400 Comments

  1. AlexinCT

    Women who supports the ability to kill one’s baby up until birth, quotes the bible to justify having Ukrainians die so we can engage in a proxy war with Russia.

    Fuck that is one evil beatch.

    • juris imprudent

      Is there any evil like the evil that wraps itself in righteousness?

      • AlexinCT

        The ones that know what they are doing is evil under the pretense of righteousness..

    • waffles

      She’s barely human at all anymore. Just a scorched, blackened husk of a soul clinging to this mortal coil.

      • Nephilium

        You sure about that soul?

      • waffles

        I don’t think you can lose your soul until death. Moloch has several liens on it that will be collected soon enough.

  2. AlexinCT

    I’m glad Democrats are focusing on Ukraine and abortions and not boring shit like the economy.

    The damage to the economy is by design, so there is no interest in having to either defend it or waste time pretending that they want to fix it. The other shit however isn’t just a diversion, as the war is about keeping one of the most lucrative rackets for the political and lawyer class going despite Putin’s attempt to steal that back, and about getting enough blood from infants to sacrifice to Moloch.

    • SDF-7

      Yup — I’m glad they’re mostly focusing on abortion and the war… if they were really focused on the economy, they’d be destroying it *faster*.

      • AlexinCT

        To solve a massive inflationary disaster dragging us all into a recession, caused by our government putting $6 trillion of newly printed money into circulation in just one year, we plan to print and circulate another $12 trillion and make government give everyone free ponies too!

      • SDF-7

        And don’t forget Liz Warren’s compulsive need to have a government agency tell all businesses how they should run. With no oversight.

      • AlexinCT

        The fascist system is about government picking the private sector’s winners & losers through the legal and other government enforcement systems, but done in such a way that the government crooks always can pretend the failures are not theirs (and you can bet your ass they will claim the successes are despite how hard they tried to cripple those entities). The fascist system came into being when many disillusioned marxists realized that the most important quality of people in marxist government was not expertise or competency, but loyalty to marxist bullshit and the people all the way at the top, and that the system would eventually implode as all it could do is create failure. When you decide to stop playing that racket and have government directly dictate how business work you have communism. Both fascism and communism are socialist tyrannical forms of government that by default create a two-tier system of the political class, which will be the ones holding most, if not all, the wealth, and the serfs. Both pretend to honor human rights and freedom, but would not be able to survive if any of that was true.

        Liawatha has decided that the fascist shit doesn’t work for her, and she wants to go straight to communism so she can make sure they expedite the effort to create that two-tier class system. She wants to make sure us serfs knows she is better than us unwashed fucking worker bees.

      • juris imprudent

        With no oversight.

        The High Priests need no oversight, they commune with God and the saints.

  3. Shpip

    A three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down California’s ban on semiautomatic rifle sales to 18-20 year-olds on Wednesday.

    The three judge panel rules for the plaintiffs, California will appeal, the Ninth en banc will rule in favor of the state, SCOTUS won’t grant cert.
    Same as it ever was.

    • Not Adahn

      Dunno, maybe they won’t risk another gun case going to this SCOTUS?

      • db

        Maybe they could strike down the NFA and its insidious children.

        …Maybe I’m a Chinese jet pilot.

      • AlexinCT

        Is your call sign “Kung Flu”?

      • db

        You don’t want to drive Swiss to drink, do you? It might be too early for him to Taiwan on.

      • SDF-7

        Opera. Gorram. Clap.

        That was epic.

      • AlexinCT

        Git em Swiss!

      • Nephilium

        Are all men from the future loudmouthed braggarts?

      • db

        Just me, Baby. Just me.

  4. AlexinCT

    D’Souza’s ‘2000 Mules’ bypasses cultural gatekeepers to gross over $1M on Rumble in first 12 hours

    Losing control of the narrative really bothers these people the most. The fact-checking bullshit has been so terrible and lame, that all it does is make anyone seeing it realize they are desperate to keep anyone from realizing how broken and corrupt the system is.

  5. Drake

    I was hungry and they sent all our money to the Ukraine to launder and steal it.

    • Brawndo

      Sell your cloak and buy ammo

      • Sean

        Those SGammo emails are wearing me down again.

  6. db

    l0b0t: This morning, I watched “Interplanet Janet” that I think you linked on the zoom last night. Now it’s an earworm, but a pleasant one.

    I’m slowly collecting links to fun and educational videos from my youth that I’ll eventually share with db 2.0A and 2.0B.

    • l0b0t

      Tweren’t me, but I do love me some Schoolhouse Rock.

    • Timeloose

      Hi Janet!

    • Grosspatzer

      db – from the overnight thread, not back into the office to work, just picking up stuff that’s been sitting in my desk for 2 years before they close the office (moving to new digs soon). Still, “ew”.

      • db

        Ah, that’s right, I think you mentioned that last week. Good.

  7. AlexinCT

    Woman’s life saved by group of good Samaritans after passing out at wheel.

    I am assuming that she was not crazy drunk and passed out because the story is all positive and such, but it looks like she might need to stop driving. She got lucky. So did other people on the road around her. If she passes out while doing 65 on a highway, that gets real ugly, real fast.

  8. AlexinCT

    Ninth Circuit Panel Strikes California Semiauto Rifle Ban for 18-20 Year-Olds

    The people that want them to have sex before they have a double digit age and wants them to start voting at 12, don’t want them to own fire arms before 21 (or ever, really)…..

    • SDF-7

      And don’t forget — permanently disfigure / sterilize themselves based on peer pressure for the next “cool” trend. But sure — can’t have them learn self defense or anything.

      • AlexinCT

        Personally I am ambivalent about people that are both that stupid and evil that to virtue signal they will sacrifice their offspring. If they want to do that to their children, let them. Less competition for the kids of the sane people that make sure this plague doesn’t destroy their offspring by increasing their psychological trauma exponentially while encouraging them to disfiguring their bodies and minds.

      • Tonio

        De-transitioning will be seen as “essential healthcare” and you’ll be forced to pay for it either through tax dollars or insurance premiums. And we’ll be left with a generation of severely broken people.

      • AlexinCT

        So you are telling me they will take my money to do damage to these kids, then take more money at the back end to pretend to help them? Fuck.. I guess I am now screwed because they have found a way to let evil fucks fucking over their offspring make me complicit by having me pay for it.

    • juris imprudent

      The people that want them to have change their sex

      FTFY

      • AlexinCT

        They also want to make it OK to have sex with young kids. Look up the MAP (minor attracted people) shit.

  9. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’

    Jugsy was supposed to come home with a German Shepherd puppy yesterday, but arrived with this. Its been a busy night.

    Also, my apologies for the abrupt departure from the zoom last night.

    • SDF-7

      Cute… with that lead in, I was kind of expecting *several* puppies instead. “Who can resist those eyes!” and all. 😉

    • AlexinCT

      Did you school Jugsy properly for her error?

    • Festus

      Fun! Train it hard though, Boxers are notoriously headstrong. And chewy.

      • Fourscore

        Only speak German to the doggie, he/she will think he/she is German.

    • DrOtto

      I was disappointed it wasn’t a monkey.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Awww, dat face.

    • blighted_non_millenial

      Boxers are the best.

      • Pope Jimbo

        You go from being surprised/embarrassed when people pop in and catch you in your boxers, to being surprised/embarrassed when they find your boxer in you.

    • Grosspatzer

      Boxer doge FTW! Adorable.

      • WTF

        We have a Boxer-Pyrenees mix, and he is the cutest big dog you’ll ever see. Also the most stubborn dog I’ve ever owned.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Why did you want a German Shephard? You know it is an urban myth that they can be trained to put pizzas in the oven?

  10. SDF-7

    Morning, Banjos — I hope they let that baby hug the puppy doll in the end.

    • AlexinCT

      Looks to me that they trapped that poor child in an endless time loop….

      • Festus

        There are worse fates.

  11. Festus

    Love that GIF! Pure delight.

