Recovering from the oddest sinus infection I have ever experienced. Way behind on sleep, work, and I haven’t been shooting in a week. The skies are silent and cold. They tell me little. The only alignment is Saturn retrograde – Earth – Mercury signifying a new beginning at home. Which is — perhaps — somewhat more useful than telling us that the sun will rise in the East (for those living in temperate latitudes). It will be a really excellent week for Cancers, packing the sun, Mercury and Mars in there for a few days. The beginning of the week will be extraordinarily auspicious for those born under that sign for success in competitions, and for everyone else, it’s advice to play things defensively if you want to win. Familial harmony persists with Venus in Gemini, and the Moon in Pisces will make it very difficult to establish anything permanent. Instead take advantage of the ephemeral nature of events and things.
The cards say this week is going to be chock-full of obstacles and opposition. But, they also say that this week is beatable if you use your resources effectively. So you’ve got that going for you. Expect stricter monitoring from your superiors.
Cancer: Ace of Coins – Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy, gold, effective bribes.
Leo: Temperance reversed – events or things connected with religion or sects, disunion, unfortunate combinations, competing interests
Virgo: King of Swords reversed – Cruelty, evil intentions, perversity, barbarity, breach of faith.
Libra: The Lovers reversed – Failure, foolish designs
Scorpio: Ace of Cups reversed – False heart, mutation, instability, revolution
Sagittarius: Ace of Swords – Triumph, excess in everything, great love and hatred
Capricorn: Knight of Coins reversed – Inertia, idleness, stagnation, discouragement, carelessness
Aquarius: 10 of Wands reversed – Contrarieties, difficulties, intrigues
Pisces: The Hanged Man reversed – Selfishness, crowds, politics
Aries: 8 of Wands – Activity, swiftness, hope, new or reawakened love
Taurus: The Empress reversed – Light, truth, the unraveling of involved matters, vacillation, public rejoicing
Gemini: Judgment – Weakness, pusillanimity, simplicity, deliberation, decision
Virgo: King of Swords reversed – Cruelty, evil intentions, perversity, barbarity, breach of faith.
So, I’m fucked, can we get a mulligan?
Maybe that’s not what you will receive, but what you will dish out?
That Taurus one has me concerned.
What are they rejoicing about? I’m going to lynched?! Is this a Hate Crime?!!!
You’ve been turned into a newt…
I think that as lynching is defined by the Tuskeegee Institute, white people are immune from lynching. I think that if the motivation for your death by hanging by other than by court-ordered execution
is none of disability, gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation, and just some silly reason like ethnicity, nationality, Trump supporter, veteran status, etc., then it cannot be a hate crime as defined by the FBI.
Note to Preet: CPRM brought up lynching CPRM.
“Expect stricter monitoring from your superiors.” For Glibs, it has already begun.
https://glibertarians.com/2019/06/changing-passwords/
Better than a cat butt,
Agreed. Count your blessings that Not Adahn did not predict Virgos will be cat butted this coming week.
“Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy, gold, effective bribes.”
I can work with that.
Will I be the briber or the bribee?
Not Adahn only mentioned checking the sky and the cards. What if their interpretation “depends, doesn’t it” “on whether the Moon is made of cheese, on whether the cock crows three times before dawn, and twelve hens lay addled eggs?”
Gemini: Judgment – Weakness, pusillanimity, simplicity, deliberation, decision.
Pusillanimity? I prefer poltroonery tyvm.
Deliberation.
Capricorn: Knight of Coins reversed – Inertia, idleness, stagnation, discouragement, carelessness
I’m too touch (inertia?) to let that other stuff happen
tough?
maybe touched was right
Sagittarius: Ace of Swords – Triumph, excess in everything, great love and hatred
Now we’re getting somewhere.
*I’ve totally got the hatred part down. Needz moar Luuuuuuv.
Here’s some triumph.
https://youtu.be/ezx5P5RoV14
Triumph, excess in everything, great love and hatred
I initially read that as “Trump”.
As I did your quote.
Inertia, idleness, stagnation, discouragement, carelessness
So, same as always?
Elkhart Lake, coming right up.
“Libra: The Lovers reversed – Failure, foolish designs”
Greeaat. The final plans for the new patio should be done next week.
The Lovers reversed
I’m not into butt stuff.
I don’t think that you can argue with the stars, dude.
Hey commodious? STEVE SMITH is on line one.
Not yet.
Hungry?
Great. Cruelty??!
Totalitarianism, FTW!
The American economic system is focused on maximizing shareholder returns. And it’s achieving that goal: on Friday, the S&P 500 notched a new all-time high.
But average Americans have seen no significant gains in their incomes for four decades, adjusted for inflation.
China’s economic system, by contrast, is focused on maximizing China. And it’s achieving that goal. Forty years ago China was still backward and agrarian. Today it’s the world’s second-largest economy, home to the world’s biggest auto industry and some of the world’s most powerful technology companies. Over the last four decades, hundreds of millions of Chinese people have been lifted out of poverty.
——-
At the core of China’s economy, by contrast, are state-owned companies that borrow from state banks at artificially low rates. These state firms balance the ups and downs of the economy, spending more when private companies are reluctant to do so.
They’re also engines of economic growth making the capital-intensive investments China needs to prosper, including investments in leading-edge technologies.
China’s core planners and state-owned companies will do whatever is necessary both to improve the wellbeing of the Chinese people and become the world’s largest and most powerful economy.
Robert Reich thinks freedom is overrated. No mention of how China would have fared absent the ability to ride piggyback on American innovation.
