4 Schools Go into Lockdown, Call Cops on Man with an Umbrella

For safety.

Tamara Bauer / Dreamstime

It's a gun! No, it's a sword!

Whatever it was, two different people spotted a man carrying it near Poly High in Riverside, California. They saw something, and said something. As a result four local schools went into lockdown mode yesterday.

Police hunted for the menacing maniac and finally, according to The Press Enterprise, "a campus supervisor at Poly spotted a man who matched the description given by both callers."

The weapon he was carrying?

An umbrella.

The lockdowns were lifted, but the threat continues: Rain is in the forecast.

Comments

[EDG reppin LBC]

"Although the threat turned out to be unfounded, Railsback praised the callers for reporting their suspicions."

Although you are all a bunch of panicky idiots who can't discern an umbrella (on a rainy day, no less!) from a sword or gun, I'd like to use this occasion to praise you for being a bunch of panicky idiots who can't discern an umbrella from a sword or gun.

[SQRLSY One]

Belts can be used to choke people... If ye see a belt...

If'n ya see something, say something!!!! Belt alert!!!

[Ted S.]

Go belt someone today

[Austrian Anarchy]

These folks are so nostalgic! Back in the old Clintonista days the White House went on lockdown because of workers on a nearby roof. Apparently that bunch never saw anybody carry a piece of conduit on a roof.

[Ron]

They would probably lock down all of DC if someone used a nail gun

[Social Signaling Hair]

We're all first responders now.

[briny]

Sadly, my alma mater.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

I've seen a man get stabbed with an umbrella. It isn't pretty. Umbrellas are dangerous.

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

No doubt stabbed by a flying umbrella which got loose from its owner's grasp.

Umbrella control! Mandatory leashes! Ribless! None o that thing that goes up! Universal registration so careless owners can be tracked down like the wet shivering dogs they deserve to be!

[Pope Jimbo]

Ribless? Don't you care about her pleasure at all?

[Swiss Servator]

*polite applause*

[Tyler.C]

Didn't Putin have domeone killed via a poison tipped umbrella? In this day of Russian interference we can't be too carefu.

[EDG reppin LBC]

Yes. Let us all be carefu.

[__Warren__]

Carefu is what nurses practice on recalcitrant patients.

[R C Dean]

I am so stealing that.

[Agammamon]

I thought it was a French supermarket.

[Dog Star]

Nurses can't fix stupid.

But we can sedate it.

[Swiss Servator]

*stands to begin prolonged ovation*

[DOOMco]

very true.

[Sour Kraut]

The Soviets used this technique in the Cold War. This was a recurring theme on Breaking Bad. Ricin from beans.

[Ted S.]

There was also an episode of Queasy, ME, in which somebody did it to Jack Klugman.

[Number.6]

Soviet/Bulgarian joint initiative.

Ricin's very nasty, but then, so is Polonium, which would indicate that America needs to open a new front, the War on Tea.

... just to prove there ARE no new ideas out there.

[Number.6]

Soviet/Bulgarian joint initiative.

Ricin's very nasty, but then, so is Polonium, which would indicate that America needs to open a new front, the War on Tea.

... just to prove there ARE no new ideas out there.

[JaimeRoberto]

Oh no! Putin got to Tyler!

[DOOMco]

he could have clubbed a watermelon!

[Hyperion]

Common sense umbrella control?

[Dog Star]

Let's start with "high capacity" umbrellas. No one needs an umbrella that can keep the rain off two people or a large backpack.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Since we license manicurists, licensing umbrellas makes perfect logical sense.

[Aloysious]

A man with an umbrella?

Might have been The Penguin. Any word if he was wearing a top hat and a monocle?

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

The Penguin: Libertarian patient 0?

[DOOMco]

maybe.

[DOOMco]

what i thought of first

[Dan Bongard]

Look, water falling from the sky is cause for terror, damnit. It isn't natural!

Sincerely,

A Californian

[Ted S.]

Relevant

[Cdr Lytton]

More relevant

[Hyperion]

I lived outside of LA for 5 years, I can't remember seeing it rain more than 4 or 5 times.

[Steve Son of Steve]

It's global moistening.

[Austrian Anarchy]

When man triggers the sky.

[__Warren__]

So it was an open and shut case?

[DOOMco]

don't let anyone rain on your parade, that was great.

[EDG reppin LBC]

You're both a pair o soulless punsters.

[Adans smith]

Seems like you have a handle on this

[Animal]

Something something bumbershoot.

Eh. I can do better. Get back to me.

[Swiss Servator]

*narrows gaze at the lot of ye*

[Tyler.C]

*narrows gaze*

[Heroic Mulatto]

Fuck you.

Skenazy can be as glib as she wants, but people in the real world know that an umbrella is a deadly weapon capable of causing harm to a great deal of human beings.

[DOOMco]

I almost went with that scene.
Does ip man have one as well?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Does ip man have one as well?

I seem to remember one, yes.

[GILMORE?]

Another very-well executed umbrella-fight

not a big fan of the way high-speed cameras and CGI are used today, but this movie actually was pretty artful in its fight-sequences - very much 'Hong Kong' style, but with a different wit.

[Heroic Mulatto]

All of this further evidence that Skenazy shouldn't have made light of the situation.

[DOOMco]

i liked that movie overall.

[GILMORE?]

Sometimes movies can't decide who their audience is (*i'm thinking some of the marvel-movie flops, or the tone of things like Suicide Squad) - Adults, or Kiddies?

Too often they try and split the difference and end up with a movie with adult themes, executed in a way to entertain children.

The Kingsman movie, while not something i'd have gone out of my way to watch, succeeded because it was decidedly a "young adult" version of a spy movie. It tried to appeal to a 16yr old mind in every respect, and succeeded because of that.

[Slumbrew]

I loved that movie, but the only off-note for me was at the very end *SPOILERS*

They went super-crude with the _literal_ princess, who said Eggsy could "do it in the asshole" if he saved the world. The director played it off as "I'm setting the Bond tropes on their head! _She_ asked for it", but Bond was never so crude. Bond was/is about the double-entendre, whereas that was just a single-entendre - it would have been right at home in Idiocracy (PBUI).

(NB: I'm not opposed to backdoor action, just stuck me as a wild off-note in that movie).

[GILMORE?]

I'm not opposed to backdoor action, just stuck me as a wild off-note in that movie).

I vaguely remember that. I thought it was crude - but maybe the sort of crudity kids are now used to. "Butt stuff" is taught in school. its not quite the sexual taboo it was, but still racy enough to make for an amusing plot point.

maybe it worked better in the UK

[Slumbrew]

Yeah, I dunno, maybe I'm just old, but you can "do it in the asshole" thrown out as a reward seems wildly crude. Again I don't even object to the idea of it, just how crudely it was offered and how tone-deaf it seemed compared to the rest of the movie - there are dozens of funny euphemisms for that, which would have worked so much better (and we do love us some euphemisms).

[Dog Star]

As a libertarian, I, too, object to this wanton and reckless disregard for convention.

Those dirty motherfuckers.

[DesigNate]

I was going to be disappointed if that wasn't the bar scene in Kingsman.

[El Oso]

How much is a 'deal of human beings'?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Around a kilosmidgen. Why?

[???? ??????, Jr.]

They have metric smidgens now?? Thanks, Obama!

[GILMORE?]

I was expecting this

Because i'm a classy guy.

[AlmightyJB]

Those were some serious furtive moves. He's lucky he wasn't shot.

[AlmightyJB]

My umbrellas are never that durable

[Dog Star]

Only the government should have umbrellas. And perhaps well-regulated militias.

[GILMORE?]

Right-Wing stalwarts The Nation express their wonderment at a media now ready to repeat claims by anonymous-sources about CIA conclusions after decades of being regularly hoodwinked by a consistently-incompetent intelligence establishment.