    • db

      yes! It made me smile

  12. rhywun

    women may have to travel great distances to see abortion providers

    “Safe, legal, and rare easily obtainable at taxpayer expense.”

    • Tonio

      Only if they delay their decisions, which includes not taking a pregnancy test. Because we all know that the pills for so-called “medical” (pharmaceutical as opposed to surgical) will be trafficked and will be easily available in jurisdictions with abortion bans.

      • Festus

        *15 weeks in* Gee, I haven’t menstruated for nearly four months. Maybe it’s a tumah?

      • AlexinCT

        The contraceptive pill and the abortion pills cost money. Being preggers is a great way to be able to let every dude out there ride you bareback without having to worry or incur any expensive, so you want to keep that clump of cells until the last moment to really enjoy the ride…

      • waffles

        Holy shit that is a vile thought.

      • Tonio

        Apparently some women have very irregular periods. And very fat women sometimes don’t realize that they are pregnant until they go into labor. These two circumstances are used by the left to justify late-term abortions. It would be totally sexist and partriarchal to expect those women to take responsibility for themselves and either take a morning after pill, or to take a damn pregnancy test after they’ve had unprotected sex.

      • AlexinCT

        The most important and defining quality of socialism to me is the fact the people that support it do so out of a desperate need to mitigate or get away from consequences to decisions and choices they make, usually because they tend to always make the really bad decisions/choices, regardless of the situation.

      • R.J.

        ^This

      • AlexinCT

        Note that I should add that they want the socialism because they have neither the will nor the desire to change their ways. They just want others to bail them out so they can keep doing, or even double down on doing, stupid shit.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Yep, often because they’ve built a twisted worldview around their idiocy to insulate themselves from criticism.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Who exactly are the guys who are knocking up the mega-obese women that can be pregnant without showing?

        And wouldn’t the fatties notice that they haven’t had a period or two? Or are we setting policy based on women who have super irregular periods AND are so fat that pregnancies don’t show?

      • R.J.

        Are you summoning Tres? He’s usually not around until later.

      • AlexinCT

        BAZINGA!

      • Nephilium

        Happened to a friend of mine. Wound up marrying her when she was in the third trimester (she had just found out a month before the wedding). They had another kid, she cheated on him, and divorced him.

      • AlexinCT

        Stupid is as stupid does…

    • juris imprudent

      And then we hear of a diesel shortage – conspiracy or coincidence?

      • AlexinCT

        Happening as part of the whole bullshit and desperate attempt to price control so they can claim they are doing something about the bad economy before the 2022 midterms.

      • rhywun

        “Desired outcome.”

        Gaia demands suffering.

    • Fourscore

      “Women may have to travel great distances to get baby formula”

  13. Festus

    Fucking Pelosi. She richer than Croesus and older than God. What is her motivation? If it is simple hubris we all know what follows and that won’t be good for anyone. Evil crone.

  14. Swiss Servator

    “fails to advance the Senate 49-100”

    THEY PACKED THE SENATE!!!!!!

    • Festus

      I saw that too. Not saying it would be a good idea.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Oh, so that’s the filibuster.

  15. Sean

    Viva la Waffle.

    #waffle111 4/5

    ?????
    ?⭐?⭐?
    ?????
    ?⭐?⭐?
    ?????

    ? streak: 20
    ? #waffleelite
    wafflegame.net

    • Tres Cool

      Im waiting for BlueWafflegame.net

      • db

        I have been waiting for about a month for someone to make this comment. I lacked the fortitude to do it myself. My hat is off to you.

        Now, I have to go throw up.

      • SDF-7

        I don’t get it — and I’m pretty sure I should be glad about that.

      • Nephilium

        Just don’t Google image search it.

        It’s worse than goatse.

      • db

        It really is foul.

    • Grummun

      Quordle: Comin’ Home to Chumptown

      4 9
      6 X

      Worldle is a repeat of the not-so-distant past, so I got it in one, despite my shit geography.

    • AlexinCT

      Visually lactating enhanced persons, you cad!

    • Festus

      There is a baby formula shortage you monster!

  16. Festus

    Up here we have Bill Lumbergh running the death panels. “Gee, you know what would be great? I’m going to need you to submit to being dead on Saturday. You’re a drain on the system and I’ll need your consent form by day’s end, M’kay?”

    • db

      “Oh, and if you could go ahead and be dead again on Sunday, that’d be greeaaat. Yeah.”

    • AlexinCT

      Pound-you-in-the-ass-prison for Bill!

    • AlexinCT

      Either they are so disconnected from the reality everyone not insane can see or they simply want to troll us all so bad that they picked a person which is blatantly and obviously a lying hack. But she is their lying hack!

      • Festus

        The last few years have been like a fever dream. Or delirium tremons. You decide.

    • rhywun

      Surprise, surprise – she’s been knee-deep in the Ukraine quagmire of propaganda forever.

      Man… when you’ve lost The Nation….

      • rhywun

        Also read that she was instrumental in getting the MSM to lie about the Hunter laptop. And of course the whole Russia, Russia, Russia narrative leading up to the 2016 election.

      • Drake

        She was working for Nuland – one of the most despicable bloodthirsty neocons in the deep state. Nuland had people systematically murdered in the 2014 coup that put the Ukraine on the road to destruction.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Western reporters—and checkbooks—were paying attention. Shortly after its creation, StopFake began receiving funding from Western governments, including the National Endowment for Democracy—an organization mainly funded by the US Congress—and the British embassy in Ukraine. It was also supported by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation. (StopFake has run numerous episodes that cover Soros but fail to disclose this potential conflict of interest—a violation of basic tenets of journalism.)

      Yet another of Reagan’s glorious achievements that we’re still living with. The organization that was stood up when the CIA had so thoroughly discredited itself that nobody wanted to openly support it anymore. Now we have two unaccountable Frankenstein monsters running amok across the globe under the guise of “freedom.”

      • juris imprudent

        Ronald “limited government” Reagan? Say it ain’t so!

      • juris imprudent

        Was there a dog whistle in there? I played it and my dog started barking.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I love the part immediately afterwards about giving the Iranians stuff for strategic engagement. Why does that sound familiar again…?

      • Fourscore

        Two terms is limited, isn’t it? Even if Ol’ Ron wasn’t aware of knowing.

        At least Nancy kept Ron hidden, for the most part.

        Half the people in any nursing home are more alert than the present prez. Joe is an embarrassment to all old people.

  17. SDF-7

    Quordle scores link. In my case: “Now you see that evil Quordle will always triumph — because SDF-7 is dumb.”

    Well, not quite dumb enough to be sure of Chumptown — but I seem to have a real problem getting under 20 lately.

    Daily Quordle 108
    5️⃣3️⃣
    8️⃣7️⃣

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      In my eyes, 20 is par, 18 is the gold standard, and anything over 22 is a bad day.

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 108
      6️⃣4️⃣
      7️⃣8️⃣

      meh

    • whiz

      Daily Quordle 108
      9️⃣7️⃣
      6️⃣4️⃣
      quordle.com
      ⬜?⬜?? ????⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜? ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜???? ⬜?⬜⬜?
      ⬜?⬜⬜? ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜?⬜? ?????
      ⬜???? ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      ????? ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

      ⬜?⬜⬜? ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜?⬜ ⬜?⬜?⬜
      ⬜⬜??⬜ ⬜???⬜
      ⬜⬜??⬜ ?????
      ??⬜?⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      ????? ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

      This one was nasty. After getting the first word in 4, there were 3 or 4 choices for each of the other words, with little overlap in the possible letters. Lucky not to chump out (in the fail-to-finish definition of chump).

    • The Other Kevin

      Daily Quordle 108
      9️⃣8️⃣
      4️⃣6️⃣

    • rhywun

      Duh, we already know that they were told to do so.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    Grim milestone

    One million Americans have now died from the coronavirus, according to an announcement made Thursday by President Joe Biden, marking a long-dreaded milestone for an incomprehensible tragedy.

