2016 Was a Hell of Year. Lucky for You, Reason Is a Hell of a Magazine.

Almost done, y'all.

As we shudder into 2016's death throes and everyone heads home for the holidays, maybe you're looking for something to read. Or something to watch. Something good. Something with real guts, heart, or perhaps other viscera. Something to help you process the dumpster fire that was 2016. Look no further than Reason's totally unscientific and only semi-official Best of 2016 list:

Reason

Seems like Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie spent all of 2016 interviewing Gary Johnson as he tooled around campaigning on the Libertarian Party ticket. Get the highlights in "Libertarians on Tour." Before GarJo wrapped up the nomination, Brian Doherty looked at all the L.P. candidates in "Who Will Be the Third Man?"

One of our most clicked posts this year was Robby Soave's hot take on why The Donald emerged victorious, penned and posted in the wee hours of Election Night, while everyone else is Washington was saying (and I am paraphrasing here) "Wha?!": "Trump Won Because Leftist Political Correctness Inspired a Terrifying Backlash"

Plain old bummed about politics this year? Consider my (borrowed) advice for the year: "Don't argue about it. Build the alternative" in "Trump vs. Clinton vs. Everything Good"

Elizabeth Nolan Brown's relentless reporting on so-called "epidemic of sex slavery" resulted in an award-winning story in 2015: "The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs." She followed up with a killer four part web series in 2016, "The Truth About the Biggest U.S. Sex Trafficking Story of the Year." Read it and weep. Probably literally.

Reason

In "Stuck," Ron Bailey returned to his family's Appalachian hometown for the first time in four decades to ask the question: Why don't people who live in places with no opportunity just leave?

Haven't had enough of the rough stuff yet? How about this feature by C.J. Ciaramella on widespread, unchecked violence against pets in one American city during drug raids—including two officers who have shot more than 100 animals? Snuggle Fido while you read "Why Are Detroit Cops Killing So Many Dogs?"

And read Lenore Skenazy's own roundup of the worst free range moments of 2016.

Enough of the doom and gloom: Finish up with this cool story by Jim Epstein about the ways that cryptocurrency is turning socialism on itself as brave Venezuelans use to bitcoin to help themselves, their friends, and their families inside a collapsing state? "The Secret Dangerous World of Venezuelan Bitcoin Mining"

And for a chaser, here are a couple of video chasers from the crack team at Reason TV:

How Brazil's Libertarian Movement Helped Bring Down a President

Star Wars Libertarian Special

Comments

[AlmightyJB]

Merry Christmas to you KMW and to the rest of the Reason staff!

[Chipper Morning Wood]

So much of this. Merry Christmas to all the commenters and the Reason staff. You guys give me hope for the human race. Peace.

[Ted S.]

Even Shikha and Chapman?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Merry Christmas to everybody but them.

[Suthenboy]

Where there is life there is hope. I wish the dumbasses a merry Christmas too. Who knows? One day they might come around.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Okay, you warmed me over with that.

Merry Christmas to all the dumbasses and fauxtards too.

[thrakkorzog]

God bless the Cosmotarians.

[Tonio]

coming around

[Ted S.]

This is coming around.

[Tonio]

Most definitely.

[AlmightyJB]

"Even Shikha and Chapman?"

Of course. That even includes our resident trolls who I refuse to acknowledge any other time.

[thrakkorzog]

Merry christmas slavers.

[thrakkorzog]

Merry christmas slavers.

[The Elite Elite]

Merry Christmas squirrels?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Squirrels can be slavers too.

[cavalier973]

Merry Christmas, Reasonoids!

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

Christmas, like every other day of the year, but especially so, is a time for Brochettaward to tell everyone else how they have disappointed it that day. There's way too much circle jerking going on around here.

[XM]

Not a "happy holiday" in sight.

[Gojira]

Merry Christmas to everyone, including my fellow agnostic/atheists. If you're just going off the corporate mission statement of Peace on Earth and Good Will Towards Men, who can argue with that?

[CatoTheChipper]

Merry Christmas!

[Libertarian]

Well said! Merry Xmas, everyone.

"The exact origin of the single letter X for Christ cannot be pinpointed with certainty. Some claim that it began in the first century AD along with the other symbols, but evidence is lacking. Others think that it came into widespread use by the thirteenth century along with many other abbreviations and symbols for Christianity and various Christian ideas that were popular in the Middle Ages. However, again, the evidence is sparse.

In any case, by the fifteenth century Xmas emerged as a widely used symbol for Christmas. In 1436 Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with moveable type. In the early days of printing typesetting was done by hand and was very tedious and expensive. As a result, abbreviations were common. In religious publications, the church began to use the abbreviation C, or simply X, for the word "Christ" to cut down on the cost of the books and pamphlets. From there, the abbreviation moved into general use in newspapers and other publications, and "Xmas," along with the abbreviations Xian and Xianity, became an accepted way of printing "Christmas" (at right is a postage stamp issued by Canada in 1898 with "Xmas"). Even Webster's dictionary acknowledges that the abbreviation Xmas was in common use by the middle of the sixteenth century."

[Episteme]

...plus, Jesus was a superhuman mutant.

An Uncanny X-Mas to all!

[DenverJ]

Nice

[EDG reppin LBC]

Merry Christmas, bub!

[thrakkorzog]

OK, this seems as a place any to ask, does anybody else find it weird that FX is making a series around Legion?

[thrakkorzog]

Err as good a place to ask. Stupid cellphone.

[GamerFromJump]

Reminds me of that comic that shows Jesus standing on water. Next to him is Naruto, saying, "So what?".

[cavalier973]

It's also written that way in the Monopoly board game. "Xmas Fund Matures Collect $100"

Well, now it doesn't. The latest edition says "Your Holiday Fund Matures Collect =m=100"

They also replaced the image of Uncle Pennybags holding a stocking with the image of him advancing to Illinois Ave.

[ant1sthenes]

Jesus followers are all saints in the eyes of Lao Tze, it is known.

[Heroic Mulatto]

If you're just going off the corporate mission statement of Peace on Earth and Good Will Towards Men, who can argue with that?

Human nature.

[Gojira]

IT'S ASPIRATIONAL, YOU CYNICAL ASSHOLE

[Heroic Mulatto]

Aspire this!

[Chipper Morning Wood]

The first link you posted was dumb as fuck, but this one cracked me up. Balance is restored.

[Heroic Mulatto]

That's no way to talk about Riven.

[Libertarian]

"IT'S ASPIRATIONAL, YOU CYNICAL ASSHOLE"

Soon to be a treasured Hallmark card.

[Ted S.]

The right human nature.

[Rothbard'sbitch]

Jesus was the first transgender and ze has been coopted by the cisheteropatriarchy.

Exhibit A:
Peace on Earth and Good Will Towards Men

This does not even cover a fraction of the genders out there.

[Gojira]

I don't even take it to mean Men, as in, the race of Man, all Mankind.

I mean literally I have good will ONLY towards men, and women and homos (who aren't real men) and trannies I have only unending hatred and contempt for.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Now that's the reason for the season!

[Gojira]

Your youtube links are wasted on me. I can't look at any of them here at work, and what are the odds I'll remember to go back and check them all when I get home?

Not very good, is the answer.

[Suthenboy]

How in the hell do those people get away with that shit? Pulling that around here would be suicide.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Pulling that was suicidal over there too, considering it was filmed in Indonesia. I'm surprised Santa prankster didn't end up in a Jemaah Islamiyah hostage beheading video.

[Paloma]

Supposed to be Peace on Earth to Men of Goodwill.

[Episteme]

OTOH, one could make some interesting transhumanist arguments about the Resurrection.

(and yes, Goodwill to all Men, and all Women get back in the kitchen and finish cooking Christmas Dinner!)

[skidmark]

Jesus Christ; The original walking dead. This means Christians must believe in zombies. Weird...

[thrakkorzog]

It's not meant to be taken literally, it applies to all dairy workers.

[Dog Star]

I'm Brian, and so's my wife!

[DenverJ]

"good will towards men" Men? What about womyn, you sexist pig?

[Suthenboy]

They are busy getting me a sammich.

*I just finished eating a grilled cheese sandwich my wife made for me*

[DenverJ]

Mmmn grilled cheese womyn

[MarkLastname]

Sexist!

[jack sprat]

Cocaine is a hell of a drug...

[Libertarian]

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow........

[thrakkorzog]

I keep saying that until they can make cocaine smell like farts, people will keep using coke. I don't really like cocaine, but I love the smell.

[Dog Star]

Cocaine is for pussies. Real men do meth!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7xNult1GVM

[Mithrandir]

Senator Revan Paul. I love you Reason.

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

Something to help you process the dumpster fire that was 2016.

Disagree. Yes, we lost some beloved entertainers and such, but 1) Cleveland beat the 73 win Warriors in their place for their first NBA championship (and their first championship in some 50 years), 2) The Cubs got off the 108-year schneid after coming back from a 3-1 deficit (like the Cavs), 3) Hillary was denied the White House, pissing off innumerable dipshits and touching off their hysteria and delicious, delicious tears.

I'm actually going to have fond memories of this so-called dumpster fire.

[Zero Sum Game]

The copious tears rained down and put out the dumpster fire. It almost makes a whole year of campaigning horseshit worth it. Almost.

[Hayeksplosives]

I agree completely on all counts.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

Fuck Cleveland and especially fuck Lebron James.

[Raven Nation]

(Too lazy to link to these) Let me add some OS triumphs in 2016: (1) Brexit, (2) Western Bulldogs/Footscray won their first AFL title in 62 years, (3) Leicester City won the EPL for the first time ever, (3) Cronulla-Sutherland won the ARL title for the first time ever (after entering competition in 1967), (4) Hurricanes won their first Super Rugby title ever.

[Pat (PM)]

And Castro died.

[Sevo]

Yay!

[GamerFromJump]

Woo!

[Crusty Juggler]

I never tire of the rough stuff, which is why I keep coming back for more.

*Hugs for one and all*

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

Thanks, Crusty. You too.
.
.
.
.
Okay. That's enough.
.
.
.
Now let go.
.
.
.
Crusty? Let GO, dammit!

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Crusty is a like a snapping turtle....without the shell.

[Zero Sum Game]

Wanna arm-wrestle Hildog's foot-long Clitdong for old time's sake?

[Tonio]

It wouldn't be the holidays without someone hurling.

[juris imprudent]

*Hugs for one and all*

Yes, yes it is

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

I'm only cool with this if it's *panda huggles*

[Episteme]

2016 gave us this job offer...

You Can Get Paid To Be A Professional Panda Hugger With An Actual Salary

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

Luck my ass! We commentariat are what makes it so great!

[american socialist]

"Something with guts"

You know what took guts? Abstaining from a resolution that condemned our client state in the ME. When is the last time that happened? #WURSTPOTUSEVAH

[Zero Sum Game]

*Hugs AmSoc* Here's your present:

Your very own copy!

We'll see if we can find someone willing to help you read it.

[thrakkorzog]

Because it's Christmas time, have a free book. http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html

[Holger da Dane]

I'll join in the generosity:

http://bastiat.org/

[DenverJ]

Yes, and we all know how much power those UN resolutions have. Remember when the Rwanda genocide was stopped cold by the resolution? Or when the Bosnian war was stopped by UN condemnation. Well, I guess there's nothing Israel can do now except abandon all those settlements.

[BigT]

"You know what took guts? Abstaining from a resolution that condemned our client state in the ME. When is the last time that happened? #WURSTPOTUSEVAH"

Happy Hannukah!!

Fire up the ovens, amsuck!

[Pan Zagloba "The Stickler"]

Elizabeth Nolan Brown's relentless reporting on so-called "epidemic of sex slavery" resulted in an award-winning story: "The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs." She followed up with a killer four part web series in 2016, "The Truth About the Biggest U.S. Sex Trafficking Story of the Year."

That (and the work on NY Nail Salon Panic last year) was legit, capital J Journalism, and was awesome and harrowing at the same time. But damn, it must have taken dozens (hundreds?) hour of work, and did it pay out compared to dashing a half thought-out Robby post? I guess our shitposting in other threads can subsidise good stuff like that, unlibertarian as it sounds.

Good work and Merry Christmas, all at Reason. I think my heart grew three sizes, and I might resubscribe (my donation level this year wasn't high enough to get subscriptions, for usual reasons).

[Crusty Juggler]

That (and the work on NY Nail Salon Panic last year) was legit, capital J Journalism, and was awesome and harrowing at the same time.

Agreed. Also, the above linked Ciaramella's dog murdering story.

[Sevo]

Robbie deserves some stick now and then, but the series on the RS 'non-rape' article was some good work. Bailey also comes through with stuff worth reading, and "The End of Doom" was certainly a fine debunking of just about every Malthusian.

[Pan Zagloba "The Stickler"]

Eeeeeh, if we are being obstinate, he bought the article hook line and sinker, whereas commenters did not. He did persist in digging for truth in the face of some really nasty pushback (I don't think even Groovus treated him as badly as the select feminists did).

[thrakkorzog]

He still blew the lid off the Rolling Stone story. Even if he wanted to toe the lion, he managed to do a good job exposing the inconsistencies of the RS story.

He did good for a non-Columbia J-school grad.

[Hyperion]

He did, and that is not to be forgotten.

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

"He did"

No he didn't.

"and that is not to be forgotten"

Nor remembered since it never happened.

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

"He still blew the lid off the Rolling Stone story."

Richard Bradley disagrees.

http://www.richardbradley.net/.....tory-true/

Robby even credits him as one of the reasons he decided to look more closely at it.

[thrakkorzog]

It's Christmas time, let's give it to him.

[Raven Nation]

Speaking of non-rape - I just caught the end of the 30-for-30 about the Duke Lacrosse case. Resulted in one point of rage and one point of bafflement:

Rage: Nifong should have been fed to the dogs.
Bafflement: I read a couple of reviews of the special and apparently there were some reviewers who thought the true story was about rich white kids raping a poor black girl. They had their minds changed by the show BUT, 10 years they persisted in ignorance. This is why establishing a narrative is so powerful.

[Gojira]

I also had hot libertarian sex with my Asian wife last night.

Just so you all know, and have the image of a slightly overweight middle-aged bald bearded (aka bog standard) white guy sweating as he plows a much more attractive Chinese woman. Think about it.

[Crusty Juggler]

Thank you.

*unzips*

[Gojira]

Roll the image around in your head until you can taste the rainbow.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I videotaped it all.

Because I'm a voyeur like that.

[Ted S.]

Also a voyeur.

[Heroic Mulatto]

So, I gather today's theme is 'A Very 80s Christmas'.

I can do that.

[Ted S.]

My Christmas song was from 1979. This is the epitome of the 80s Christmas. 🙂

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Libertarian sex? Is that where each person thinks it's better for them than their partner?

Ooooooh, that reminds me of a classic Humberto Fontova column.

"Ethnic diversity spawns win-wins on a vast scale across the commercial landscape. Bona-fide business people know what "win-win" really is: two people shaking hands and smiling, above each head a little balloon with the famous love scene from Deliverance. Each party to the transaction sees himself as the snarling, thrusting mountain man. Each sees his partner as the squealing, blubbering Ned Beatty.

But this is difficult to achieve when both parties think alike. Then they're likely to see themselves as a squealing Ned and their partner in the gloriously triumphant role of the toothless mountain man. This paralyzes commerce and stonewalls economic growth."

[Gojira]

Libertarian sex is when I show no concern for the oppressed woman, worrying only about myself and achieve my peak by screwing someone else.

[juris imprudent]

Sounds suspiciously like a euphemism.

[Rothbard'sbitch]

Did y'all know that Jesus was a woman?

Christisawoman.com

Irrefutable evidence that Christ is a Woman:

Christ in Her first manifestation, was slaughtered together with the Son of the Promise, by evil and perverse men who wanted to erase her name and the fact that she was a woman.

Jeremiah 11:19 "But I was like an innocent lamb brought to the slaughter; and I did not know that they had devised schemes against me, saying, 'Let us DESTROY the TREE with its FRUIT, and let us cut her off from the land of the living, that her NAME may be remembered no more.'"

The 30 pieces of silver: If Christ Lisbet were not present, the following verses would go unnoticed, but because She is the Light of the world and is here among us, the following reference is an irrefutable evidence that Christ is and has always been a woman.

Christ Mary was pregnant when she was crucified on the cross: John 19:34 But one of the soldiers pierced Her side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.

[Rothbard'sbitch]

This is proof that she was pregnant and that not only did they kill her, but also the son of the promise she carried in her womb. Evil and perverse men hid the truth that Christ is and has always been a woman. They managed to destroy all evidence that could help identify Her and her name, hiding the truth by manipulating the Bible, and by presenting to the world God as a Single Father, without a Wife, but with a male child (Christ or Jesus), who had no spiritual mother, but nonetheless was surrounded by brethrens, and having an earthly mother who conceived him in a supernatural and mystical way. They completely omitted the Wife of God in this entire absurd story. That's why only She could clarify the whole truth and give witness to the Father, Melquisedec as She is doing today in Her manifestation."

I can't tell if this is a troll website or whoever made it is serious.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

So the Jews didn't just call our Lord and Savior, but they are misogynists, as well?

[thrakkorzog]

This sounds suspiciously like a Cathar heresy. Better shut your yap before the pope declares a crusade to wipe it out.

[Tyler.C]

We bother not with the Lord our God crusades here in newbie island.

[Rothbard'sbitch]

Here is another troll story byy the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....06134.html

Jesus The First Transgender Man

Now Eve is a fascinating creature for many reasons. The Bible tells us she is the first example of human cloning, which I touched on in this post. But the fun doesn't stop there. If we take the Genesis account in it's literal meaning, as conservative Christians demand that we do, she is also the first case of a transgender woman. God reached into Adam, pulled out a bit of rib bone, and grew Eve from that XY DNA into Adam's companion. She was created genetically male, and yet trans-formed into woman.

Then along comes Jesus and the whole pattern is both repeated and reversed. The first couple's refusal to cooperate is turned around by Mary's yes, and the second act of cloning occurs. The Holy Spirit comes upon the second Eve, and the child takes flesh from her and is born. Born of her flesh. Born with XX chromosome pairing. Born genetically female, and yet trans-formed into man.

States that do not support trans persons' right to choose the restroom that fits their identity demand that bathroom usage be based on a person's "biological sex." And that means that if Jesus and Eve were walking around today, perhaps shopping at the mall for a Father's Day gift, they'd have to swap restrooms. Now Jesus could surely manage to finesse his way around a woman's room, but poor Eve...

[Heroic Mulatto]

The worst offenders are the Christian's who claim to take the Bible literally

If we take the Genesis account in it's literal meaning

And Reason had the balls to fire Lucy?

[Zero Sum Game]

That Forbes article about Snopes the other day had those kinds of grammatical errors. :-/

[Ted S.]

They do it just to piss me off.

[DenverJ]

Now Jesus could surely manage to finesse his way around a woman's room, but poor Eve...Um, the author does realize that there are toilets in the men's room, not just urinals, right?

[DenverJ]

Oops

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

"and grew Eve from that XY DNA into Adam's companion. She was created genetically male, and yet trans-formed into woman."

Someone doesn't know how genes work.

[thrakkorzog]

She wants to be called Loretta.

[Sevo]

Really stretching now to find some reason to like that lying POS who's about to be booted from the WH:

"Michelle Obama's fashion influence rivaled Jackie Kennedy's"
http://www.sfgate.com/news/pol.....817005.php

Somebody else can read it; I'm not taking that one for the team.

[Rothbard'sbitch]

Virtue signaling at its finest...

[Derpetologist]

Yermack thinks what's different about Mrs. Obama is that first ladies "have traditionally tried to be nondescript in the way they dressed ? they didn't want to overshadow their spouses ... or be seen as spending a lot on clothing. But she had no inhibitions in that sense.

"It was an honor to have the opportunity to dress Mrs. Obama," Browne said in an email message. "She is such a stylish individual because of her confidence and intelligence."

[Libertarian]

Nancy Reagan dressing in expensive gowns = out-of-touch elitist giving a brutal slap in the face to poor people.

Michelle Obama dressing in expensive gowns = confidence and intelligence.

[Sevo]

Ivanka's boots = "Gestapo"
Michelle's shoes = "Dreamy"
Proggies = despicable.

[PapayaSF]

+1

[VG Zaytsev]

Yeah but Wookiees have been downtrodden for decades, it was high time that someone brought hi fashion to them.

[Agammamon]

Its *these people* who are out of touch - Michelle Obama has never dressed fashionably. She, IMO, actually tends to looks that range from 'casual' to 'frumpy' and that is basically the same range as Laura Bush and Rosalyn Carter.

Then you have Kennedy, Ford, Reagan, Barbara Bush - all working to stay in the 'stylish-to-matronly' range.

Clinton had her psuedo-Mao pantsuits so if I were in a credit giving mood and cared one whit about the useless ass FLOTUS (on the national stage she's irrelevant, no matter how important she is to her husband and family) I'd be willing to extend a nod to Obama for *trying* at least.

