe head injuries he received the month before, according to court records.

    Alan Bischof, 81, was charged with aggravated assault of a family member, a second-degree felony.

    Before 65-year-old Craig LaMell’s death, he told police he’d been walking on a bike trail near his home in the 200 block of Delmar Street in southeast Houston when he was attacked and beaten by three men, according to court records. But with no identifying information, the case went cold.

    Then, in April, there was a break in the case after Bischof was laid off from his job at a major oil company, according to court records. Company officials found personal emails on his office computer that revealed that he and LaMell were lovers and had been engaging in sadomasochistic love play when LaMell was injured, according to court records.

    • leon

      Alan Bischof, 81, was charged with aggravated assault of a family member

      Is Kinslaying a harsher charge?

      • Trigger Hippie

        Sentencing includes the possibility of thousands of years buried under Dragonmount.

        *ducks*

  64. Rebel Scum

    *chuckles*

    After Charlamagne tha God, who is black, then asked Biden to come back on the program again and the former vice president agreed, the host added, “It’s a long way to November. We’ve got more questions.”

    That’s when Biden dove into a rapid-fire defense of his record with the black community.

    “I tell you if you’ve got a problem figuring out if you’re for me or for Trump, then you ain’t black,” he said.

    It’s unclear whether Biden meant to refer only to the host or to the black community as a whole.

    • leon

      I don’t see how that is unclear….

    • Idle Hands

      this election is going to be lit as fuck.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      If confirmed, that will alter the world order.

      Those researchers better watch their backs.

      • AlexinCT

        There is a reason that the CCP has gone all “Bobby Brown dealing with Whitney Houston” about Australia…..

    • bacon-magic

      Taxed.

    • Tundra

      Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key adviser to Mr. Trump on the pandemic, has dismissed any suggestion that the virus came from a Chinese laboratory.

      “If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated,” he told National Geographic this month.

      “Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”

      Oh, ok then.

      • AlexinCT

        Next you are going to tell me the CCP apologists have scientific consensus?

      • invisible finger

        ” and then jumped species.””

        And that happened in a Chinese lab.

  65. The Late P Brooks

    “I tell you if you’ve got a problem figuring out if you’re for me or for Trump, then you ain’t black,” he said.

    It’s unclear whether Biden meant to refer only to the host or to the black community as a whole.

    FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

    STRENGTH THROUGH IGNORANCE

    • LJW

      Judging on the Twitter comments it’s no big deal and if you’re black and you call it racist then you are an uncle Tom.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        You can’t argue with true believers. Their minds are closed.

        “It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.” Eric Hoffer

  66. Trigger Hippie

    Yep. And Biden crafted legislation that threw hundreds of thousands of black men and women in jail on ridiculous charges for ridiculous lengths of time that made any chances at a better life exponentially harder for them for their own good. Such leadership. Many cares.

    • Trigger Hippie

      In response to LJW. My computer screen is really jumpy today for some reason.

    • AlexinCT

      Did you ask cornpop to comment on that?

    • Pope Jimbo

      Linked to this above as well, but adding it here too. Biden also used the WOD and RICO statutes to steal a shit ton of stuff from black men and women.

      The Comprehensive Forfeiture Act fixed all of these problems. Biden introduced the new bill in 1983, and its provisions became law the next year. Under this law federal agents had nearly unlimited powers to seize assets from private citizens. Now the government only needed to find a way to let local and state police join the party.

      Biden’s bill was passed as part of the 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act . In addition to a slew of new powers for prosecutors, the burden of proof for asset seizure was lowered once again (agents had to onlybelieve that what they were seizing was equal in value to money believed to have been purchased from drug sales). More significantly, the bill started the “equitable sharing” program that allowed local and state law enforcement to retain up to 80 percent of the spoils.

      The problem is that it is hard for the GOP to attack Biden on this issue because they are just as terrible on it as he is.

    • leon

      Look. If you’re black, you are going to have to look past that because TRUMP IS TEH WORST THEING EVER FOR BLACKS!

  67. UnCivilServant

    Time to start my weekend.

    I’m going to sleep.

    • PieInTheSky

      do you ever dream writing ideas?

  68. The Late P Brooks

    Meat is Murder

    Meat processing plants across the country are struggling with outbreaks of the coronavirus. That includes the Tyson Foods chicken processing facility in Wilkes County, N.C.

    More than 2,200 workers were tested at the Wilkesboro plant, and 570 were positive for the coronavirus. Tyson said a majority of the workers who had the virus didn’t show any symptoms.

    ——-

    Labor advocates have said the industry isn’t doing enough to protect workers in these kinds of facilities and many employees aren’t confident in these protections to return to work.