Call it "Credulity of Convenience". (*my phrase, not theirs)

Obviously they're not defending Trump, but they at least have the integrity to point out that

a) there's never been a scrap of evidence provided to *anyone* in the media - yet everyone is clamoring about 'consensus' as though Russian Hacking were the new Climate Science. All anyone anywhere is repeating are *claims made by anonymous sources about a single report no one has ever seen*.

b) the '17 agencies' claimed to agree? Don't.

c) their own reporting doesn't even support the headline assumptions - all the stories tend to mention in passing that there's actually no connection between Russian intelligence agencies and any hacking; the arguments about motivations are entirely circumstantial

The only thing missing from the piece which i think needs to be highlighted by someone is the "So What?"-aspect. Many of these same news sources wrote off Wikileaks material as inconsequential when it was dumped; the president himself said yesterday it was banal 'gossip'; yet now they're acting as tho it changed the results of the election.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

I think it should be a bigger deal that yesterday said that Russia was clearly "responsible" for the hack, yet it was not clear they were involved. That seems like something that requires further elaboration to me, and the sort of thing the media would explore a bit more if it was a Republican. But I guess I'm just a crazy.

[Ken Shultz]

Yeah, the "So what" aspect is the most important part.

If these accusations were coming from the right after a Hillary win, the left would be dismissive--and that's the proper response.

That being said, in regards to evidence:

"The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow?the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities."

Department of Homeland Security

October 7, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/jgtt3tu

[GILMORE?]

consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts

Which is exactly what i said before - that's not "evidence", those are statements of assumptions based on circumstantial details. they're *assuming* its the Russian govt based on similarities they see between X instance of hacking and Y instance.

That says more about the way investigators think than it does about 'the russians'. As i've pointed out before, the "hacking"/Computer security world has very deep and wide connection with Eastern-Europe & Russia. Some of the largest concentration of 'hacking experts' are based out of that region. The Intelligence agencies would be entirely unable to distinguish 'Russian govt' activity from any 3rd party private hacking conducted simply using the same resources.

As the Nation article points out =

Indeed, evidence of a connection between the Russian government and the hackers that are believed to have stolen the DNC/John Podesta e-mails remains illusory. Cyber-security expert Jeffrey Carr has observed that "there is ZERO technical evidence to connect those Russian-speaking hackers to the GRU, FSB, SVR, or any other Russian government department." The very real possibility that non-state actors carried out the hack of the DNC has been conspicuously absent from the mainstream narrative of "Russian interference."

[GILMORE?]

and - btw - as you note there... that assessment was made back in early october...

and the current "new"-news coming from the CIA report? Is based on the exact same information. The NYT and WaPo stories both emphasized that there was actually zero new intelligence - just different "more amplified" conclusions being made after the election was over.

Any why would that be? Because it went in a direction someone didn't like, maybe?

Even if there is some possible Russian-govt connection - the idea that it would be assumed to be intended to "influence" outcome of the election asssumes that it actually could

what about any of the leaked information was significant enough to actually influence the outcome of the election? it simply wasn't. Yet the CIA claims that the Russians "intended" to sway the American public with this weaksauce bullshit?

Don't you think that if a foreign government actually INTENDED to sway an election - and potentially risk a major confrontation with superpower - they'd maybe shoot a little higher, and try leaking something more-significant? Like evidence of Clinton's pay-to-play? Like showing how their own Uranium deal with rife with State Dept corruption?

They probably had myriad ways they *could* sway the election if they wanted - but they chose *this* weaksauce stuff instead?

it simply doesn't meet the sniff test.

[Ken Shultz]

Please see my comment below.

This isn't criminal case. You don't need to prove everything scientifically and beyond a reasonable doubt.

This is a political question. The question is whether the American public should believe that we really wanted Trump rather than Hillary. And the jury is the American people themselves.

I believe that the Russians hacked the DNC. Why NOT hack the DNC? They've got whole bureaucracies set up to hack the DNC. If there weren't any evidence of the Russians hacking the DNC, then I'd be skeptical of that!

Whether both the Russians handed that information over to Wikileaks (or whomever) is maybe an open question--but it's a question to which the answer doesn't really matter.

Again, this is a political debate--not a question of fact. This is a popularity contest.

Would you have cared about Obama using your future paychecks to nationalize GM and give 40% of the company to the UAW--if the Koch Brothers had never given any money to the Reason Foundation?

I'd have been just as upset.

The fact of whether the Koch Brothers gave to the Reason Foundation is immaterial to the question of my opinion on that matter.

And the fact that Hillary lost is immaterial to the question of whether the Russians hacked the DNC.

[Ken Shultz]

Probably better the other way around.

The question of whether the Russians hacked the DNC is immaterial to the fact that Hillary lost.

You don't necessarily have to prove anything in the court of public opinion.

[Ken Shultz]

Think of it this way:

The Russians have hundreds or maybe thousands of top software engineers whose sole job is to find ways to hack the servers of American political leaders. Their whole job--for years and years--is to plan, coordinate and perpetrate exploits and get all the unauthorized information they can find from American servers. That's what they do for a living. That's what they're supposed to do.

Why does anyone here in the court of public opinion need to prove that they did what they're supposed to do?

[GILMORE?]

You submitted something described as "evidence" which contained none. I don't think we disagree about anything else.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Podesta just told Chuck Todd that the first contact he had from the FBI (he didn't mention any other intel agencies) was two days after Wikileaks published his emails. The rest is all of the usual leftardian Clinton bullshit talking points.

Does not sound like any agency detected any Russian anything. Just an empty assertion by Podesta and others. If the Russians were doing it, there would have been some sort of before-the-fact clues, not an after-the-fact assumption.

[Ken Shultz]

When Saddam Hussein turned out to have no WMD to speak of, I was as surprised as anybody. Why deny access to weapons inspectors and provoke the U.S. into toppling your regime--hiding something you don't even have?

Who knew megalomaniacs could be so irrational?

I remember arguing with my fellow anti-Iraq War libertarians at the time. I'd say, "If you make your opposition to the war all about WMD, what are you going to do if and when they find it?"

The purpose of the former KGB, now the "Foreign Intelligence Service", is to conduct espionage. In NASCAR, they say, "If you ain't cheating, you ain't really tryin' to win". Likewise, if the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service isn't trying to hack DNC servers, then they aren't doing their jobs.

I don't need to see evidence to know that the Russians tried to hack DNC servers. I don't need to see evidence to know that the U.S. tries to hack Russian servers either. With all the taxpayer money we spend on the CIA, the NSA, etc., they better be hacking Russian servers--and I'm sure the Kremlin feels the same way about the money they spend on their intelligence services, too.

Suffice it to say, it doesn't matter.

So what?

[Ted S.]

I don't think Saddam was being irrational. I think Saddam was trying to lead people on into believing he still had them, because it's easy to see that people treat you differently when they think you have WMD you can use against them.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

Which would include his own generals. His position in Iraq was predicated on fear and keeping those underneath him divided.

[Ken Shultz]

The argument that Saddam was afraid of what Iran, the Saudis, et. al. might do to him if they only knew he didn't have WMD made sense--right up until it became clear that the U.S. was invading.

His generals were more likely to turn against him for fear of having to fight against the U.S. than for letting the weapons inspectors in.

Saddam refusing to cooperate with weapons inspections was the third dumbest move of the ear. Our invasion and occupation of Iraq was the second dumbest move of the ear. And the dumbest move of the era, by far, was bin Laden and company perpetrating 9/11,

They had their own country! bin Laden lost everything--including his life--because of that stupid move on 9//11.

What a dummy!