The Chinese economic miracle has been the result of theft, fraud, and authoritarianism. They’ve stolen enough technology to enable a rapid catch-up on the world stage from how backwards they were 50 years ago, and are not defrauding their population by forcibly misallocating resources simply so they can make sure resources are being allocated.
They keep pumping out cities like Ordos that nobody lives in just so they can keep employing people to build cities. There’s no demand, but they keep cranking out the supply. The stuff they export is their best stuff. They’re ripping everyone off, and one day that house of cards will come crashing down hard.
China doesn’t have a massive retiree population to support. The U.S. does. “Maximizing shareholder return” is our top priority because all of the shareholders are retirement funds.
Not yet. But they do have an aging population, inexperience with dealing with an older population, and the one child policy means fewer children/grandchildren to support or care for the elderly.
Oh, to be more like China…
If only Tom Friedman were Xi Jinping for a day we’d finally know prosperity.
Fortunately (for me) I am not an average American. My income the last 4 decades has increased quite nicely. No desire to switch to the economics or politics of China fuck you very much.
Don’t blame American corporations. They’re in business to make profits and maximize their share prices, not to serve America.
But because of their dominance in American politics and their commitment to share prices instead of the wellbeing of Americans, it’s folly to count on them to create good American jobs or improve American competitiveness.
I’m not suggesting we emulate the Chinese economic system. I am suggesting that we not be smug about the American economic system.
Instead of trying to get China to change, we should lessen the dominance of big American corporations over American policy.
China isn’t the reason half of America hasn’t had a raise in four decades. The simple fact is Americans cannot thrive within a system run largely by big American corporations, organized to boost their share prices but not boost Americans.
Okay, Bob. What exactly are you proposing? Abolish kkkorporations? What will you replace them with? A Ministry of Plenty, staffed with high minded Wise Men like you?
…. By reducing the power of government to interfere in the market, right?
Shorter Robert Reich:
“America would be richer if companies gave everything away.”
I don’t think even Krugman could write such drivel.
Shorter Robert Reich ?
There is a shorter version? Like a Reader’s Digest condensed?
That is a really, really short RR then
I don’t think there’s such a thing as a shorter Robert Reich.
DAMN THAT FOURSCORE AND HIS AGED NIMBLE FINGERS!
It must sting knowing there’s an even older man on here, with his own bees for supplying candy!
He’s the Bee’s knees.
How’s that for old ?
Don’t blame American corporations. They’re in business to make profits and maximize their share prices, not to serve America.
Who has ever said otherwise. Who would even think that it makes any sense to force corporations to “serve America”? What does that even mean?
But because of their dominance in American politics and their commitment to share prices instead of the wellbeing of Americans, it’s folly to count on them to create good American jobs or improve American competitiveness.
Because they dominate American politics they won’t create good American jobs? I guess 1 + 1 = potato in this guy’s “lived experience”.
I love the false dichotomy, as if every penny paid to shareholders is plucked out of the workers’ groveling hands, sending them to the breadlines.
Also, what the hell is “American competitiveness” and how is it germane? It seems to imply economic competitiveness, which would require more cutthroat corporations, not less.
I’m not suggesting we emulate the Chinese economic system. I am suggesting that we not be smug about the American economic system.
“In this paragraph, I transparently lie”
Instead of trying to get China to change, we should lessen the dominance of big American corporations over American policy.
Instead of trying to fuck sheep, we should reduce the number of banana peels in the landfill. My statement makes the same amount of sense as this guy.
China isn’t the reason half of America hasn’t had a raise in four decades.
Flat out lie. Even if you interpret this statement charitably to mean that real median wage has been stagnant, it ignores the fact that a greater proportion of compensation has been shifted to non-wage sources.
The simple fact is Americans cannot thrive within a system run largely by big American corporations, organized to boost their share prices but not boost Americans.
So, this article is an exercise in finding how many ways to restate the premise over and over while peppering in an occasional bald faced lie and nonsequitur.
Who has ever said otherwise. Who would even think that it makes any sense to force corporations to “serve America”? What does that even mean?
Trump?
I get that the tariff stuff was a step or two down this path, but I don’t think he’d go as far as to say that the purpose of American business isn’t to make profit for shareholders, but to instead serve the United States.
Hasn’t he bitched about companies moving operations over seas? Maybe I’m wrong but I swear I’ve heard him pull some ridiculous protectionism “America first” shit out his ass on more than one occasion.
You’re right, and I think that’s also a step or two down this path. However, I think there’s a difference in severity between railing against outsourcing and acting like businesses making profits are necessarily doing so at the expense of Americans.
This, IMO, is another example where “conservatives are bad, but progressives are off the charts insane” on an issue.
maybe it’s easier to just say that business has no particularly “American” quality to it ?
full disclosure: I’ve spent considerably less than a third of my career working for American companies
Yes. A small group of high minded Wise Men, supported by well trained right thinking people, know what’s best for you and America. You aren’t smart enough nor do you have the knowledge to make decisions which are best not only for you, but for America. These people will have to make tough choices so they shouldn’t have to face external pressures, like elections or being fired (unless the Wise Men say so). And they will have to be well paid and provided very generous benefits, so that they don’t have to worry about financial pressures which may drive them to make short sighted decisions which may only benefit the wrong people.
Advice from the shooty-glibs: optics.