    “Today, we mark a tragic milestone: one million American lives lost to COVID-19. One million empty chairs around the dinner table. Each an irreplaceable loss. Each leaving behind a family, a community, and a nation forever changed because of this pandemic. Jill and I pray for each of them,” Biden said in a statement. “As a nation, we must not grow numb to such sorrow. To heal, we must remember.”

    The president plans to order flags to half-staff in remembrance.

    *toots horn, throws black confetti*

    • WTF

      Did he take responsibility for the approximately 700K who died under his watch? Since he claimed Trump’s “mismanagement” was responsible for the first 300K or so.

    • Festus

      *dances on graves, more like*

    • rhywun

      a nation forever changed because of this pandemic

      Oh, fuck off. And take every conniving bastard who made it all worse with you.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Experts said the statistic, however massive, does not fully capture the magnitude of the human tragedy.

    They got that right. But the frauds and quacks will never be brought to justice.

    • WTF

      I suspect ZARDOZ could provide some advice there.

      • ZARDOZ

        ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN OBSERVANT ONE. CORRECT! DOES NOT THAT FOOLISH BRUTAL KNOW THAT THE PENIS IS EVIL? STOP CREATING NEW LIFE, TO PLAGUE THE EARTH WITH A RACE OF MEN, AS ONCE IT WAS. ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.

    • AlexinCT

      I am looking for an excuse to get me some strange…

    • Festus

      So odious. Not to worry, I’m sure that Blackberry will rescue THE MESSAGE just as soon as she and Finnegan disentangle.

    • WTF

      It’s like he has no idea what year it is or who’s actually the president. What a clown show.

      • Fourscore

        His complaint seemed to be that waiting an hour for free food was the problem. I know, I know, gas is expensive, people are busy.
        Joe has lost touch with reality, he has reached the danger point and his Dr needs to protect us from him.

    • The Other Kevin

      His entire career, everything he said was either an exaggeration or an outright lie. Now he doesn’t know what year it is.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    The staggering number of deaths due to COVID-19 is now equivalent to the population of San Jose, California — the tenth largest city in the U.S.

    “If you were to tell people that an American city had been wiped off the face of the earth, people would be shocked and horrified. But since this has been a kind of a gradual burn over two years, we’ve gotten so used to hearing the headlines and so tired of having to deal with a pandemic. That sense of horror and devastation has been lost,” Dowdy said.

    It depends n the city. i might even pop the cork on a bottle of good champagne.

    • WTF

      Somewhere between 2.5 million to 3 million Americans die every year from various causes. It’s not like a city being wiped off the face of the earth. What stupidity.

      • Gadfly

        Especially since the COVID deaths are still concentrated among the elder age groups, where most other deaths are also concentrated. The sense of horror and devastation has been lost precisely because most of the deaths are blending in with the usual mortality rates.

      • juris imprudent

        BUT GRANDMA MIGHT DIE A YEAR SOONER THAN SHE WOULD HAVE!!!

    • Rat on a train

      So a rate of death below abortion.

      • WTF

        Abortion doesn’t cause death, a fetus is not a baby REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!11!!!!

      • Festus

        Done quickly enough I can see their side. I’ve nothing against Plan B. Nobody wants Prom Night Dumpster Baby. It’s always the radicals that drive the debate.

    • rhywun

      That sense of horror and devastation has been lost

      Telling, that.

      • Festus

        Maybe we’re like trauma survivors, numb to the effects.

      • rhywun

        Imagine going through life as someone who thrills to “horror and devastation”.

    • AlexinCT

      The sad thing about girls built like that is that in 10 years they will be blimps.

  21. Rat on a train

    It’s California wildfire season.
    Fire, flood, quake, riot.

    I grew up in Orange County. I recall the hills burned regularly. Some years it was a long line of smoke blocking out the morning sun (my life did not depend on it). The way we avoided fires burning down homes was not building in the hills.

    • Festus

      Forests burn. That is how they regenerate.

      • AlexinCT

        I hear that’s why rioters burn down shit as well.. To regenerate it…

      • Rat on a train

        Think of all the business glaziers will get.

      • Rat on a train

        Like other natural disasters, the risk varies by location. I’m not worried about the forest growing up to my house here. I would be there. Southern California is a natural wildfire habitat. They either need to pave over paradise or keep a good buffer.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2021, following heart disease and cancer, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    What complete and utter bullshit. We’ll never know how many otherwise completely healthy people died solely because they contracted the plague, but it wasn’t anywhere near a million.

    • Festus

      I haven’t had a bad cold for decades.

  23. Sensei

    DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board only wishes it had this kind of reach. For our own good of course.

    China Censors WHO Chief’s Call to End Covid-19 Strategy Dubbed Unsustainable

    SINGAPORE—China’s censors blocked rare public criticism of its zero-Covid strategy by the World Health Organization from social media Wednesday, as officials in Shanghai insisted there would be no change to policies that have locked tens of millions of people in their homes for weeks.

    Note the byline is Singapore. I can’t remember if the WSJ is still persona non grata on the mainland or it doesn’t want to risk one of its in country reporters by criticizing the censorship.

    • AlexinCT

      The crowd clapped for that shit….

      Tells you all you need to know about these people…

  24. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    That gif is precious, The lynx, not so much.

    The baby formula thing is odd. I am having trouble seeing the end goal here if it is malfeasance. Scaring the fuck out of moms ahead of midterms seems like a weird strategy. Same with the RvW leak. I’ve heard hypotheses that it is a clear attempt to sway the midterms, but also to divert from the Pfizer data dump and all the other shit.

    Interesting times.

    • Festus

      You just need to connect with your Malthusian Chakra. Breathe deeply and then stop breathing. Peace at last. Namaste!

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      I can chalk RvW up to a single prog panicking about midterm annihilation and pulling what seems to them to be the emergency election win ripcord. However, it’s not 1996 anymore, so it failed.

      I’m not so sure about the formula thing. Maybe they’re hoping it drives women to vote for more Santa Claus because they feel insecure? Maybe they think they can control the narrative and make it about greedy corporations? None of those seem like a great bet.

      • R.J.

        The formula thing was a horrible misstep, which can join the other horrible missteps made by the government. It was stupid, stupid. Word is already out about the government keeping it closed for no reason and it will only hurt the democrats even more.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        ^I’m with you on RvW being a single prog panicking instead of a coordinated effort. I think the clerk’s vision was more narrow though and just focused on creating a backlash to intimidate the final decision rather than being a midterms strategy. The Dem Machine jumped on it as a midterms strategy, but, like you said, that’s no bueno anymore.

        I’m surprised to see in the polls just how resounding the numbers are against abortions after 16 weeks or so. Left-wing polls that I’d assumed are biased in favor of later abortions. This shouldn’t even be considered a wedge issue. And maybe now it won’t be anymore after going back to the states to work out.

      • Ownbestenemy

        They have been hammering the greedy corporation thing. High prices and forced scarcity of gas, food, etc is all because of record profits by the evil corporations

    • Fatty Bolger

      I don’t think it’s planned, it’s just another example of how burdensome our regulatory system is becoming. First it drives out competition by making it extremely hard to operate at anything but the largest scale, which has been happening for years. That’s bad enough, but now we’re starting see agencies become even more disconnected from their actions, doing nonsensical things like this that can create a crisis for no reason. As a country we’ve mostly been able to keep up with and even get ahead of the regulators and keep things moving, but there’s a growing fragility that is now being exposed.

      • Gustave Lytton

        It didn’t start with COVID, but being able to label parts of the economy “non-essential” and tell them to shut down indefinitely was a turning point.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Right. It didn’t start with COVID, but COVID exposed the growing fragility, and how increasingly divorced from reality they’ve become.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        It’s not that it’s planned, but rather that it’s consuming the news cycle. Everything that consumes the news cycle is chosen for some reason that advances the agenda.

      • Festus

        ^^^Oscar the Grouch gets it! Smoke and fucking mirrors. Doom Porn is what it is. “If you thought that was bad just get a load of this!” So asinine, much banal…

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I don’t think it’s planned, it’s just another example of how burdensome our regulatory system is becoming.