But she's never been fashionable, elegant, or even more than run-of-the-mill attractive.

And OMG - Wikipedia considers FLOTUS to be an 'office'.

First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS)[1] is the title and position held by the wife of the President of the United States, concurrent with the president's term of office. Although the first lady's role has never been codified or officially defined, she figures prominently in the political and social life of the nation.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ First_Lady_of_the_United_States

Heh, there's a picture there of the current and former FLOTUS' - Clinton is in a classic 'animation settings are screwed up' T-pose. More grist for the 'she's a robot' mill.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

I'd fuck Laura Bush. At least a decade ago. I felt the commentariat needed to know.

[DenverJ]

Well thanks for sharing. It's important that this kind of information gets shared. In that vein: Chelsea Clinton? Not even with Crusty's dick. The Boosh twins? Repeatedly.

[Libertarian]

From wikipedia:

"Some first ladies have garnered attention for their dress and style. Jacqueline Kennedy, for instance, became a global fashion icon: her style was copied by commercial manufacturers and imitated by many young women, and she was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1965.[20][21] Michelle Obama has also received significant attention for her fashion choices: style writer Robin Givhan praised her in The Daily Beast, arguing that the First Lady's style has helped to enhance the public image of the office."

Jackie O: global icon, name to Best Dressed Hall of Fame.
Michelle O: mentioned in the Daily Beast

Equivalent!!

[thrakkorzog]

Well Dr. Girlfriend copied her style. I don't that many women that actually dressed like Jackie O because she wore it.

[Sevo]

"And OMG - Wikipedia considers FLOTUS to be an 'office'.

How about "The Office of the President Reject"?

[BigT]

"they didn't want to overshadow their spouses ... or be seen as spending a lot on clothing. But she had no inhibitions in that sense."

I'm sure they just *love* Ivanka's $10,000 bracelet then. Fking hypocritical aholes.

[Ted S.]

Can we finally move past the Kennedys and all that camelot shit?

[Libertarian]

I'm so old that everytime I see "camelot" I LITERALLY think of Robert Goulet.

[Agammamon]

I think 'its only a model'.

[Tyler.C]

Tis a silly place actually.

[Playa Manhattan.]

Sevo, from our favorite author.

[Sevo]

Gee, wonder how I missed that first time around?
Happy Holidays to ya. And the brood. I see you got some weather yesterday; hope the scatter is warm and dry.

[Playa Manhattan.]

Family in town staying at Terranea. I'm about to head up there for a sunset hike. It should be clear enough to see Santa Barbara Island and possibly San Nicholas Island today.

[juris imprudent]

KMW with candycanes for the deserving writers, and presumably lumps of coal for some others.

[Tonio]

Switches, never forget the switches.

[AddictionMyth]

You're welcome 😉

[Suell]

Happy Christmas to all including the agnostics and atheists. Hope that the next year brings you more liberty in your personal lives.

I'm about to start prepping for our xmas eve cioppino. Have it all prepped before setting down to watch the Raiders hopefully beat the Colts.

[Sevo]

Sounds good.
Cracked crab at chez Sevo; sourdough and drawn butter.

[Suell]

I was going to do crab in it but I got the whole family coming over so it would get a bit messy. Just sticking with fresh clams, shrimp and cod. I'll do some broiled oysters for an app with butter, garlic and Parmesan.

If you shop at Costco at all you should pick up the Kerrygold butter. They have it occasionally at some grocery stores, it really is the best friggin butter you can buy. Bon appetite!

[Suell]

And yes, one of the perks in living in the progressive utopia that is SF is having fresh dungeness in the winter and awesome sourdough year round.

[Sevo]

"Bon appetite!"
Same back atcha and some steamin' hot cioppino sure works on a chill day like this.
Yep, Costco is the place to go for this and that; we'll add butter to the list.

[PapayaSF]

I've been thinking about trying the Kerrygold. Thanks for the tip.

[Suell]

Irish cows eat some very, very green grass. It shows in their milk products.

Hey, I hope you got those books I sent from amazon, Papaya.

[Playa Manhattan.]

If you get your Kerrygold at Whole Foods, they have a tiny little container of truffle butter in the same case. A little container lasts months.

[Suell]

Thanks! That's going on the list for next shop at Costco.

[PapayaSF]

I got all three, and read two already. Thanks again! The Comedians by Kliph Nesteroff was quite fascinating, especially about the '20s-'50s. Did you know that both Bob Hope and Jack Benny started out as blackface comics? Letters From Bohemia by Ben Hecht was a bit thin, but an interesting reminiscence of a bunch of his old friends (including H. L. Mencken.) It makes me want to read more about Gene Fowler and Charles MacArthur. Haven't gotten to Stalin's Secret Agents yet.

[Holger da Dane]

All we eat at our house, it's worth it.

Also try their cheeses.

[R C Dean]

Ditto on the Kerrygold.

[Playa Manhattan.]

Prime rib, plus prime rib accessories.

[Hyperion]

"including the agnostics and atheists"

What about we simulation theorists? I feel othered *runs sobbing from room, gets another beer*

[Suell]

Luckily your safe space is stocked with beer.

And Go Raiders!!

[Hyperion]

Oh shit, the game is on! Thanks, Suell.

[Hyperion]

Wow, that SD win was ugly, but playoffs!

[Suell]

The hope to make it past the first playoff game just ended.

[Hyperion]

Yep. Oh well, hopefully Carr is ready to go for next year and can stay healthy. McGloin sucks!

[Episteme]

Your simulation is simply set to Emotional Difficult Mode, so you don't see the program's characters wishing you a Merry Christmas...

[Rothbard'sbitch]

What happened to Stefan Molyneux? He went from an anarchist libertarian to an alt right Trump fundamentalist?
Is it just because that is where the money is at right now?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Is it just because that is where the money is at right now?

*shrugs*

Probably. Though, I never understood his appeal in the first place. Even before this change of rhetoric, he just struck me as just a heterodox Objectivist with creepy, unresolved Mommy issues. Also, as a misophonic, his penchant for recording podcasts while seemingly dying of thirst filled me with honest-to-goodness rage.

[Rothbard'sbitch]

I just looked up misophronia. I actually think I might have that. When I hear two songs playing at the same time it almost sends me into a psuedo panic attack. Interesting, you learn something new everyday around here.

[Ted S.]

I didn't know the word misophonia, but I was reminded of this.

[Gojira]

...as a misophonic...

From Wikipedia:

The diagnosis of misophonia is not recognized in the DSM-IV or the ICD 10, and it is not classified as a hearing, neurological, or psychiatric disorder.

Quit making things up you lying liar who lies.

[Heroic Mulatto]

You and I both know why (((Big Medicine))) would suppress evidence of misophonia.

[Gojira]

Oddly enough, I just read a short-story in which a young promising doctor (who the author makes very, very clear is a liberal who supports single-payer) finds out that the medical establishment could have actually cured all disease ages ago, but prefers to maintain their position in society and esteem by periodically introducing new pathologies to the population and then treating, but never curing, them.

The story even mentions how they assassinate liberal SC justices to make sure the republican AMA plot to keep everyone sick and in their thrall is never derailed by good-hearted public servants which all doctors would become under single-payer.

It was nausea-inducing.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I have 1 guess as to which Hit 'n Run commenter penned that fable.

[juris imprudent]

Jaysus, I hope that was a very short story. And 10 quatloos says it was E.J. Dionne.

[Akira]

That gives me an idea for a short story of my own: a government official finds out that the government could have cured all of these social problems ages ago (by getting their fucking hands off) but prefer to maintain their position in society by periodically constantly creating new problems for society and then making up some laws that purportedly solve them but actually make them much worse.

[Ted S.]

What's fibromyalgia?

[Crusty Juggler]

A debilitating disease I cured with coconut oil.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

It's when you have pain but they can't figure out why.

[Hayeksplosives]

Unsurprisingly for anyone who personally knows a person with fibromyalgia, it has a significant overlap with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.

[Playa Manhattan.]

There was a mom who kept trying to set up playdates between my kids and hers. They are pretty weird, but I figured whatever, give it a shot. I agreed to one playdate, watched the kids for a few hours, and the kid was a complete sociopathic nutcase. He tried to attack my (at the time) one year old, he broke a few things in the house for no reason (which I saw) and then tried to blame it on the baby, and a whole bunch of other fucked up not normal behavior.

She tried to set up another playdate. Nope, I'm busy for the next decade, sorry. Then she friended me on Facebook. Her entire Facebook page is "Fibromyalgia Survivors" bullshit.

It all makes so much sense now.

[Suthenboy]

This made me laugh because I was thinking that very thing.

[Ted S.]

My mom complained about aches and pains, was put on bipolar drugs a week before she died, and probably had at least a borderline personality disorder. 🙁

[Suthenboy]

Borderline personality disorder doesnt mean that a person almost has a disorder. It is a common misunderstanding. I don't know why they chose that name, it is confusing. BPD is a full blown personality disorder in its own right.

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics /borderline-personality-disorder/index.shtml

[Suthenboy]

It just occurred to me that the commentariat here has people in a wide range of professions but with some notable omissions. We have no psychiatrists or Phd psychologists.

It is probably a blessing.

[Playa Manhattan.]

C. Anacreon is a psychiatrist. A libertarian one. Top of his field.

[Suthenboy]

No shit? I did not know this.

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

There is a chance there are others, especially a professional with 20 years of private practice work in helping children with developmental disabilities, but the commentariat spends such an enormous amount of time shitting on educators and mental health professionals that they choose not to disclose it.

Possibly.

[PapayaSF]

Yeah, apparently he's sort of a big deal.

[GILMORE?]

Even before this change of rhetoric, he just struck me as just a heterodox Objectivist with creepy, unresolved Mommy issues

This.

I've never spent much time around the self-described "objectivists" so i don't know what qualifies as heterodox, but if Cytotoxic is an example of one, and Molyneux another, there seems to be some aspects in common... at least personality-wise.... and in their insane-stubbornness regarding their own assumptions. I don't know if its a feature of objectivism or the people who are attracted to it, but they seem to be people who think "Philosophy" is something that produces final,conclusive, irrefutable answers.... rather than just an endless series of new questions.

Also =

I have never heard of Misophonia before, and dammit, i think i've had that my whole life too. Certain combinations of sounds will trigger near-psychotic rage in me. There are some environments i simply can't stay in very long or else i get a combo-migrane-'road-rage' discomfort.

Its not 'loud' things that bother me, but combinations of disorganized sound; like people yelling at each other across a dinner table. Loud Nightclubs I'm fine with, or Sports Arenas, but i've been in crowded rooms where lots of people are talking loud and its like being beaten in the skull with a hammer. Its not mere discomfort - its an actual "fight or flight" reaction. It doesn't help i also have a sensitive broken eardrum as well.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I've never spent much time around the self-described "objectivists" so i don't know what qualifies as heterodox

Anything that deviates from Randian fiqh as interpreted by Sheikh Peikoff, PBUH.

[GILMORE?]

Sheikh Peikoff

My only direct experience hearing him say anything was his idea that - post 9/11 - the US should pre-emptively *Nuke Iran*

(despite seemingly being aware - in a later conversation - that it was sunni fundamentalists who attacked the US, and not the ayatollahs. it was a distinction he seemed to consider irrelevant; he handwaved and said, "Mecca too!")

and when told that wanton slaughter of civilians in reaction to a terror-attack was perhaps immoral, he insisted that it was immoral *not to*.

Basically, the Objectivist argument about 'force' seems to be that if someone bitch-slaps you, you have every right - nay, an obligation - to chop their children to pieces in retribution.

There were few occasions in the early 2000s where Bill O'Reilly comes off as 'reasonable and restrained', but that was one of them.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Basically, the Objectivist argument about 'force' seems to be that if someone bitch-slaps you, you have every right - nay, an obligation - to chop their children to pieces in retribution.

When talking foreign policy, it goes beyond that. Rand argued that nations whose governments don't fit a Western, classically liberal, democratic model are basically non-entities who can claim no rights to sovereignty. As such, free, democratic nations have every right to invade them at a time of their choosing.

[GILMORE?]

Rand argued that nations whose governments don't fit a Western, classically liberal, democratic model are basically non-entities who can claim no rights to sovereignty. As such, free, democratic nations have every right to invade them at a time of their choosing.

Which is actually surprisingly close to both Wilsonian-foreign-policy ("making the world safe for democracy") and its more modern derivative, "Humanitarian Intervention", where other nation's sovereignty is made invalid if anyone else decides that there's a humanitarian crisis going on.... as well as Neoconservatism - which is really just Wilsonianism-minus-"multilateralism", replacing the tools of international diplomacy with "if we declare you dangerous, we have every right to end your existence by ourselves"

[Sour Kraut]

I am not sure Peikoff or his organization ever recovered from that. He looked like, or just was exposed as, a googly-eyed nutjob.

Ayn Rand was a brilliant but very flawed thinker. She seems to constantly be influencing the culture in an ambient way, but any movements / people / etc explicitly devoted to her, never go anywhere.

[GILMORE?]

Ayn Rand was a brilliant but very flawed thinker.

i'd probably just say, "interesting" and stay away from terms like "brilliant".

I think if you do a net-net analysis of "benefits and liabilities".... libertarianism has generally lost more appeal than it has gained by being too-closely associated with her.

her support of individualism and pro-capitalism is certainly 'thematically similar'... but her dogmatic approach to everything as either 100% pure or hopelessly flawed has been too-often associated with libertarians...

...which i think results in a profound misunderstanding of "minarchistic" arguments, which are by their very definition a practical compromise between idealist and realist views.

iow, people constantly refer to Rand when talking about libertarians, and the insinuation is that the latter must therefore be "hopeless ideologues" who handwave away reality.

its not just 'wrong', its the opposite of how (most? many?) libertarians actually think. But its their favorite M.O. for discrediting anyone who makes even-slightly libertarian arguments.

[Pat (PM)]

Like it or not, Rand is probably responsible for introducing more people to the idea of self ownership and personal autonomy than nearly any other writer/thinker in the last century. Road to Serfdom is great and everything, but between The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged she got her ideas firmly embedded in the popular culture in a way that no one else has.

[Pan Zagloba "The Stickler"]

You could phone in and ask, but you might get a 45 minute off-the-cuff tirade that doesn't answer anything.
The only thing of his I actually liked was his explanation of Cash/Slash Principle, but I sometimes listen to him just for "OK, I don't agree with you, how do you argue" effect. Also because "nope, no one who thinks like this shows up on CBC or in Globe and Mail".

[Derpetologist]

This is a few weeks old, but I don't think it's been posted here yet.

when leftists attack

2 junior thought police from San Francisco hassle a man for wearing a Build the Wall shirt.They repeatedly accuse him of being racist and uneducated.

Reminds me of this recent article

Metallica's James Hetfield is fed up with the "elitist" San Francisco Bay area attitudes. In a podcast with radio host Joe Rogan he explains his reason for moving to Vail, Colorado.

"I kind of got sick of the Bay Area, the attitudes of the people there, a little bit," he said. "They talk about how diverse they are, and things like that, and it's fine if you're diverse like them. But showing up with a deer on the bumper doesn't fly in Marin County. My form of eating organic doesn't vibe with theirs."

[GILMORE?]

I haven't yet seen anyone comment on the modern habit of "pointing cameras at people and engaging in 2 directional polemical performance for the camera"

Once the cameras come out, no one is talking to "each other", they're talking to their respective cameras, and hoping to capture a good 20 second or-so clip they can post where they come off looking "smarter" than their opponent.

Its why the lady keeps repeating the same phrases - its hoping that one of them will elicit the predicted/desired reaction, not because there's any interest in discussion.

Its this super-common behavior now.... (especially at "protests" which are often just 3 people protesting/acting like maniacs, while 100 stand around filming them hoping to capture great "reaction footage").... but i've never seen any extended analysis of how bizarre a social-behavior it is.

*i think the only time people have pointed out how fucked up it is? is at Music concerts. Performers are sick of audiences standing mute and filming the show rather than just *enjoying the performance* firsthand. Its destroying people's ability to connect with an audience because all they're doing is staring at a sea of video-cameras. No one is actually "listening" or engaged in their act at all.

[Gojira]

I've heard performers complain about that, but "must...record...EVERYTHING!!!" seems to be human nature, so I say, get the fuck over it.

[The Fusionist]

Is that legal? (for music performances)?

[Gojira]

Not illegal, to my understanding, but rather varies based on the rules of each individual venue.

I could be wrong about that though, as it's not an area I know a great deal about. Also YMMV state-by-state.

[GILMORE?]

"must...record...EVERYTHING!!!" seems to be human nature

human nature?

Do i need to point out that the capability for most people to record *anything* didn't exist until a few years ago?

[American Memer]

The concept of writing disagrees.

[GILMORE?]

If you want to stretch the definition of 'recording' to writing things down, then its just proving my point. people don't talk to one another while furiously taking notes for their post-facto publication of a devastating rebuttal.

But that's exactly what many people (morons imo) do today, where they stand across from one another, filming each other, and lobbing various rhetorical hand-grenades hoping that one might provoke the other to apoplexy *first* so they can get some great reaction-footy for youtube.

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

"people don't talk to one another while furiously taking notes for their post-facto publication of a devastating rebuttal"

Because it is impractical, which doesn't prove your point at all, but rather, totally rebuts it.

As soon as it became practical to do so, they did.

[Gojira]

When I see masses of people all doing the same thing consistently across different scenarios & contexts for years on end with no signs of it slowing down, then yes, I feel comfortable calling it human nature at this point in time.

When I use those words in a way that does not solely encompass things which were near-universal behaviors going all the way back to the primordial jungle, but rather also includes anything "new" that seems to find near-universal acceptance.

[Gojira]

*the word "when" should be stricken from that last sentence

[GILMORE?]

When I see masses of people all doing the same thing consistently across different scenarios & contexts for years on end

Its not 'masses', its actually just younger people. And the reason you "see" them so consistently is - duh - they're the ones constantly generating footage of the same people doing the same thing.

Obviously if your evidence is "but look at all the footage generated", you're impression that its de-rigeur is a self-referential mess. Its popular because you don't see any footage of people NOT doing it?

And the 'years on end' point is exactly what i pointed out isn't actually the case. 10 years ago the capability didn't really exist.

You seem to be saying 'human nature = whatever fad is popular at the moment'

[Gojira]

Look, I explained to you what I meant by my use of those words. If you disagree with my using those words, fine, but it's pointless to argue about it because you're not going to change my mind about my subjective use of a subjective phrase. If it makes you feel better, feel free to substitute "It seems to be their nature for young people at concerts".

And yes, I do consider fads to be human nature, which encompasses each individual fad if they are widespread enough. Which again is an entirely subjective interpretation, so there's no point arguing it.

[GILMORE?]

so there's no point arguing it.

"Its human nature get the fuck over it"

/professor non-argumentative

[GILMORE?]

my observation was tat this new habit - whether 'human nature' or not is irrelevant- is weird, and actually has some seriously socially-erosive characteristics

namely, that people don't really engage things directly. its extremely unnatural. people don't go to performances to actually enjoy and experience the performance - they go to capture the performance and experience it 2nd hand, or to share it with others and get some social media-cred or something.

they seem to want to simply capture stuff, then spin it/use it for some other purpose.

Its particularly odd in 1-1 'arguments', like the example above. 2 people are arguing, and yet they're not even talking to one another = they're making statements to their cameras while watching the other person make statements to their own cameras.

Its a bizarre detachment and disengagement and unwillingness to directly confront people without the power to control the event 'after the fact'.

Maybe it is a 'naturally evolved' behavior (once given the power to do so). Maybe its not. I don't think that's the interesting part. I think more interesting is whether its making people 'better people' or making them socially-crippled. I see more evidence of the latter (esp in engagements like the above link, or in things like "people watching DJ's dance" while they film them)

[Gojira]

Ah, now we're really address the matter.

I partially agree in that I personally find it bizarre, to say the least. I also personally agree with you re: the becoming more socially crippled part.

However, we must always guard against the tendency to see anything that seems jarringly different from what we personally would chose, as being bad or maladaptive, or however else you may want to convey the sentiment.

The behavior has been around for some years now, even if not a full decade, and I don't see it going anywhere. Hence my determination to get over it and simply write it off as yet another thing many other people seem to "get" but which I do not. #assburgersspeaks

[Gojira]

*really addressing

[GILMORE?]

we must always guard against the tendency to see anything that seems jarringly different from what we personally would chose, as being bad or maladaptive

Sure. and i think if i'd made this case 5 years ago, it would be.

if there's an upside to "pointing cameras and filming each other" while engaging in performative-vituperation, i've yet to see it.