I know nothing about them, and am in fact the first person in my extended family to use one. Iron sights were good enough for WWII soldering and good enough for woodlands or meadow hunting so I’ve been raised with a bias against them. I also kind of cringe at putting a piece of equipment on a gun that costs as much as the gun does. This hasn’t been an issue with pistols, but my eyes have apparently degrade to the point where (with a rifle) I can hit a 1″ target at 50′, but can’t be more precise as to where inside that circle I’m going to be. Plus the club requires a practical test before I can use their 200 yd range.
Any opinions about what brands/models are good/bad? I don’t know that it matters on glass v. electronic, other than I will be needing at least some sort of magnification.
I like Vortex. Quality without the big name prices.
https://www.opticsplanet.com/vortex-riflescopes.html
That is what the LGS guy recommended. However, I don’t exactly trust him to put my interest ahead of his payday.
Though, the one he was recommending is exactly the same price on that website, so maybe he’s not as bad as I think.
Interestingly enough, optics planet had the cheapest prices on magazines for my CZ. I bought few more prior to my first shootin’ match next Saturday.
http://www.kayaderossfishgame.org/action-pistol-stages.html
Optics planet is a great site.
I’ve settled on Burris as my preferred brand. They fit my price points for acceptable clarity and brightness. They have a forever guarantee. Hard to beat that.
I have one weaver, the eye box is a little tight at full magnification, but it was fairly inexpensive.
My girlfriend has a Sig scope. Pretty nice for the money.
bias against them
#MeToo
But everyone in my clans who had lousy eyes is dead via unnatural selection * shakes fist at clan McKay *
What about apertures like good old Redfields? A blind accountant once told me that the center of a fuzzy circle is nevertheless the center.
I remember those working great when I was a kid, I’d have to try them out and see. The issue I’m having now is that the front bead is obscuring too much of the visible center for me to know I’m in the center. I can tell black or white, but cant tell if the amount of black over the sight picture is half or not.
I’m going to go against popular opinion and suggest a fixed-power scope. The argument is that you should see the same picture every time you look through the scope. Blowing the picture up doesn’t mean that you’re more accurate and it might mean taking shots that shouldn’t be taken. If you want to look long distances, use binoculars.
I’ve got a Weaver K-6 on my ’06 and a Leupold 4x on my 6.5 carbine. Dad took game for over 60 years with a Weaver K-4 on his 7mm.
By not paying for fancy gadgets then you can afford high-quality optics.
I only shoot/hunt short ranges but open sights and thick glasses are tough to deal with, focusing on the rear sight makes the front/target blurry but a scope makes things come together. I deal in minute of whitetails these days and keep my scope on 2.5X, occasionally I’ll zoom up to check a red squirrel and pretend I could hit it if I wanted to. I have a cheap Chinese 4X on an SKS and have taken deer out to 100 yards.
focusing on the rear sight
Am I misunderstanding? I focus on the target first, front sight next, and the rear sight is just a notion. I can imagine focusing on the front sight and then the target until you’re one-with-the-gun after several hundred rounds, but I’m troubled by focusing on the rear sight. I’d say I come closer to smelling the rear sight than seeing it.
I agree with the fixed scope if you get one: 2.5 or 3X. But I’ve never lived much west of I-35.
I think your assessment is more accurate, only that the rear sight is so blurred that it’s difficult to even have it on the gun. I wear tri-focals and looking down the barrel with the top part of the glasses makes anything except the target a big blur. A scope is a godsend for old eyes.
enjoy!
I’m still working on our tall-boy* canes: my back will blow out before my eyes
The revolution against Capricorn hate will continue unabated. #CapricornsRpeople2.
I thought Capricans were most likely Cylons?
Japan finally ready to join the US in our role as global police and all-around good neighbors
I’ve noticed it, too. There’s always crap for Capricorns.
Crapricorn?
Well, yeah. You guys have to deal with Saturn Retrograde, which is the shittiest of all shitty planets. You’re stuck with it until Sep 17. On that day, you have a vastly increased chance of dying, but then things get better.
NASCAR is at Sears Point, about the only thing in the series I still kinda care about (well, short track is still fun).
Stage racing . . . ugh! Half the point of a long road course is knowing how to pit and the gambits involved. If there are two forced yellows, it destroys the rhythm of the race much more than it does on boring tri-ovals. There’s nothing wrong with awarding points at intervals in a race, but why the forced yellows?1!!/1?
I’ve bitched about this before, sorry. All I can do is watch the last stage as if that were the entire race; that is bearable.
Market opportunity? I don’t have half a billion dollars (yet) to field my own series of closed-wheel road-course and small-track dog fights between identical, fendered cars.
* sigh *
NASCAR is the Calvinball of professional sports. (And yes, I DO consider it a sport.) Sitting here watching Kyle “Ferret Face” Busch grope his trophies. Ick.
To be honest, I’ve reached the point that I don’t really care for any racing sport, and prefer to watch people competing directly against each other instead of the clock (or gravity; or worst of all, for the judges’ favor).
no doubt
I figured out when I was a kid that speed costs, so how fast can you afford to go. Me: maybe 130 downhill
I didn’t just mean all forms of auto racing; I’m even thinking of things like running and swimming that nobody would argue aren’t sports.
Give me soccer, hockey, and tennis any day. (And congratulations to new #1 Ash Barty.)
I get that.
I love biathlon; how do you rate that?
The tension of the shooting does make for good TV.
Top Gear’s version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GByq2unEoLI
Is the best.
Seconded.
I’d take part in a “Top Gear” style biathlon.
I think that a large part of what made auto racing awesome is gone forever. The creativity, technical advancement, and win or go home mentality that inspired generations has been replaced by balancing performance, spec parts, racing for points, and most of the purse going to participation bonuses.