        This is something to consider in relation with last evening’s post about the minimum wage. Not that there should be a minimum wage at all, but regulations have increased the cost of living beyond where someone can survive on a dollar a day. My point here is not that the minimum wage should be increased but rather that regulations need to be dropped to decrease the cost of living for those on the margin. Increasing the minimum wage would of course just result in fewer jobs and higher consumer prices.

        A perfect example is flop houses. A place to get a cot and maybe some soup or bread for next to nothing. Can’t find these anymore due to regulations. The closest I’ve heard of is in trailer parks where multiple people rent out rooms in a trailer. All the regulations around food supply drive up the cost. It’s actually cheaper for grocery stores to throw out food rather then give it away for free because of the regulations.

      • Festus

        Who are we to judge another for their “chosen lifestyle”? I say this as a step-dad of of a man living rough. Dude, you went down the road more travelled. Now I have nothing but contempt for your choice. Fuck that siphon.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, the NYC equivalent of flophouses were outlawed decades ago. The neighborhoods where they used to exist are now full of the sort of people who are happy to stuff the homeless into hotels in other people’s neighborhoods but God forbid allowing the less well-off to earn their way into cheap housing.

      • Gustave Lytton

        My favorite is building cheap ass sheds (with waived development and permit fees, all the things that drown every other sort of building) and calling them small homes for the unhoused.

      • Gustave Lytton

        The flip side to minimum wage is working under the table for cash wages. Less nominal, more take home or for those who can’t work.

      • DEG

        Someone who landed a job like that was seen as a hero where I grew up.

  25. Ozymandias

    Daily Quordle 108
    8️⃣?
    4️⃣5️⃣
    Chumptown!

    • Festus

      Tell us more about the butler-monkeys in chumptown!

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Think piece

    Would You Send Your Kid to College in a State Where Abortion Was a Crime?

    i was talking to an old classmate and fellow resident of a blue-state metropolitan neighborhood, and the talk turned, naturally, to kids and colleges. “Would you send your kid to Emory?” my friend asked. But he wasn’t talking about education; he was talking about national politics. Texas had just passed a restrictive abortion law. Other states looked likely to follow, following a familiar map dividing one America from another. And chances were that the Supreme Court would OK them.

    On the face of it, it seemed absurd. An elite college in Atlanta represents a milieu essentially indistinguishable from our own: Cosmopolitan, tolerant, unblemished by passers-by in MAGA caps, undoubtedly more Democratic than many of the small towns that are home to America’s crunchiest liberal-arts colleges. But in his description, it felt like a different country. “Who knows what kind of crazy laws they’ll pass. Could they stop someone from flying home for an abortion?”

    And just like that, we’d passed another small milepost in the sundering of the United States: Another state — one full of neighborhoods populated by people just like us — effectively otherized, made to seem exotic and unpredictable and dangerous by someone who doesn’t usually trade in wild theories.

    As POLITICO’s publication of the draft Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade ricocheted through American politics this week, I thought back to that conversation. The language in the news stories seemed altogether appropriate: Cataclysmic. Explosive. Earthquake. But if the news was shocking, the vocabulary, by this point, was altogether familiar, as was the depiction of a society on the precipice.

    It’s become almost a cliche to say that the United States is more polarized than at any time since the 1850s: The increasingly regional political parties that seem to really hate each other; the sense that every institution, from churches to sports leagues to theme park operators, must take sides; the fraying institutions, apocalyptic rhetoric and looming sense of chaos. Even before Covid-19 and the insurrection, reasonable people were talking about the possibility of a new civil war — though, happily, they were mostly focused on how to stop it.

    Muh bubble! Muh precious precious bubble!

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      It’s funny how it’s the same conversation on both sides. The right is questioning the benefits of sending their kids to prog-fascist indoctrination centers to be stripped of their beliefs and their faith. The left is questioning the benefits of sending their kids to schools in states where sacrifices to their god Moloch are forbidden.

      The reality is that national divorce is the only remotely peaceful way for this to resolve. Pandora’s box has been opened, and there’s no shoving the acrimony and disdain back in.

      • R.J.

        I have been wondering of the national divorce has started with Roe v Wade in that it was the first shot across the bow of big government. The less federal government there is, the greater the autonomy of the states. Then people can move to a state that reflects their values.

      • juris imprudent

        I WANT MY VALUES IMPOSED ON EVERYONE BECAUSE MY VALUES ARE PERFECT!!!

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        To be fair, when you think the other side is conducting mass extermination on thinly veiled racial lines, that’s not a particularly absurd thing to think.

      • Festus

        To be honest, I believe your reasoning has the whiff of a black/white dichotomy *ducks*

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        And to be honest, I think a lot of people hide behind the idea of compromise because they can’t confront the fact that they’re for killing people so long as those people don’t scream out in pain when starved or carved to death.

      • juris imprudent

        Hubris is never attractive, no matter how narcissistic the society is.

      • AlexinCT

        You have this totally wrong. They accuse the other side of doing evil shit, but that’s a cop out. They know that they are doing evil shit, and they want to make that the standard so they can feel good about it.

    • Gustave Lytton

      . But in his description, it felt like a different country. “Who knows what kind of crazy laws they’ll pass. Could they stop someone from flying home for an abortion?”

      And just like that, we’d passed another small milepost in the sundering of the United States: Another state — one full of neighborhoods populated by people just like us — effectively otherized, made to seem exotic and unpredictable and dangerous by someone who doesn’t usually trade in wild theories.

      Greg Revell says GFY with your false concern.

      • Festus

        Unapproved people still can’t fly on airlines up here. FedGov is holding fast. This is not over. That power that they tasted? It will never go away, mark my fucking words.

    • AlexinCT

      I would not send my kid to college. Period. Unless they were going there to get a STEM degree. And then I would be very careful which college to send them to so they actually don’t land in some shithole where math is subjective because otherwise it is racist/sexist/homophobic.

      • Fourscore

        I saw a protester on TV this morning with a sign that said “College debt is Racist! Sexist! and something else” but anyway
        somehow my voluntary action makes me those things because no one would stop me.

        “Education is Ignorance”

      • The Last American Hero

        I thought college was mainly attended by adults.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Am I sending my kid to college so that they can get their first abortion?

      • Gustave Lytton

        Well, when they’re sexually assaulted 125% at college, there’s a chance of getting pregnant.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Can you blame these people for being confused? They didn’t actually learn anything in their Eastern European Minority Studies curriculum, and they spent their whole college experience getting drunk and sampling the tube sausage fare at the local frats. They think that college is about booze and promiscuity.

      • Not Adahn

        …it’s not?

      • Ownbestenemy

        A plethora of 70s thru 90s movies says otherwise good sir.

      • Grumbletarian

        I guessed, and was not disappointed. Nice.

    • rhywun

      Look in the mirror, dude. Your TEAM caused this.

    • whiz

      In most (all?) of the states with abortion restrictions, it’s only a crime after a certain point.

    • Count Potato

      “unblemished by passers-by in MAGA caps”

      OFFS!!

  27. Shpip

    In Florida, we have our fair share (plus about nineteen other states’ fair share) of eccentrics.

    That’s not always a bad thing.

    • Tundra

      We passed a bust of Marie Antoinette.

      “You get used to it,” he said.

      LOL!

      Fantastic article Shpip!

    • l0b0t

      Oh wow! That’s fantastic; thanks for sharing it. It reminds me of my favorite Florida museum, Sarasota’s Ca’ d’ Zan.

    • pistoffnick

      Since then, he’s hand-formed more than 30 metal outfits, from party dresses to swimsuits to bras.

      Kinky!

  28. The Late P Brooks

    The great nationalizing was never complete, of course, nor was it just limited to local exotica like what sort of sauce you prefer on your barbecue (LGBTQ rights have remained a patchwork that generally reflects region). And it is not, incidentally, just a tale of the triumph of liberal preferences: Thanks to the Heller decision, you can move to the urban north without giving up your ability to pack heat. It’s the same country, for better or worse.