*I can see a case made that the whole "AIDS Skrillex"-memes are some extraordinarily-valuable form of social dialogue. "Whomever Memes the best, Wins".

but that's not really what i'm talking about, esp re: the above example where its just 2 people "not really talking to each other" but instead pointing cameras and trying to get the other one to "do something stupid so i can get clicks on my facebook page going = "HURR DURR LOOK AT WHAT THIS ASSHOLE [X-Supporter] THINKS"

What i see happening is the death of 'dialogue', and people losing the ability to look each other in the eye and actually speak *to* each other, and respond directly to what they say. Cameras are just enabling-props in the decay of reason.

[Pat (PM)]

This is absolutely no different than people wanting to be seen driving the right cars, wearing the right clothes, marrying the right partners, living in the right houses, listening to the right music, reading the right authors, etc etc. Social one-upmanship and peer approval seeking was not invented by the internet. That really is human nature. This is just a recent manifestation of something that's been happening since recorded history.

[GILMORE?]

Social one-upmanship and peer approval seeking was not invented by the internet.

No one suggested it was.

I'm not sure pointing cameras at people and yelling 'about' them is necessarily what you're talking about.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

Crazy Hispanic (?) leftist in video: Would.

[Holger da Dane]

How were they filming him for 10 minutes? It should take no more than 5, to make people that crazy run away crying or physically attack you on camera.

[The Fusionist]

Everyone have fun on this glorious Christmas Eve, oh
Merry Christmas to all, even to sevo

[Ted S.]

Wonderful, isn't it?

[The Fusionist]

Did staffinrun give his ideas for why Trump won?

[Libertarian]

Tried to find a Mark Twain Christmast quote but found this instead. The original denier!

"Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get."

[PapayaSF]

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Here's a piece from last month which I think has some wisdom in it (other than the little swipe at Breitbart). It builds on Robby's piece regarding the anti-PC backlash.

Privilege theory and the concept of systemic racism dealt the death blow to the d?tente. In embracing these theories, minorities and progressives broke their essential rule, which was to not run around calling everyone a racist. As these theories took hold, every white person became a racist who must confess that racism and actively make amends. Yet if the white woman who teaches gender studies at Barnard with the Ben Shahn drawings in her office is a racist, what chance do the rest of us have? [...]

That shift, from carefully directed accusations of racism for direct actions to more general charges of unconscious racism, took away the carrot for whites. Worse, it led to a defensiveness and feeling of victimization that make today's whites in many ways much more tribal than they were 30 years ago. White people are constantly told to examine their whiteness, not to think of themselves as racially neutral. That they did, but the result was not introspection that led to reconciliation, it was a decision that white people have just as much right to think of themselves as a special interest group as anyone else.

[Suell]

Happy Xmas back at ya.

For a while now progressives have been encouraging whites to develop an identity based on "whiteness" by blaming all the ills of this world on them. It is finally coming back to bite them in the ass, which is hilarious to watch. I'm really hoping that they get further and further marginalized, but that is probably too optimistic. They really should be a completely fringe element that holds little or no real power. In order for that to change though there really has to be a change in how education is delivered here. That, along with a popular cultural shift away from their fucked up beliefs.

[Crusty Juggler]

Brendan O'Neill wrote a great article about "whiteness."

The charge of 'white man', the open discussion of 'white men' as a problem, a scourge, a primal, furious blob, is extraordinarily dehumanising. In the classic meaning of that word: it deprives a group of people of their individual qualities in preference for treating them as a great indistinguishable mass. The real problem with the 'white men' jibe is that it commits what I thought was meant to be the greatest crime in the eyes of identitarians: it erases people's identities and experiences.

[Suell]

Thanks, looks like a good article. Ima check it out.

[PapayaSF]

Good article, too.

[PapayaSF]

Yes, and if Trump and company are clever, they will roll a lot of this back. They're going to be called racists etc. no matter what they do anyway, so they might as well strike while the iron is hot.

[Hyperion]

Merry Christmas, shitlords of the cisheteropatriarchy, and a lump of coal in the stocking of all cosmotarians.

[Austrian Anarchy]

OT: Looks like the progs are going full Roark on Ivanka.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Did Mrs. Kushner pay the bill for the artwork in full?

Yes?

Then you don't have a goddamn thing to say about whether or not she can display it on her apartment's walls.

[Libertarian]

Apparently he was fine with the status quo until, oh, November 8th. "That's some might fine ethics, there, Lou."

[Holger da Dane]

Maybe it's time for her to sell all that art, and make a grand gesture by donating the proceeds to the NRA. The TDS sphere could use a few more aneurisms.

[Hyperion]

That thing behind her on the wall, first photo, I would put that in the garbage for sure.

"Dear Ivanka, you're scaring the hell out of women"

Really? She doesn't even look scary to me. Maybe cause I'm a guy, I don't know.

[Austrian Anarchy]

I take it you are of the Patriarchy? Of course you don't know!

[Hyperion]

A registered shitlord of the cisheteropatriarchy, of couse.

[Austrian Anarchy]

With deeds of property to boot! The stew thickens.

[Agammamon]

Its funny - they had no problems before, not a single one, with having their 'art' on her walls. Not until Trump became the Goldstein-du-jour.

[Suell]

Hopefully he can keep up their hissy fits in regards to Ivanka. That kind of crap is going to backfire on them big time in the midterms.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Doubt it.

[Suthenboy]

I think it will. Their asshole antics is a large part of why they lost the election. Hopefully they will keep it up and 2018 will be a total washout for them.

[Austrian Anarchy]

You people keep promising that and you rarely deliver. I'll believe it if it happens.

[Hyperion]

It happened in 2010 and 2014 and 2016. The Dems are going to get destroyed in 2018, the writing in already on the wall. And they're going to do everything they can to make it worse.

[Austrian Anarchy]

What tune is that you are whistling past the graveyard?

[PapayaSF]

Assuming Trump does not actually turn into New Hitler, and does a decent job, and there isn't some sort of Black Swan economic shock (highly possible), the GOP will do fine in 2018. Note that there will be 25 D Senate seats up for grabs, and only 8 R ones. And a lot of those 25 are in states Trump won.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Trump is a Democrat, he was always a Democrat. There were multiple Democrats running, including Johnson, and he was the one who won.

If anybody does not think these three are all of the same cloth, try distinguishing their economic ideas from other Democrats.

BYW, anybody who thinks this doesn't happen, please review good old Michael Rubens Bloomberg.

[Hyperion]

Meh. Trump's a populist. Can we at least wait a year of him being in office to decide 'what' exactly he really is, anyway? Modern day Democrats are communists. I don't really see Trump turning out to be much of a commie, even as terrible as he might turn out. And it really takes no effort at all for me to imagine that he'll be terrible.

[PapayaSF]

These days, what Democrats are talking about cutting taxes and regulations?

[Austrian Anarchy]

They talk about it during campaigns.

[PapayaSF]

What taxes and regulations did Hillary and Bernie talk about cutting? Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall any such talk.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Seems that the progs have the same problem as Roark (if I am understanding Roark right, never read Fountainhead). Somehow they just can't grasp the concept of property transfer.

If they wanted to retain control of the display of their work, they could have come up with a licensing framework or such.

[Heroic Mulatto]

In the story, Roark had an oral contract with Cortlandt; however, instead of testing the legality of the contract in court first, he decided to go from zero to ISIS in 60 seconds.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Ah, I did not know about that oral contract part. So my example is woefully inadequate.

[Suthenboy]

I used to shoot a lot of photography, even pro for a while. When I was in college I had a lot of models sit nude for me. We have an oral contract. I won't display any of their images or sell them without their consent but I own and keep the images.

In the decades since I have kept my end of the bargain even though some of those girls have gone on to become semi-famous and the images are probably worth a good bit of money. My word means more to me than money.

It seems to me that if Ivanka has been displaying the work and the artist had no objection they cant go back on that on a whim.

[Austrian Anarchy]

As a former prosecutor in the court of public opinion, I can say you are on safe ground.

[Hyperion]

Anyone here ever cook a duck? How do I cook this thing?

[Suthenboy]

Store bought or wild?

[Suthenboy]

Any chicken recipe works for duck. My brother wraps them in bacon, stuffs them with dressing, wraps them in foil and grills them. I cook them in a pressure cooker with onion, garlic and chicken stock then grind them up with some orange zest.

There is a million ways to cook them.

[Hyperion]

Thanks. I don't have a pressure cooker and it's raining, so I'm not grilling it. Well, I could cook it under the overhang, but it's chilly out. I'm going to cook it in the gas range. Well, I'm not, my wife is going to cook it, but she's never cooked duck before. We were looking for something different to cook on Christmas day, so we bought a duck. So I can tell her to just pretend it's a chicken?

[Suthenboy]

yeah, pretty much. It does fine in the oven.

Chipper's method below looks interesting. Season to taste.

Asked about wild because wild ones are tough as a shoe (why I pressure cook them).

[Hyperion]

Well, she sure knows how to cook chicken and game hen, and pretty much everything else, so I'm sure it will be fine.

Yeah, I take it that wild ducks have less fat too. My son also told me to keep the grease and fry potatoes in it. We keep the fat from everything, though, so that was already going to happen.

[Hyperion]

I just saw it flying by this morning, so I leaned out the window and shot it, (:. Store bought.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Is is a whole duck? Wild or domestic? Domestic ducks have a lot more fat on them, and so you have more leeway in fucking it up. The way I cook wild whole ducks is by heating a pan of olive oil, or duck fat from the tail, on high heat and searing the whole outside of the duck to brown it. Then I roast it in the oven to medium rare. Then I take it out and brown it again in a pan of olive oil. This is how you get a crispy skin. The worst sin? Overcooking the thing.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

If you want to cook the breasts by themselves cut them out with the skin and tie them with some twine into a nice roast. Then brown the outside and put into the oven until medium rare. Make orange sauce:

http://www.epicurious.com/reci.....nge-233535

The sauce is a bit of work but totally worth it.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Love orange duck. The 2nd best thing to do with duck.

Number 1 is duck noodles.

[GILMORE?]

The 2nd best thing to do with duck.

no, the first best thing is this

[Heroic Mulatto]

That fucking dog's laugh is probably what induced my misophonia.

Fuck that piece of shit in the neck.

[Suthenboy]

You can buy the orange sauce pre-made. Look in the condiment section of the grocery store or in the asian food section. It is just as good as any you make and a lot less trouble.

[Playa Manhattan.]

I know how you love the store-bought stuff

[Heroic Mulatto]

I'm guessing this is for Christmas, so you're looking to roast the thing.

Trim the wingtips and excess fat.
Rise the bird with cold water and then pat dry.
Pierce a series of small holes in the skin and fat but stop before you hit the meat.
Rub the bird with salt and pepper, inside and out.
Place breast-up in roasting pan.
Roast at 425 for around 3 hours.
When skin is crispy, it's done.
Let rest for 10-15 minutes before carving.

[Playa Manhattan.]

It's a trap. (((Heroic Mulatto))) doesn't celebrate Christmas.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Dammit! Exposed again!

No more pornography for you!

[The Fusionist]

Why a duck?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Because it's waterfowl, you twit! It'll hurt more!

[Hyperion]

Thanks to everyone for the tips on cooking this bird thing.

[DenverJ]

Duck is nasty. To me, it kind of tastes like liver, which is also nasty. If you are one of those strange people who like liver, you'd probably like duck, even though it tastes nasty.

[Suthenboy]

Next time you run across some liver or a duck let me know. I will take care of it for you.

[DenverJ]

Did you know that polar bear liver has so much vitamin A that it will kill you if you eat it?

[Hyperion]

It's not true. I ate 3 polar bear livers yesterday and I'm writing this right now.

[GILMORE?]

Well duh. You need to shoot the bear like, a lot first.

[Suthenboy]

Eating bear liver is a good way to get trichinosis.

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

"Eating bear liver is a good way to get trichinosis"

Why would you eat raw game?

[Suthenboy]

It doesnt have to be raw, just slightly undercooked, which people tend to do with liver to keep from making it tough.

[Austrian Anarchy]

The upside is you may get awesome night vision right before you die.

[Episteme]

So that you can see the Grim Reaper as he comes for you?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Hell yea, even in polar winter!

[Hyperion]

I like it. We get it sometimes at a local Thai restaurant.

[Playa Manhattan.]

Best meal I've ever had: Duck Carnitas.

No idea how they cooked it, other than it was mesquite smoked and glazed with sour orange.

[Hyperion]

Sounds good. I have to google that.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Mick Jagger?

[JayU]

Yeah, my old boss. He was "the best cooker of duck in the world."

Just make sure you get the *authentic Chinese duck sauce (which isn't a real thing.)

My old boss was a dipshit.

[Holger da Dane]

Thaw it out completely. Fill it with chopped up apples and prunes and rub salt/pepper into the skin.. Roast it in the oven on a rack at a reasonably low temperature (like 325) until the skin is crispy and you can easily rotate a drumstick in its socket. Probably takes 3 hours, depending on size.

Use the drippings to make a light/thin roux in a pan. Add enough black pepper so you can taste it, then finish it with cream and finally butter.

Serve with candied small yellow potatoes, mashed potatoes, and a few sour condiments like pickled red cabbage and beets. The sour cuts the richness.

Pick a nice robust red wine to go with it.

[Holger da Dane]

This assumes the duck is fat. You'll turn a wild duck into jerky probably.

Dessert protip: cook half a cup of -short- grain rice in 5 cups of whole milk and a pinch of salt, on low heat with frequent stirring, until nice and thick - Almost like oatmeal. Cool completely, preferably overnight in the fridge.

Mix half a cup of slivered almonds into this porridge and a tblspoon vanilla extract. Then whip half a pint of heavy cream and carefully fold the two together. Put it back in the fridge until you're ready to eat it.

Make a syrup from half sugar and half cherry juice, with a cup of pitted black cherries cooked in it. Thicken with corn starch. Port goes well in this step.

Serve the rice pudding cold and the cherry syrup warm, with a nice port or sherry.

[Holger da Dane]

Syrup with cherries go on topof the pudding. Obviously. Anything else would be barbaric.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

ooh I like the part about the acidic condiments. Sounds delightful and kind of Western-Europe old worldish.

[Holger da Dane]

Traditional Danish Christmas meal to be exact.

If you want more flavor in the gravy (not a euphenism!), you should consider making a bone in pork belly roast alongside everything. Keep the skin on, but score it and salt/pepper vigorously, put some cloves and bay leaves in the ridges you scored. It can roast along with the duck in the oven.

When the skin is crispy and the bones rotate freely, it's done.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

Oh nice. I've never run into "Scandinavian" fare that didn't agree with me. I'm gonna do all of these in the coming week.

[Holger da Dane]

Good luck. Keep plenty of alcohol on hand to thin your blood 🙂

Honestly this is probably as much French as it is Danish, but it's to Danish Christmas as turkey is to Thanksgiving. A goose works as well and serve more people.

Candied potatoes: http://www.favfamilyrecipes.co.....-potatoes/

Use fresh, not canned though. Boil them until they're done (but still firm), carefully peel the skin after they boil. Its better if you leave them in the fridge overnight to tighten up before caramelizing them.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

Thankfully I've never had canned potatoes in my life and never intended to in the future, unless you count corned beef hash. I'm good on the akvavit front, picked up variety packs at Ikea in Hong Kong to supplement my b?ska droppar cache. Ikea in the US carries no hard liquor from what I've seen, which disappoints and is dumb. Thanks for the recipes.

[Holger da Dane]

Yeah haven't seen akvavit in ikea. But it's a socialist state, which like Sweden herself, makes you go to "spritbolaget" for your booze.

Let me know sometime how everything turned out. Cooking basically the same thing right now.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

It's frustrating as hell/so niche to get ahold of anything but Linie or ?lborg in this area that sometimes I muse about researching the painful bureaucratic hurdles involved with starting up a new import biz focusing on the handful of domestic b?ska producers and importing different akvavit from Scandinavia at a hobby level of profit just to have access to this shit without having to fly over there. Even. If you know of any hookups (you're in NJ isn't it?) In the northeast that carries 750ml varieties of....whatever, it would probably be worth an annual 4 hour drive from New England to just have a few cases. My state, NH, operates a State monopoly board, so I think I may inquire with a store manager I know about possibly getting some "special orders" in. The availability of snaps in MA is pathetic too.

[Holger da Dane]

Close, Pennsyltucky. Only liquor white-listed by the state is sold here, no special orders. And driving out of state to buy booze is apparently considered smuggling.

Do you like bitters? Try getting some "gammel dansk" if you can. It will help you not having atomic indigestion after that fatty meal 😀

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

Ah, Central PA then I gather, from context? I have some friends that are from Harrisburg; only people I've ever heard call it Pennsyltucky in real life.

Yeah, I'm crazy about bitters and have a very large collection of Italian amari. Thanks for the reminder. I remember you had mentioned gammel dansk some time ago but I had forgotten about it. I'll memory box it this time.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

For some reason I just remembered an encounter that I had with this RN at an urgent care clinic I took my wife to about 2 years ago. This RN was originally from Denmark - had a BARELY distinguishable accent, you know, she might as well been from Minnesota or something. She indicated that a good proportion of Danes go to some kind of international school or something. Is there any substance to that?

Anyhow, really nice lady that seemed overly eager to talk to another foreigner (my wife, the patient at the time, is Hongkongese) and just would not shut the fuck up about how great hospitals and healthcare are in Denmark.

I kind of felt bad for her, since she's clearly been pretty homesick for decades, and essentially said she was only here since her husband's career isn't at all commutable to a counterpart position in Denmark. Her husband promised that they would be moving back for retirement, their son has a Danish passport, etc.

[Holger da Dane]

She must have been here a long time. Danish health care has deteriorated significantly since the 70s/80s. Dollar for dollar you get way faster and more technologically updated care here. But some people romanticize the whole thing.

Danish public schools teach foreign languages from an early age, it's the only way such a small country can survive in a big world. If only they taught economic literacy and didn't heavily edit history or political science.

[The Fusionist]

Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)

[PapayaSF]

And here's a Christmas song for everyone.

[The Fusionist]

Have a RUN-DMC Christmas

[The Fusionist]

The Dropkick Murphys drop some Christmas cheer

[Tonio]

Thanks for that, Eddie. Merry Christmas. [wedgies Eddie]

[Tonio]

A very Merry Christmas to all. Or Yule or Hannukah or Solstice or whatever.

Tonio's favorite Christmas Song: Fairytale of New York by The Pogues.

[Crusty Juggler]

Related: Michael Brendan Dougherty's loving deconstruction of Fairytale.

[Tonio]

Thank you for this.

[juris imprudent]

Not a Christmas song per se, but sometime between now and New Years you'll probably be feeling it.

Black 47: 40 Shades of Blue

[Tonio]

I've met him and talked with him briefly while he was autographing a CD for me.

[Ted S.]

Ah, but there are more shades of grey.

[The Fusionist]

Fifty Shades of Confederate Gray...if you're into bondage and discipline, this is the book for you!

[Ted S.]

I learned recently that Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love" was originally a Christmas song, and was reworked for Pretty Woman.

[DEG]

Excellent song.

Merry Christmas to all!

[The Fusionist]

Sid Vicious...isn't involved with this Telemann Christmas cantata

[Mike Schmidt]

A very Twisted Christmas to one and all

[The Fusionist]

Byzantine Hymn of the Nativity...in Arabic

[The Fusionist]

Here's a Christmas carol from Ukraine

[GILMORE?]

One of the more-bizarre "Black is White" arguments i've seen the NYT make =

Never Mind the recent US abstention to the UN resolution against Israel...which - rightly or wrongly - is wildly out of the norm for US historical behavior towards Israel.... Its Trump that could Create Serious Problems

Basically, their argument seems to be trying to spin Trump's 'un-nuanced' support towards Israel as potentially inflammatory towards our Arab allies.

Which, if you have even a passing knowledge of US history in the region, vis a vis Israel.... is patently ridiculous.

The argument seems to be that US behavior (like our policy w/ Taiwan + China) has always been necessarily two-faced; we need to 'support Israel', obviously, but ALSO make pretend-gestures about the long term need for Israeli-Palestinian compromise, and passively-poo-poo their settlements etc. so that we can continue to do what we've done for 40 years = go through a diplomatic kibuki drama where we pretend to mediate between them.

Because this process has gotten such great results, you see.

[GILMORE?]

....basically, if the US is too-'one sided' in support of Israel, the Israeli right-wing will feel they have carte blanche to steamroll over the pallys.... and if they do that, we'll lose our ability to "win-friends" with shitheels like the Saudis and Egyptians, who see the US as being a valuable moderator keeping the jews from being too-forceful.

The story doesn't really bother looking into the reality under Obama, where relations with the Israelis soured so badly that they were pretty much on course to do *exactly that* - completely fucking ignore the US, and steamroll the pallys.

The issue is that you can't arm-twist the Israelis if they dont think you're on their side. Under Obama, we lost all pull with them. If Trump is pretending to be Mr Bestest Friend of Israel ... its both because he needs to for his political base, and also because its actually necessary to repair relations in the wake of 8 years under Clinton/Kerry.