[JeremyR]

He actually did have quite a bit of WMDs, which was revealed by Wikileaks back in 2010

[Ken Shultz]

1) If what they found took seven years to find and didn't present any kind of threat to the American people, then whatever they found really, really, really shouldn't be used to justify the trillions in taxpayer money or thousands in American lives.

2) As I stated, my opposition to the war wasn't about WMD. Why should I care about that?

Did you support Obama invading and occupying Syria because Assad had WMD?

[Ted S.]

Saddam Hussein had used WMDs at Halabja years earlier, so everybody knew he had them at one point. I think the Duelfer report also made clear that Hussein was going to try to re-obtain them once the sanctions were lifted, which France and Germany were really trying to do in the run-up to the war in 2003.

Remember how everybody told us the sanctions were killing billions of babies, and then only after the war did they do a 180 and claim it was the war that killed all those Iraqis who wouldn't have died otherwise?

[Ken Shultz]

We forget what we knew and when we knew it. It's human nature.

"WASHINGTON (AP) ? Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe it is likely that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, says a poll out almost two years after the terrorists' strike against this country.

Sixty-nine percent in a Washington Post poll published Saturday said they believe it is likely the Iraqi leader was personally involved in the attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. A majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents believe it's likely Saddam was involved."

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com.....iraq_x.htm

September 6, 2003--six months after we invaded Iraq.

There were numerous justifications for the war. Some had nothing to do with WMD--especially as the WMD because harder to find. That being said, to the extent that the American people supported invading Iraq, we supported it because we thought that Saddam Hussein was personally complicit in the anthrax attack on the United States.

Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with it. He did not have an active WMD program. He was not collaborating with Al Qaeda on anthrax or anything else.

[Rhywun]

Given that polls of what the American people "believe" tend to reflect whatever the media are spinning at the moment, I've never understood their relevance.

[Ken Shultz]

The relevance this time is that to the extent the American people supported the Iraq War, it was largely because they thought it was a war of self-defense.

They thought Saddam Hussein attacked us with anthrax, and the Bush Administration--between the CIA, State Department analysts, Colin Powell in front of the UN, and George W. Bush himself--all told us 1) That Saddam Hussein had mobile WMD labs and 2) that Hussein was collaborating with Al Qaeda.

It was horseshit.

After it became obvious it was horseshit, people kept supporting the war for other reasons--like a bunch of progressives blaming everything and anything for Hillary's loss except for the real cause.

Jesus, at one point, people were supporting it because it was in the best interests of the Iraqis--as if I should care about that.

[Ken Shultz]

"Given that polls of what the American people "believe" tend to reflect whatever the media are spinning at the moment, I've never understood their relevance."

The point was that it's absurd to oppose something on the basis that no one's proved something beyond a reasonable doubt that's probably true.

If the Russians have never tried to hack the DNC's servers, then they're a bunch of morons, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that Trump's election is perfectly legitimate regardless of whether the Russians hacked the DNC's servers and handed the goods over to Wikileaks.

If and when the Democrats come up with a smoking gun, what are we going to do? Pretend that doesn't matter anymore--and say it was all about bringing democracy to the Iraqis anyway?

Bullshit!

We don't need to contest the evidence if the evidence is irrelevant. Making a big deal out of a red herring is a diversionary tactic, and we make fools of ourselves by taking their hand-waving seriously.

[Ken Shultz]

Anyone who thinks that the threat invading Iraq was justified because Saddam Hussein presented a threat to U.S. security because of his WMD program is delusional. It is no wonder that Americans' support for the Iraq War dissipated along with their delusions about Hussein's WMD program.

We didn't invade Syria because the threat Assad's WMD poses to American security is insufficient to justify an invasion. Saddam Hussein's WMD program was even less significant than that.

[Ken Shultz]

Phone unit butchered that.

Suffice it to say that if we spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of American lives in order to save us from the non-threat of Saddam Hussein's WMD program, then the Iraq War was an incredibly stupid thing to do.

Things aren't worth what we pay for them. You can spend a fortune for something that isn't worth anything. I've seen people do it. It happens every day.

[Dog Star]

That bluff was most likely for Iran's benefit. Which, although certainly understandable, really should've occurred to us before we kicked over Saddam's ant hill.

[Ken Shultz]

Meanwhile, Iran really is a state sponsor of terrorism.

Meanwhile, Iran really did have an active WMD program.

All the reasons not to invade in 1991 were still excellent reasons not to invade in 2003.

[Suthenboy]

Remember, the heart of this argument is that the voters should not have found out just how awful Clinton is. We weren't supposed to find out the truth and it is unfair that we did. That is what lost her the election; the voters knowing the truth.

[Ken Shultz]

I agree.

The primary reason the progressives are making a big deal about the Russians is because they don't want to accept the blame for Hillary Clinton's defeat.

Hillary Clinton lost mostly for two reasons.

1) She's a crook.

IN Gallup's polls Hillary hadn't scored an approval rating over 50% since July of 2015, and her disapproval ratings were up around 55% before the emails came out.

2) The progressive and social justice warriors that run the Democratic party spend eight years demonizing the very people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin they needed to win.

The election was a referendum on elitism, and being a progressive is all about elitism.

If the progressive don't blame Comey, Citizens United, Fake News, or the Russians, then they might have to take the blame themselves for being contemptuous of average Americans.

[Hyperion]

Not only are they not going to stop doing that, they're going to double down. To the left, the only reason that something they're doing isn't working, is because they aren't doing enough of it.

[Not an Economist]

I read a Politco article that pointed out another reason.

Hillary ran a top-down campaign that "knew" what was happening, what did and didn't work, and was openly antagonistic towards supporters who thought otherwise. They ignored Bill Clinton, one of the best political operators in recent history.

There were supporters who thought things were going wrong in Michigan and headquarters said they were wrong and pointed at their model that said they were 5 points up. This was the same model that said they were up by double digits in Michigan against Sanders and Clinton ended up losing by 2.

As bad as Trump will probably be, I think we dodged a bullet.

[Suicidy]

And let's be honest here. Being a progressive is also about having zero accountability for anything, ever. Everything is always everyone else's fault. Look how the progtards blame Detroit's massive blight on republicans, who have had zero say in how Detroit has worked in fifty years.

[Dog Star]

Yep. What a damned shame.

[Austrian Anarchy]

The real issue here is someone made the girl cry.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Carden left out Teddy Kennedy's 1984 collaboration with the Soviets to adjust a US election. Leftoids save face in strange ways.

[Crusty Juggler]

Henry Jones Sr swung a deadly umbrella, so I think this reaction was warranted. You can never be too careful.

[geo1113]

I walked near a school with an umbrella this morning. I was not even thinking about careful. I was thinking stay dry.

[Crusty Juggler]

"I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne: "Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky."

[geo1113]

Funny you should say that. Kid Charlemagne was playing on my Mp3.

[Dog Star]

Can't we all just get along?

[Trigger Hippie]

Connery as Ford's father was the silliest thing about that movie. He's like 6 years older than him.

[Trigger Hippie]

Okay, 12 years.

I guess Indy's daddy was puttn' work early!

[Animal]

It's not that hard to believe. I was 14 the first time I bumped fuzzies.

[Chip Your Pets]

He was a monster, killing all those innocent seagulls. Think of all the cars they will never have the chance to poop on.

[Suicidy]

Sir John Steed was also pretty adept with an umbrella.

[Chip Your Pets]

Amazing video of fuel tanker flipping over, exploding, and falling off an I-95 overpass. Narrated by some Jamaican guy, if that helps.

[geo1113]

Rasta-to-English translator on. Thank you.

[GILMORE?]

Narrated by some Jamaican guy

Yeah, he adds a wonderful quality with the, "Bumbaclot drivers be wilding up in the wet wedder wit no concern-like. Bruddahs need be more conscientious with they motor vehicle and all. Allike dis heair truck, whattya dooing??CHECK THIS SHIT OUT YO"

I hope the local news media run it with sound.