I wish there was a way to recapture that “run what ya brung” “mortgaged the house to be here” intrigue that seemed to disappear in the 90s.
Generally agree
but I always wondered why points racing wasn’t part of the math in the 70s and 80s. I’m a numbers guy, and I like games where being smart can pay off better than being reckless or tall or whatever outrage that normally gets to the top. When Kulwicki won the championship, I was on the edge of my seat screaming my head off.
But, then again, I score baseball longhand and can’t explain to the kids why the DH ruins the brainy side of the game.
/skinny, un-athletic kid who lettered in chemistry, first aid merit badge, and rebuilding Quadrajets
Points racing is the equivalent of resting your starters and losing the game. It can make sense if the championship is the main prize. It makes no sense if the championship doesn’t matter all that much in comparison to individual contests.
It makes no sense if the championship doesn’t matter all that much in comparison to individual contests.
Of course
and in what sport isn’t that the case: the championship matters
I’m watching on DVR, some delay = no commercials
Larson is on the pole for the third year in a row.
Kurt Busch, one of the most experienced and talented drivers in the sport in identical equipment, starts 16.
Larson proves road-racing is the standard, the test, the proof.
New York woman
Impressive. Or did the only three wheels thing counterbalance the drunk thing?
She was driving a Citroen?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly7fnyVeTj0
Used to have one of these it was a cool car.
The world is a scary place
What should we make of Facebook’s sudden foray into the world of digital money? Just as regulators were beginning to wake up from their self-induced coma to discover that Facebook has grown too fast and too big for its own good, the company has decided to redouble its unbending commitment to “moving fast and breaking things”. The good old days when Facebook was merely breaking privacy and elections are now gone – and we’ll surely miss them. But how could they compete with the chance of breaking – once and for all – the global financial system?
——-
The specifics of how this amorphous project will operate are somewhat scarce but one can still discern its overall aspiration. It would enable users, especially those who are unfortunate enough to lack a bank account but fortunate enough to have a Facebook account, to convert real money into Libras, to deposit it virtually, to send it to others or to simply use it to pay for services.
Facebook is framing the venture as humanitarianism: Libra is here to help the world bank, not strip the world of its remaining assets. Thus, for every Uber and Mastercard that have joined Libra’s association as partners (at the “small” cost of $10m per company – apparently, the era of “free” online stuff is over too), there are also not-for-profit groups like Mercy Corps and Women’s World Banking that lend today’s financial and digital capitalism a humane, even smiley face. Without this not-for-profit contingent, the Libra Association would look more like an innovation-friendly crime syndicate – just look at the total number of recent court cases involving Uber, Mastercard, and Facebook alone.
Evul kkorporashunz are taking over the world!
Anyone who uses Mark’s SuckerBucks, aka Libra, deserves what they get. Be ready to see people complaining that Facebook locked them out of their financial accounts because they made a purchase or a post that went against their ever-evolving and 100% subjectively enforced community standards.
However, it will catalyze even more price increases for bitcoin…
price increases for bitcoin
For what horizon? My guess is that everyone will have their own currency at some point undermining demand for ₿. When the whole world becomes a copycat, at least a few of them will be better. Is there some other way ₿ goes up? The world flocking to their doors and fighting over scarce markers seems unlikely.
The more crypto proliferates, the better that is for bitcoin being that it’s the first one and has no controlling authority. The big players are already flocking to BTC – places like Grayscale are buying up all the bitcoin they can and paying a 20% premium over market prices, wealthy billionaires are aiming to buy 20% of all of it, and more.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/c46wr5/the_bitcoin_store_of_value_argument_simply_put/
It’s price will skyrocket.
[Gene Wood whisper]
The password is “scrip”.
[/Gene Wood whisper]
merely breaking privacy and elections
What an obnoxious stolen base this has been.
Half the point of a long road course is knowing how to pit and the gambits involved.
IndyCar at Elkhart, right now. If you fuck up your fuel calcs on a 4 mile race track, it’s a long walk back to the pits.
That was a fun ending with Herta and Dixon running on the cords.
My heartfelt congratulations to Dr. Marijuana Pepsi Vandycke and for her newly earned PhD:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/21/us/marijuana-pepsi-doctorate-trnd/index.html
It looks like she’s done well for herself but there’s got to be some suppressed parental resentment there.
The topic of her dissertation? “Black Names in White Classrooms.”
I… I’ve got nothin’.
I do like the helpful link to a nannying MJ article, though.
There are lots of black folks in my neck of the woods and I’ve never met one with either one of those names. I did go to highschool with a guy named Shaft but that was kind of cool.
Was he a sex machine to all the chicks?
The resentment seems to be misplaced on society. My money is on the fact that she gets offended if you try to call her Mary.
“That’s DOCTOR Mary.”
MJ and Pepsi just go together.
A better Pepsii.
Pretty
Fortunately (for me) I am not an average American. My income the last 4 decades has increased quite nicely. No desire to switch to the economics or politics of China fuck you very much.
Hoarder! J’accuse!
least clear shooting correspondence ever
the gunman had stashed two assault rifles, a shotgun and handgun in different rooms and opened fire as officers knocked on the door. He also had a steak knife stashed in the kitchen and 40USD stashed in his hip pocket.
patrol car doors and protective vests couldn’t stop the high-powered rifle rounds I don’t know where the border starts for high-power land, but I’m sure our correspondent doesn’t know, either
Taking cover behind a car door is a fool’s errand for anything more powerful than a BB gun unless they’re uparmored or something.
but what if I want little pieces of chinese plastic shit scattered deep inside my center mass ?