[PapayaSF]

But I thought Trump's base was KKK/alt-right, who don't like Jews??? /sarc

(Anti-Semitism is actually one of my beefs with parts of the alt-right.)

It's time for us give our Arab "allies" a hard time. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are big funders of ISIS etc., and are taking no Muslim refugees/migrants. Screw them.

[juris imprudent]

...our Arab allies

[blinks, takes off glasses, cleans them, puts them back on]

Who TF would that be?

[Hyperion]

All of the ones which are Western style governments and don't have any form of Shariah.

[Heroic Mulatto]

All of the ones which are Western style governments and don't have any form of Shariah.

So...Tunisia.

[Hyperion]

I'm surprised to learn that there's even one. No wonder the Tunisians want to run over people in trucks.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yep. The lonely only, with a functioning multiparty democracy and sharia banned since 195-something.

[Hyperion]

Infidels!

[GILMORE?]

Mr. Trump's clarion call supporting Israel on settlements and his promise to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem could easily stir new antipathy among the Sunni Arab states Mr. Netanyahu has been courting most, analysts said.

....

Most important, in his view and that of independent analysts, is the improvement of Israel's relations with its Arab neighbors, not just Egypt and Jordan, with which it has peace treaties, but with Sunni states like Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries.

While many of those states still maintain a public reserve about Israel, they have quietly collaborated in important ways out of a shared belief that the greater threat in the region is the theocratic Shiite leadership in Iran.

....

"It doesn't take a lot to imagine an American move that could provoke violence on the ground or just demonstrations on the ground with potential to become violent," said Tamara Cofman Wittes, a former State Department official who is now at the Brookings Institution's Center for Middle East Policy. "And that would not only create an Israeli-Palestinian crisis, but it would create a broader Israeli-Arab crisis."

[GILMORE?]

Who TF would that be?

mainly the aforementioned Saudis and Egyptians, and less so the 'quiet allies' like Jordan and the UAE

[GILMORE?]

More on the same theme =

Kerry Says Israel "Spawning" Terrorism With West Bank Behavior

Noted - this same 'blowback' theory apparently doesn't apply to US actions in Syria or Yemen or Somalia. Those places LOVE us!

and they totally love how we occasionally chastise the Israelis. It totally makes up for everything else we do.

A second thing - this insistence that the "Everyone agrees a 2-state Solution is the only way to Peace"?

the two state solution, which every U.S. administration for decades has agreed is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians

I don't disagree every Administration has said this for decades. That doesn't make it right, does it? as i said above - has it *worked*? No. has it improved things? No. Has it made anyone's lives any better? No.

Insisting that its the de-facto policy "just because" is the problem. No one seems to say, "its the best idea because it will work". They say its the best-idea because they're scared to even talk about the reality... which is that there will likely NEVER BE a palestinian state.

Everyone involved actually acts as though this is already accepted-wisdom. But no one in the diplomatic establishment will admit it.

[JayU]

In the abstract, I think it is the only solution that could actually lead to peace. Palestinians will never accept any government oversight with Jews in power.

But like you said, it probably will never happen. And even if it did, it still wouldn't lead to peace. We've already seen what happened after the Israelis gave all control of Gaza to the Palestinians.

[GILMORE?]

like you said, it probably will never happen. And even if it did, it still wouldn't lead to peace.

Basically, that's the point.

But pretending that its actually *possible* might be the greater impediment to 'peace'. What do we mean by peace anyway? Israel's existence is a constant reminder of the political impotence of the Arabs.

If we mean "respectful co-existence" between Israel and its neighbors....

....well, i think talking about "what Israel should/shouldn't do" isn't actually nearly as important as the shit they aren't talking about - which is = "Whether these other Arab states will actually survive in their present form".

Syria and Egypt both imploded in the last decade, and it wasn't because of anything Israel did. Iraq was smashed to bits and re-formed into a Shia client-state to Iran. Yemen is in the middle of being rejiggered. Pretty much every Arab state is more concerned with their own existential issues since the Arab-spring. Worry about Israel is like the least of their fucking problems.

Which is partly why Obama's silly decision to pretend that the UN's perennial "resolutions" actually matter is really just helping a very-shitty status quo be perpetuated. Its not an agent of change. The change is all happening on the Arab side,. and the US's involvement in that mess is perpetually being swept under the rug...while tut-tutting Israel, Like THEY are somehow more to blame.

[JayU]

Yeah, I think "peace" just means no murdering in the streets. Or at least, only the very occasional murdering.

Jefferson said it about black people in America. You can free the slaves, but the resentment will go on forever.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

I have a proposal for peace.
1. Israel invades Palestinian territories
2. Israel bulldozes their mud huts
3. Israel sends them packing to their oh so welcoming Arab neighbors territory.
4. Israel builds a bigger wall around all of their new territory.

It's more realistic than the shit about two states.

[GILMORE?]

It's more realistic than the shit about two states.

Its also a fairly uncontroversial description of what has already happened while the Kibuki-dance of US-diplomats about "peace processes" has gone on in the background.

The "drag negotiation out for 3 decades" approach to 'peace' is really just a way to distract people while one side establishes its own facts on the ground.

All the UN's "condemnations" don't do anything either, other than give UN members political cover to assuage their anti-Israel constituents.

[The Fusionist]

The Times and others can jack off all they want to fantasies of Middle East peace, but the reality is that there are so many on the anti-Israel side who want to make Israel go away and who use insincere concern-trolling about the Palestinians as an item in their anti-Israel toolbox, that it's hard for real-world denizens to deal in terms of a bilateral peace process.

[GILMORE?]

there are so many on the anti-Israel side who want to make Israel go away and who use insincere concern-trolling about the Palestinians as an item in their anti-Israel toolbox

I don't know if a lot of the average "pro-palestinian college kids" really want to make Israel go away. Or many of the culturally-anti-Israel Europeans (which one could interpret as 'antisemitism' in various degrees of being watered-down) either.

basically, i think for a lot of "the left", being Anti-Israel is just sort of a fashionable posture.

I think the Israel-Palestinian conflict has for a long time been something like

"the easiest Foreign Policy Issue thing to know absolutely nothing about, and yet still have strong opinions about"

...i mean, its been going on as long as I've been alive. And the baby boomers as well. (If you start with 1966 instead of 1947). We're on 3 generations now of it being the #1 international-relations Spectator Sport.

From my POV, what's interesting about it is not the conflict-itself, but rather the US's posturing relative to it.

I think politicians in the US have basically been pretending to mimic Jimmy Carter for the last 40 years, because they don't know what else to do. Its basically a lack of political imagination.

[The Fusionist]

Cherubic Hymn - St. Josaphat Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Cathedral, Parma, Ohio - Christmas 2012

[cavalier973]

My YouTube Christmas Music Playlist

[Fist of Etiquette]

Reason bless us, everyone.

[Tonio]

Now more than any time in recent memory do we most need the guidance which reason provides.

[Hyperion]

I had this dream that Postrel came back, took over, banned comments, and sent the comments archive to Preet for perusal.

[Tonio]

Ia, Ia...

[Ted S.]

You probably dream about her being a dominatrix, don't you? :-p

[Hyperion]

No, but that would have been less of a nightmare.

[Suthenboy]

A nightmare?

Postrel, from my memory, was a hottie. Picturing her in leather, pantless with nipple clips on holding a riding crop kinda gives me a woody even though I am more the dom type than the sub. For her I might make an exception. Oh wait, no doubt I am one of the deplorables that keeps her from reading here so she probably wouldn't go for it.

Hell, it's not even 4 and I am drunk.

[The Fusionist]

Here's Virginia Postrel and her husband Steve at a party - I think the theme of the party was "H&R commenters are not invited."

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

From your party link, Eddie - it would be fun to go through all the pictures and try to figure out which partygoer voted for Trump.

My guess: no one.

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

"Postrel, from my memory, was a hottie. "

Nope. Just no, sorry, uh uh.

Your memory is way faulty.

She's fuckable, I guess, for being old, but hottie is just plain wrong.

[Hyperion]

I really do not appreciate the way she spoke about the H&R commentariat. She has no standing to do so. If you're going to talk down to a specific group, at least make sure that there's one of them that is not more intelligent than you are. Nuff said.

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

^100% agreed. Took the words out of my mouth.

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

I think he's talking about his memory of the dream.

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

Naw.

[Lord Rollingpin]

A happy Christmas to the commentariate, the people who make Reason reasonable.
I guess a hat tip the the guys n gals that pen the articles wouldn't be out of order too.

[Ted S.]

They don't give us hat-tips, why should we give them hat-tips?

[Lord Rollingpin]

It's Christmas, I'm feeling generous, even to our resident trolls.

[Jerryskids]

I remember as a kid, lying in bed waiting for Santa to come?then there'd be that awkward silence as he got dressed and left.

Merry Christmas, ya reprobates.

[PapayaSF]

LOL

[Warty]

BROWNS WIN BROWNS WIN BROWNS WIN BROWNS WIN BROWNS WIN BROWNS WIN BROWNS WIN FUCK YOU BROWNS WIN BROWNS WIN FUCK ART MODELL FUCK YOU BROWNS WIN

Merry fucking Christmas, you idiots. Enjoy your fucking lakes and your fucking turkey and shit. Eat more meat, shoot more guns, take your Adderall. Life is good.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I don't think that is triggering enough.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Few love shit as much as you, Warty.

Merry XMas.

[The Fusionist]

So do the Browns have to dig that guy up now?

[AlmightyJB]

Jimmy Hoffa?

[The Fusionist]

The guy who said they should let him down again.

[AlmightyJB]

It takes the Chargers to make the Browns look good. My boss was at that game. Well soon to be ex-boss as I got word yesterday she's moving to another department which sucks for me because she's awesome.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

Would?

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

WOULD?

[AlmightyJB]

All day

[Atanarjuat]

I took 3 once for a solo road trip. It made me weirdly emotional. Not really interested in using it again. Shooting more guns will happen, just introduced my son to .22 LR last weekend. Better late than never, he's already 10.

[DenverJ]

I still have three presents to buy. One of them is a book. I don't know what to get the other two people, but I'm going to a book store and don't feel the need to make extra stops, so... I'm guessing the other two people are getting books. Or something else from Barnes and Noble. Some of those sales clerks are pretty cute, maybe I'll pick up a present for me, too 😉

[AlmightyJB]

Yeah, I hit the B&N last Friday for books for everyone and stocking stuffers in the form of magazines, bookmarks, and the like. Magazines are nice because they have something of interest for everyone.

[Holger da Dane]

Magazines are awesome get the PMAG D-60, it runs great!

[AlmightyJB]

I don't really trust drums. I do like my PMAG AR30 and SR20 mags:)

[Holger da Dane]

It's a novelty, but it runs incredibly well. You have a constitutional duty to have a few high capacity magazines along with your standard capacity 30 rounders.

[Ted S.]

I finished my Christmas shopping back in October. I just bought everybody bargain-bin DVDs off of Amazon. Well, except for Dad who's getting part of a case of wine I bought.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Thanks to you all, the commenters who make my days at work slightly less unbearable.

Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwazy Kwanzaa, a Tip-Top Tet, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan.

[AlmightyJB]

Yes, it's comforting to know all you deplorable contrarians are out there being flies in the ointment.

[The Fusionist]

The Christmas spirit even infects the media. Behold:

"Although clearly a conservative by conviction himself, the bishop was diplomatic, warm and kindly."

[Austrian Anarchy]

Another Christmas without killer bees. 🙁

When is Bailey going to get on that one?

[GILMORE?]

Christmas without killer bees. 🙁

Nonsense. A Wu-Tang Christmas is always a popular rerun

[Austrian Anarchy]

No bro, I mean in reality killer bees attacking New Orleans, and Miami, etc.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

Killer bee hysteria is racist, if I recall correctly.

[Austrian Anarchy]

I don't remember any racism in this documentary. This has to be the most ignord issue in science today.

[The Fusionist]

It wasn't racist, it was the bee's knees.

[Austrian Anarchy]

You know who else thought racism was the bee's knees?

[Tonio]

Irish? [tears up]

[Christmas Cuck, Jr.]

One of the true losses of 2016.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

Is he ever coming back?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Well, tou know what they say about never going back ...

[Ted S.]

So he dreamt he went to Manderley again last night?

[GILMORE?]

killer bees attacking New Orleans, and Miami

huh.

Well, they're still nice places to visit. #hurricanes+stonecrab

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

Has anyone else noticed Gilmore's posts look a lot like Hihn's.

[Libya is a NATO success story!]

Not suggesting anything, just noticed the formatting looks similar.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

Gilmore and Hihn are also remarkably close on the Nolan Chart that indicates that libertarians have held a majority in America since 1972. If not for the anti-government libertarians stupidly opposing the ACA, the LP would have a permanent majority at every level of government.

[GILMORE?]

I bold a lot, i parenthesis a lot, i ad-hoc-punctuate a lot.

Its a habit of having lots of long conversations in message boards. an attempt at "vocal emphasis" in print.

unlike Hihn, i don't (snigger) or repeat the same shit over and over and over and over.

[Suthenboy]

Hihn is not sane. You are.

I feel bad for the guy. He's not the only one. We have a couple of nuts around here but you aren't one of them Gil.

[GILMORE?]

We have a couple of nuts around here but you aren't one of them Gil.

(wipes tear from eye)

Merry Christmas to you as well.

[Number.6]

OT, but this might remind us all of another highlight of 2016. Rachael Dolezal:

Uncle Ludvik

[SIV]

Before GarJo wrapped up the nomination

GarJo? It's GayJay. A Root/Marrou ticket would have been far more libertarian than Johnson/Weld.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

Wayne Allyn Root is a cunt. No more advice please, DarrellFan1948. Kthx

[R C Dean]

It is a season of miracles. Tucson is looking at a white Christmas this year.

[Suthenboy]

The last time I was in Tucson it snowed. I was in school.

Damn, did I just give away my age?

[Ted S.]

We had rain much of the day.

[R C Dean]

Snow on the mountains this morning, none in town.

I can see snow, so I'm calling it. White Christmas.

We skated home from Sedona just ahead of the storm.

Merry Christmas to all!

[Rothbard'sbitch]

I was actually thinking of moving to Sedona and or Prescott. I assume you live nearby. I was actually shocked to see it is one of the most conservative towns in Arizona I thought it would be filled with dirty hippies. Is there a libertarian group/community in the area?

[Jimmy Free Trade Pirate]

Merry Christmas sluts, and homos.

Wave you middle fingers in the air.

=D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6mll8rgDSI

[Tonio]

Kewl.

[SIV]

Jesus Is The Reason For The season

[Heroic Mulatto]

No, the Steam Winter Sale is the reason for the season, homo.

[Pat (PM)]

For reasons having nothing to do with politics or the election, 2016 has been unequivocally the worst year of my life so far and I'll be happy to see the back of it even if the change is mostly symbolic.

[Tonio]

Sorry, bro. Even if you are the worst sort of scum. You know, an Hotel Amper Romeo commentator.

[The Fusionist]

A very Puritan Christmas, or, put down the mistletoe and come out with your hands up

"...on 10 June [1647], parliament...passed an ordinance which declared the celebration of Christmas to be a punishable offence. On 25 December 1647, there was further trouble at Bury, while pro-Christmas riots also took place at Norwich and Ipswich. During the course of the Ipswich riot, a protestor named 'Christmas' was reported to have been slain ? a fatality which could be regarded as richly symbolic, of course, of the way that parliament had 'killed' Christmas itself.

"In London, a crowd of apprentices assembled at Cornhill on Christmas Day, and there "in despite of authority, they set up Holly and Ivy" on the pinnacles of the public water conduit. When the lord mayor despatched some officers "to pull down these gawds," the apprentices resisted them, forcing the mayor to rush to the scene with a party of soldiers and to break up the demonstration by force.

"The worst disturbances of all took place at Canterbury, where a crowd of protestors first smashed up the shops which had been opened on Christmas Day and then went on to seize control of the entire city. This riot helped to pave the way for a major insurrection..."

[Tonio]

Jesus Fucking Christ, Eddie. Give it a bloody rest, will you? I mean it's Christmas 2016 and all. Yeah, the roundhead vs squarehead thing be settled, yo.

Have another drink. Play in the snow. Rearrange your Nativity Scene. Light your Xmas Tree, whatevs.

[The Fusionist]

I thought it was amusing.

The media likes to discuss these things with their "wanna see what a *real* war on Christmas looks like?" stories.

[Holger da Dane]

They're just day dreaming.

[Jerry on the sea]

Yes, let's get this party started.

[The Fusionist]

Busted!

"...in 1657, during the Commonwealth and Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell that followed the Civil War, John Evelyn wrote in his diary:

"'I went to London with my wife, to celebrate Christmas day, Mr Gunning preaching in Exeter chapel ? . Sermon ended, as he was giving us the Holy Sacrament, the chapel was surrounded with [Parliamentarian] soldiers, and all the communicants and assembly surprised and kept prisoner by them ? . It fell to my share to be confined to a room ?, where yet I was permitted to dine with the master of it ? and some others of quality who invited me. In the afternoon came Colonel Whalley, Goffe, and others ? to examine us one by one; some they committed to the marshal, some to prison. When I came before them, they took my name and abode, examined me why, contrary to the ordinance made, that none should any longer observe the superstitious time of the nativity (so esteemed by them), I durst offend ?, and ? pray for Charles Stuart ? . I told them we did not pray for Charles Stuart, but for all kings, princes, and governors. They replied ? with other frivolous and ensnaring questions, and much threatening; and, finding no color to detain me, they dismissed me with much pity of my ignorance'."

[Suthenboy]

Tonio is right. Give it a rest.

The 'you cant say merry Xmas' crowd just gets a middle finger these days. Anyone who tried to actually stop Xmas celebrations by force these days would be met with a zillion guys like me (non-Xians).

Relax, you are safe.

[The Fusionist]

Honestly, I really wasn't worried about Cromwell stopping my Christmas, I simply thought the John Evelyn diary entry was interesting.

[The Fusionist]

Never mind the election, this strikes me as the most unexpected news item of the year:

Spike in eggnog sales could lead to Christmas shortage

[Suthenboy]

Or you could just make your own.

[Holger da Dane]

I dont think this is a very satisfying sentence, considering it involves the words "spike" and "eggnog".

[EDG reppin LBC]

The wife and i are sipping eggnog, looking at the norad santa tracker, listening to rock n roll Christmas tunes, and looking at used cars on the internet.

[The Fusionist]

Bottom story of the day

[Derpetologist]

Kilt-wearing Santa plays flame-shooting bagpipes while riding unicycle

Libertarian party officials hope to hire the performer as a spokesman who can repair some of the damage done to the party by Bill Weld.

Today I learned the Santa-NORAD thing started when a kid called a misprinted phone number in a catalog. The number led to an Air Force base in Colorado Springs and the duty airman who picked up assured the kid that Santa was OK and they were tracking him on radar.

I always thought the Santa thing was more for parents & adults than kids. They seem to enjoy it the most.

[Suthenboy]

Kilt wearing Santa with flame shooting bagpipes on a unicycle to repair their image.

*facepalm*

I don't think this will have the effect they are hoping for.

[Derpetologist]

Perhaps I should have put a sarcasm tag. Libertarian party officials aren't planning to hire a kilt-wearing, unicycle-riding, flame-piping Santa as a spokesman, But it would be pretty cool if they did, and such a person would bring a lot more positive attention to libertarians than Bill Weld.

[Suthenboy]

Anyone would bring more positive attention than Weld. Even Vermin Supreme.

The Johnson campaign was an unmitigated disaster.

[Christmas Cuck, Jr.]

Yes, Weld sucked. He sucks now, and will suck as long as suckage continues to suck. He'll suck into the afterlife.

But in a year where dissatisfaction with Team Purple was never greater, Johnson/Weld garnered 3.3% of the popular vote. 5% could have happened this year, and the Aleppo Gaffe was a far greater blow against the LP getting 5% than anything Weld did.

[The Fusionist]

"I don't think this will have the effect they are hoping for."

No, they'd need a *stripper* playing flame-shooting bagpipes.

[straffinrun]

Kid, wife and I got up at 7:00 and opened our presents. An atheist, Buddhist and mongrel offspring celebrating a Christian* holiday. Unfortunately, being Japan, I've got to go to the office for a bit. Y'all enjoy your day and Merry Christmas!

[Suthenboy]

Merry Christmas Straffin. When are you going to give us your thoughts on why Trump won? Or did I miss it?

[__Warren__]

Wait, Trump won!?!?!?!

[straffinrun]

Fine, I'll give you the reason. Trump won because he was a reaction to policies which certain people objected to and it was this passion that drove them to the polls. At the end of the day, Hillary wasn't able to connect with the people she needed to pull the lever for her.

Merry Christmas, Suthen. One of these days I'll try one of those recipes you've posted.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

After all that build-up, this is like masturbating for 30 minutes and then having someone walk in on you right before you finish.

[__Warren__]

If you lock eyes with them it's absolutely amazing!