[DOOMco]

gold.

[Mr Drew]

Why does he keep yelling Yo! over and over? Is the trying to get the dead and flame engulfed driver's attention?

[Robert]

He was trying to get drivers behind the wreck to stop.

[Playa Manhattan.]

An exploding tanker truck fire is a lot smaller than hollywood movies have lead me to believe.

[GILMORE?]

Actually my impression was that it was a lot closer to the hollywood ideal than i would have expected. the time between 'crash' and "giant fireball" was like 1 second.

[EDG reppin LBC]

On top of the fact the raging fire was reaching well above the raised highway the Jamaican was standing on. That truck when over the side of the highway and onto the streets below. Fire had to be at least 40' if not closer to 60' tall.

[Agammamon]

Well shit. I was going to complain that winter finally broke here and the temperature is moving between high 30's at night and low 60's during the day.

I like snow and all but I do not understand how anyone not making a decent amount of money would choose to continue to live in the snowbelt.

[Suicidy]

Much of the nicer warmer US climate territory is infested with progressives. I like warm weather and all but I do not understand how anyone making a decent amount of money would choose to continue to live in progtardland.

[Chip Your Pets]

This isn't the snowbelt, it's Maryland. In the Great Lakes snowbelt, for example, drivers are much more experienced with winter weather and know to slow the hell down when the roads are slick.

[Social Signaling Hair]

Yeah. Why can't my well-remunerating employer move to where I want them?

[Hyperion]

Anyone who went out driving here this morning, is retarded. I looked out the patio doors this morning and saw about 1/4" of ice on everything and resigned myself to stay indoors. It's raining now so it's starting to get slushy. But this morning, there's just no way I would have taken off driving anywhere.

[Suicidy]

Well, Jamaicans DO have a LOT of jobs after all.

[Buddy Bizarre]

Wow, that's an old SNL callback.

[Jerryskids]

Clicking on the link shows there's another story there about the guy who invented the Hindlick maneuver dying. Of a heart attack, not choking to death.

[geo1113]

Sandwich dislodged followed by a heart attack caused by having his abdomen squeezed too hard.

[But Enough About Me]

Er, I believe it's spelled "Heimlich."

[Agammamon]

Different guy. This one was a fetishist.

[Tom Bombadil]

Man in a restaurant begins choking on some food.
Two waiters rush up to help.
One waiter whips of his trousers and the other crouches behind the first and begins licking his ass.
The customer sees this and retches so violently, he dislodges the food that was choking him.
The waiters high-five. First waiter declares: "The hiney lick maneuver, works every time."

[GILMORE?]

File Under =

Headlines Unsupported By The Story

[Rufus The Monocled]

Pricefuckenless.

[AlmightyJB]

We need to outlaw umbrellas just to be safe.

[geo1113]

I'll give you my umbrella when you pry it from my cold, dead hands

[AlmightyJB]

So you're a racist then.

[geo1113]

Obviously!

[AlmightyJB]

Good. You can't be a libertarian if you don't hate minority groups.

[The Fusionist]

But aren't libertarians a minority group?

[AlmightyJB]

Yes, but we have all the power in the world. I'm constantly reading about how we're destroying everything in the universe.

[Word]

Wait, we're not?!?

*tears up Libertarian ID card*

[Word]

Reply was to AJB @ 2:49

*logs off red-faced*

[Dog Star]

Yes. We don't like each other much, either. For the sake of consistency.

[Mike Schmidt]

I don't like you much. Fuck off.

[The Last American Hero]

Dumbasses. Why would they think the guy had a gun? Schools are Gun Free Zones.

[geo1113]

Maybe he looked like Burgess Meredith.

[The Fusionist]

I see someone stole my Penguin joke, but no matter, it wasn't him, it was umbrella man.

ALTERNATE JOKE: The guy was on his way to arrange peace in our time.

[geo1113]

Just a variation on a theme.

[The Fusionist]

ALTERNATE ALTERNATE JOKE: That was no man.

[geo1113]

Is that an umbrella you're carrying or are you just happy to see me.

[Robert]

By sacrificing a leg?

[AlmightyJB]

I would like to thank the internet for helping to correct my estimation of the percentage of people who are mentally retarded. My assumption was way way low.

[The Elite Elite]

Hey, a story from my city! Not sure if I should be proud some people here acted in such a retarded way as to make the news, or be sad.

[Ken Shultz]

My understanding is that folding karambits are legal to carry concealed in California--if they're under 3". And I bet you can carry them anywhere but onboard an airplane or through the metal detectors in court.

A karambit turns you into something like Wolverine.

I think I'd rather get shot in the chest than punched in the eye with a karambit--and then slashed across the neck, too.

And if the problems with banning "assault weapons" are bad, the problems associated with banning folding knives under 3" are probably worse. How do you ban that without turning everyone with a Swiss army knife into a felon?

[SchillMcGuffin]

It doesn't have to be enforceable. The point of the law isn't actually to eliminate things, it's to add to the laundry list of charges they can throw at someone they originally detained for no good reason.

[dantheserene]

Most prior restraint-based laws work that way.

[Ken Shultz]

It doesn't have to be enforceable, but it does have to be politically feasible.

People support banning "assault weapons", in part, because they can't imagine that their coworkers' little sister has a Hello Kitty AR-15*.

http://tinyurl.com/jc3jwb7

Only the bad guys and crazy rednecks in camo have AR-15s right? That's what the gun grabbers want people to believe anyway.

It isn't like that with pocket Swiss army knives, and everybody knows it. Every cub scout and grandpa has a pocket knife. Turning every grandpa and cub scout into a criminal isn't likely to win you many voters.

So, again, we're talking about political feasibility here. Theoretically, they could ban anything. Realistically, banning this would piss off too many people.

* "Cute never looked so evil" .Engadget came from the same primordial pool as Gawker's Gizmodo. The more I find out about Gawker and its minions, the gladder I am that they went down. Certainly, to whatever extent they outted Thiel because of his libertarian ideas, that's the extent to which Thiel should have gone after them for outting him. Live by the sword, die by the sword. What'd they expect?

[Mr Drew]

Cute but...
http://www.knifeup.com/wp-cont.....efense.jpg

[dantheserene]

Spyderco Civilian. Knifecenter sells it for $173.97.

[dantheserene]

I am disapoint at noting that while the mechanism is ambidextrous, the clip is not reversible for some reason.

[Mr Drew]

I'm pretty sure Amazon has it cheaper. My favorite knife.

I wasn't sure about hooked knives at first either but some"shadow" sparring convinced me. The tip is incredibly mobile, even in a grapple.

[AlmightyJB]

I've never understood that hooked blade design. I prefer drop point blades myself. Non-serrated.

[GILMORE?]

according to the self-defense people, "tear" is more effective than "deep puncture". a slash that cuts across major muscle groups can disable a person. Poking holes in them makes them mad.

this isn't my own argument, but just what i've heard re: the justification for the hooked blade.

[Ken Shultz]

Jabbing with a knife is kind of a silly motion in a fight. Do it in the air in front of you. Isn't that worse than how a sissy punches? Not devastating. A knife doesn't need to be held like a sword.

With a knife protruding from the bottom of your fist and curving out past the front of your fist, all your fist fighting skills become devastating. If punching people in the face produces a 3" cut (even without a twist or slashing motion), now you're Wolverine. Just punch someone in the face (especially the eye), and it's game over.

And because of the ring in the handle, you can still grasp with the hand that's holding the knife.

Did you ever see the karambit scene from The Raid 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FR-yuD1xag

[AlmightyJB]

I personally would not want a hole in a major organ. Seems like that shape would give you the least amount of blade edge for slicing? I sure as hell would run if someone pulled one, or any other knife for that matter.