And roll the video
https://youtu.be/6qXwdBOZzpY
That’s a good channel, love the meat target.
Cop cars have ballistic panels added. We have some around here and I badly want to shoot one with my .44 magnum. I can’t take them because even taking trash is verboten here. A regular car door won’t stop a co2 pellet if it hits the middle of it.
What cracks me up is that these people probably think that the AR-15 fires some colossal projectile that can level buildings, and they would insist that “you don’t need that to hunt deer”, but actual deer hunting rounds (such as .300 Win mag) are much larger and more powerful than common chamberings for the AR-15.
.223 is not a legal hunting round (for big game) in NM.
https://www.tn.gov/twra/hunting/equipment-methods.html#collapseebe09bc2c4cb46a38bf380cec647229e-1
TN regs apparently written by the reporter from the CA shootout.
My reading for big game: .25ACP is okay but 6mmRem totes illegal
He had a steak knife stashed in the kitchen? Stashed, like hidden in a drawer? Possibly with other cutlery?
Was he so poor that was the largest/sharpest implement you could find there?
Body camera footage
https://www.foxnews.com/us/suspect-charged-for-murder-of-sacramento-officer-in-ambush-shooting-body-cam-footage-released
Helpful neighbors.
https://mobile.twitter.com/matthewkeyslive/status/1141592406128594944
Give us today our daily Houston
Stagg then continued to drive forward and ran over the toddler again with the back right tire
two of Stagg’s children were taken from her and placed with a relative in 2013. Her other two children seen in the video have now been placed with relatives as well
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/police-arrest-suspect-in-stabbing-death-of-manhattan-bodega-worker/ar-AADht2Z?li=BBnbcA1
Jose Paniagua has been charged with murder, gang assault and possession of a weapon.
* NYPD need to clean up the streets so we can clean up the streets?
* Well, at least he wasn’t shot?
* Widow relieved to find out murder accompanied by worthless crimes-of-status charges?
Big Idea
The big news to me there was there is some dude named Andrew Yang running for president.
TW it is a video.
Twelve year horizons all over.
So speaking of free trade and China I was wondering is it possible to trade with China and not deal with either the Chinese state or one of its state owned companies? Who controls the ports for example?
We’re dealing with this issue currently. Is there a way to stay in the Chinese market while advocating for Huawei to be held accountable for their abuses? So far, the preliminary consensus is that they need us more than we need them.
Unlikely except perhaps at the fringe. The Chinese state (and military) are pretty embedded into the larger companies, more if you look at relationships and backgrounds of the people in non supposedly state owned companies. And any company can be compromised if someone in the state apparatus desires. It’s a totalitarian country.
Who would those people? Small-time smugglers not connected to the regime and illegal street merchants catering to foreign tourists? Those seem to be the only people who would benefit from trade and not be connected to the regime.
Middle Management. Not powerful enough to be plugged in with the Party, but definitely benefit from the success of the company.
Or small companies that haven’t attracted attention yet. The thing is the state is so pervasive and massive that doing business undoubtedly means compromise.
Well I thinking that this maybe one of the reasons why trade with China has not lead to the fall of the Chicoms.
The assumption that trade leads to liberty seems to have been based on the assumption that the urban merchant class is opposed to authoritarianism. Since foreign trade makes them wealthier they will more be willing to stand up to the regime and the regime will be more willing to placate them hence more liberty.
However what if the urban merchant class is part of the authoritarian regime? Making them wealthier will make them more willing to support the regime that they are apart of!
Hasn’t fallen yet.
So why hasn’t there been any more Tianenmen square type uprisings?
Not yet.
The assumption was back 30 years ago that the Chicoms days were numbered. These hopes have been proven to be exaggerated. But then again maybe next year the regime will collapse and I will look like one of those the “USSR will last” people from the 1980s.
Also Why haven’t there been any Hong Kong-like protests on the mainland?
And why is China confident in clamping down in Hong Kong.
Notice how long things can take.
https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zbtg87h/revision/1
Considering the current state of the UK that doesn’t leave me with optimism.
Nor should you have any.
They could have stopped at 1832 and saved themselves from a lot of today’s problems.
Is that you Lord John Russell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Russell,_1st_Earl_Russell
I got a question related to free trade. I know what we should strive for is complete free trade with no (or minimal) restrictions. But what do you do if one side is cheating? Take China. They have been stealing IP for decades and as far as I know not much has stopped them. The Chinese government will sign some treaty saying they will control and they don’t.
So what is the remedy?
Well what you don’t do is punish your own consumers (tariffs) and taxpayers (subsidies). Some may argue that Intellectual Property is not really property, but regardless I don’t see how you enforce your own laws in countries that don’t have those laws. The people who feel disenfranchised by the Chinese who are copying their stuff can try to take them to court but no one’s going to enforce a favorable ruling. Cost of doing business.
everything I’ve done was copied in China within two years
and the manufacturing has improved to the point that laughing about the quality and durability isn’t a workable answer
I’m probably done fighting them
Some may argue that Intellectual Property is not really property
The problem with this is that what replaces IP will be worse. Think of the most capricious EULA terms multiplied by 10. You will never truly own anything you buy, because the instant you open it, you get to see unprotected trade secrets.
Think cars are expensive to service now? Wait until it’s a breach of contract to do so much as open the hood, except for at certified repair facilities.