    On top of all its visceral civil rights effects, the Roe reversal calls this feeling into question in unfamiliar ways. Our countrymen in the 19th and 20th centuries were accustomed to stark legal chasms between states and regions. Today, not so much. But if the ruling takes place along the lines of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft, there immediately will be an enormous practical difference between living in most red states and most blue ones. On one side of the line, you have a right; on the other, you don’t.

    ——-

    For most of the past couple decades, Americans’ tendency to live and work among like-minded people has been a subject of interest and worry. Bill Bishop’s 2008 book “The Big Sort” — based on a series of articles that ran in 2004 — was an early chronicle of the trend. Americans, his reporting showed, are increasingly unlikely to live next to someone who votes, worships or thinks about major issues in a way that’s different from them. The rise of former President Donald Trump, with its exaggerated divide between rural and metropolitan voters, only accelerated matters.

    But there’s a key difference between Big Sort America and post-Roe America. Many of the divisions Bishop noted take place within states or metropolitan areas or regions. Texas may be red, but there are plenty of neighborhoods in Dallas or Houston or Austin (or a bunch of smaller cities, too) just as LGBTQ-friendly and pro-immigrant and anti-Trump as anywhere in Oregon. And vice versa.

    President Cartoon Villain strikes again.

    • AlexinCT

      Yeah, Trump, a guy that was OK with homosexuality before everyone of the big team blue politicians ever decided to be Ok with it because there no longer was a political cost, is the one that hates others…

      • Sensei

        Let’s not forget the anti-Semitism too. Because there are no Jews in the east coast commercial real estate markets and he has no Jewish family members.

      • AlexinCT

        And people he associated with like Hershel Walker had to be relabeled as “The blackface of white supremacy” too..

    • Gustave Lytton

      pro-immigrant and anti-Trump as anywhere in Oregon

      Anywhere? Oh really…

    • juris imprudent

      So I went to that linked John Harris article and found this gem:

      The more the vitriol has risen the less consensus there is about the origins of anger. To the contrary, there is something closer to an establishment consensus that the search for root cause is folly — the Trump phenomenon defies explanation, and the threat posed by his demagoguery makes speculation about its origins an irrelevant distraction.

      Now is that ever a case of “nothing to see here”. Nope, no problems whatsoever in our establishment, we’ve looked at ourselves and we are all just fine. Can’t understand at all why people would follow some nasty man saying mean things about us.

    • rhywun

      LGBTQ-friendly and pro-immigrant and anti-Trump as anywhere in Oregon

      Oh, fuck off.

      • juris imprudent

        Narrator: That writer has never been outside of Portland and Eugene.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Or in either one of those cities. I’ve seen Trump and Fuck Biden flags in both.

      • juris imprudent

        OK, but in fairness, those flags don’t represent majority views in either.

      • Gustave Lytton

        No, but the writer using anywhere betrays either cluelessness or laziness in writing.

    • R.J.

      Exaggerated divide?!!?? Exaggerated??!? Jesus, that asshole must never leave the city. Also, please decide to send your kid to school where you want based on your beliefs. Everyone else has for years. Also, a big divide in state government is way overdue. Let it happen! People think differently. By all means, make California a socialist state. You can have it. I would prefer Texas or Florida because I like making, keeping and enjoying my living. And my daughter can attend a school that reflects my values, instead of forced government values. This is a good thing. People are different.

    • R C Dean

      Thanks to the Heller decision, you can move to the urban north without giving up your ability to pack heat.

      Oh, really? Well, I guess we’ve always had the ability to pack heat. But anywhere you have to have a permit to do so, you don’t have the right to pack heat.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Am I sending my kid to college so that they can get their first abortion?

    You’re sending your kid to college to learn the right kind of hedonism. Forethought and self-restraint are not part of the curriculum.

    • Rat on a train

      Future-time orientation is racist.

  30. AlexinCT

    I usually think Berkley is an interesting cat, but this suggestion makes me think he is in a class all by himself.

    Players wooping fan’s asses center court sounds like a great way to promote the business.

    • AlexinCT

      Fucking autocorrect… Barkley.. Not the insane asylum masquerading as a college in CA.

      • Sensei

        See I was thinking of Bill the Cat…

      • Pope Jimbo

        Not sure that would go all that well.

        NBA players tend to be long and skinny. There are some monsters out there, but a lot of them might lose to a fan who was in shape and knew what they were doing.

        NFL players on the other hand would clean up.

      • AlexinCT

        I have been waiting since the first time I heard about a show called “Survivor” came out and then promptly disappointed me when 15 mins into the show someone had not used the knife they snuck in to gut the shit out of the other people and cooked them up for jerky meat for us to go back to gladiatorial fights.

        And no, I don’t much like gladiator movies before you bastards ask. I am a lesbian trapped in a man’s body.

    • SDF-7

      Yes, Berkeley Breathed is an interesting cat. No doubt there.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    It will be a particularly interesting cleavage for residents of the nation’s capital, where local voters aren’t fully empowered to make their own laws. A future Congress could simply ban abortion in the District of Columbia; even a present one could use its veto over the local government budget to squeeze access. Over its history, D.C. has been the subject of Congressional meddling over things that had been local decisions elsewhere: Slavery, segregation, the death penalty. Washingtonians who imagined themselves to be blue-America residents like their peers in New York or Boston or Chicago may be in for a shock — a divided America writ small.

    ——-

    Can America survive as a nation if something as dull as urban elites sending kids to college in a different part of the country starts to seem risky and exotic? Sure. The majority of our history has involved far more dramatic regional divides: Freedom against slavery, democracy against Jim Crow apartheid. We have plenty of other national crises at the moment too. But just because it won’t doom us doesn’t mean it won’t be a factor in American society in ways we haven’t fully thought through. Well beyond the question of reproductive rights, the Roe reversal — and the two-nationing of America — will leave it feeling like a different country.

    Suck that thumb. Suck it hard.

  32. juris imprudent

    Panties in a bunch?

    F.D.A. Authorizes Underwear to Protect Against S.T.I.s During Oral Sex

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’m going to need an expert opinion on this development.

      Where’s HM?

    • Sensei

      It’s all about “the feels”?

    • Grosspatzer

      Masking up is hot!

      • juris imprudent

        Something impermeable usually does retain heat, and moisture.

      • R C Dean

        So you’re saying, it hot?

      • juris imprudent

        Well, some people do like to lick latex, and I’m not gonna judge.

  33. Not Adahn

    Just heard a new bit of managespeak!

    “…do things in a planfulmanner.”

    • AlexinCT

      Go do the needful..

    • Grosspatzer

      Needful is so 2020.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      *consults synergy thought leader on best way to lean in on this verbal paradigm disruptor*

      • R C Dean

        *puts Scruffy on The List*

    • db

      facepalm

    • Ownbestenemy

      Check your emotional intelligence

    • Festus

      “Healthful” is something that I stumbled across lately.

  34. Tundra

    And here we go.

    Everyone is crazy.

    • Grosspatzer

      NATO, to Finland:

      “Tell Linus to merge that back door we developed into the kernel, then we’re good.”

    • The Other Kevin

      Not one single person is attempting to deescalate. You used to have at least a Pope or a former president or Jesse Jackson trying to negotiate something. But the WEF-backed adults are in charge now.

      • Not Adahn

        I think I read that Frankie is in the “Ukraine started it” camp.

    • R C Dean

      I find it difficult to fault Russia’s neighbors for wanting to be not-completely-vulnerable to Russian aggression. Maybe if Russia didn’t want an alliance on its borders, it should stop invading its neighbors? Just a thought.

      And I know, Russia has reasons to be paranoid. How you break this cycle, I don’t know. But asking Russia’s neighbors to forego the ability to defend themselves to placate Russia strikes me as akin to the gun controllers telling people to forego gun ownership so they don’t get their guns stolen.

      • Tundra

        I don’t fault anyone for wanting to defend themselves. Finland just signed a deal with the UK. Why the fuck do they need to be in NATO?