[Trigger Hippie]

A wise choice

*guy with a knife scar

[Ken Shultz]

Yeah, if somebody pulled a knife like that on me, I'd suddenly remember somewhere else I needed to be.

[GILMORE?]

Seems like that shape would give you the least amount of blade edge for slicing?

Its not a slicing effect - its a 'tearing' one, which is sort of a combination puncture/slice effect. The tip digs in and creates the puncture, and as the arm continues forward it drags that tip through flesh like a zipper.

think of the mechanic of a "rescue tool" cutting implement - it doesn't need a large cutting su-rface. it just needs to hook in and gain a purchase, and then zips right through material.

The karambit has both a 'cutting' and a 'grabbing' effect - its used both to rip people up, but also to control limbs - because you can hook into an arm and the person is put in a position of surrendering the limb, or pulling away and ripping their own arm apart in the process.

Its nasty stuff. If you want to see some entertaining instructional video of karambit technique, check out videos w/ Doug Mercaida . some of it is obviously 'bullshido' (stuff that's cute as a training exercise, but not what happens in a fight) but he often shows how the tool is incredibly effective even in the most gross-motor-skills applications, like what ken was talking about. (i.e. as just an extension of a 'punch')

[AlmightyJB]

Cool. Found this one too that looked pretty cool.

https://youtu.be/0yPalESf-hw

[Ken Shultz]

Anyway, the folders come with a catch on them, so that when you pull them out of your pocket by the ring with your index finger (just like if you were drawing a gun and putting your finger in the trigger guard), the knife automatically catches and opens itself. That makes them easy to use, but, more importantly, I think it makes them perfectly legal to carry concealed pretty much everywhere. (check your local laws)

I think that's pretty devastating to the government's ability to ban them.

I don't think you can describe them in the law without also banning Swiss army pocket knives. My understanding is that in California, carrying a fixed blade concealed without a concealed carry permit is a serious crime--but folding knives under three inches are perfectly legal to carry concealed.

Point was, there are pretty devastating weapons that probably can't be banned and can be carried concealed. Feeble attempts to prevent potential threats by violating our rights are feeble.

[Dog Star]

I don't want a blade that's clean.

I just want my Glock 19.

[Ken Shultz]

What if you can't conceal carry a gun?

The gun grabbers want us to practice groveling.

I'm not doing that.

[Yusef Adama]

Buck 870 Tanto drop blade

[Playa Manhattan.]

What's that stuff on the ladder? Never seen it before.

[Mr Drew]

All I'm saying is that Warty was spotted nearby...

[Ken Shultz]

I've seen stuff like that before, but it was on a mountain.

[Agammamon]

Is that . . . like an 'anti-fire'? Or something?

Why are the firefighters climbing up the ladder to the second story there?

[AlmightyJB]

Mulvaney to be Trump's Budget guy

http://hotair.com/archives/201.....ervatives/

[westernsloper]

That's a decent rant in the video within the article.

[PapayaSF]

Speaking of safety: Internet Trolls Launch Campaign to Shut Down Progressive Spaces

Right Wing 'Safety Squads' (SS) are systematically researching and reporting DIY locales for being fire hazards

With Nazi Pepe proclaiming: "Only you can prevent warehouse fires." Mean, but clever.

[Sevo]

Nothing corrects bad law like having it enforced.

[Ted S.]

And of this law were being used against wrong-thinkers, The Observer would be thrilled.

[PapayaSF]

I remain skeptical that lefty artist groups can overcome the inertia of zoning laws, fire departments, and urban Democratic political machines.

[Zero Sum Game]

What's funniest about this is that someone tried this earlier on 4chan and nobody cared. It was only when a proggy saw it and started freaking the fuck out that everyone got on board and actually started doing it.

[Agammamon]

Never underestimate the power of a group of unemployed losers with a fuck-ton of time on their hands to wreak havoc - all it takes is a little press coverage to get it started.

Remember in the old days when older people would tell you to just ignore insults and needling from bullies because they're just looking for a reaction? This is the same sort of people when they're completely free of consequence.

[PapayaSF]

That is an amusing twist. A variety of the Streisand Effect.

[Sevo]

Hey, that umbrella was in an alcoholic beverage; those kids could have gotten drunk!

[The Fusionist]

Born of slavery, the Electoral College could stand against racism in 2016 ? and stop Donald Trump

[Tyler.C]

So can someone explain the logic of slavery => electoral college cause the only connection I see us that the Constitution was written at the same time slavery existed.

[Rhywun]

It's Salon - they're lying.

[The Fusionist]

Trump's racism vs. Hillary's emails: The worst false equivalencies in 2016
Attempts to find "balance" between Trumpism and wholly unrelated phenomena to its left were tone deaf

[The Fusionist]

Noam Chomsky: Seeing Donald Trump win reminded me of listening to Hitler's rallies as a boy

[???? ??????, Jr.]

He then added, "Won't someone please take me seriously? Anyone?"

[PapayaSF]

And did seeing schoolchildren led in songs praising Obama in 2008 remind him of anything?

[The Fusionist]

Federal Marijuana Protections Extended Through April, But Face an Uncertain Future

[Francisco d'Anconia]

But...

[PapayaSF]

I'll bet anyone carrying that in San Francisco would have the police called on them.

[The Fusionist]

An old copy of Newton's "Principia" was sold at Christie's for $3,719,500.

[westernsloper]

Fucking up the next generation, one classroom at a time.

[Hyperion]

It's nice how they threw some good old Malthusian in there with the warming cult stuff.

[westernsloper]

I don't know what that school costs, but I am sure it is not cheap to educate a future population controlling communist.

[Agammamon]

Its very difficult to get the right amount of education to qualify for the Outer Party but not so much that you question and so have to be removed as a threat.

Plus, secret police don't come cheap.

[Rhywun]

It's an English class

I don't remember English class being so woke.

[The Fusionist]

OK, one more link, about the Civil War - the other Civil War, the one with the beheading.

[JeremyR]

Strangely, it resulted in women being allowed to play women on stage.

When the king brought theater back (after Cromwell had banned it), he banned men from playing women because he thought it was unnatural.

[Agammamon]

So . . . there were beheadings in the Revolutionary War?

[Animal]

Of course.

https://youtu.be/BcaQerCQdk0

[The Late P Brooks]

Unexpected!

Caracas construction worker Luis Jimenez, 40, said he doesn't have a bank account, and because of the sudden shortage in paper currency, he hasn't been able to cash his paychecks. "I need that money to eat," he said Friday.

Maduro has essentially reduced the availability of currency but hasn't changed the underlying fundamental economic problems that were driving inflation in the first place, including a collapse in productivity, shrinking oil revenue and soaring debt.

"Inflation is always a monetary phenomenon," said Steven Hanke, an economist at Johns Hopkins University who tracks Venezuela's inflation rate closely. "Venezuela's currency in circulation has been temporarily cut," he said, "so inflation has temporarily slowed."

There were signs that the lack of cash was wreaking havoc on the country's already-limping economy.

Nothing $200 oil won't fix.

[westernsloper]

All the cash was spent next door in Columbia where they have stuff to buy.

[Sevo]

Oops. Scooped again!

[Agammamon]

I guess those bills are worth more *now*, huh? Inflation conquered.

[Longtobefree]

There is no constitutional right to keep and bear umbrellas.

[Hyperion]

No one needs an assault umbrella.

[Libertarian]

You don't "bear" umbrellas, you brandish them.

http://blog.wingtip.com/2014/1.....ox-london/

[The Late P Brooks]

Seizing most of the country's currency to drive down the inflation rate is "not a sustainable strategy," said economist and pollster Luis Vicente Leon. "The country will further contract, and the economy cannot survive this kind of strangulation for very long," he said.