[straffinrun]

You're saying it worked? My explanation of the alt-right is equally as insightful.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

Well, you left me quite backed up.

In the spirit, I'll share stories about two of Brochettaward's favorite chronic masturbators. Both from the military.

Waking up one morning in the field at JRTC, several members of our platoon noticed a strange hand motion coming from underneath one soldier's sleeping bag in his crotch area. It was a strange, furious motion, and the soldier had his eyes intensely closed. One NCO shouted at him to stop jerking off - that we could all see him. He opened his eyes, and his hand stopped moving momentarily. He strongly denied that he was doing any such thing, and as people began to argue with him we all noticed his hand continued to periodically move underneath his bag. Not wanting to lose his erection, he had continued to slowly pleasure himself even denied it.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

The second soldier was a lifelong Specialist/E-4 with a stutter who wore a belt with a metallic buckle that he apparently earned after serving with the Marines in Najaf. Beyond his speech impediment, he also happened to be nearly deaf from years of tanking. He had a reputation as a rather frequent masturbator from anyone who had shared a room with him. Shortly after moving into the trailers we all slept in on deployment, he closed his privacy curtain. Within 15 minutes his roommates heard this strange repetitive sound: "Ting ting ting...ting ting ting...ting." For several weeks, this sound would periodically haunt them until one day they peaked to see what was going on.

The soldier had his hands in his pants, and eyes closed as he whacked it. He was too deaf to hear the sounds that his belt buckle made as he did so. No one had the heart to ever tell him, though they'd occasionally shout (repeatedly, because he was so deaf) over asking him what the noise was which would make him stop. At least temporarily as usually within minutes the sound would start up again. "Ting...ting ting."

[GILMORE?]

This is like "SugarFree Joins the Army"

[straffinrun]

Yeah, a new yoofemism: Bucklepolishing.

[DEG]

"Not wanting to lose his erection, he had continued to slowly pleasure himself even denied it."

Priorities.

[Ted S.]

On a Sunday?

[straffinrun]

Yep. If the boss is going in, I'm going in. Purely voluntarily, though. (Not). At least my daughter forced me to wear the most wonderfully hideous sweater I've ever seen. Bless her heart, that present of hers looks like the bastard child of Bill Cosby and Payne Stewart.

[Ted S.]

So you're going to be wearing plus-fours, too?

[GILMORE?]

a Christian* holiday

i'm sure somewhere there's some faux-intellectual rant about how its actually a CAPITALIST holiday which has co-opted religion for its nefarious purposes of funneling traditionally-grounded pagan human goodwill into some corporate-exploited exercise which drains the working people of valuable time they could otherwise be spending contemplating a proletariat revolution against the ruling classes.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

I was going to overthrow the bourgeoisie, but I had to buy presents for the wife.

[Derpetologist]

Merry Xmas, Gil

All I want for Christmas is liberation from the capitalist patriarchy

The reduction of our fight for liberation to knit uteruses and pink pillows is a shame. I say, for the feminist woman in your life, get her an Audre Lorde book or subscription to Ms. Magazine. Because feminism is for life, not just for Christmas.

[GILMORE?]

feminism is for life

I'd love to read a Feminist's version of Jack London's "To Build a Fire"

It would end with something like, "....It seems Prince Fluffers has finally decided to go seek aid from authorities, which i had been encouraging him to do for at least an hour now, as my efforts to shame this pile of wood into spontaneous combustion have so far been for naught, leading me to speculate on the inherent patriarchy of an intemperate climate...."

[westernsloper]

Beyond FGM, or child brides, or rape-as-a-war-tactics ? issues that seem to exist largely outside the sphere of most Western women ? And I am too weak to go outside without makeup and that is way more important because it is my feelings and sometimes women get raped in the Western countries too, so all men are evil pigs.

[The Fusionist]

"As a feminist, I've always had a child-with-her-hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar feeling about wearing makeup ? it's something I know I'm against, but do anyway, with a hint of guilt, hoping none of my friends see the numerous tubes and bottles of paint hidden away in my bathroom."

I used to think Catholics had the whole guilt thing sewed up, but this...

[Sevo]

The Rams stand with Hillary!

[Ted S.]

San Francisco didn't want the #1 pick.

How about the injuries to Tyler Lockett and Derek Carr?

[Sevo]

"How about the injuries to Tyler Lockett and Derek Carr?"

Didn't see Lockett, but turned of the damn TV after the 3rd or 4th replay of Carr's leg
"For our viewers who really enjoy watching someone suffer a serious injury, we'll replay this every two minutes for the next half hour! Enjoy!"
For pete's sake, I got it. Give it a REST!

[westernsloper]

I didn't see Carr's, but Locketts was cringe worthy.

[Ted S.]

Here is Lockett's injury. Warning: it's gruesome

[Sevo]

I'll take your word for it, thanks.

[Sevo]

Speaking of gruesome, how about the shots of Mark Davis? Jabba the Hut with a bowl-cut!

[EDG reppin LBC]

Yeah. Weird looking dude. But he seems earnest in trying to build a Super Bowl quality team. God bless him, and RIP Al Davis.

Merry Christmas to all Raiders fans.

Fuck Michigan! Wait, not today; Merry Christmas Michigan!

[westernsloper]

Oh see, it is just, "Merry Christmas to all Raiders fans" when everybody else is, "Merry Christmas to all".

Raiders fans are leather and spike helmet wearing mean people. Merry Christmas even to the Raider fans.

/Bronco Fan

[EDG reppin LBC]

Merry Christmas to all. Even Broncos fans.

[Sevo]

EDG reppin LBC|12.24.16 @ 9:21PM|#
"Yeah. Weird looking dude. But he seems earnest in trying to build a Super Bowl quality team."

He's hung around his dad and the team long enough to be knowledgeable about what it takes to build a good team; hire good people and let 'em do their jobs (unlike his dad).
But he also learned civic extortion at daddy's knee. He'll be playing Oakland and LV off against each other until he gets the best deal.
Not a shining example, but you also have to understand neither daddy nor Mark have any real money; they own a valuable property but not much else.

[EDG reppin LBC]

As a SoCal Raiders fan, I would love a Las Vegas Raiders team. I mean, gambling, booze, football, shitshow, an easy 3.5 hour drive away. Yeah.

And yes, I understand he's extorting taxpayers and all the other very non-libertarian bullshit that goes with the nfl. But from a personal fun adult time perspective. Yes. Vegas. Merry Christmas.

[EDG reppin LBC]

Carr will be ok. Go Raiders!

[Derpetologist]

wiki: NORAD Santa history

The NORAD Tracks Santa program began as an annual event on December 24, 1955. According to legend, a Sears department store placed an advertisement in a Colorado Springs, Colorado, newspaper which told children that they could place a call to Santa Claus and included the number ME 2-6681.[4] A call allegedly came through to Colorado Springs' Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center as one digit was misprinted.[5]

In some versions of the story, the calls were coming in to the "red telephone" hotline that connected CONAD directly to command authorities at the Strategic Air Command. Colonel Harry Shoup, who was a Crew Commander on duty, answered the first call and supposedly told his staff to give all children who called in later a "current location" for Santa Claus.[6]

A more accurate description of the events of 1955 appears to be that on November 30 a child trying to reach Santa Claus on a hotline number provided in a Sears advertisement misdialed the number and instead reached Shoup at his desk at CONAD. Shoup responded gruffly to the child, and no additional Santa Claus-related calls came in to CONAD.[3][7]

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

'Tis the season to spread joy. In that spirit, I'll share stories about two of Brochettaward's favorite chronic masturbators. Both from the military.

Waking up one morning in the field at JRTC, several members of our platoon noticed a strange hand motion coming from underneath one soldier's sleeping bag in his crotch area. It was a strange, furious motion, and the soldier had his eyes intensely closed. One NCO shouted at him to stop jerking off - that we could all see him. He opened his eyes, and his hand stopped moving momentarily. He strongly denied that he was doing any such thing, and as people began to argue with him we all noticed his hand continued to periodically move underneath his bag. Not wanting to lose his erection, he had continued to slowly pleasure himself even denied it.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

The second soldier was a lifelong Specialist/E-4 with a stutter who wore a belt with a metallic buckle that he apparently earned after serving with the Marines in Najaf. Beyond his speech impediment, he also happened to be nearly deaf from years of tanking. He had a reputation as a rather frequent masturbator from anyone who had shared a room with him. Shortly after moving into the trailers we all slept in on deployment, he closed his privacy curtain. Within 15 minutes his roommates heard this strange repetitive sound: "Ting ting ting...ting ting ting...ting." For several weeks, this sound would periodically haunt them until one day they peaked to see what was going on.

The soldier had his hands in his pants, and eyes closed as he whacked it. He was too deaf to hear the sounds that his belt buckle made as he did so. No one had the heart to ever tell him, though they'd occasionally shout (repeatedly, because he was so deaf) over asking him what the noise was which would make him stop. At least temporarily as usually within minutes the sound would start up again. "Ting...ting ting."

[straffinrun]

My dilemma is whether I will visualize the 30 year Japanese gal or the 23 y/o Chinese gal (both in the office today) tonight while getting snuggly with the wife tonight.

[The Fusionist]

Put this in your spank bank.

[The Fusionist]

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger,
Click the link and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

[EDG reppin LBC]

Now, call me crazy if you want to, but why not visualize both?

[straffinrun]

Your advice is suspiciously excellent.

[DEG]

Take EDG's advice.

[Akira]

I used to work at an auto parts plant, and there were always contractors in there for everything from machine installation to painting the walls.

There was this scruffy guy - I believe he was a painter - sitting on a bench at the outdoor smoking area. This cute 18-year old girl walked by, and this dude gets this dopey grin on his face and sticks his hand down the front of his pants, right there in front of everybody. Women were running away screaming, guys were yelling at him to cut it out, and he was just staring at this poor girl and whacking it the whole time.

[DEG]

I'm not sure why, last night, I forgot this story. Now I remember it.

Not too long after I started my current job, the CFO forwarded an e-mail from the office park's property manager. She added at the beginning, "This is really awkward." The property manager's e-mail was about a guy masturbating while sitting in his car while it was parked on the property.

A few days later she forwards another e-mail from the property manager. A guard had seen the masturbating guy, confronted him, and got him to leave. The guy was told he would be arrested for trespassing if he ever showed up on the property again.

Later I heard some details of what happened. A security guard saw the guy sitting in his car in a parking lot on the property, and the guy was masturbating. The security guard asked the guy if he worked for a company on the property. The guy claimed he did. The security guard asked which company. The guy couldn't answer. I remember thinking, as I heard the details, "What a dumbass. There are plenty of signs around the property with the names of the companies here." The security guard told the guy he had to leave because he is trespassing. The guy continued to insist he worked at a company on the property. The guard called the cops. A cop showed up, and the guy confessed to not working on the property. The guard and the cop told him to leave or he'd be arrested for trespassing, and to never come back. The guy left.

[DEG]

No details about whether or not the guy continued to masturbate during this exchange.

I did not hear what happened to the cop for not shooting, beating, or arresting anyone. I'm certain if anything bad came of that, the union took care of him.

[Zero Sum Game]

The guy maintained eye contact the whole time. That's how you establish dominance over the cops so they have no desire to arrest. That and they don't want to have to clean the cuffs later.

[Brian]

Merry Christmas, you beautiful bastards.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

I love that you love my beautiful morning breath. *huff huff* Merry Marry Xmas!

[GamerFromJump]

Does anyone have advice on an alternative to ieet.org? They used to be an interesting place to go for reading about the ethical questions posed by advancing technology, where you might get something besides the deathist "ban everything" that is usual. I just had to skip David Brin's socialist scribbling. But they have gone so far left now that it's almost intolerable. When they started linking The Young Turks, that's when I knew it was time to leave. So, any advice?

[The Fusionist]

O'Hanlon's Irish Pub. Wait for Patrick the Lush to arrive, he'll philosophize about *anything.*

[GILMORE?]

ieet.org?

(looks at it... remembers having been there once before,,,,)

there was someone associated with that place who popped up a year or two ago ...maybe someone on their advisory board... i can't remember what it was but it was something breaking new ground in "You need a PhD to say shit this stupid". None of the names ring a bell, unfortunately.

re: "alternatives". You should ask Ron Bailey. He'll know.

now you've made me want to scan their blog to find out what's supposed to be interesting....

A breakdown of how the taxes of a person making 50,000 a year is spent proves how little money actually goes to help people and how much goes to corporations

Mmm? (looks) Oh, ok they define "tax breaks" to companies as being "paid" by taxpayers. Not taking is giving. Shocker.

How the Trump Election and Social Media Externalized America's Dormant Hate

uh huh. You said this blog is about "science" or something?

[PapayaSF]

IEET is a very tiny 501c3 with a transhumanist orientation. They do lean left in some ways.

[GILMORE?]

If that sort of stuff interests you, maybe you should try this =

How I maintain neutrality when dealing w complex info structures & data hierarchies/subsystems

I think its very similar in theme and method

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

Try Corax for general news. Don't know much about it, but apparently they post submitted news links. There's some crazy stuff, some ordinary stuff, but most I like it for having enough interesting news that's not covered by the MSM or the usual conspiracy sites.

[The Fusionist]

This very special link is for any libertarian women who may be around.

[The Fusionist]

Wow, that went down like a lead zeppelin.

[Sevo]

The crab this evening was about the sweetest in memory. We are told we typically get crab one day out of the water and live until cooked some hours before we chow down, so while time is really important with sea food, this seems pretty consistent. That leaves me guessing the diet would determine the difference (assuming I'm not fooling myself about these).
Well, they are omnivorous, which complicates matters in that it's not just where wee-beasty X breeds around the Golden Gate, it's where they do and some particular seaweed grows, too.
Seems a crabber could 'brand' his/her (yes, there are fem fishers) crab as sourced from "The ["Carneros"] region of the Gulf of the Farallons". But then the trade is pretty unionized or at least 'cartelized' in that the fishing licenses are at least as well controlled at taxi medallions.
Would anyone chance breaking from the pack, putting together a marketing program and asking an extra $0.75/lb?
Dreaming of a commercial Christmas...

[EDG reppin LBC]

Went to the R&G Lounge in San Francisco two years ago. We ate 7 pounds of the salt and pepper fried crab. It was pretty fucking good. There were 4 of us. But we had buffalo chili at a different place before that. Plus a bunch of beers. And some cocktails. And pommes frites. Oh yeah, we wandered around SF and ate and drank for pretty much twelve hours straight.
It was really cold that day. Like in the low 30's. Fun times.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

It was really cold that day. Like in the low 30's.

What were you doing there mid-summer?

[Sevo]

That's COLD, sloopy!

[Sevo]

And multiple puns intended.

[Ted S.]

He's a cold-hearted snake.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

You prefer this shit to Tevin Campbell? *spit*

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

a crabber could 'brand'

A laser etcher (yes I am ignoring your quotes on purpose) is unfortunately a nonproprietary gimmick that would probablydefinitely spark outrage with the PETA crowd.

Quasi-kidding aside, ounds like a cute gimmick for an entrenched player.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

If the Buckeyes win the Fiesta Bowl twice in 2016 after beating TTUN and sending Harbaugh into a meltdown worthy of a Clinton aide (he is now 0-2 in the game and they'll be hard pressed to even compete with OSU next year), it will be a fantastic year.

[EDG reppin LBC]

Indeed. Merry Christmas buddy!

[sloopyinTEXAS]

You too, my very good friend.

Just got everything assembled and now I'm off to sleep so I can wake up at 5. Tell the wife we love you guys.

[You ARE a Prog (MJG)]

Merry Fucking Christmas!

You infidelic pagan scum.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I believe you mean laeta dies natalis Solis Invicti, no?

[Lowdog]

Happy holidays from the space coast. The commentariat here is the best.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Ha! Ha! Ha!

[EDG reppin LBC]

Rufus is drunk. Tomorrow, the RCMP is gonna find him passed out in a snow bank, in long johns, with an empty bottle of scnapps and a half eaten pepperoni stick. Merry Christmas Rufus!

[Rufus The Monocled]

Scnapps? Crown Regal Rye!

[DEG]

Sounds like a hell of a night.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Yeh. I called it Regal! Crown ROYAL!

[EDG reppin LBC]

Merry Boxing Day, bud!

[Sevo]

Two pieces of music I cannot miss over the holidays:

Waltz of the Flowers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg1dMpu4v7M
If you can listen to that and NOT end up 'conducting', I think you missed the point.

Ludvig Van, Ode to Joy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kcOpyM9cBg
Which was written as secular and got lyrics pasted on; still WONDERFUL!

The Solstice has passed, the days are growing longer, there is reason for joy! Celebrate, eat, drink and be merry!

[Rufus The Monocled]

Caddyshack! Wooo!

[GILMORE?]

Ludvig Van, Ode to Joy....
Which was written as secular and got lyrics pasted on; still WONDERFUL!

I don't know how you write "Secular" music. Do you avoid using "G"?

fwiw, to my memory the music was written *for* the "lyrics" (poem), which pre-dated the 9th symphony, not the other way around.

[DEG]

I think Gilmore is correct.

[Sevo]

"I don't know how you write "Secular" music. Do you avoid using "G"?"
Write it without superstitious baggage. Is that difficult?

"to my memory the music was written *for* the "lyrics" (poem), which pre-dated the 9th symphony, not the other way around"
I stand corrected; what I read some time back was obviously in error.

[GILMORE?]

Write it without superstitious baggage. Is that difficult?

My point was that music isn't "written" in any literal sense. Its just sound. You might as well call a ham sandwich "Secular".

[DEG]

I saw a most excellent performance of Beethoven's 9th at the Musikverein last year. It is an excellent song.

[Ted S.]

I prefer the 7th.

[andytaylor545hghh]

I'm using it now and it's awesome! I've signed up for my account and have been bringing in fat paychecks. For real, my first week I made $305 and the second week I doubled it and then it kinda snowballed to $122 a day.M$2......

-------------- http://bit.do/bestweb-GetPayUsd-Hour

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

You know, Andy, I have had it up to here with your Christmas LIES! Next time don't cock up your hyperlinks with cat photos. You also forgot your affiliate link, you silly goose. At least imagining the hyperlink read with an Indian accent is entertaining.

[pehevisobu]

happy christmas

Peyton . you think Connie `s blog is cool, I just purchased BMW M3 from having made $4287 this-last/5 weeks an would you believe ten-k last month . it's by-far my favourite-work I've ever had . I began this 8-months ago and straight away startad earning more than $72, per-hr . visit the website

==============================> http://www.homejobs7.com

[straffinrun]

Here's the sweater my daughter gave me this morning. Lucky me, I got to wear it all day.

[DEG]

More importantly, did you take EDG's advice?

[straffinrun]

She went to bed too early. Come to think of it, it'd be such a waste not to...

[Ted S.]

And hair to make Robby jealous.

[Libertarian]

I like it. No irony.

[straffinrun]

TY. From the kid. It's all good.

[OneOut]

At least she seems to have gotten the correct size.

It fits you perfectly.

[GILMORE?]

Kmele could make it work

[Lord Rollingpin]

You are a lucky man!

[The Fusionist]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Eddie isn't going to post another of his religious links, is he?

[Ted S.]

Oh, we know you're going to flood the forum with your religious shit yet again.

[The Fusionist]

I already posted RUN-DMC's Christmas carol, if that's what you mean.

[The Fusionist]

here

[Tonio]

It wouldn't be Christmas without someone bringing up religion.

[Libertarian]

You should have seen the look on the face of a coworker several years ago at Christmastime when I said, "man, can't we have just ONE holiday a year without someone trying to drag religion into it?"

[Ted S.]

What time today will we get a new post?

[The Hyperbole]

Tuesday O'clock?

[croaker]

Merry Christmas, Backpage.com

Brand new pimping and money laundering charges from the cunt who needs to go to a woodchipper and not the US Senate.

[juris imprudent]

Maybe she's banking on getting sanctioned by the court, losing her law license, not that it would matter, she'll be Senator for life from the state of Fucktardia.

[Ken Shultz]

Merry Christmas, everybody.

I am yet to find a formulation of libetarianism more concise, more self-explanatory, and more complete than "Do unto others as you would have done unto you". There may be other cultures that had similar ideas, but that's not where we got ours. Ours derived from the faith that the infinite mind who ordered the universe was born among us so that each of us would have the right to choose our own individual destinies.

Merry Christmas to everybody that wants to make choices for themselves, and to everyone who's afraid of free people making choices for themselves, eat a Merry Christmas!

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

I've never understood how that particular formulation is good or kind or anything except oppressive. Other people may not want me to treat them the way I wish they'd treat me. Imagine an S/M couple -- it would make both unhappy. Imagine a slave and a slave.

How about just "Do no harm." Isn't that concise enough? It gets the message across. It doesn't include "Allow no harm" as the statists would have, but it doesn't exclude it either -- it's optional.

Do no harm.