      • R C Dean

        Because the UK can’t do a damn thing to stop the Russians?

      • Tundra

        Then why is Boris there signing treaties?

        How can Russia be simultaneously weak and unstoppable?

      • R C Dean

        Because there’s little risk to the UK.

        Whether they are weak or unstoppable is relative. Either way, having them cross your border in force is a bad thing, and being part of an alliance is a deterrent to that (maybe; or a provocation. Who knows?).

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        But asking Russia’s neighbors to forego the ability to defend themselves to placate Russia strikes me as akin to the gun controllers telling people to forego gun ownership so they don’t get their guns stolen.

        I don’t think anyone is suggesting that Russia’s neighbors can’t defend themselves. Or that weapons can’t be sold to places like Ukraine as a part of normal commerce (not graft) for their defense, which would be your gun controlling metaphor.

        The issue is other countries’ signing up their own citizens’ blood and treasure to defend Russia’s neighbors. Not signing up your country’s blood and treasure to defend Ukraine is not at all the same as preventing Ukraine from defending itself against Russia.

      • R C Dean

        Fair enough. An absence of defensive alliances can prevent escalation of hostilities once started. It also presents a tempting series of targets to a sufficiently capable aggressor. And the deal with defensive alliances is that everyone defends each other; its not unilateral and a rational choice can be made to put one’s own military at risk to defend others in exchange for reciprocity. And they can be a deterrent or a provocation, depending on how they behave and how their opponent perceives them.

        I guess my real point is, there’s not a right answer. There are options with upsides and downsides. Unfortunately, there are dynamics in play from both sides which make worst case scenarios more likely.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I can see the mutual value of defensive alliances between countries who are not strong enough individually to stand against Russia, but are equal or superior to Russia in aggregate. Each nation gets equal value from such an alliance. The United States doesn’t receive any benefit from providing defense to countries like Ukraine. It’s just a further rape of American taxpayers. There is no individual country or combination of countries that can militarily overcome the United States. It’s insanity for us to be entering into such pacts with countries like Lithuania.

        To me the right answer is for the United States to the stay out of Eastern Europe. Dismantle NATO. Let Ukraine handle it’s own business. And stop looting American taxpayers.

      • Drake

        The tried to break the cycle with the Minsk Agreements. Neutrality, c ceasefire in the east, guaranteed borders…

        The Ukrainians, at our urging, did not honor the agreements.

      • juris imprudent

        You mean the Ukrainian govts we helped install after elections didn’t turn out the way we wanted?

      • Drake

        That’s the one – the literal clown we put in charge.

      • juris imprudent

        Clown? I thought he was a candy (chocolate) oligarch?

      • R C Dean

        I don’t know if its really that clear who broke the deal. My suspicion is both sides were willing to continue the fighting and did so. The pro-Russian forces were the ones who actually gained ground in the post-“ceasefire” fighting, but its hard to know what to read into that.

  35. Count Potato

    Can we at least bring back quaaludes?

    • Sean

      You’re Bill Cosby?

      • R.J.

        Jelloooooooooo aaaaaaand quaaaaaaaaluuuuuuuudessssss…..

      • Festus

        Someone else remembers “Pro Golfers On Ludes” from Nat Lamp circa 1981! Thanks for that!

      • R.J.

        I do! You are welcome!

    • Grosspatzer

      “Can we at least bring back quaaludes?”

      Mine will be arriving on July 14. Should be a Roring good time.

  36. juris imprudent

    Oh this is great. They have an embedded link to the sheriff holding a press conference, and he’s black.

    • Sensei

      Funny, I’ve been reading about this too.

      Given Brandon’s DE connections I’m expecting a FedGov investigation is just about a given.

    • Fatty Bolger

      The cops weren’t racially profiling. They were just being assholes, and using the usual BS tricks to circumvent the fourth amendment.

      • juris imprudent

        ding-ding-ding

      • WTF

        ^This. They do this crap to everyone, doesn’t matter the race. There’s only potential blowback because they picked on a protected class.

      • R C Dean

        Well, my suggested reply to a patient complaining we discriminated against them, that “We don’t discriminate against anybody. We treat everubody like shit.” was not well received.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Ehh. Cops profile on race all the time. Usually as a proxy for socioeconomic status. I strongly doubt that bus would have been searched if it had been filled white guys from an elite prep school. Where the kids’ parents are going to have lawyers and connections to politicians.

        As teenagers, we knew to be careful driving around certain areas because you’d get pulled over for being white. Buying drugs was the only reason for white boys being in those neighborhoods.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Sounds made up! Impossible! No way!

        Only reason for white folk to be driving down Manchester Blvd in Inglewood at 7pm and 10:30pm in the 80s/90s was to get to and from the LA Forum and the 405. Otherwise you were asking to get pulled over.

        Now that area is all lily white.

    • blighted_non_millenial

      Looks like a fuck everyone involved story to me.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Whoa, NPR is behind. HBCUs are now PBIs.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    NYT opinion headline:

    Can we still be optimistic about America?

    Did not, will not, RTFA.

    Something tells me they think they’re being dragged, kicking and screaming, back into the dark ages, when men were men and women were women and the dark folks was all in chains.

    • Festus

      “Oh the humanity!’

    • Not Adahn

      Rich Strike, the horse who improbably won the Kentucky Derby as an 80-1 long shot,

      Mighty fine redundancy there Lou.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Whoa. Do you know if these are accurate?

    • Ownbestenemy

      An evil plot of Gen Z to rid the world of Millennials and GenX’ers

      Interesting enough, the next generation will supposedly get the moniker of Generation Alpha…

    • db

      What’s his source?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        There are some numbers going around that the Faucis are going to want to ignore or explain away.

        The excess death numbers among age groups less vulnerable to bad Covid outcomes are quite striking. It wasn’t Covid that killed these people. It was the alleged mitigation measures that did it.

        These two charts tell the story (the source for the top one is page 23 of the Society of Actuaries Research Institute report):

      • R C Dean

        I would tend to give some credence to the Acutaries. Assuming that isn’t another skinsuited front organization, but since the results are anti-totalitarian, I doubt that.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Second chart is based on CDC data

      • AlexinCT

        Why would you trust any CDC data at this point?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Then just assume it’s worse than what is presented, which is already bad.

      • AlexinCT

        I don’t assume either way. Nothing is to be trusted, so no real conclusion can be made other than whatever one our bias would like.

        What you can say with certainty is that our expert class is hyper politicized and downright untrustworthy. And our political and bureaucratic class is steeped in self serving evil.

  38. db

    First image of Saggitarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, revealed.

    By combining about 3.5 petabytes of data, or the equivalent of about 100 million TikTok videos, captured in April 2017, researchers could begin to piece together the picture.

    Heaven help us if this is a new unit of measurement.

    • db

      Thanks to OwnBestEnemy for mentioning last night that this was expected to be released today.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Neat! And….they just can’t help themselves with their analogous comparisons to the laymen.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      But Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* for short, is “humanity’s black hole,” says astrophysicist Sera Markoff of the University of Amsterdam, and a member of the EHT collaboration.

      That’s raaaaacist.

      • Ownbestenemy

        The Bernards are appealing the the Galactic Council on this egregious affront

    • db

      or, Sagittarius A*

    • Sensei

      Less shitty than the Couric.

    • Festus

      Looks like an inflamed butthole.

      • R.J.

        STEVE SMITH HARDEST HIT

      • Surly Knott

        We’re all just pimples on the Milky Way’s ass.

    • Nephilium

      But how many Library of Congresses is that?

      • Ownbestenemy

        1.4 Libraries of Alexandria or two AOCs worth of headspace.

  39. Sensei

    Japan’s Okinawa may be on the front lines again as it marks anniversary of U.S. handover

    Change Article 9, Use your own blood and treasure to protect your island nation and tell the US military and American taxpayers that they are no longer needed. If you are unhappy with military decisions that impact you, you can discuss them with your government in Tokyo.

    Problem solved. Or you can continue to sound like a whiny teenager unhappy with the rules mom and dad impose on you.