I blame los Yanquis.

[The Late P Brooks]

And- just in case you thought NYT commenters were (uniquely) stupid...

elize88
11:58 AM MST
The fact of the matter is that making currency scarce will reduce the hyperinflation in the country. Nothing to do with socialism. It is sound monetary policy to tame inflame and flooding the market with worthless paper currency.

I just don't even know how to respond to that.

[Rufus The Monocled]

You can't.

[EDG reppin LBC]

Pour yourself a glass of bourbon. I just did. It seems to be working.

[Ted S.]

No inflation, but even fewer goods on the market.

[Rufus The Monocled]

"Socialism may bring back by the complicity of Catholicism a new Middle Age, with barbarians, churches, eclipses of liberty and individuality, in a word, civilization."

Ernest Renan.

Any questions?

[Ted S.]

Eddie hardest hit.

[DenverJ]

*raises hand
Um, what?

[croaker]

See something?

STFU!

[Sevo]

Precursor of CA 'independence':

"Venezuela cash crisis worsens as new bills fail to arrive"
[...]
"On Sunday, Venezuela's President, Nicolas Maduro, said in a radio address that he would give people 72 hours to exchange their 100 bolivar notes for coins of the same face value. The announcement came just a week after the country said it will replace the 100 bolivar note with six other bills, worth between 500 and 20,000 bolivars, starting December 15.
The government-set deadline is here. But the new bills haven't arrived at many banks and ATMs even as Venezuelans are standing in endless lines waiting to exchange or deposit their cash."
http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/1.....index.html

Bonus; link has another link to why Venezuela sucks; one is the reason, the others are symptoms.

[Hyperion]

I'd really like to see CA vote in a ballot for CA to secede, while Trump is president. Trump is just the sort of ornery bastard who will let them go and then refuse to help them when they inevitably start crying for help.

[Chip Your Pets]

No, we should absolutely help them. Using Reconstruction as a model.

They get admitted back into the Union once they restore gun and property rights, and ratify constitutional amendments extending the protections of the Second Amendment and a repeal of the Commerce Clause.

[John Titor]

Kratman's already suggested letting them go, invading them, following the West Virginia model of making pro-America areas into new states, and then turning the coastal cities into territories that have no say in the federal government. Dastardly plan that.

[John Titor]

who will let them go and then refuse to help them when they inevitably start crying for help.

The problem is that John is correct that if the United States doesn't help them, China will. In return for possibly stationing troops and basically turning them into a vassal state.

Probably the primary reason that independence won't happen, and if it does the United States will stomp down hard.

[ant1sthenes]

Uh, the U.S. used to have a certain Doctrine about off-continent powers being involved in American (the landmass) affairs. Not officially retired.

[John Titor]

Hence why the independent People's Republic of California comes with an expiry date.

[Rufus The Monocled]

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND SOCIALISM!

READ A BOOK.

/prog.

[commodious buggres alle]

On my phone I swore that picture was of a bearded man wearing a baby bonnet and holding up a leaf.

[The Late P Brooks]

I'd really like to see CA vote in a ballot for CA to secede

The most entertaining part of that would be watching the concerned citizens of California turning the Brexit debate inside out.

[DenverJ]

Can't the rest of us just vote them out of the union?

[Crusty Juggler]

Epic troll master strategist super alpha

[Chipper Morning Wood]

I am pretty sure Trump has never shared an umbrella with another man.

[Quincy.]

He did once. Everyone involved felt dirty and shameful afterwards.

[Crusty Juggler]

"We are going to war with Russia."

*one hour later*

"I meant we aren't going to war with Russia. My bad."

[Rhywun]

Whew - I'm glad Ms. Harry Potter got her signalling in before he corrected it.

[The Late P Brooks]

No pets were harmed.

A New York couple was horrified when a UPS delivery that they thought was a Christmas present turned out to be an assault rifle.
Newsday reports (http://nwsdy.li/2gI9lsO ) that Joel Berman opened the keyboard-sized case in front of his wife and 6-year-old granddaughter Wednesday night in Oceanside, on Long Island.
Instead of a toy plane they were buying for their friend's son, they found a semi-automatic rifle, scope, stand, ammo clip and copies of an Arizona man's driver's license and concealed-weapons permit.
They hustled their granddaughter out of the room and called police, who picked up the weapon.
Atlanta-based UPS says it's investigating the "highly unusual incident." The company says it accepts legal shipments of some firearms. It says shippers must meet certain requirements.

"Get back, Elvira! That thing's likely to jump up out of the box and start sprayin' lead!"

[Pope Jimbo]

I was on a murder trial a few years ago and when they passed around the pistol that the killer used, both the DA AND the public defender got to spend a few minutes talking about how it was safe to hold.

The pistol had a big yellow cable going through the barrel and out the action that was locked with a big padlock. The cylinder was broken out to the side.

I don't think we had anyone on our jury who was freaked out about the pistol. At least I didn't see anyone who looked scairt to touch it. I did feel bad that both sides took time to assure us that it wouldn't leap out and kill us all.

[Pope Jimbo]

I hate to admit this, but this would have been a tough question for me. I would have been worried that this was some sort of sting by the LEO's to see if I would report it.

Otherwise, I'd love for people to send me rifles for the cost of a toy plane.

[Rhywun]

"What package?"

[Ted S.]

Call UPS to tell you they delivered the wrong package, and have them pick it up.

[Rhywun]

Right?! Involving the Law is just asking for trouble. I didn't read the link but I'm assuming he and his family made it out alive? They're lucky.

[Quincy.]

Fucking republicans refusing to close the parasol-show loopholes!

[westernsloper]

In other crime stopping news

[GILMORE?]

No one should ever doubt the efficacy of dildoes as an ad-hoc weapon

[Sevo]

Repost, but worth it:

"WikiLeaks offers to 'authenticate' US intelligence on Russia's involvement in election hacking"
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/.....&ocid=iehp

Actually, Assange says 'put up or shut up'.
"Obama should submit any Putin documents to WikiLeaks to be authenticated to our standards if he wants them to be seen as credible."

[Chip Your Pets]

In all seriousness: even if they have proof, it probably can't be released because the Russians could use it to figure out which methods and capabilities we have and don't have.

On the other hand, if it's that sensitive, they absolutely should not be talking to the media about anything related to the investigation.

[Chip Your Pets]

@paulkrugman

Thought: There was (rightly) a cloud of illegitimacy over Bush, dispelled (wrongly) by 9/11. Creates some interesting incentives for Trump
3:04 PM - 16 Dec 2016

Trying to think of a charitable interpretation for this.

[DenverJ]

There is none. He should be called on it. He's a douche

[Tyler.C]

Yeah Krugman has become unbearable and is collapsing to olberman/ Alex Jones levels.

[JeremyR]

Most leftist commentators are like that when a Republican is president.

[Rufus The Monocled]

He's a piece of progressive shit.

How about that?

[GILMORE?]

Trying to think of a charitable interpretation for this.

"9/11 was an inside job plotted by George Busgh to allow him to go on an unopposed Republican Hate-Rampage across the planet...

Obviously, given that Trump also stole his election - because as everyone knows, the Left is wildly popular and could never possibly lose any fair-competition - he will likely engage in some similar act of terror against his own country in order to gain some similar added-clout.... "

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

In order for this "logic" to even begin to make sense, you also have to wonder why it is that Democrats became spineless anti-terror authoritarians, bowing to the will of the hate-mongering GOP, as soon as 9/11 happened. He seems to fear an act of terror because.... why, again? Because it will force democrats to approve the most ridiculous fascist ideas that Trump might cook up?