Resale? Well, technically you just leased it from us, so you’re in breach when you try to sell it on eBay.
The people who feel disenfranchised by the Chinese who are copying their stuff can try to take them to court but no one’s going to enforce a favorable ruling.
Sometimes, this is exactly what the Chinese want, especially in the US, where there are broadreaching discovery laws. Huawei is notorious for abusing the system my obtaining sensitive technical documents in discovery and sending those documents to R&D.
Father son project update.
BMW Z3 convertible top rear window replacement is complete. About 1 hour for the window. Another 1/2 hour to glue the trim and another 1/2 for setup and cleanup. So 2+ hour job.
HVAC for E36/7 was built at Fort Worth. If you ever have problems with it performance, check the bowden cables (starts laughing) first (falls to the floor, struggles for air).
At least you can work on the HVAC.
Z8 HVAC is the same as Z3 except, not kidding, they added stepper motors to control the bowden cables!
Naturally!
Congrats. And again cool car for the kid.
Thanks. We inherited it from a family member who loved it. It only has like 30k miles. Perfect car for my son as it is so slow (1.9L four) he can’t get into much trouble with it. My biggest complaint is the GM sourced 4 speed auto is awful. Would have much preferred the 5 speed.
Don’t say that, he will take it as a challenge.
Might be a worthwhile research project to see what it would take to convert the car to a 5 speed. Might not be much work, although because it is a BMW it will be expensive.
It might be old enough that there aren’t any sensor issues; going to manual would be less risk that going to auto.
At .87G, that things coming out of the corners a lot hotter than many big-mill toys would. That said, I’d wager it’s impossible to turn one of those over.
Awesome! No generational project, but I replaced the fixed jet carb in my saw with adjustable one. It actually still runs after I’m done. Just need to get it dialed in now.
Fuck the EPA for labeling and restricting the proper adjustment tools as “defeat devices”. Without them, I’ll either put more pollutants into the air or wear out my saw prematurely requiring more resources to be used for replacement parts or a replacement saw. Dumbasses.
Every small motor is crazy lean now. I remember rejeting the idle jets on my motorcycle to the stock size for Europe. Much nicer idle.
My snowblower is ridiculous, but since it is working I’m not touching it until I have to do other carb work.
I replaced the fixed jet carb in my saw with adjustable one. It actually still runs after I’m done. Just need to get it dialed in now.
Fuck the EPA for labeling and restricting the proper adjustment tools as “defeat devices”.
When I was working on my weed eater (Husqvarna), I discovered that what appear to be the hi and low speed jet adjusters require some sort of female splined tool. Or else they’re just pressed in.
Today in Derp: Idiocracy Finally Here?
Dr. Marijuana Pepsi Won’t Change Her Name ‘To Make Other People Happy’
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/21/734839666/dr-marijuana-pepsi-wont-change-her-name-to-make-other-people-happy
***
“A lot of other people were thinking [my mom] was smoking marijuana and drinking Pepsi,” she tells NPR. “In the black community, we’re used to having names that are more cultural.”
She’s asked her mom, who also gave birth to daughters Robin and Kimberly, many times about how she got her name. “She just shared that she felt a kinship with me and she felt like this name would take me around the world,” Vandyck says.
…
Vandyck thinks her white teachers simply found her name unusual. Even though she preferred her full name, some teachers would call her Mary.
“I think they wanted to make me feel more comfortable,” she says. “They could see what the other children were doing, and they were trying to smooth the way and make things easier for me.”
But she says one of her research participants at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee had another theory: “White people like things standardized, and that includes names.”
***
All hail President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho!
maybe a bag of dope did fall out of her ass ?
Her mom felt like she shared a kinship with her daughter?
…am I missing something here?
White people are so boring.
Good little sheeple
Gun advocates in New Zealand are angry over a government plan aimed at buying back now-illegal firearms and magazines that were outlawed after a mass shooting in March that killed dozens of worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch.
Details of the plan were released on Thursday at a news conference in the capital, Wellington, after the country’s gun laws were amended in April to ban most military-style semi-automatics, magazines that hold more than five rounds of ammunition, and gun parts, such as special sights and silencers.
The new law gives gun owners until Sept. 30 to hand over prohibited firearms and accessories to licensed dealers or police.
——-
COLFO also objects to the fact that the government will not compensate gun sellers for the money they are likely to lose in the buyback. Dealers can cash in existing stock, but they will get the same government price for firearms as individuals get.
“The component prices are horrible robbery,” David Tipple, who owns a gun shop where the Christchurch shooter bought weapons, tells the Herald.
Tipple says he expects to lose “tens of thousands of dollars” in the buyback. Even so, he encourages owners to hand in their illegal weapons.
“We want them to comply,” he said. “Let’s get them paid quickly so we can get compliance. Nobody wants a black market.”
“It’s a stupid idea, and we’re getting fucked every which way, but the government knows best.”
“buying back”
Implies the government owned them in the first place.
You keep using that term.
Meh, what’s he gonna say, with the government listening in?
“White people like things standardized, and that includes names.”
That must be it. Fucking stupid white men.
More proof that the Japanese are white I guess.
crossing at the corner and staying out of the passing lane are just frivolous notions; arguing about it is the very essence of a racial standoff.
Yesterday: loud laughs and conversations between the 1st and 10th tees; those loud guys aren’t white, and their fathers didn’t play, so they think the loud jive is totes okay . . . they get to define what golf should be. I don’t hate them; I hate their being loud. Am I racist?
None of that made any sense to me.
Hippies beg to differ.