  40. Evan from Evansville

    Folk around?

    Lady is resting, and Other Person’s Kitty has been lovely with me, but an ass with her. I intend on going to bed soon. But baseball/other sports/videos will get in the way. Escapism is key. I’m also an idiot. We shall see were this night leads us.

    • Ownbestenemy

      That is some innuendo right thar

    • Festus

      You seem to be drifting, Evan. Get the fuck out while the getting is good. Once you’re on friendly shores you can pause, take a breath and reflect. Everything is happening way too fast. You need to bail, yesterday.

      • R.J.

        Agreed. Time to go.

      • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

        Yep. Bounce from South Korea as fast as you possibly can. Don’t be an idiot.

      • robodruid

        Also agree. Get out now.

      • R C Dean

        Concur. If you can get on a plane, get on the damn plane.

    • ZARDOZ

      ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONE. LEAVE. NOW.

    • DEG

      If the legal impediments to you leaving are gone, get out of Korea and back to the USA.

  41. wdalasio

    The fact-checking bullshit has been so terrible and lame, that all it does is make anyone seeing it realize they are desperate to keep anyone from realizing how broken and corrupt the system is,

    The part I’ll never get is why, at this point, they felt the need to go full retard. A softer touch, a less deranged insistence on conformity, and they probably would have kept their credibility with all but loons like us. And I don’t think it was Trump. This crap started before he came on the scene. And, really, if they played the softer touch with Trump, he probably would have bought into it hook, line and sinker. A few compliments and Trump’s ego would have him telling everybody what great patriots they are, helping to make America Great Again.

    It goes back to my theory. We’re living in the age of deteriorating elites. The democratization of elite status has led, perversely, to an elite that simultaneously considers itself more meritocratically justified and less competent in wielding its elite status.

    • juris imprudent

      They can never accept that Trump is a consequence of their own actions. Never, never, never.

    • The Other Kevin

      I heard it put this way. Years ago a politician would appeal to their base, then move to the middle when it was election time. Now there are two extremes, and they’re forcing the middle to pick one. There is no longer subtlety, compromise, or dealing. Everything’s a big war of us vs. them.

      • Festus

        Yup. I catch myself falling into that trap more and more lately. Ideas that I would normally disagree with. Anything to poke the people in the eye that would apparently rather see me dead. Fuck them. I never started this fight.

      • juris imprudent

        Chile says hello.

      • R C Dean

        I’m not sure that dropping the pantomime of faking to the base/moving to the middle is a bad thing. The outcome was the leftward ratchet that brought us to this point.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Noblesse oblige without the oblige, as well.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    Empty seats

    U.S. airline bookings dropped 17% last month from March, according to a report from Adobe published Thursday, one of the first signs of cooling demand for air travel as ticket prices surpass pre-pandemic levels.

    Consumers spent $7.8 billion on domestic tickets in April, down 13% from the previous month, according to the report.

    Air travel has been resilient in recent months despite the highest inflation since the early 1980s. Prices on everything from gasoline to groceries to travel have shot up. The new data suggests consumers are starting to back off buying tickets.

    Everybody knows it’s really because people are terrified of flying with people who aren’t wearing masks.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Really surprised they didn’t wedge that into the report.

    • Festus

      Nothing to do with 20% inflation (if they used the older rubrik)

  43. Sensei

    WTF is “engaging”?

    Lufthansa said it would be “engaging” with the affected passengers. “We have zero tolerance for racism, antisemitism and discrimination of any type,” the airline said.

    Lufthansa Apologizes After Jewish People Were Barred From Flight

    As I mentioned a few days ago what was Lufthansa supposed to do? They all looked alike of course.

    • rhywun

      WTF is “engaging”?

      Dialoguing.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Being planful

      • Sensei

        Do you need the recently approved FDA underwear mentioned above for that?

      • Nephilium

        Huh… I usually just read it as monologuing.

    • Urthona

      “outwardly jewish”. eh. This is why I never where my beanie yarmulke when I travel.

    • Festus

      “Ya see, Son, when an Airline and a visible minority group love each other very much…”

    • Tundra

      Nice people confuse me.

      Thanks, Holiness!

      • Festus

        Scratch the surface and most everyone is that way. There is hope.

  44. The Late P Brooks

    The more the vitriol has risen the less consensus there is about the origins of anger. To the contrary, there is something closer to an establishment consensus that the search for root cause is folly — the Trump phenomenon defies explanation, and the threat posed by his demagoguery makes speculation about its origins an irrelevant distraction.

    “Honestly, if you are incapable of recognizing the existential threat per se posed by Trump and his hillbilly robot army to DEMOCRACY! and humanity itself, you’re just too dumb and useless for us to concern ourselves with.”

    • rhywun

      “Everything was going swimmingly for our side until those rubes and deplorables fucked it up.”

  45. DEG

    “I wouldn’t be surprised to see diesel being rationed on the East Coast this summer,” said Catsimatidis during a phone interview, the outlet reported. “Right now inventories are low and we may see a shortage in coming months.”

    Lovely. Home heating oil, widely used in the Northeast, is untaxed Diesel.

    • R C Dean

      And the administration just froze new leases in Alaska and the Gulf.

      Nobody is that stupid. Massive shortages and inflation have to be the desired outcome.

    • Not Adahn

      Stopped at a gas station that must cater to various kinds of recreational vehicles. At the pumps directly within sight were three grades of gasoliine+ethaonl, ethanol-free gasolline, diesel and nitromathane.

    • ron73440

      Filled up the truck yesterday.

      25 gallons of diesel for $137.

      Holy Shit Snacks!

  46. The Late P Brooks

    The part I’ll never get is why, at this point, they felt the need to go full retard. A softer touch, a less deranged insistence on conformity, and they probably would have kept their credibility with all but loons like us. And I don’t think it was Trump. This crap started before he came on the scene.

    *thinks back to all the people who plainly believed anybody who did not devoutly love Barack Obama could only be mentally ill, or worse*

  47. DEG

    Project Veritas’ latest: FBI agent leaks internal documents which appear to show a political vendetta against Project Veritas.

    • R.J.

      That comes as no surprise.

      • AlexinCT

        The FBI, like every other weaponized government entity due to the Obama admins efforts, are no longer functioning as entities to protect the Union. Their primary role now is the protect the globalist cabal that runs our government (into the ground).

      • juris imprudent

        And all the wonderful tools/authorities they were given in the W admin to fight terrorism. If only anyone had been able to predict how that might turn out.

      • AlexinCT

        The greatest problem we have is the people that believe giving government power when their guy/gal is in charge means it will never be abused. Then they end up disappointed and baffled when both sides abuse the power. Giving government power, means it will be abused.

  48. Ownbestenemy

    Meanwhile…

    Already heard gnashing that this won’t impact anything cause it was land that the oil companies weren’t moving on.

    • Ownbestenemy

      That was supposed to be response to DEG above

    • R.J.

      Buncha penises.

    • SDF-7

      That goes back to my thoughts a week or two back — what fossil fuel / energy company in its right mind would invest *anything* right now given the government has made it clear that it intends to throttle the industry into the grave? (“Climate change” impacts “taken into account” for new leasing / operations, retracting of leases willy-nilly, hostile statements from Day 1 of this admin, etc.)

      It would be like buying a new house because you plan on getting a raise — when your boss keeps telling you he hates you and all the work you do.

      • AlexinCT

        Tell your boss you are banging his woman then..

      • rhywun

        Governments are showering them with cash to build “green” shit. That is what they’re investing in.

        The rolling blackouts are just an unintended consequence.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    It goes back to my theory. We’re living in the age of deteriorating elites. The democratization of elite status has led, perversely, to an elite that simultaneously considers itself more meritocratically justified and less competent in wielding its elite status.

    Some people are famous because they are famous. They go to the places famous people go, and they sit in the chairs famous people sit in.

    Same with “elites” it seems.

    • Sean

      I’m definitely voting for Barnette. The rest, I’m kinda undecided.