    The company also has temporarily idled plants in other states including Iowa, Indiana and Nebraska. And Tyson’s not alone. Meat and poultry processing plants have become coronavirus hot spots throughout the U.S. Smithfield Foods and Hormel Foods are among those that have shuttered plants because of COVID-19 outbreaks.

    “We are working closely with local health departments to protect our team members and their families, and to help manage the spread of the virus in our communities,” Tom Brower, senior vice president of health and safety for Tyson Foods, said in a press release. “We are using the most up-to-date data and resources to support our team members, and we are committed to ensuring they feel safe and secure when they come to work.”

    Tyson is the largest employer in Wilkes County and pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy each year.

    Tyson said workers who test positive for the virus will receive paid sick leave. The Wilkesboro plant is among 30 production facilities in the U.S. where the company is rolling out additional COVID-19 testing and on-site medical services for workers.

    A “majority” are not sick. Like 90% or so? Most lethalest plague since Moses.

    I still wonder if there is some environmental factor in those plants which makes them a favorable environment for the virus. But what do I know? I assume there are people looking at that.

    • PieInTheSky

      Meat is Murder – that is what gives it flavor

      • bacon-magic

        Blood!!!

    • RAHeinlein

      We have major case counts in two meat plant intensive counties – hospitalizations, deaths not so much.

      • kbolino

        I imagine the meat-packing plant outbreaks are a function of the following variables:

        1. Close proximity at work
        2. Poor hygienic standards at work and at home
        3. Failure to “shelter-in-place” or limit personal travel

        Of course, as you note, this has resulted in very few deaths. I’m just saying, the sort of people who work in meat-packing plants are not the sort to follow lots of picayune rules.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I’m sure it is horribly racist to also point out that the home that most of these workers go home to have a lot of other people (including other meat processing workers) living there too.

        I wonder what a true progressive Karen thinks about our latino immigrant friends who tend to have a big extended family live in one house? On one hand, truly nothing bad can ever be said about the grand and wonderful Latino culture. On the other hand, SOCIAL DISTANCING! Wash your hands!!!

      • Gustave Lytton

        That’s Latinx, you shitlord.

      • R C Dean

        Does that refer to all of “them”, or just the very confused ones?

      • Rhywun

        All of them. The ‘x’ is a placeholder for ‘o’ or ‘a’. And more importantly, a means to avoid shitlording it with the practice of using “Latino” to refer to both males and females which was standard practice until five minutes ago.

      • R C Dean

        I thought shitlording was not giving the very confused their own label.

      • Rhywun

        It has nothing to do with transgenderism.

        It’s the same phenomenon where “chairman” is now “chairperson”.

      • invisible finger

        I can’t find anything (quickly) about 1918 Spanish Flu outbreaks in meat packing plants. I wonder if there is something different with modern refrigeration systems that affects transmission.

      • R C Dean

        I suspect in 1918 there weren’t big centralized plants like we have now, but a lot more small operations that wouldn’t be trackable.

      • invisible finger

        Good points, although the dearth of news reports from an era with more newspapers serving smaller communities pre-OSHA still makes me wonder – I would think even small meat packing facilities closing for an outbreak would be news in community papers.

        We know that humidity has an effect on influenza and coronaviruses, virus research almost always involves storing samples for several years at low temperatures and low humidity . We also know that modern refrigeration systems are better at removing humidity than systems 100 years ago. (When’s the last time you defrosted your freezer?)

    • invisible finger

      “I still wonder if there is some environmental factor in those plants which makes them a favorable environment for the virus.”

      Cold temperatures and filthy USDA inspectors.

    • Trolleric the Goth

      Barbarism Begins at Home, you know.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        And a crack on the head is what you get for asking! ?

    • Urthona

      Apparently it’s the ideal environment for the virus to spread.

      However, what I’m thinking is that in 2 weeks it will be fine, right? Because they’ll all be recovered.

    • creech

      “A “majority” are not sick. Like 90% or so? Most lethalest plague”

      One wonders why, in the old black plague days, or widespread tuberculosis, people living in the same house with the fleas, or cleaning up the sick person’s sputum, didn’t always get the disease themselves?

  69. PieInTheSky

    My big problem with remote work is that it reduces the incentive to urbanize and so I worry it’ll further entrench the sprawl status quo. Long commutes are the worst part of sprawl but there’s plenty more to hate about its impact on ecology and health.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/CathyReisenwitz/status/1263551289067094016

    Silly people wanting a yard

    • invisible finger

      One would think THE PANDEMIC would reduce the incentive to urbanize.

    • leon

      My big problem with what you like is that it isn’t what i like.

      /shorter everyone.

    • kbolino

      City living only got “healthy” when the pollution was driven out. Of course, modern living whether in the city or elsewhere requires that pollution to continue, so it’s just displaced not removed.

    • invisible finger

      Idiots like that probably wonder why poor people don’t like living in high rises with other poor people.