There is no "generous" or "charitable" reading of that brain-fart. Its pure, unadulterated Alex-Jones-level leftish batshittery.

The only way he could possibly utter shit that stupid is because everyone around him always tells him he's right about everything. Its the consequence of living in an intellectual bubble. He doesn't realize how fucking crazy he sounds.

[Ted S.]

In order for this "logic" to even begin to make sense, you also have to wonder why it is that Democrats became spineless anti-terror authoritarians, bowing to the will of the hate-mongering GOP, as soon as 9/11 happened.

They did it because they want the powers; they just want their Top Men to have those powers.

[GILMORE?]

*speaking of which

I said it last night =

If that crazy shit were said by anyone else, they'd be fired before dawn and never be published ever again.

Because its Krugable & the NY Times? they won't even acknowledge it happened.

Try and find any mention of this comment at all in the "Major Media" (read: CNN, WaPo, NYT, NBC, CBS, huffpo, etc.)

The last time you can find anyone talking about Krugman and 9/11 in the same story is in 2011.

They simply pretend "their people" never say anything crazy.

[JayU]

Mary Poppins is one dangerous bitch.

[DenverJ]

Just spent Many many hrs clearing snow. Very cold for Denver, around 0. I'm to tired, I'm not reading the thread down to here. In fact, I may not post anymore tonight, so: Hitler; narrows gays; AS, BP, and AM are idiots; and my niggles are hard.

[Sevo]

There are certain news stories which occasion the changing of the seasons in this great country of ours:
1) In Nor Cal, the first rains bring out the amateur mushroom gatherers and a whole family ends up in the hospital. If you live here, don't do this; even Whole Foods 'shrooms are only a couple of bucks.
2) In the Mid West (where I was a yute), the first good snow brings out the old fart who still mows his own lawn and decides he's got one more year of shoveling snow; he keels over from a coronary. If you live where it snows, don't do this; hire the kid down the street and let him have the coronary.
I'm talkin' to YOU, DJ.

[DenverJ]

Well, thanks, but I'm not that old yet. And, uh, it's kinda part of my job to make sure the site gets cleared. Otherwise, I'd just have to send everybody home until spring. But, shit needs to get done, even in winter. So, when it snows, we have to rid the job site of snow.
Fun story: a couple decades ago i was a laborer on a job up in Beaver Creek. It was a hotel, and the contract called for completion before the new year. They were still applying stucco to the exterior. so, six stories of scaffolding, with an outside wall of plastic to keep the scaffolding, and, more importantly, the walls being stuccoed, warm. So, they had propane heaters set up on the scaffolding, inside the plastic. Part of my job, when i was a ute, was to roll great big propane tanks along the scaffolding to exchange the old ones.

[Rhywun]

All work and no play makes DenverJ a dull boy.

[DenverJ]

Your niggles are hard

[Pope Jimbo]

Well, if you are gonna dangerous cane wielding seniors I guess dudes with umbrellas should thank their lucky stars that they got to go home alive that night.

[straffinrun]

#6 Worst hangover of my life. Disappointed I couldn't crack the top 5.

[John Titor]

Ok, fess up, which one of you is Razorfist?

[straffinrun]

First person I saw mention him is Gilmore, but I picture Gil as more tweed than metal.

[GILMORE?]

I came across that guy maybe 4 years ago and was really impressed by the wit-density-levels of his "reviews" (which are more just 'rants' about any given item/subject)

It never mattered to me *what* he reviewed. It was how he did it that was awesome. I don't like heavy metal, pro-wrestling, or video games... (*I DO like the schlocky 80s action movies he also adores)... the subject matter is mostly irrelevant. He's just an entertaining and witty guy.

*as a footnote, i never heard him breathe a word of 'politics' until very recently. (last spring) Turns out he's a libertarian, duh.

[straffinrun]

Reminds me of Dennis Miller, but with a much more well thought out opinion. Razorfist obviously has put in the time to understand issues. Miller just goes for the hokey joke. I'd like to see RF's verbal IQ score.

[DenverJ]

I like Dennis Miller, every since he did the news on SNL. But, Christ, he needs to update the references in his jokes.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Thanks for introducing me to that guy.

He's smarter than Paul Krugman that's for sure.

[westernsloper]

"Debbie Dobermanschultz"

That made me laugh. That guy is great.

[Agile Cyborg]

If your spine is injected with public education dollars your fucking independent self will wilts like a goddamn rose under cow piss.

[DEG]

Pictures from Scott's and Amundsen's South Pole expeditions.

[DEG]

I just finished one of these. It was good.

[Crusty Juggler]

Westworld is so strange that a McPoyle is the least strange character on the show.

[Sevo]

Mentioned but no link above:

"4 reasons why Venezuela became the world's worst economy"
[...]
1. Economic Crisis; 3 Years Of Recession
2. Venezuela Broken Engine: Oil
3. Soaring Food Prices and Broken Hospitals
4. Running Out of Cash and Gold"
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/2.....tml?iid=EL

Not one word about the cause.

[westernsloper]

Years of excessive government spending on welfare programs, poorly managed facilities and dilapidated farms set the stage for the crisis.

Ya, it would be nice if they pointed out the socialist root of the current conditions there, including the confiscation of many of the farms. Zimbabwe comes to mind as an example of maybe that not being a good idea.

[Sevo]

Pipes (from the right) and Figes (left) both mentioned the drastic reduction in farm output from collectivization. Judt (left) claimed the (barely legal) private farms, amounting to some tiny portion of the acreage, provided some majority of the produce available from Brezhnev on; it saved the dictators' bacon for 30 years.

[Sevo]

Oops:
The above is WRT the Soviet Union; Venezuela isn't worth a master's paper, let alone several thousand pages of print.

[Sevo]

No one has ever claimed Trump as a libertarian, but, damn, he's looking pretty good:

"Trump's pick for budget director has urged big spending cuts"
[...]
"Strongly antiestablishment, Mulvaney has supported cuts beyond what House Republican leaders preferred and has refused to back deals to raise the government's borrowing limit, more recently causing heartburn for current Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis."
http://www.sfgate.com/politics.....803569.php

[SIV]

No one has ever claimed Trump as a libertarian

Ahem

[Sevo]

See below, SIV; fail.

[The Late P Brooks]

Just spent Many many hrs clearing snow. Very cold for Denver, around 0

The temp has risen into the *positive* single digits here. The wind's going to blow tonight, and drift the road shut. I'll hibernate a couple of days, and then get the 4wd pickup out. I let the neighbors do the first round of drift busting.

[Playa Manhattan.]

Free rider!

[Sevo]

Oh, well, now that you've turned them all in, my children, why...:

"Venezuela Extends Use of 100-Bolivar Note to Jan. 2"
[...]
"Replacement bills aren't ready; president alleges international conspiracy to prevent launch of new notes"
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ve.....1482021957

BTW, did you know the US election was fixed by an international conspiracy led by those Russkis? The CIA said so to somebody, and he told the cousin of my wife's hairdresser!

[Agammamon]

You know who else had his ambitions destroyed by an international conspiracy led by the Russkis?

[R C Dean]

Harry Flashman?

[The Late P Brooks]

"Replacement bills aren't ready; president alleges international conspiracy to prevent launch of new notes"

Did they subcontract production of those notes to the Cubans?

[Sevo]

If you check the comments, someone suggested they 'were saving the people's money' and avoiding UPS or FedEx capitalist, profit-making, excessive charges!
They contracted with Maduros' cousin, 'Delivery by Pepe!' or something of the sort...

[Agile Cyborg]

If you forget shit and that thing you lost is gone.lost, vamoos, erased- you will switch moments with another connective space dna of yourself after a while and your ethos will scratch at feeble doors and wander the blurred halls and you will more than likely forget that you forgot shit even though right now forgetting shit is super goddamn real. Except tomorrow I plan on super remembering that the shit I lost tonight is unfoundable- If i gain nothing tomorrow that is lost from the space dna of the yesternight... I will investigate the universe ever more so tightly.