      • juris imprudent

        I’m not voting for any of them – I’m registered with no party affiliation.

      • db

        Yeah, I’m registered (L) for some dumb reason, so I don’t get to vote in most primaries in PA.

    • DEG

      Pennsylvania Republicans are alarmed, but apparently too disunited to do anything. Salena Zito is as diligent and plugged-in a reporter on the Pennsylvania beat as you will find, and she’s vexed. She warns that Mastriano could be a disaster:

      I don’t live in PA anymore so there is information I’m missing, but I don’t think Mastriano will be the disaster Zito and others predict he will be. He has a big following from Reopen PA and spinoff groups/likeminded groups. Those groups were able to influence the statewide vote on the constitutional amendments reining in Wolf. The can influence and win in those votes, they’ve got the ability to do so for the governor’s race.

  50. DEG

    I tried linking to Tom Woods’ latest e-mail. It’s in the spam queue. Urgh.

    He talks about excess deaths over the Covid stupidity.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I excerpted the charts upthread.

      • DEG

        Thanks! I haven’t finished reading all the comments.

    • Festus

      It’s less about what Covid did but what it enabled those in power to do. Never forget that lesson.

  51. robc

    A comment up above reminded me of an article I want to submit.

    Now I have 3 in my queue, I think I will try to get all 3 in this afternoon. Flood swissy with some scheduling work.

    • Festus

      Swizzy will be spasming for hours! Nice work, robc!

  52. AlexinCT

    Desantis’ kerfuffle with the marxists has again brought a great disparity to my attention. Everyone knows Hitler was an evil scumbag and his fascism and Third Reich were responsible for the most horrible war in human history to date. More than 60 million people died because of WWII. So it is a good thing that we call him and his system evil, despite the fact tat all western democracies today are a new version of that fascist system where government picks the winners & losers, and here in the US the people in charge are hard at work rebuilding the government control and punishment machine of god old Third Reich days.

    But when it comes to marxism, despite the fact that over 120 million people were murdered and some 3 billion were forced to live or still live under the yoke of that evil system, we still have people defending it all the time. More importantly, they get mad at people that point out the evils of marxism and anyone that then has the gall to call them out for being shills is attacked by the machine for not being inclusive. Fuck, if we correctly tell Nazis to go fuck off, we should be doing double that to the marxists.

    • juris imprudent

      Nazis were the wrong people with the right theory, communists were the right people with the wrong theory.

      • AlexinCT

        Fuck, I am so stealing this….

      • juris imprudent

        Happy to oblige.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Yes, it’s disgusting how commies get a free ride because they supposedly had altruistic motives, which is complete bullshit, of course.

      • AlexinCT

        The Soviet constitution – like that of every commie shithole – had beautiful language about rights and meeting everyone’s needs. reality however was that the only people whose needs were met were the people in power. As I tell pro-marxism idiots all the time: Under capitalism, a system with flaws, but which is exponentially better than all other alternatives, those with wealth will garner power. Under socialism the powerful will always be the only ones with access to wealth. the one guarantee socialism can deliver of equality is equality of misery for the masses.

        But people that believe that they have rights to things others have and the labor of others (we used to call that slavery), will not be dissuaded from that desire, driven by envy, to demand others give them free shit.

      • Count Potato

        They both had altruistic motives.

      • AlexinCT

        The body counts clearly shows which one did more “altruism”…..

      • Fatty Bolger

        Not really, fascism is more about the health and welfare of the state, not people themselves. Sacrifice is required for the good of the state. Communism requires sacrifice for the ultimate good of the people. (In theory, of course.)

  53. The Late P Brooks

    Bandwagons are for jumping on

    The Scout, a one-time competitor to Ford Broncos and Jeeps that was last sold more than four decades ago, is being resurrected by Volkswagen as a line of all-electric trucks and SUVs.

    Scout will become its own separate brand offering off-road-oriented electric trucks and SUVs in North America. A Scout SUV and pickup truck are expected to go on sale around 2026.
    “The vehicles will be designed, engineered, and manufactured in the U.S. for American customers,” the company said in a statement. “To this end, a separate, independent company will be established in the U.S. this year as the Volkswagen Group moves the strong iconic U.S.-brand Scout into the electric vehicle space.”
    The first prototypes are set to be unveiled next year, the company added.

    Does VW own International Harvester, too?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Nothing like a dead battery ten miles from the nearest outlet.

      • UnCivilServant

        That’s when you deploy a solar panel windmill combo and wait.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Somebody explain to me the new trend of flat, unnatural colors with glossy overcoats.

      Are they going for North Korean pantsuit-aficionado market?

      And I saw this color and style abomination the other day: https://ibb.co/p0jVMTJ

      • R.J.

        Dodge calls that “Battleship Grey.” It os being discontinued on most products due to the difficulty in getting the paint nice and smooth.

      • Tundra

        The flat gray looks really cool in the Tacoma.

  54. The Late P Brooks

    Another side of work from home?

    Carvana, blaming a “recession” in auto sales, said it is cutting 2,500 jobs and informed some workers of the layoffs via Zoom. The online car retailer also sent an email to workers from CEO Ernie Garcia III that said most of the cuts would be in the company’s operations division.

    “I am sorry,” Garcia said in the email.

    Carvana shares plunged $6.66, or 18%, to $30 on Wednesday. The company’s stock has tumbled 87% since the start of the year amid its slowing growth and a spike in vehicle prices.

    “Hey, could you make a special trip to the office so we can fire you face-to-face? Thanks.”

  55. The Late P Brooks

    Somebody explain to me the new trend of flat, unnatural colors with glossy overcoats.

    Back in the late ’80s or early ’90s GM had a grey which looked just like they shot clear coat directly on top of the primer.

    • l0b0t

      IIRC, the Mitsubishi 3000GT came in a shade of grey that made it damn near invisible on an overcast day.

    • R C Dean

      flat, unnatural colors

      Well, not everything has to be metal flake. And most car colors are “unnatural”.

  56. kinnath

    Daily Quordle 108
    7️⃣9️⃣
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    quordle.com
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    21 the hard way

    wtf. First time I have gotten a word on the 2nd guess.

    • grrizzly

      6️⃣4️⃣
      5️⃣7️⃣

  57. The Late P Brooks

    Carvana, which sells online and delivers used vehicles to buyers, said the layoffs represent 12% of its workforce.

    “Recent macroeconomic factors have pushed automotive retail into recession,” the company said in a statement sent to CBS MoneyWatch.

    “While Carvana is still growing, our growth is slower than what we originally prepared for in 2022, and we made the difficult decision to reduce the size of certain operations teams to better align with the current needs of the business,” the company added.

    The layoffs come just a few weeks after Carvana posted a $506 million loss in the first quarter, six times larger than the same period a year ago. The company also recently acquired Adesa U.S.’s used vehicle auction business for $2.2 billion.

    The economy is on the express elevator to the basement, but we’re supposed to be shocked and astounded that these guys are laying people off?

    • AlexinCT

      The one claim everyone playing defense for the morons in charge so far has been that while inflation is out of control and too many critical systems were imploding/failing, unemployment was not an issue, so things were still good and a recession was not something to worry about. Unemployment will be an issue soon as this shows…

  58. R.J.

    70s bingo card:
    I want my banana seat bike back.

    • Tundra

      +1 Stingray!

      • robc

        Mine was red.

      • R.J.

        I have a repro but I miss those ones with the crotch shifter. Theybwere so cool.

    • robc

      Schwinn Stingray?

      • R.J.

        Yes

      • juris imprudent

        I took an epic faceplant through those handlebars around age 10.

    • Nephilium

      Here you go. Now is that going on a road, hybrid, mountain, touring, or e-bike?

  59. Gustave Lytton

    Morons at work are slapping themselves on the back for dumping Russian customers. Biting my tongue to ask when we exit China.

    • Festus

      Stupid people are stupid.

  60. Festus

    Alright, I’m done. Brain works fine but the body is weak. Have a a great one if you can, Glibbies!

  61. Ted S.

    Daily Quordle 108
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