Sometimes, this is exactly what the Chinese want, especially in the US, where there are broadreaching discovery laws. Huawei is notorious for abusing the system my obtaining sensitive technical documents in discovery and sending those documents to R&D.
They aren’t called “wily Chinamen” for no reason.
Implies the government owned them in the first place.
Society owns everything. The government is just the muscle.
She’s asked her mom, who also gave birth to daughters Robin and Kimberly, many times about how she got her name. “She just shared that she felt a kinship with me and she felt like this name would take me around the world,” Vandyck says.
“Why do you ask, Two Dogs Fucking?”
The only alignment is Saturn retrograde – Earth – Mercury signifying a new beginning at home.
I have AC in the upstairs of my house. While that’s nice and it is something I’ve looked forward to, it’s not quite a new beginning.
I’m drinking Big Timber courtesy of the Glibs BIF. It’s good.
Pure insanity
https://www.alternet.org/2018/07/dont-be-afraid-go-low-and-12-other-new-strategies-dealing-right-wing-trolls/
***
We’re way better educated, smarter and more articulate than these absolute hypocrites, so why do they have us on the run?
Because we’re way more conscientious than they are. We fight with our fighting hands tied behind our backs for out-of-touch moral reasons, reasons that did make sense out of civic loyalty but not anymore.
We try to stay receptive and therefore responsive to their challenges. We empathize with them and then automatically feel charitable toward them. We operate by self-contradictory moral principles – you shouldn’t be judgmental (which is a judgment), don’t be negative (which is negative) and be intolerant of intolerance (which is intolerant).
When we cut that out, we’ll be able to dance circles around them.
***
“We operate by self-contradictory moral principles – you shouldn’t be judgmental (which is a judgment), don’t be negative (which is negative) and be intolerant of intolerance (which is intolerant).”
Isn’t this what the right has been saying about the leftist moral “philosophy” for years?
Talk about your cognitive dissonance
wut
That guy don’t get out much, I’m guessing.
As always, the projection is strong.
“Libra: The Lovers reversed – Failure, foolish designs”
BULLSHIT
https://archive.li/6mS13/ac987e92e3bd2009dc0b4d81ce62c1506a05d9e9.jpg
Lena Paul.
I like this guy.
*wanders off to Google image search*
Get ready for some very NSFW fun time.
Yeah, seriously.
No need to use Google image search, just go over to Pornhub.
Or Twitter. I had no idea that was allowed on Twitter. I need to step up my twitter video submissions.
Here we go again
Comments on the Outside social-media channels ranged from thoughtful to truly paranoid, but what surprised most me was how many people claimed to carry a gun on the trails in response to Wes Siler’s 2018 piece about whether or not to carry a firearm in the backcountry (he ultimately argues that nonlethal defense is a better option). Many, it seems, fancy themselves pretty savvy gunslingers: Is that Wild Bill Hickock or Jeremy from accounting? It’s hard to tell. And that scares me far more than any grizzly bear or random hiker I’m likely to encounter. Anonymous recreationists carrying guns should scare you, too.
I’m not anti-gun, nor am I a city-dwelling ideologue. I’ve lived in Montana for nearly 20 years, and I own guns. The only time I carry one into the woods, however, is to hunt. To kill game. That’s what they’re built to do.
———
I’ve also worked as an armed courier, transporting millions of dollars in an armored Freightliner—a job that required defensive-firearms training and certification with law enforcement and former military contractors. Guns were part of my wardrobe, and I’m comfortable with almost any firearm you could put in my hand. It’s guns in other peoples’ hands that make me nervous.
I’m not going to cite statistics about rifles and pistols or their effectiveness in wilderness-self-defense scenarios (the outcomes are generally piss-poor). The only fact that truly matters is irrefutable: the more firearms present in a situation, the greater chance you have of being injured or killed. Period. This isn’t a guns-in-America discussion. This is about whether it’s necessary or reasonable to carry them while recreating on public land and trails.
———
Please, for the sake of the rest of us—the good guys on the trail—don’t carry a gun. It makes it awfully hard to tell who the good guys are. Going for a hike, run, or bike ride in the woods is incredibly safe. Let go of the fear.
Blahblahblah I’m smart, you’re dumb. Do what I say.
“Dear diary,
I don’t carry a gun cuz they’re scary.
I have never seen a vagina up close in real life.
I pooped myself!
kthxbai!”
“I’m comfortable with almost any firearm you could put in my hand. It’s guns in other peoples’ hands that make me nervous.”
Me too asshole. You give yours up first.
“Outside” is a “Rolling Stone” spinoff. Enough said.
This is about whether it’s necessary or reasonable to carry them while recreating on public land and trails.
it is and it is
now, who do you think got his vote in 2016 ?
Guys Need Pap Tests, Too: A Trans Man’s Guide to Visiting the Gyno
https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/trans-mans-gyno/
***
While it may be uncomfortable to read gynecological guides emblazoned with smiling lady uteruses and splashed with every shade of pink, try to compartmentalize that gendered mumbo-jumbo, and focus on the neutral, clinical facts about your parts.
Keep in mind the big picture: If you’re a man, your body is a man’s body, no matter what anyone else says.
***
[cups hands to mouth]
IF. YOU. NEED. TO. GET. PAP. SMEARS. YOU. ARE. NOT. A. MAN!
Stop the world, I want off.
2015?! Gotta hand it to them, they were ahead of the curve. Their madness has spread everywhere now.
I decided to look up videos from the author of the Alternet piece above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPzXQfJy19k
I could eat alphabet soup, and *shit* something that makes more sense.