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

Hmmmm ... slaver and slave. D'oh

[The Fusionist]

Imagine the world we have - now imagine a world where that commandment was universally observed.

An improvement?

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

No such place. The inconsistencies make such observance impossible.

[Ken Shultz]

I don't see any inconsistencies.

If the government disappeared tomorrow, I dare say neither The Fusionist's neighbors nor my neighbors would have anything to fear from us.

I'm sure it's true that there is a direct relationship between what our neighbors fear from us and the extent to which they put their faith in government.

Most of what we do as libertarians is to try to persuade people to trust themselves and each other rather than government. Our Second Amendment rights, ending the drug war, letting people participate in markets free from government interference, etc.--it's all about that.

No doubt, some people will abuse our rights, and the proper role of government is to protect our rights. Within the context of that, the more confidence people have in their fellow Americans to respect their rights, the less likely they'll be to support the oppression of their fellow Americans.

There is no contradiction.

I suppose we might treat people who genuinely wish to be abused the way we would want to be treated if we genuinely wished to be abused. There will always be insane outliers, but there is no contradiction in urging people to respect each others' right to make choices for themselves.

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

The usual version of the Golden Rule that I see, and that I read above, is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." How would that work for slave and master, or a dominant and submissive? Statist and libertarian?

[Ken Shultz]

Slavery is incompatible with freedom and justice. Regardless of whatever utilitarian justifications there might be, it should be opposed on that basis.

If it were the 19th Century in the American South, and I were a slave, I don't suppose the golden rule would condone me enslaving my masters. I don't suppose it would condone me murdering or raping my masters and selling their children down the river either.

I'm trying to see the contradiction you're talking about, and maybe I'm just not getting it.

A free society may not require all Christian principles in order to be free. There are some essential ingredients that aren't included in the golden rule. For instance, as a Christian, you're supposed to treat the people around you as if they are worthy of Jesus' sacrifice. If you disregard the value of the people around you, you're disregarding the importance of Jesus' sacrifice. You can't do that as a Christian and then stand before God on judgement day and claim that Jesus' sacrifice was important to you--so all your sins are forgiven.

. . . but you can run a free and just society on the golden rule--even if the rest of society doesn't buy into the importance of Jesus' sacrifice.

[Ken Shultz]

P.S. I suppose submissives should be treated the way we'd want to be treated if we were submissives.

Arsonists get a fair trial, the right not to be forced to testify against themselves, the right to counsel, the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishments, etc.

A free and just society protects people's rights--and it treats arsonists the way we'd want to be treated if we were arsonists.

I just don't see the contradiction you're talking about.

[Ken Shultz]

In anthropology, they'll talk about taboos being adaptive, like on the equator--all around the world--there's a taboo about not having sex with a woman before her last child's first birthday. It's about the paucity of protein to be found near the equator and the importance of lactation for infant survival rates, but the primitive tribes that reverence this taboo--be they in Brazil, the Congo, or Indonesia--don't rationalize it in those terms. They just believe in an assortment of evil spirits, bad luck, curses, etc. that will befall them if they break the taboo. Making fun of their religious beliefs, in that sense, really is missing the point. Those religious beliefs often reflect universal, natural laws that help ensure the proper functioning of society.

Libertarians call it "the invisible hand".

Point is, the substance of a free and just society is people respecting each others' rights of their own free will-- even if Jesus was not born of an immaculate conception on December 25th.

Smith first applied it to cultural evolution in Theory of Moral Sentiments". Altruism really does arise from evolution processes, and cultural anthropology, at least, studies religion as an adaptive process. Evolution happens in our genes, but there's more to it than that. Some social behaviors are maladaptive. Some are especially adaptive. The golden rule is one of the latter.

[Heroic Mulatto]

As we have learned over 2,500 years, at times there are problems with primum non nocere as a maxim as well.

[Robert]

But since harm is subjective, isn't it better to have a subjective statement of it referring to people's wishes?

[Ken Shultz]

"Other people may not want me to treat them the way I wish they'd treat me."

You don't have control over other people--and thank Goodness for that.

You do have control over yourself and the way YOU treat other people--and your choices about how you treat other people are not limited to merely returning treatment in kind.

. . . and it turns out, that's more than enough to take over the Roman Empire, chase the British out of India, and force the end of Jim Crow.

Also, please note, no matter how you slice it, if we want to live in a world of freedom where people respect our rights, there's no getting around us choosing to respect other people's rights of our own free will.

In other words, regardless of whether you believe in "Do unto others as you would have done unto you", that is the precondition upon which a free and just society must be organized anyway. There is no other way that leads to freedom and justice.

[Holger da Dane]

That's nice, but maybe a bit naive? People in former soviet states, who were not yet alive during the cold war are pining for the good old USSR.

Their wish to be treated a certain way is definitely a threat to other people's preferences.

[Ken Shultz]

The fact that a free and just society depends on people respecting each others' rights is not naive. It's a fact. That fact is so intrinsic to what a free and just society is, it's practically a redundant statement: A free and just society is a society in which people respect each others' rights.

"People in former soviet states, who were not yet alive during the cold war are pining for the good old USSR."

I don't suppose that's because their rights are being especially well protected, do you? If their rights were being well respected, I doubt they'd be pining for the old days of the USSR.

[The Fusionist]

Heh...I knew I'd find something like this...sorry if it's too religious

[The Fusionist]

...and in the interests of bipartisanship

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

I am/was a real-life honest-to-god high seas pirate.

My ship was flagship 7th fleet during the Saigon evacuation. We had scads of helicopters and A-37s onboard after the evacuation which we were taking to Guam, if memory serves, where they would be shipped back to the States and refurbished for resale. We also had a thousand or two refugees onboard, probably left them in the PI. Radio Hanoi said they won the damned war, it was their booty by right, they wanted it back, and we were nothing but a bunch of pirates.

So the captain flew the Jolly Roger.

I have sailed under the Jolly Roger with millions in loot and thousands of "passengers". I thanks ya for yer musical choice. ARRRrrrRRRR!

[The Fusionist]

Not only did you serve your country, you spelled ARRRrrrRRRR correctly. A true American, I salute you.

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

Serve my ass. I was on a friggin carrier watching flight ops and seagulss and flying fish every chance I got, had a blast wearing the crackerjack uni in foreign ports, and got paid to boot. We chased a Russian destroyer which the captain thought was too close, lost an antenna from waves, and that was about the extent of any danger I was in.

Serve my ass. You (or others; I must not assume your age) paid me to float around the ocean and have a fuckin damn good time on liberty and at sea. And I got a wonderful line for my resume which has gotten me at least one job.

[The Fusionist]

"You (or others; I must not assume your age) paid me to float around the ocean and have a fuckin damn good time on liberty and at sea."

I was in preschool at the evacuation of Saigon; maybe I sent you some extra helicopters, I don't recall the details.

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

And don't salute me!

I know who my parents are.

I work for a living.

It didn't take an act of Congress to make me honest.

[Hyperion]

Should someone get off your lawn?

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

Aren't pirates supposed to be grumpy?

Just trying to fit in! I got an image to uphold!

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

That was a great story. Thanks for it.

[The Fusionist]

So you weren't bragging, you were Naval gazing.

/ha ha just a little joke

[The Fusionist]

(I get to crack these jokes because I had family in the navy and merchant marine, *and* I read most of the Hornblower series.)

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

Somehow the orange linky color seems appropriate.

[The Fusionist]

If that's an insult, I'm too dumb to get it - Merry Christmas.

[Heroic Mulatto]

We also had a thousand or two refugees onboard

You've just triggered around 63.91% of the commentariat.

I hope you're happy.

[Hyperion]

I suspect most of those wound up as orphan slaves.

[Heroic Mulatto]

If by "orphan slaves," you mean "nail salon owners," you would be correct.

[Hyperion]

Polishing monocles or toenails.

[Holger da Dane]

Maybe you could make monocle frames from some kind of toenail/resin composite?

"Genuine Tortoise Nail Frames"

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

One family was flown out in an L-1 Bird Dog, about the size of a Piper Cub IIRC. Flew over the ship, dropped a message askingif he could land because his wife and five kids were in the back. The airdales pushed some of the beat up copters overboard and he landed safely. I bet his stall speed was so low that he had to strain to catch up -- and again IIRC, the captain or admiral met him on the flight deck and gae him his wings, siad he was now an honorary naval aviator for having landed on a carrier. Supposedly that L-1 is now in the Pensacola Naval Air Museum.

I was young and dumb and full of ... you know. I think what really brought home the refugees' plight was the suitcases of paper money they'd brought in their panic -- utterly worthless. They were giving it away as thank you gifts. We even picked up some from a sinking boat. Made me wonder how many boats sank with no survivors.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I think what really brought home the refugees' plight was the suitcases of paper money they'd brought in their panic -- utterly worthless.

My wife has a story like that. Her grandfather was a colonel in the Royal Lao Army. After Laos fell to the Pathet Lao, my then 18-years-old mother-in-law, her father, and her sister crossed the Mekong over to Nong Khai province in Thailand. My wife's aunt brought a huge chest of old royal Laotian kip, which was worthless the minute they crossed the border. Growing up, my wife would read the banknotes and taught herself to read Lao from them. After her aunt died, they burnt all the money as part of her funerary rites.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

God damn, some great stories today.

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

I didn't take any of the South Vietnamese notes, it didn't seem right. But I still have some Hong Kong paper 1 cent and 5 cent notes. They look like monopoly money, printed on one side only. Was told they only used them for utility bills because everyone else rounded away that nonsense. Could have been pulling my leg, I reckon 🙂

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

Are the HK notes endorsed by any banking entity from what you can tell?

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

Looks like Dropbox changed how they do things. See if this works.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

That's awesome, hold onto those. It predates the involvement of the chartered banks in issuing fiat.

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

The bars were handing them out like candy. I think they were amused at these crazy American sailors thinking they were interesting. Memory says the exchange rate was 5 cents Hong Kong to one cent American.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

The peg is at a fixed 7.75:1 HKD:USD. Your colonial government notes are worth over 7000% of their face value as you probably know already....not bad. My wife wishes she hadn't gotten rid of a similar note my father-in-law had given to her when she was 4.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

Also in case you are interested and aren't already aware, 3 private banks are chartered with issuing bank notes and they all have amazing graphical design and aesthetics, HSBC in particular. Several years ago there was an excellent temporary HSBC museum with intra firm written communication on HSBC letterhead about strategy and such.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

Furthermore, this colonial currency is important to keep intact. The SAR government is slowly removing all colonial coinage out of circulation to please the commies in the PRC. I'm holding on to every queen head I can find, as their goal is ultimately erase as much evidence of a better "master" as possible.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

Oh wow looks like my facts were not correctly understood. According to the article, the issuing banks were in charge of issuing larger notes, just not the smaller denominations.

[Cdr Lytton]

Major Buang Ly (various spellings). Not just a few choppers, about $10M worth went into the drink. Just like Doolittle after the Tokyo raid, Lawrence Chambers, the captain of the Midway was sure he was going to be court martialed for his actions.

Wikipedia

the landing

Merry Christmas reasonoids! I first read about this story (and many others) here in the comments. Best presents I could get all year round.

[Cdr Lytton]

Major Buang speaking about his landing>

and more about the landing

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

Thanks for the links. Hadn't realized there was so much out there. I was a supply cler working night shifts, don't remember now how much I saw from the island, how much from ship TV, and how much I was sleeping. Good stuff.

Went to Oshkosh a few years back, the big EAA airshow. Found a field full of L-x spotter planes, and one of them looked awful familiar. The owner was right there, and I barely started with "This looks like" and he pulled out a binder full of pictures. He had made it up to match exactly the USS Midway plane.

[ScareCroWoodChippeRepair]

Some of the chopper were in bad shape. Bullet holes and cobwebs. One CH-46 (I think!) supposedly used 30 cases of oil to make it to the ship (we could see the lights from Saigon at night).

[Mr Drew]

Merry Christmas you Sick Puppies. I wish joy to you all.

[True Scottsman]

Merry Christmas Reasonoids! Oh, and SLAP!

[AlmightyJB]

SLAP!

[Hyperion]

What is all this SLAP bullshit about? Is that a secret between Scotish Canadians?

[straffinrun]

Believe it's this. I liked this one, too.

[AlmightyJB]

Lol

[True Scottsman]

It's the NAP in practice.

[Hyperion]

Damn foozball! Go Donkeys! Raiders will be lucky to win one more game now, with McGloin. The guy cannot throw the long ball and is not accurate. The Raiders running game is good, but most of the reason for that is that teams have to respect the pass. Coop and Crabs are one of the best, if not THE best WR tandem in the NFL. That opens up the run game. McCloin is like a west coast dink and dunk passer and that doesn't suit the offense. I'd just put the young dude, Cook, in there and see what he does. McGloin is a terrible backup. Damn foozball!

[Suell]

Their season ended yesterday. That really sucked hard. The second he went down I knew it was bad. Yes, they will likely not win another game this year. They were a very fun team to watch this year. Well, at least they are set up for a great 2017 season.

[EDG reppin LBC]

It'll be ok. What is the final word on Carr's injury? Is he done for the season?

[EDG reppin LBC]

Never mind. JUst googled it. Broken fibula es no bueno.

[Suell]

I imagine there could be some small chance he could be back by the Super Bowl. But there is no chance the Raiders can get into it now. I had 50 bucks at 16 to 1 on them winning it. That money now safely belongs to the Reno Cal Neva casino sports book.

[The Fusionist]

Lol, I would love to get involved in this sports betting stuff, it sounds like fun, please email me at [e-mail]

[The Fusionist]

/sarc

[Suell]

Ah, Nevada and their monopoly. That one has endured for quite a while now.

[OneOut]

I'm wondering how yesterdays injuries are going to affect coaches with locked up seeds decisions regarding resting their starters.

Dax and Zeke may not see much of the field in these last two weeks now.

It might be good for Romo to knock the rust off in case Dax bites the dust in the playoffs anyway.

[Hyperion]

Dallas has already locked up the #1 seed in the NFC. No way should they should not sit the starter next week anyway.

[Hyperion]

No way should he be allowed to go in until next season when he's 100%. No way the Raiders are going to beat NE in NE anyway, Carr or no Carr.

[Hyperion]

Broken fibula. Yes, most likely he is out for the season. With the surgery, a 3 week recovery is a possibility, but very unlikely. I would say 6 weeks at best. The Raiders have won too many games on pinpoint accurate passing to Crabs in the corner of the endzone. No way McGloin can do that and he can't throw an accurate deep ball. The Raiders defense, although they have their moments, is not that solid. They have to score a lot of points to win games. Anyway, even if they somehow made it to the SB and Carr could go in, no way would I let him do so if I were Del Rio. You don't take that sort of risk with a young franchise QB, there's always next year.

[Rufus The Monocled]

They're done.

[Domestic Dissident]

Why is never Tom Brady who gets his fibula broken when that psychopath Bill Belichick is pointlessly clubbing a helpless baby seal like the Jets to death?

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

1. Belichick built the initial Tom Brady Model .5 in his basement in 2001. He's now on V7.
2. Belichick and/or Brady made a literal deal with the devil.
3. Ernie Adams. I don't know what this guy does or how, but I assume it's everything.

Take your pick.

[Robert]

Did I mention the team I coached, the Giants, beat the Jets in the finals of the Bronx Warriors Jr. PeeWee playoffs last month? Even after I had to leave them to move to southern Sussex Co., NJ. Especially sweet beating Coach Miguel's team, because I coached under him in 2014 & saw he's a lousy coach. Of course the 2015 Cardinals team coached by me & Tim, who'd also coached under Miguel in 2014, beat the Jets twice too.

As Clark Wilkins' sig says, "Football is for the kids...but let's win anyway."

[OneOut]

So global warming IS real.

I just had to turn on the AC here in tropical San Antonio.( take that Gaia )

[Suthenboy]

Same here. I had the air on all night last night. 76 today. I think we are supposed to get rain today.

Merry Xmas OneOut.

[Zero Sum Game]

Happy Hacktivus, fellow Russians! This year brought us the magic of Russian hackers, who can do literally anything. They are even better than any hacker ever and can program Visual Basic GUIs with three people to one keyboard to trace your IP and hack your e-mails and plant slanderous lies in them. Then they can use them to mind control you to set up illegal servers and hack the lies onto laptops of your allies to plant them. They can even hack American FBI to send letter to congress and destroy your candidates.

This year, look not for Santa coming down your chimney. This year and every year will be Putin riding a great Russian bear, vodka bottle in one hand and hacking laptop in the other. We wish you a Merry Vladmus, and a hacking new year!

[Zero Sum Game]

And I know that not all of you share Russian hacker faith and don't celebrate Vladmus. So for those of you who don't, also enjoy Leakmas and your Wiki new year! We won't be excluding anyone in our merrymaking.

[Hyperion]

NEWSWEEK Cover: We Are All Socialists Russians Now

I'm going to drink Russian vodka today, so I guess the Trumputin will look kindly on me.

[Tonio]

[Hands ZSG present wrapped in tinfoil.]

[Zero Sum Game]

It's not paranoia if we really are out to get you.

[Holger da Dane]

*Eyes zsg suspiciously and speaks quietly into cufflink microphone*

[DenverJ]

Y'all gonna flog this thread to death. Well, Happy Christmas and Merry New Year, Robust Ramadan, Super Solstice, and Hilarious Hanuka.
Speaking of flogging

[The Fusionist]

Stop catering to ethnic stereotypes.

Link this instead.

[Hyperion]

I just need to know what time a proper libertarian starts drinking on Christmas day?

[Juvenile Bluster]

12:01 am?

[The Fusionist]

"I never knew Daddy drank until one day he came home sober."

[Zero Sum Game]

Have you already polished your monocle and beaten your orphan slaves? If so, your work is done and you may begin.

[Cdr Lytton]

All these euphemisms.

[Ted S.]

My orphan slaves polish my monocles for me.

[The Fusionist]

Trick question, there are no "proper" libertarians, you Margaret Dumont wannabe.

[Holger da Dane]

Also a trick question, because you never stop drinking in the first place.

[The Fusionist]

If drinking makes you feel woozy, watch this and it will settle your stomach.

Heh, heh...I mean go ahead.

[commodious lies and cheats]

If drinking makes you woozy, do this and it will get you arrested.

[Tonio]

Just for you, Eddie. And an excuse for anyone who wants to start drinking early.

[EDG reppin LBC]

I just poured a Jim Beam with some eggnog for breakfast. Why not? The wife and I are pretty much free from responsibility for two weeks. Have a drink.

[AlmightyJB]

I have some egg nog. Night be out of bourbon but think I have some brandy left which will do.

[AlmightyJB]

I start on whatever painkillers we have left lying around from the last surgery or root canal or whatever to get my mellow on. That starts when family starts showing up around 11.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

It's a trick question. A real libertarian never stopped drinking the day before.

[Christmas Cuck, Jr.]

Merry Christmas to all you deplorables, woodchipper enthusiasts, and shitlords!

[Holger da Dane]

Russias libertarian moment?

http://tinyurl.com/jady24m

[Holger da Dane]

"It may well be that we have 20 different kinds of sausages in stores now, but you do not sell your country for sausages,"

+23 kinds of deodorant

[Rufus The Monocled]

"...Later they tell along with classmate Vyacheslav Grebnev what they know about the Soviet Union from relatives and textbooks: a superpower with stability, social security, free health care and employer-paid summer holidays at the Black Sea. But also marked by political unification, repression, shortages, travel restrictions and enforced atheism."

That's so Russian!

[Rufus The Monocled]

"I can not say anything bad about the Soviet Union. There is a nostalgia, it's clear, "she says."

Progressives approve!

[Tonio]

"See Cuba while it's still unspoiled..."

[Ted S.]

People talking about similar nostalgia for a rightist dictatorship would be laughed out of the room.

[Holger da Dane]

Probably because they never really existed?

[Ted S.]

The people with the nostalgia, or the rightist dictatorship?

Perhaps I should have put the word "rightist" in sneer quotes, as I also mean those that are generally said to come from the right, even if that's not accurate.

[Holger da Dane]

Good point. I meant rightist dictatorships, but either?

[DenverJ]

Pinochet, Marcos, and Khan

[AddictionMyth]

Merry Christmas, you filthy anarcho-frankentrumpkensteins.

[dajjal]

UN Res 2334 - I guess I was a good boy this year.

And what did Santa bring you?

[True Scottsman]

That was a Chanukah gift, not from Santa.

[Tonio]

Oh, look, the trolls have shown up. Happy Christmas to you. Help yourselves to the buffet and the punch.

[dajjal]

OK thanks. Where can I set up my shrine to St Flemming?

[Tonio]

Out the back yard in the fire pit area where all the smokers are. I'll let Cousin Tiny know you're going out. He don't say much, but he's real sweet once you get to know him.

[dajjal]

Oops - I forgot to duck.

[Mr Drew]

"That's not tiny at all!!"

[See Double You]

Merry Christmas, Reasonoids!