[Agile Cyborg]

Also when one is escaping the atmosphere of self it is good to contain the enthusiasm of self-inflicted rockets.

[Agile Cyborg]

I lost my goddamn chisel I stick into my fucking neck every night to bleed out my fucking wolves.
I also lost my fucking spiral thingy that opens old bottles of wine and I thought for once I owned several of these fucking jibbertastic portals but then the ice came and all the trees bowed like old knights and I wished for ancient wines.

[westernsloper]

Has a zombie movie script been written with this scenario yet? It may be the start of the Trumpocolypse that ends the world.

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

OT: Dems want to know why Hillary lost:

Or, in the words of a Midwestern fundraiser who's kept in touch with fellow donors, "A lot of people are saying, 'I'm not putting another fucking dime in until someone tells me what just happened.'"

[GILMORE?]

What, they don't buy "The Russians hacked the election"? but its such a rock-solid argument.

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

I figure the donors are ashamed of having backed Hillary, not just for having lost so much money, but for having backed such a despicable liar who even misled *them*, the supposedly smart people. The only way to cover their shame is to shift the blame directly and openly to Hillary. None of this Russkie stuff, or the FBI director, or voters being fed up with PC.

Alternatively, they see which side the toast landed on and want an excuse to butter up Trump. What better way than shift the blame to Hillary directly?

A third idea: They want to have an excuse to distance themselves from Hillary and the Clinton Foundation, to stop wasting money on donations and speeches.

[Rufus The Monocled]

It's been said in order to clean up the mess of unfunded liabilities and big welfare in the West there has to be a leader or party willing to sacrifice the possibility of not being re-elected to start the process of repairing a nation's finances.

Can Trump be that guy? Is he willing to do so?

[Sevo]

The guy's a blowhard and most of what he yammered during the campaign didn't suggest he had much to offer. I didn't vote for him and only would have if I were forced to vote and the hag was the alternative; it looked like he wasn't quite as bad as her. And, let's face it, he's not POTUS yet.
But some of his cabinet picks (like the one above) are hinting there may be more there than was advertised.
And, no, SIV, it doesn't save your sorry ass; you bought and pitched the blowhard act and he's turning out to be something quite different.

[Rufus The Monocled]

It's hard to get a reading on him but it's going to be interesting for sure.

[Playa Manhattan.]

You're fired.

[Sevo]

I hope he tweets that to Obo in a couple of weeks.

[Agile Cyborg]

If your mind is filled with scared waves
forge a ship and cut through the madness
smashing star bow into the blackness

If your heart aches with fucking old winds
fashion an eagle and ride the goddamn old winds
into the fucking sunfall

[Deep Lurker]

What I find horribly disturbing is that the concept of schools going into "lockdown" doesn't cause widespread shrieking outrage. As a nation, we are training our children to be prisoners and slaves.

Sending your kid to a public school ought to be considered a form of child abuse.

[Agile Cyborg]

I can tell you that when time spins in my fucking thonx
the outward seems plasticine and the shadows scratch
the ground like oddities found wanting where cold fingers
try to get warm

the light stretches down and around like sunlight lost
and then when the valley decides to wake up
the memories fuck all this shit up like your
cousin
on a long lost space goddamn voyage... tell your cousin to stop
fucking with agile cyborg. I fucking hate time-based bullshit,
star trappers.

[PapayaSF]

I can't believe no one has mentioned Bulgarian umbrellas.

[Agile Cyborg]

because no motherfucker believes this planet is run right, papayabitch

[Agile Cyborg]

Like all the smidgeon gardens
creep out between the blue line alleys
of this fucking thread gonzo

fucking whores are dribbling dreams on their
goddamn head supports

I hope I catch a goddamn bullstar baby space unicorn with this
fucking rod and space reel... I want to cut his
strings into pieces and eat her reality symposium
pretend world

this thing we like to pretend to play upon until we pass out from
overdosing on reality-
this thing that makes monsters make you believe you need to die in a goddamn factory
to be alive
this thing that allows sick human beings create a world where the ultra rich make a planet
like a fucking goddamn garden
bro, nuttin' wrong wid workin hard but who the FUCK sez you need to work for goddamn
motherfucking shit?
Fucking planet is shit banging relief pitcher forever for ultra suave upper town layers...
beneath they make us kill a life to get to the beach for five years, man

FUCK elites.... agile believes the world is run wrong and I want to fucking upturn the goddamn thick dollar jams, sister

[Agile Cyborg]

Freedom steps lightly on the traps of the liberty governors....

[Agile Cyborg]

Life candles spin out under the eyes of eagles watching for bullets
long canyons visited by backpackers with spaceships on their knees
don't get lost because if the have goddamn spaceships on their goddamn knees, sister
the motherfuckers just visited this planet on a godddamn fucking list...

If my letters penetrate the genetic material of the future... stop by team, I have plenty of drugs, booze,
and fucking odd times for your shit to stream by and I also have a bro hug for time passer bys- are one
of you blonde or asian or even older brunette? I would like to fuck you, sex doesn't matter- I like to fuck
space slash dream travellers... I like to spurt my cum into fantasy explorers and then dance in the rain
a year later and imagine I am the fuck dancing in my own cum lost because fantasy explorers always die
between evolution and simulation and rain doesn't give a shit about nothing but crapping cum on the world

so i dance under the white oaks
under my cum from dead time squires
and foggy mornings where time always stands still

[Agile Cyborg]

make the world believe that they should exist for the will of the powerful
and then make a ton of cable channels positing the world views of super tall
cities of this shit and then make all the rest of the places think they need your fucking
factory meats and strange drugs and government trippy bureaucracies and then
the neighborhood gets all knocked sideways and obliquely with zero understanding

like all the rest of the drive-by realityhoods
they all gotta perform or die
perform or be fucked...
this is the world of a message agile doesn't understand

the world is filled with the living dead and somehow we all have to
make a living?
a LIVING?
from the DEAD?
fucking something is wrong on this planet

[Agile Cyborg]

fucking tired of the alive
being instructed by the above
structure how their life oxygen
should be dispensed...

[Agile Cyborg]

why fucking suck cock of some goddamn metal building down the road when in about 65 years you will die?
why fucking suck cock of some paper mill down the road when in about 20 years you will die?
why the goddamn FUCK are we working when all we do is die?

[AlmightyJB]

Pussy

[Agile Cyborg]

work human from baby birth to wrinkled wanderer cemetery fertilizer

[Agile Cyborg]

live a life
fuck earning shit
our oxygen has
been displaced by
goddamn slave runners
who wish to see the
world from a brass castle

If I was a bachelor
in a castle I'd burn
that shit down
and cut the throat
of the king and enjoy
the rest of my living
watching birds and stars

[MarconiDarwin]

Maybe they should have relied on divine guidance to know that it was a man with an umbrella and not reacted at all.

Because, one can tell such things with 100% certainty post hoc. Like those idiots who whisked Drumpf off the stage when they heard that someone had shouted "gun" and it later turned out to be some "leftist", except he was not.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

Cool story bro

[Get To Da Chippah]

Maybe children (and childishly fearful adults) should just never leave their homes. After all, someone might have a gun somewhere in the world, and you can never be too safe.

[Agile Cyborg]

die to serve
the aims of
your fucking
neighbor so
endowed with
a wallet chock
full of personal
life extensions...

definitely find
some slaves after
this... in some fucking
foreign land filled
with lowly desperates...
praise god

[Tyler.C]

So this is how a comments thread ends to the thundering ravings of AC

[Jimmy Free Trade Pirate]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7woW7DmnR0E