    • invisible finger

      Suburbs – the original social distancing.

  70. Animal

    Overall, they’re not very good at this.

    Most, if not all, of the mass shootings and attempted mass shootings in the U.S. have been marked by the incompetence of the shooters.

    If one really wanted to conduct such an event, and really do some physical and psychological damage, one would go about it far differently than those morons.

    • creech

      It’s probably not a good idea for you to spell out the proper way to do this stuff.

      • Animal

        Which is why I didn’t.

    • R C Dean

      First, leave the guns at home. There’s much better ways to get a big body count.

  71. PieInTheSky

    The Hobbitathon – The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien, narrated by Andy Serkis – V3

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roSYIOY7xcs

    10 hours… I never thought how long it would take to read the hobbit out loud

    • Fatty Bolger

      They did the movies in just under 9.

      • PieInTheSky

        movies were shit

    • commodious spittoon

      But is it read at 48 FPS?

  72. The Late P Brooks

    Witch doctor gazes into Magic 8-ball, says “Outlook not so good”

    Austin’s senior public health official has said that there will likely be no large events in the city until 2021, putting the United States GP in doubt.

    The race is still scheduled for October 25 as Formula 1 continues to piece together a new calendar for 2020.

    However, Austin is only at Stage 3 of its reopening plan after lockdown which allows a maximum of 10 “low risk” people to gather. The city would have to progress to Stage 1 before major events could be looked at.

    And Dr Mark Escott, the interim medical director and the health authority for Austin Public Health, has suggested that such events probably won’t be allowed for the rest of the year, putting the United States GP in major doubt.

    “The large events are the first thing that we turned off and are going to be the last thing we’re going to turn back on because of that risk of exposing lots of people to one another, particularly individuals of the same household,” he told the Austin-Statesman.

    “We are working on a plan to help forecast what we think is going to be reasonable, but looking through the end of December, we don’t have any indications at this stage that we would be able to mitigate risk enough to have large events, particularly ones [with] over 2,500 [people].”

    But, that doesn’t mean Austin have given up on bringing forward their phases of reopening, especially if the number of COVID-19 cases drop.

    “I think that’s incentive for us to work hard at that social distancing, work hard at ensuring that people who are sick stay home and if they’re staying home, they’re directed to testing, so that we can get a handle on this,” he explained.

    If you all promise to be good little boys and girls, maybe we can talk about it again, later. But don’t get your hopes up.

    • KSuellington

      I hope we can get some type of an F1 season this year. I was really looking forward to seeing Albon and Verstappen progress.

    • Rhywun

      Just have the race and put it on TV. It’s not that hard.

  73. KSuellington

    I read a lot of King in my teen years. His short stories and novellas are some of his best stuff. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption was one of the stand outs. I like that Andy in the story actually did kill his wife, but you rooted for him all the same. Even still, that film and Stand By Me remain two of the best films adapted from books.

    • Mojeaux

      I glommed King as a teenager and never went back. My husband loves him and we have (almost) every book and short story he’s ever written.

      • KSuellington

        One day I need to get back into reading fiction. I almost completely gave it up more than a decade ago and in the meantime have only read a handful. Before that I was reading a lot of books in Portuguese, which really helped me fully get that language. I would recommend it for your Spanish language adventure.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I thought Andy was innocent and it was Red who was the guilty one?

      • KSuellington

        In the book Andy was most definitely guilty. He kills his wife because she is having an affair. It’s worth a read, I remember going to see the movie right when it came out because I really dug the story. It remains one of the few movies that I like almost as much as the book.

      • Fatty Bolger

        His wife and her lover are killed and he’s convicted for it, but Andy maintains his innocence. While in prison he finds out information that could help him get released, but he’s blocked by the warden from doing anything about it.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Andy was innocent, or at least, Red believed he was.

      • KSuellington

        Huh, looks like you were right at least from the wiki article. I really could’ve sworn Andy was guilty in the book version.

    • Tundra

      Did he, though? I thought it was ambiguous?

      I just went to my bookshelf and found a copy of Different Seasons, which has both the ones you mention as well as the super-creepy Apt Pupil. This book must be close to 40 years old. I can barely read the spine it’s so sun-faded.

      May have to give it a re-read.

      • KSuellington

        It’s been three decades since I read it, but I am fairly sure he was guilty in the book. I may have to pick that one up as well. Yes, Apt Pupil was also awesome, and they did an okay film of it. The Running Man was also super.

    • Rhywun

      Yeah, some of the early short stories are chilling af. Also, less room for him to indulge in his foibles, so often better writing than the novels.

  74. Urthona

    My 90 year old grandma received a $1200 check from the government today whilst in a nursing home. To stimulate the economy. She never worked a day in her life, of course, although her husband did 35 years ago.