[Suthenboy]

Just heard on TV; Israel's reaction to Obama abstaining from the UN vote condemning Israel - "This is a push by the United States..."

No. This is not a push by the United States. It is a push by that stupid asshole Obama. There is a big difference. Just hold your breath until late January Israel.

[dajjal]

Keep polishin' that coal, boy. You'll shine yourself a diamond in no time.

[Suthenboy]

For all the people who hate the only civilized country in the ME prepare to have your nose rubbed in shit for 8 years. I am going to enjoy it.

[dajjal]

Gotta rub a little harder, boy. Here just like this lemme showya.

[True Scottsman]

Spoken like a true hand-holder.

[dajjal]

Oh yeah, there you go. Just like that....

[Juvenile Bluster]

From the "WTF, GOP" file, from the RNC's Christmas press release

"Merry Christmas to all! Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King. We hope Americans celebrating Christmas today will enjoy a day of festivities and a renewed closeness with family and friends.

Now, I've seen progs complaining about the Christianity part of this. Whatever there. But... "the good news of a new King"? Fuck that noise. Trump is not a fucking King, nor is any other President. We fought a goddamn war 240 years ago so we wouldn't be ruled by a King, and I'll be damned if they're going to try now.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Then again, I'm at my in-laws house, my father-in-law is watching the Golf Channel and there isn't a single drop of alcohol in this house. So I'm a bit cranky.

[Suthenboy]

No alcohol? WTF JB? Go on a run.

I already one sheet to the wind.

[Zero Sum Game]

Raise a glass to your fellow libertarians while you're out plundering. To the Somali pirates!

[Jimmy Free Trade Pirate]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f55CqLc6IR0

[Juvenile Bluster]

Just about to. Nice day out thanks to global warming.

[Holger da Dane]

I believe that is the exact description of one of the circles of hell in Dante's Inferno?

[Rufus The Monocled]

Who wears the cardigan in the family?

[The Fusionist]

I don't think Trump was necessarily the King they were referring to.

(I mean, it's the RNC, so who knows, but there's an alternative explanation)

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

I'm going to chalk this up to sloppy allusion to Jesus and not Trump. /hopeless optimist

[Mr Drew]

I'm not familiar with matters of faith, but don't you think the "new king" referred to Christ? Awkwardly constructed sentence perhaps...

I'm have rib roast and homemade mashed at the ex-Mrs Drew's with some Bushmills. Then off to pick up my little one from the baby mama. I got her a drone and a bow and arrow. 🙂

[Mr Drew]

The little one, that is...

[AddictionMyth]

"That's not little at all!!"

[Mr Drew]

Well kinda not. My "little bunny"is only eight but in the 98th height percentile.

Half girly girl and half bloodthirsty pirate.

[Suthenboy]

"...I got her a drone and a bow and arrow."

*Moves Mr Drew up into top five favorite commenters*

I have a six month old grand daughter. I have already warned my son. There is going to be a lot of shooting, fishing and scuba diving. He knew it was coming because I did all of that with him. Hell, he was certified to dive at 10. I cant wait.

[Suthenboy]

I am also thinking of building one of these for her;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfCBL57TsTo

[Mr Drew]

Christ! That's pretty cool.

[Jimmy Free Trade Pirate]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sihd61wOStM

[Holger da Dane]

How cute, like an overpowered go-kart for water 😀

[Suthenboy]

Ha! yes. The hull and such aren't hard to build, you can do it in a day. The finish is what takes the most effort and time.

I am going to underpower hers. Honda makes a 2.3hp and Mercury makes a 2.5hp.

I don't want an 8 yo girl smacking into a tree.

[Holger da Dane]

That's a missed teachable moment?*

*why I'm not a parent

[westernsloper]

Cool. I have a drift boat under construction, and a 1976 25' Mako Center console on a trailer in mid-repair state. Waiting for summer to get back at it. I have to keep the doors closed this time of year and I don't want to blow myself up since I heat with a wood stove.

[Suthenboy]

I don't know where the western slope is but I am guessing it is cold there. It is 78F here today.

[westernsloper]

The good side of CO.

[True Scottsman]

"You take that back or we'll confirm it by stealing more water!"

[DenverJ]

The good cold side of CO.
FIFY

[OneOut]

Only one arrow ?

Cheapskate !

[R C Dean]

Reloading is for the weak.

[westernsloper]

You have X-mas dinner at the ex's house? You are a better man than I. And those are right proper gifts.

[Mr Drew]

It's still sometimes rough but we are still friends and still in businesses together. The ties that bind are strong. Wish I hadn't screwed that up. Libertarian as Fuck too

[westernsloper]

That's good. One of the happiest days in my life was when my son turned 18 so I never have to talk to my ex again to make plans with him. I do not plan on talking to her again, well, ever.

[Suthenboy]

I am sorry to hear that. That's rough. I am Mr. Drew's boat, the ex and I are still friends. That made things a lot smoother and no trauma for the offspring. I even forgave my mother-in-law (she was a big part of why we divorced) and we are on speaking terms.

[westernsloper]

It's not that we are not on speaking terms. We are polite. What happened was 20 years ago, so now it is now big deal. It is more a "free association" thing. I just don't want anything to do with her.

[Suthenboy]

*in the same boat with Mr Drew*

[Mr Drew]

We need 1 More, Jerome. And this time don't forget the CanOpener.

Voice to text has odd capitalization rules

[juris imprudent]

Raises hand to join Mr D and Suthen. Although from the sound of my son's visit this year, he'll be spending the next holiday here.

[GILMORE?]

don't you think the "new king" referred to Christ?

Of course, but i presume he was reacting to the literary allusion comparing the presidential election to the "coming of Christ". (e.g. "Just as ______")

Which is pretty gross. Honestly, i don't mind the Conservatives bitching about the "happy holidays" shit, but if they start name-dropping Jesus at every fucking opportunity they're going to lose the support of millions of people whose only gripe is that they're sick of 'political correctness' = not a demand to turn the national culture into some permanent 700-Club telethon.

Meaning, "its ok to have pictures of angels in Christmas displays in the mall! its ok to actually say "christmas" in schools, and not dilute it into some b.s. "Holidays" thing. But for fuck's sake, don't start dropping biblical references in political speeches and asserting that jesus is going to be reborn any day now."

[Mr Drew]

I hear you on must if that but I'm still not reading the "just as..." that way. I read it as 'celebrate the birth of Jesus just as the three wise men did'.

Perhaps I'm being too generous. Never underestimate the elephant party's ability to Fuck things up

[GILMORE?]

Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King

"A" new king. Not "the" (which would be the eternally-reborn baby Jeebus). Trust me, they're talking about the election.

[Mr Drew]

Then, ugh.

[Lurk Diggler]

Hark the herald angels sing.
Glory to a new born King.

Famous song. Famous phrase. You're reading too much into it.

[juris imprudent]

Never underestimate the elephant party's ability to Fuck things up

The only reason I can't be optimistic about the next 2-4 years.

[Brochettaward = (((pants)))]

If they didn't start namedropping Jesus left and right and quoting biblical passages, then they wouldn't be the Stupid Party, now would they?

[GILMORE?]

I got her a drone and a bow and arrow. 🙂

are those supposed to go together? Iike, "Fly drone; Shoot drone out of sky; repeat"

[True Scottsman]

Not apropos to your comment, but I enjoy your insightful, snarky, erudite comments every time I read them. These are like Christmas to me every day.

[GILMORE?]

These are like Christmas to me every day.

Well now i feel better that i didn't get you anything this year 🙂

[Mr Drew]

Sure is tempting isn't it?

[True Scottsman]

I just poured out a little liquor for JSubD & said "fuck off slaver!"
I wish I had known of his plight in time to help him, if he would have wanted it.
Merry Christmas JSubD.
Rest In Peace.

[OneOut]

I wasn't around in those days but you might be cheered to know that they guy lives on in memory in the JSubD Reason fantasy football league in which I am currently in second to last place.

[True Scottsman]

I hope the phrase gains the same fame as "I am Spartacus!"

[Suthenboy]

*pours out a little liquor*

RIP JsubD. You are missed.

[Tonio]

JsubD is well missed. Fuck off, slavers.

[juris imprudent]

Well shit, I'll have to refill my glass and go pour a little out; and JsubD, I'm swilling down Courvoisier apres meal - so enjoy.

[Rhywun]

I'll raise my vodka Dew to that.

[GILMORE?]

OK, so this exists.

honestly, it doesn't do anything for me. but it might have been something that went well with bong-hits in college. the part that's so funny (to me) is their attempt at being serious about it.

[True Scottsman]

Is this why the Raiders decided that they ought to move?

[The Fusionist]

The Temptations

[Suthenboy]

You are just now finding out about that? Sheeeez. That is some serious eye candy.

Their attempt to be serious? Half of those girls could probably kick my ass.

[True Scottsman]

Just half? I would, would, would, would....

[GILMORE?]

Now i need to re-watch Rollerball. (the OG, not the reboot)

[OneOut]

Just showed this to the wife joking that she should try this as she is extremely athletic ( ballet dancer and teacher )

She denounced it right off because of the uniforms but couldn't turn away. She lept making comments bout it being a shame that they are made to wear those uniforms. I gently reminded her that no one was making anyone do anything. Her comeback was that the men should be made to wear similar type uniforms. Again I reminded her that no one was making anyone do anything.

Finally I had to point out to her that due to the lower level of play that if the girls didn't wear that type of uniform there might not be enough of a demand for there product to allow them the opportunity to do something they seem to enjoy.

She continued watching and vven asked which position I said she would be good at .

Running back.

[True Scottsman]

Your go-to answer wasn't center?

[The Fusionist]

Teasing the wife like that...living life on the edge, eh?

[Get To Da Chippah]

Not tight end?

[westernsloper]

I stumbled across that a few times. I always felt like a hideous man for watching it for a bit, but I got over it. Some of those girls are hard core tough. I wouldn't want them to hit me.

[commodious lies and cheats]

Is New York strip gonna suck however you cook it? SIL dumped 3lb on my with instructions to "do it up," and all the recipes look like herb-crusted cooked jerky.

[commodious lies and cheats]

Actually rib roast. I think I got my terminology mixed up. I don't do a lot with beef that isn't ground.

[Suthenboy]

I have never done a rib roast. It is too much meat for just the wife and myself, but there are plenty around here who can tell you how. Sloopy and Playa come to mind.

[OneOut]

It's too much for my wife and I also but I have zero problems with leftovers.

Just cook the original rare so the warmups don't get overdone.

Merry Christmas to you also Suthen.

[SIV]

You can cook a small rib roast just like a thick steak

[OneOut]

Tons of recipes on the tubez.

Just pulled mine of the pellet grill waiting for sinner guests to show up before I sear the outside.

NY strip is OK if it's heavily marbled and not over cooked.

[True Scottsman]

NY Strip is best for steak (IMHO) because it has less fat than a ribeye and what it does have is concentrated on the outside edge, it's from the back so it's fairly tender.

[juris imprudent]

Traeger? I did the turkey on mine today.

[OneOut]

Pitboss.

Traeger was above my budgeted level.

I did a lot of research prior to purchase and I think it's a good bargain.

goes from 180 to 500 with the twist of a knob.

[The Fusionist]

Say that you made it with a special testosterone infusion such that men with large members will think it's delicious.

(do not actually try this at home)

[westernsloper]

I used someones link here for reverse searing. I did mine in the smoker at about 180 F for probably 7 hours until internal was 130, and then seared on the gas grill at about 550 F. I ate it late last night. Best prime rib I have had, and thanks to whoever linked the reverse sear method. I had not heard of that. I will be eating prime rib for four days. Baking some buns now for sandwiches.

[commodious lies and cheats]

See, that's my problem. This definitely isn't prime. It's heavily discounted from thirty to twelve bucks, for God knows what reason, and I'm looking at that food science post and thinking... nah, this isn't nearly as high quality a cut. But does the same theory apply? Or is it going to be as tough rare as it is well done?

[westernsloper]

The one I bought was "Choice". I am not even sure we can get "Grade A Prime" here in the supermarkets. It is my understanding the good stuff goes to the restaurant suppliers. Maybe meat markets, but we don't have one in po-dunk where I live. My roast was not as marbled as I would have liked, but it was still awesome. It is the super slow cook that makes it I think. You could always cut steaks and grill them. Or use my fall back method of serving people something to eat so late they are already hammered, and then it doesn't matter. Do you have lot's of booze?

[OneOut]

It will probably be just fine.

Just don't over cook it.

Remember that you can always cook it a little longer if you take it off too soon but you cannot uncook it.

[True Scottsman]

Discounted beef is often better than the full price stuff. Consider that aged beef at a restaurant is priced at a premium. It doesn't sell well at the supermarket because of the color. Consumers regard beef with a bright red color to be fresh ( which is correct in the sense that it has minimal external oxidation)

Green is definitely bad!

[True Scottsman]

If consumers were cognizant of how long the slaughtered cattle parts took to be processed into "fresh" cuts they would be horrified, because that's how uninformed consumers react.

I managed the meat department at a Sam's Club for a few years. Whole beef (not ground) cryovacs could be kept for up to 45 days before they had to be discarded.

[westernsloper]

I kept an elk hanging in my basement once for a month before we butchered it. (it was cold) That might have been a bit excessive, but we lived.

I have read about slow aging in ones home fridge. It might have been on that food science site.

[Pompeius the Quant Retard]

Question is (1) was the meat good after butchering? (2) guts removed? >:-D

[westernsloper]

Yes the meat was very good, and yes guts removed. I don't know anyone who packs those out, or why one would want to.

[SimonD]

It's comments like this that make me glad that my family has a ranch. I haven't eaten beef from a grocery store in over 30 years...

[True Scottsman]

Disclosure* Beef with bone-in was good for 30 days.

[westernsloper]

And $30 to $12, you should have bought all they had. That is a deal.

[OneOut]

HEB Grocery chain had prime rib at $11.97 this Christmas and also this past Thanksgiving. It is usually $15.

Several other cuts of prime were reasonable also.

[sarcasmic]

I know I'm chiming in late, but my standard for something like that is to put some fresh rosemary, garlic, and peppercorns through the food processor, along with some kosher salt, rub the paste all over the beef, then roast it until barely rare.

[Derpetologist]

Xmas, Juche Style

North Korea's tubby tyrant wants the few Christians in the hermit state to spread cheer only to celebrate his grandma, Kim Jong Suk ? not the birth of Jesus.

Jong Suk ? who was born on Christmas Eve in 1919 ? was an anti-Japanese guerrilla and Communist activist, wife of North Korea's first dictator, Kim Il Sung, and former leader Kim Jong Il's mother.

Many pay homage to the "Sacred Mother of the Revolution," who died under mysterious circumstances in 1949, by visiting her tomb.

The daffy dictator is so obsessed with banning Christmas that he even flipped out in 2014 when he found out that South Korea planned to erect a huge Christmas tree along the border. Amid threats of all-out war, the tree was never put up.

[The Fusionist]

That reminded me of the NY Post or one of the British papers, but it was Fox.

[The Fusionist]

"died under mysterious circumstances in 1949"

Kulaks killed her?

[Suthenboy]

Uh huh. I saw that.

No matter how creepy the western progs are the Norks are still the creepiest creeps on the planet. For now.

[juris imprudent]

I see it the other way around - the Norks have a life-or-death incentive to be creepy; the fucks in this country truly believe without the slightest bit of compulsion.

[Suthenboy]

You have a good point.

[True Scottsman]

Dude, he went to the SUN, (@night, of course so he wouldn't be burnt)

[GILMORE?]

Reading about her lead me to this =

] Kim Jong-suk is also credited with inspiring Kim Jong-il to build the Ryugyong Hotel. Harrold relates that Kim Jong-suk told a young Kim Jong-il that he "must build tall buildings for the people, of 30 or even 40 stories," and the son replied that he would build housing 100 stories high. This led to the construction of a 105-story Ryugyong Hotel, which is still not opened and is nicknamed 'hotel of doom'.

Construction began in 1987 but was halted in 1992 as North Korea entered a period of economic crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union. After 1992 the building stood topped out, but without any windows or interior fittings. In 2008 construction resumed, and the exterior was completed in 2011. It was planned to open the hotel in 2012, the centenary of Kim Il-sung's birth, but this did not happen. A partial opening was announced for 2013, but this was also cancelled.[6] As of 2016, the building remains unopened.[7]

The 105-story concrete colossus, begun in 1987, has been called the "worst building in the history of mankind" by Esquire and "a luxury hotel designed for Mordor" by the Lonely Planet. It still looms unoccupied over the city

No mention on the total cost of the thing.

[Agammamon]

You know that thing has a construction history following the same arc as old cathedrals and Egyptian tombs.

[GILMORE?]

When it finally falls over and crushes the adjacent neighborhood, the Norks will fire missiles in the direction of Japan and claim it was an act of sabotage.

im only half kidding. that's pretty much exactly what they'd do.

I think its odd how people look at the Soviet Union and pretend it "wasn't really as bad as people say it was"... when you have a living example right here of a socialist-totalitarian state which - aside from their very homegrown, batshit-notion of Juche - is pretty much the same sort of situation as Communist Russia = wasting billions on militarism and vainglorious national-projects, while the citizens live like prisoners.

[Akira]

It's almost like real life is NOT SimCity and you can't just build stuff and expect it to play out exactly as you planned.

[GILMORE?]

I think there is also a question of =

where exactly is the booming North Korean tourism industry that would justify a 105-storey hotel?

its the economic absurdity of command-economies = they want the same things that market-economies provide, but seem to think they can simply will them into being via better-planning

even if the hotel were completed... who would it be serving? I think its likely being kept unopened out of awareness that a functioning hotel which remained perpetually empty would be an even greater embarrassment than one that never opened in the first place.

[$park? is totally a Swifty]

I hope everyone has been having a merry whatevermas day so far. Best wishes to all the staff and commentariat. Thanks for providing a fun place to play on slow work days.

[The Fusionist]

"...but I'm not bitter or anything."

[Heroic Mulatto]

After all, how harmful can it possibly be to introduce a benign fictional character into a child's life and then bestow presents upon them? Additionally, it is such a widespread tradition that it is not as though the lie isolates the American child. Considered in other contexts. However, it is a fairly egregious and well-tended lie on the part of adults who are hoping to raise children to do everything but.

For what it's worth, I, too, believe children should be told how babies are made in fully graphic and clinical terms.

[GILMORE?]

I was eleven years old when my parents first told me that Santa Claus was not real. My mother wanted to maintain the charade, but my father was more pragmatic. "We can't keep this up," he told her. "She's in sixth grade; she's going to get beaten up."

my first thought was, "if only those kids were here now, they'd finally give her the beating she deserves"

[westernsloper]

There is an argument to be made for continuing the Santa agenda for the sake of a child's belief in magic and mysticism, but it is difficult to justify the merits of blatantly lying to a child who has amassed logical questions over Santa's existence.

She may be onto something there. Perhaps being lied to about Santa is why Progressives/Socialists think the State can supply all their needs. They were never able to adjust to the reality that Santa does not exist.

[Derpetologist]

My parents didn't push the Santa thing too hard, so maybe that's why I never took it very seriously. I do remember my dad giving me some article about how fast Santa would have to fly to deliver all the presents and how the air resistance would cause him and all the reindeer to burn up in a fraction of a second, but I was 11 or 12 when he showed me that.

When I was 6 or so, my thinking basically was "well, they say the stuff is from Santa. I don't know why, but I'll play along. Seems like they enjoy it."

When I was 8 or 9 my best friend next door was a Santa believer, or at least said he was. I tried to reason with him, but his counterargument boiled down to "because MAGIC!" Meh. He still beat me in many chess games.

[The Fusionist]

I know someone whose parents claimed credit for his presents, but one day he came home from school crying, "all the other kids get presents from this cool guy named Santa, but I have to get my presents from my boring parents" (paraphrase).

So from then on all presents were from Santa.

[The Fusionist]

The parents could have said, "well, the other kids have to get their presents from some sketchy old dude because *their* parents won't give them anything."

[GILMORE?]

his counterargument boiled down to "because MAGIC!"

(raises finger to rebut... pauses a moment to reflect..... pulls out calculator and works it out)

Dammit, he's right.

[Tonio]

Bitter, party of one, Bitter..

[AlmightyJB]

Oh, it's the evil Maggie Simpson. I thought it was Bart's sister the whole time I was reading it

[Steve G]

Successfully executed the did-you-get-everything-you-wanted // sayyy-what's-that-behind-the-furniture Red Ryder maneuver this morning on the 10 yr old. 2A FTW. #he'llshoothiseyeout

[DenverJ]

Ha! Me and the GF just watched that! I'd never seen it before, if you can believe that.

[Wizard with a Woodchipper]

2016 is a bitch: Ex-Wham singer George Michael dies - BBC News

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38432862

[Tonio]

You can't change reality, Woody. But you can choose to not harsh my mellow and just sit on the story until Boxing Day.

[Wizard with a Woodchipper]

don't .worry...it's probably fake news....

[AlmightyJB]

Just a Careless Whisper?

[Wizard with a Woodchipper]

Unfortunately, I think someone let the sun go down on him....

[AlmightyJB]

He finally has Freedom

[Ted S.]

He can't come back 'cause he has no children to come back for.

[Slammer]

Damn good singer.
WHAM! Out of the blue

[Libertarian]

Too late in the year to make the annual lists of deaths in the papers.

[GILMORE?]

Ex-Wham singer George Michael dies...

.... in a toilet while soliciting a transgender prostitute? if not, i fail to see the newsworthiness of this information.

[AlmightyJB]

Meh, he already made news for lewd public restroom behavior.

[lap83]

...was the transgender prostitute allowed in the toilet of their choice? and if they weren't, could George Michael's death have been prevented if they had? Now that's a newsworthy story

[Suthenboy]

Isnt he a bit young for that?

If he wasn't going to hell for giving us 'wake me up before you go' I would ask him to say hello to Lou Reed for us.

[GILMORE?]

Things I didn't know =

Wham! Was instrumental in opening up China to the West.

Wham!'s tour of China in April 1985, the first visit to China by a Western popular music act, generated worldwide media coverage, much of it centred on Michael.[15][16] Before Wham!'s appearance in China, many kinds of music in the country were forbidden.[15] The audience included members of the Chinese government, and Chinese television presenter, Kan Lijun, who was the on stage host, spoke of Wham!'s historic performance; "No-one had ever seen anything like that before. All the young people were amazed and everybody was tapping their feet. Of course the police weren't happy and they were scared there would be riots."[15] The tour was documented by film director Lindsay Anderson and producer Martin Lewis in their film Foreign Skies: Wham! In China.[17]

I also didn't realize how young he was. he was triple platinum and had been #1 in mulitple countries before the age of 23.

[The Fusionist]

Why the Netherlands is Santa's favorite country

[AlmightyJB]

Best Christmas tradition ever.

[Derpetologist]

Some good Xmas news:

Bartella, Iraq (CNN)In the ancient Iraqi Christian town of Bartella -- recently liberated from ISIS -- Christmas was celebrated for the first time in more than two years on Saturday.
It was an emotional return for members of Bartella's displaced Christian community, who had been forced to flee when their hometown was overrun by the Islamist terror group. It was taken back from ISIS in late October.
Hundreds of Christians made the pilgrimage in buses on a gray, rainy Christmas Eve. They came mostly from camps for the displaced that have been set up in the city of Irbil.

[The Fusionist]

"At the end of the service a new cross replaced one destroyed by ISIS."

Troparion of the Venerable Cross (Arabic)

[The Fusionist]

Good night...aren't you glad there are only 11 days to go?

[westernsloper]

During Twelfth Night it was traditional for different types of pipes to be played, especially bagpipes. Lots of games were played including ones with eggs. These included tossing an egg between two people moving further apart during each throw - drop it and you lose and passing an egg around on spoons. Another popular game was 'snapdragon' where you picked raisins or other dried fruit out of a tray of flaming brandy

Egg games evolved into beer pong I assume, and the last one, "snapdragon" sounds like a good way to lose ones eyebrows.

[True Scottsman]

Dear Eddie,
Merry Christmas!
Because it is Christmas, that is all!

[OneOut]

So one of my wifes ( the only one actually) gifts she asked for this year was a week long ballet conference in Phoenix. 2K for a week with some of the elite in her chosen profession/love. I gave her very discouraging news backed with reasons.

She kept hinting it was all she wanted (once she learned she might not get it) etc. etc.

So we exchanged gofts last night. Just the two of us. I had many small $ presents for her. Some pointe shoes, socks, etc. etc. After we opened all the prezes she had a little let down because no trip to Phoenix. I kept telling her there was another present for her somewhere but I couldn't find it. I looked all around even behind the sofa but after some rum and wine I just couldn't find it.

At breakfast I once again made mention of the lost present and began to scoot the sofa around and such. Finally the Eureka! moment. I found it. When she opened the card with the info inside at first she didn't realize what it was as it was a company check made out to the San Antonio Metropolitan Ballet Company. I sat back and watched the realization wash over her as tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes. She spent the next hour jumping around the house with minature ballet moves singing that she was going to Phoenix.

[Suthenboy]

Dude, you are making the rest of us feel like shitheels.

[Suthenboy]

In case you misunderstand, that was not a complaint. Around here that is something to aspire to.

[straffinrun]

We could all use a little kick in the keester from time to time.

[GILMORE?]

The other wives must have been so jealous.

[OneOut]

My kingdom for an apostrophe ?

[juris imprudent]

This is why we should never have an edit button.

[westernsloper]

Ha. I am sure my punctuation grates like finger nails on a chalk board for many. That is a great gift OneOut, I hope you guys have a great time. But, I am with Suthen and now feel a shitheel for all the gifts I ever bought the wives. I was never married to more than one at a time for the record.

[True Scottsman]

Nonsense! Poor punctuation allows the commentariat to mock you, often with their own poor punctuation. It is truly the circle of life.

[True Scottsman]

And the rest of the commentariat.

[ant1sthenes]

So, was all of that just to brag to us that you married a dancer?

[AlmightyJB]

Worth bragging about

[__Warren__]

George Michael has died, I'll sure miss the way he handled the levers and knobs on his Sports Machine.

[Suthenboy]

That is barely even a metaphor.

[straffinrun]

I thought for sure he'd die after getting hit by a bus.

[Suthenboy]

Not knifed at 1a.m. in a public park?

[straffinrun]

For HM. Merry Christmas. No whining if anyone else clicks on that.

[AlmightyJB]

At least it wasn't her actual ass:) lol. Actually the rest of the vid was pretty funny.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I was just asking why the sport of Keijo isn't real.

[straffinrun]

Agreed. Cheers.

[Heroic Mulatto]

When I eat ass, I, too, use a spoon that looks like it belongs next to a sippy cup on an infant's highchair.

[Crusty Juggler]

The "you ate ass" face.

[True Scottsman]

New Year resolution, have a meal at Pete's Cafe with straffinrun.

[True Scottsman]

I'm buying.

[straffinrun]

BTW, if I'm ever in Denver again, I'll take you up on that.

[straffinrun]

We can play spot the native American.
"Look! An Arapahoe. And there's a Navajo!"
"Oh yeah? Well, over there is a tribe of Colfaxhos."

[GILMORE?]

An Arapahoe.

everytime i hear this term, i think of Lil' Kim

[Heroic Mulatto]

I, too, sided with Foxy Brown.

[westernsloper]

I don't know. That made me think a very small person with excellent taste in swim wear was drowning in a martini glass. I find that a bit traumatic.

[AlmightyJB]

"why the sport of Keijo isn't real."

I think I live in the wrong reality.

[GILMORE?]

Keijo!!!!!!!! (Japanese: ??!!!!!!!!?, lit. "Competitive Girl"), also known as Hip Whip Girl, is a Japanese sports manga series by Daichi Sorayomi. ....

The series centers around the fictional women-only sport of keijo, where players stand on floating platforms and aim to incapacitate or push their opponent into the water, using only their breasts and buttocks. The story follows Nozomi Kaminashi, a gymnast who trains at a keijo school, hoping to become the richest keijo player in Japan.

I feel like we deserve this in America - as a REAL thing - just so the whining of Everyday Feminism et al about "America's Patriarchy" were actually about something true.... instead of stuff like, "tampons aren't free" or "women shouldn't take men's names when they marry"

[Heroic Mulatto]

That's what I was saying earlier. But with a different point. Would you pay money to see that American Gladiator thing where people stand on a platform and try to push their opponent into the water, expect that all the participants are attractive bikini-clad women, and they can only use their tits or asses to push one another off the platform?

That's a recipe for printing money.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Forgot further evidence of profitability.

[straffinrun]

Not to get too serious, but it's the lack of bottom that drives the market for that stuff here. You have no idea how many times I've come up the escalator at the station only to see the profile of the ass of the year waiting in line on the platform. As I approach her and slowly get the view from behind, the ass widens out and I'm left disappointed. Giant heads have to emerge through those hips, but it's still frustrating.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Well, just as we import Dominican men for professional baseball here, Japan can import Dominican women for professional keijo.

[Suthenboy]

Only HM could give us a link like that. He truly is the master.

*sigh*

[Heroic Mulatto]

*turns around and places his cap on the head of the ballboy before stepping on the field*

[True Scottsman]

Disgusting, therefore, perfect.

[westernsloper]

I only get a minute of it, and then it cycles into Trey Gowdy hearings. Now I am really curious.

[PapayaSF]

I finally watched Hail Caesar!, the recent Coen Brothers movie. Entertaining as always, though not quite in the top rank of their films. What I really loved was the subplot involving Hollywood Communist writers. I'm not sure how many viewers would get all the references and subtle jokes, but their discussion of Marxist theory was really funny, as was their last, outrageous scene (sorry, no spoilers). Any film that uses the word "Comintern" as a gag is fine in my book. Recommended.

[Crusty Juggler]

I liked it, and while some scenes were really funny (would that it were so simple, the men of the cloth scene, Channing Tatum's dance scene), I did not get all of the jokes so I think some of the humor was lost on me.

[Warty]

It ain't all waitin on you. That's vanity.

[AlmightyJB]

I just watched Captain America Civil War. Damn, they made Tony Stark look like a total collectivist piece of shit. So punchable. The UN? Fuck the UN. Where was Thor and Hulk at? They would have stompt his sorry ass.

[AlmightyJB]

Sitting here browsing web, happen to look up at TV and old Dick Van Dyke show is on. I never realized how doable Mary Tyler Moore was back in the day. Would all day.

[PapayaSF]

I *always* realized it. She was one of the women I had a TV crush on as a kid.

[AlmightyJB]

Yeah, I certainly render her as being pretty but damn.

[AlmightyJB]

*remember*

[PapayaSF]

An early MTM pinup shot. Hubba-hubba.

[GILMORE?]

Because Trump = No One Is Getting Any Pussy Anymore

Sex therapist claims city's Hillary-supporting women have lost their libido over Trump victory

- Kimberly Resnick Anderson claims the agony of seeing their beloved Hillary Clinton defeated has sapped the libidos of the women of Los Angeles
- Sex therapist claims the 'Trump bedroom effect' is still running weeks after his victory over Hillary Clinton
- One man told her his wife knew he supported Trump and 'she wants nothing to do with me in the bedroom. It's as if I am suddenly the enemy'

'sex therapist anecdotes' are almost as good a basis for a story as "Some chick on Twitter is outraged"

[Heroic Mulatto]

When I make up bullshit, I, too, plagiarize the plot of the Lysistrata.

[Suthenboy]

Oh come on HM, I am hoping it is true. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

[AlmightyJB]

I don't want Hillary supporters reproducing anyways.

[westernsloper]

Indeed. Let nature take its course.

[straffinrun]

It is important to understand, however, that you may be unwittingly blaming your partner for other peoples' crimes.

Lulz.

[True Scottsman]

This bit might be sound advice, but I would never point someone to this writing just to hope that they would read it and agree with it as their main conclusion.

[straffinrun]

I was thinking I may point my wife to it when I have to explain how she got gonorrhea.

[True Scottsman]

I snorted, that's how I laugh at the best of the intertoobz.

[PapayaSF]

I would not doubt it. A large number of women of my acquaintance are still totally flipped out.

[Suthenboy]

I think it is more outrage over Hillary's defeat than over Trump's victory, but having the king of deplorables as president is extra sand in their pussies. They so badly wanted a pinko woman in the white house to carry on the momentum of Obumble's lefty fucktardedness. Having Trump undo as much as he can is going to be fantastic. Watching her humiliation and their outrage just makes me giddy with delight. The despicable scumbags have been shitting all over the country for 8 years and this really is better than they deserve, but I will take it.

[True Scottsman]

I wish you were right, but so far Trump has not called for dismantling any part of the bureaucracy. Just better TOP MEN.

[True Scottsman]

If he calls upon any of his cabinet appointments to dismantle the department he or she heads, my head will explode in gratitude.

[Suthenboy]

I thought by his choices that was more or less what he is doing. A climate denier as head of the EPA? Heads are already exploding.

[True Scottsman]

I hope, but I don't believe.

[GILMORE?]

Trump has not called for dismantling any part of the bureaucracy

i assure you, if anyone DOES start dismantling bureaucracy, they sure as hell won't yell in public about it.

They'll do it slowly, on the quiet, and in ways that the press finds too boring or too complex to explain. In fact, they may even do it masked within the typical Omnibus spending bills that the Dems repeatedly tried shoving down congress' throat, resulting in shutdowns.

(because dems refusing to sign spending bills would be a strange twist of role-playing)

its pretty much the same way everything gets done in DC. Its mainly how Obama quietly increased bureaucracy, via piles of administrative rule-making rather than 'big new-laws' (other than the ACA)

see - how he tried to take over the Census bureau. the stuff that matters isn't always the stuff you think matters.

[True Scottsman]

I hope, but I don't believe.

[Rufus The Monocled]

People of Wakefield resent being called ignorant. And why do all these 'talks' all seem to involve that twit-twat Laurie Penny?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQS8Nkm47qo

[lap83]

beloved Hillary Clinton

The real culture war is between people who sincerely use this phrase and the rest of humanity

[Playa Manhattan.]

Beloved commenter LAP83.

[lap83]

aww

although that sounds like part of the lamest obituary ever

[westernsloper]

Maybe the Hillary supporters need one of these

[geo1113]

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. And if you don;t celebrate that holiday, I hope you had a good day.

[Fist of Etiquette]

And if you don;t celebrate that holiday...

GODDAMMIT, CAN'T WE GET THROUGH ONE DAY WITHOUT BEING SUBJECTED TO THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS? AND ON CHRISTMAS, AFTER ALL.

[__Warren__]

Ol' Saint Nicked your calm.

[AlmightyJB]

It's really disrespectful to Anahita

[Rhywun]

What about the war on apostrophes?

[geo1113]

Come on, Fist. I buy my cigarette papers from a Muslim!

[AlmightyJB]

You too geo. Any day not at work is a good day:)

[__Warren__]

My orphans got into the gruel vats tonight. Some of it had fermented apparently, so now all over the estate are over-fed, drunken wastrels who aren't my immediate family.

[Warty]

It turns out that leftover frying oil, a can, beer, and a blowtorch is all you need for some fine family post-Christmas relaxation. If you have fire, you have no excuse for boredom.

[Heroic Mulatto]

So that's what you can do with a Ph.D. in Redneck Engineering!

[Warty]

That's Doctor Hold Muh Beer 'N Watch 'Is to you.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Of course an elitist like you would stand on such ceremony.

[Warty]

I didn't spend 6 years in redneck graduate school and 2 in redneck postdoc to be called Mister Sir, Put a Shirt On or I'm Calling the Police.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I read your dissertation, in its entirety it was just "Hey, Ray, check this shit out!"

[Agile Cyborg]

you slow drink a shot because no one does
and the whiskey is old and the motherfuckers
in the bar don't ever give a goddamn shit
about process or temper or fucking ancient fires
on the tongue. do they

[CZmacure]

A merry cyborg xmas to you, my favorite modern poet.

[Agile Cyborg]

time hurts me like an irritate mistress
and i sit there on the edge of thick
mattress filled with the life long work of
an army of dead ducks with my goddamn
limp long plunger on the edge of an old
farmhouse where clouds always live and
she snapped her hair and got dark
and while she was naked on the back
porch she clenched a thick towel around
her naked sweating
I did nothing but not give her enough of
time in my reality that had to be divided
among spaceships with living souls flying
hither and yon...
I said she could teleport back and front
in between the literal quantum cauldrons
but she wasnt happy with her
trap twitch dingo fucking in betweens
... still not sure how to fix this shit because
i just put the real wife down with her muscle man
boy and some strange superfractal being I never
saw before but had shinings slimmering all over its
vagina protursions under aqua hair
the wife fell asleep shivering through orgasms with
her odd team but
i have an interspacial ultradimensional lover i fucking
really trip with I need to trap back into
the fucking svelte dong of my cock balls. FUCK extradimensional
goddamn spaz slivtastic blockbunker bounce reverb lovers... shit gets fucking beastly
but this odd thing with slippery skin and a light touch is dapper and hammock smooth.

[Sevo]

Tested this evening on 9# (prime) prime rib:
Leave uncovered in the fridge for at least a day (no sliced onions or similar in the fridge).
Remove from fridge several hours prior to cooking (9# was out for 4 hours).
A Worchestershire rub will carbonize nicely.
Mostly separate from the bones, tie the bones back on. A good boning knife will do it, but a carving knife with a thin blade will work maybe better.
Pre-heat oven to 550*.
Allow 20min/lb.; put it in, give it 15 minutes at 550*, reduce to 325*.
Check for 125* internal temp 20 minutes in advance of calcs; remember the left overs are better if they are too rare on the first cut.
Been tried now on every thing from the smallest (3.5#? Pretty sure you can't get two ribs les than that) to a large 3-rib.
Works.

[Crusty Juggler]

This is my favorite Agile Cyborg poem.

[__Warren__]

Even you can't beat that meat.

[Agile Cyborg]

downtown was always raining
and the streets were broke with lonely walking
things and
if you looked deep into the old years of
a child
space of everyday on the clods
of existence reverse rain up to
the goddamn air
above us
and i do not GIVE a SINGLE
FUCK where all that reverse rain goes
because all that dark
dont hurt my umbrella motherfucker

[Agile Cyborg]

had an old whiskey an old boy brought
in to my abode a few years back and
a superb whiskey is like ancient suns
shit from the caskets of pyramid builders
so unrisen but alive so goddamn alive
yet so it is with a fucking deft whiskey
and the shiba even notes the tunes a single
whorl plays on my limb language
shibas are known for this
they hunt carnivores in the snowy japanese
alps but they also don't like their
fucking bullshit fucked with
and whiskey rich with history
makes them hackle
and so did this on
and so did i and I am not a fucking shiba

[Agile Cyborg]

i find that poets always talk of food and fucking rivers
and if you pretend to write about goddamn bullshit
that isn't about food and fucking rivers
my fucking shiba just brought his furry
basketball into my room and is intent
on being a tactful stretching lounging dog creature
as the evening ages without disdainful poltergeists

[Agile Cyborg]

if you live above
earth for times and
then do these experiments and shit
and come back it really isn't
possible to not be psychotic
because the brain is, in fact, so
fucking sensitive
and putting humans in space
will,
plainly,
fuck
them
but modern ars technica publication types
don't give a shit because those hell holes
are filled with literal ass funguses

[westernsloper]

I never like to see the Broncos lose, but come on. I will even give thanks on Christmas day when a big guy hucks one into the end zone like he was throwing a turkey to his cousin just to piss his mom off. That is good stuff.

[Agile Cyborg]

space travel should only be partaken when
powerful reality building measures can be quantified and then
built into the space travel
brain
reality compositions within the ego orbit
will break screaking outside collusions
the mind that understands a domestic today connection of dots
will transcend and escape the ulterior collapse schizo that is present
in all living things in spite of the jaded pretending otherwise

[Agile Cyborg]

fact is not a single writer or commentor on this space would
ghost hunt the motherfucking dragon of swords our ever lofting motherfucking monster of warbles

[Agile Cyborg]

fuck you, tim
your brother will put piles of fucking pyramids bro
i know you are trippin onghost palor but roll over under the
night shades and see
your motherfucking tones from your vege bor kickedd a fuck
realitiy even as I am on a bus heading hor
dim dom dim dom my me is gone- under sweeet nbrptche

[Agile Cyborg]

no motherfuck wants to pop some
downtown forever with
goddamn real screams

[True Scottsman]

I live within Earth and time
Although I grasp weakly and effortlessly like a babe
at the pyramids of prose devoted and devoured
by the dickhead promoters of Reason or reason
Therefore, I affectionately submit
Agile Cyborg
to you a Merry tall
green big tittied alien bitch with
five mammaries folded inward with
Urchin exteriors
Christmas!

[True Scottsman]

Disclaimer if lost in translation:
Merry Christmas Agile Cyborg!

[Rich]

a superb whiskey is like ancient suns
shit from the caskets of pyramid builders

Beautiful. Merry Christmas to you, A C!

[Nativist, Racist & Xenophobe]

2016 Was a Hell of Year. Lucky for You, Reason Is a Hell of a Magazine.

"Hell of a Magazine" is not a synonym of "Magazine Gone to Hell".

[pabloat8000]

Actually, Reason slipped badly in my estimation. Your slobbery treatment of NON-libertarian Gary Johnson was icky -- you lost your edge for a poser. And your compete imbalance between Trump and Hillary was a hoot. You let your hate for businessmen cloud your thinking. Here's a hint: if you honestly thought betting on Hiilary would be better than betting on Trump, YOU ARE NOT LIBERTARIAN. You're sad, really.

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