    My family is above the cutoff though thanks to both of us “working” (from home). For now. So we don’t get to stimulate the economy.

    • RAHeinlein

      The SS recipients receiving these payments is galling, but deciding those of us who make above $150K (couple) have too much money and don’t deserve any goodies has me outraged. Economic battle lines have just been drawn and rest-assured it’s not just billionaires who will pay the price.

      • leon

        Yeah. It’s never been about Billionares. it has always been about the High Middle class paying up. Likewise we are seeing other economic battle lines of “Essential” vs “Non-essential” with “Government worker” being the main group in the “essential” category.

      • R C Dean

        Mater and Pater Dean got their Trumpbucks this week. I did get him to start calling it Trumpbucks.

        Naturally, its utterly irrelevant to them. I told him to go get the antibody test, as they have both had nasty colds that fit the profile. Of course, its looking like most of those weren’t the ‘Vid, but why not get checked.

        I have been surprised (wrong?) about the percentage with immunity. Its looking a lot lower than I thought.

      • Urthona

        what do you think it is now?

      • Rebel Scum

        I did get him to start calling it Trumpbucks.

        “Donald Dollars” never caught on. *tear*

    • KSuellington

      We just got ours yesterday and we even filed our year’s taxes before April 15th for the first time in a long time. You may just get some of those Trumpbux.

    • invisible finger

      “She never worked a day in her life,”

      That’s why she got a check. Don’t you even welfare state, bro?

      I think they went off 2018 income tax filings because this was all done before 2019 taxes were due. My 85-year old mother got a check and then asked me when I got mine. I nearly wet myself laughing so hard. A friend who made more than I did in 2019 got a check and asked me the same thing and I got pissed off. Then I remembered she was out of work about 4 months in 2018.

      • Urthona

        It seems odd to get a stimulus check if your status was completely unaffected by this, but what do I know?

    • Agent Cooper

      My grandmother received a check. She died in January at the age of 100.

  75. The Late P Brooks

    City living only got “healthy” when the pollution was driven out. Of course, modern living whether in the city or elsewhere requires that pollution to continue, so it’s just displaced not removed.

    Who wouldn’t want to tramp around in ankle deep horse shit?

    • Urthona

      I don’t have a problem with city living and enjoyed it when I was young. Just so long as they don’t get to control me I’m fine with them running themselves how they wish.

  76. invisible finger

    So today I was driving around looking to see if the river has fallen below flood stage yet and I notice that all forest preserve entrances and parking lots are being closed. We can’t have people enjoying the first weekend of summer, they might improve their immune systems.

  77. Nephilium

    Up is down, left is right, cats and dogs living together. The girlfriend just asked to go bowling next week since the bowling alleys are reopening.

    • R C Dean

      The girlfriend just asked to go bowling next week

      *waggles eyebrows*

    • Urthona

      hawt

  78. The Late P Brooks

    Some fucking “Senate Majority” is running anti-Daines ads practically nonstop. Blah blah blah Bad Man is bad!!

    I think Daines is an idiot, but I don’t despise him with the same visceral intensity I feel for Bullock.

    • creech

      A Penna. state senate candidate in the Dem primary is running against Trump. At least, according to his ads. Like 2018, this election will be referendum on Trump as one turd sandwich after another claims he is tastier than the turd sandwich in Washington.

  79. The Late P Brooks

    Oops “Senate Majority” PAC

  80. Hyperion

    “Between the Wutang Clap and this, not to mention the South China Sea, are we headed to WWIII?”

    Just imagine how excited that gets the US left and how envious that they have not been able to that here, yet. Just read any Atlantic article these days and you get the idea.

    • KSuellington

      One of the happy pieces of new this week is that the Atlantic is laying off a lot of its staff.

      • Incentives Matter

        I’ve never understood how most of these shitty news/opinion mags can last so long.

      • Urthona

        Unfortunately The Atlantic will still exist.

    • Urthona

      We’re not I think. I believe we will just let the commies take Hong Kong and do absolutely nothing.

      • Hyperion

        Note also that Taiwan just told the Chicoms to take a hike. So expect more trouble.

      • Urthona

        I’m the kind of globalist free trader scum that Tucker Carlson is always ranting about, but clearly trading with China hasn’t liberalized them like I expected.

        I’d be fine with using some other country for cheap labor instead now.

      • invisible finger

        “trading with China hasn’t liberalized them like I expected. ”

        Another theory shot to shit.

      • kbolino

        “Economic freedom is a necessary but not sufficient condition for political freedom”

        – Milton Friedman

      • RAHeinlein

        Biden was on squawk this morning – in a relatively coherent moment took a swipe at Friedman.

      • Hyperion

        “I’d be fine with using some other country for cheap labor instead now.”

        India.