Good to see you back Derp.
^^^Agreed.
I made it two minutes in and tapped out.
His family friend was right, he has too much time on his hands.
Dennis DeYoung writes for Alternet?
You guys heard that Derpy made E5, right?
Congrats Derp, you’re on the down hill side now, only 4 more to get. Seriously, good show, Young Man.
43 seconds. That is how far I got.
Keep in mind the big picture: If you’re a man, your body is a man’s body, no matter what anyone else says.
Even if what that person says is, “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY OFFICE, YOU FRUITCAKE!”?
MLW to the white courtesy phone.
https://lidblog.com/daughters-teen-vogue/
“Millions of American kids are reading Teen Vogue”
I am not sure I buy that.
“Studies have shown the average age of women entering the sex trade as trafficking victims is as young as 12 years old.”
So one study?
the average age of women entering the sex trade as trafficking victims is as young as 12 years old.
It’s one or the other, English major.
The average is 12, which I doubt, or
some are as young as 12, which is entirely possible.
A lot of people just cannot math. I recently had to explain to a particularly dim bureaucrat that it is literally mathematically impossible to randomly select 10 names from a list of 10 names.
There aren’t many situations where you can legitimately say something is literally mathematically impossible, but that was one of them.
I take it he didn’t mean random order?
No. My instructions were to pick 10 names from a list of 10 names.
That’s not picking.
or there’s a big market in the 6-8 year-old hooker biz
* puts away slide rule and CRC integrals manual *
I’m not doubting that girls as young as twelve are actually trafficked — that being when they are most vulnerable. But what I question is the sly conflation of the entire sex trade with trafficking.
I followed / no doubt: it’s a scam that gets the suburban mommies going like nothing since the WOD
Volvo driving soccer moms. Yeah. Yeah.
Spot the Not: Pete Buttigieg
1. The Electoral College needs to go, because it’s made our society less and less democratic.
2. I want an America where military-industrial warmongers and Wall Street insiders can’t destroy our founding fathers’ dreams.
3. Let’s be under no illusions: There are attacks on, for example, transgender Americans from the Oval Office, picking on troops – people willing to lay down their lives for this country – not to mention teenagers in our high schools. So we’ve got to end the war on trans Americans.
4. I don’t have to go on a tour to find out what’s happening in middle America. I just go to Target.
5. I’ve always been terrible at land navigation.
6. I am a Democrat because I believe in protecting freedom, fairness, families, and the future.
#5
Yeah, I am gonna say 5, yet guess that AEN is bad at navigation.
I just googled my guess and I was wrong. Sigh.
4.
2
2
And wb Derp
6 FFS.
Cinque. /notarealitalian
these answers are funnier than the choices
2 is the Not. I got it from a slogan generator. Prize for the winners:
“I just feel more comfortable with my sleeves rolled up.”
-Pete Buttigieg
Sure, man, whatever you say…
Eye of newt, toe of frog, wing of bat, ball of dog
Under the proposed cap-and-trade bill, Oregon would put an overall limit on greenhouse gas emissions and auction off pollution “allowances” for each ton of carbon industries plan to emit. The legislation would lower that cap over time to encourage businesses to move away from fossil fuels: The state would reduce emissions to 45% below 1990 levels by 2035 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
Presto! We cast the spell, and the magic happens.
Funny how these ‘reduce fossil fuel consumption’ schemes always boil down to the purchase of indulgences from the state.
Or, you know, industries will just move out of Oregon.
It’s annoying when government prays it into being.
Industry solves problems all the time. When the deadlines can’t be meet (2010 diesel regs? can’t remember which time), chaos reigns, corners are cut, and regulators back off.
When deadlines are met, people who had nothing to do with it give speeches and throw flowers at each other.
They all go home and just assume that their homes, their cars, their air conditioning, and their cheap food is a baseline that always was, is their birthright, and that any morons would have achieved it. Going forward, it will take vision, legislation, and regulation to fix all this . . . thank doG for those posturing speeches that saved us all.
#2
That’s for Derpy. But a good #2 would be nice right about now.
Spot the Not: Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke
1. We are not a fearful, small people. We are confident and strong, and we understand that much of our strength comes from the fact that we are a people of the planet.
2. In the age of Trump, we need to be aware of emotional rhetoric and its power regardless of whether or not it’s based in fact.
3. There were absolutely times in my life when I tried to get people to call me Robert.
4. Giving low-level offenders a second chance, no matter the color of their skin or the economic status they hold, can create opportunity for all of us.
5. El Paso in many ways is the Ellis Island for Mexico and much of Latin America.
6. Don’t be fooled by the naysayers: to worry about beauty means to dream about lies.
6
Absolutely times are the best.
[Drapes cool towel around Derpy’s neck. Whispers.]
“Pace yourself, bro. We’ve lost our game since you’ve been gone.”
And boy does he have a lot of derp to catch up on.
I really hope it isn’t #6.
6 is the Not- that is hybrid of my own words and Inspiribot
https://inspirobot.me/
Dammit. That would have been too cringey-good.
#5
Who knows, but that’s just not how locals think of el Paso del Norte. They were here first and using that road for over two hundred years before the Alamo. Why would they equate it with Ellis Island? More like El Paso in many ways is the I-95 of Mexico, just how we have communicated with our northern concerns for centuries.
but who knows
This racist wrote a book about racism? I bet it’s really good.
Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How to be an Antiracist,” says the Trump administration citizenship request is a modern manifestation of racism because it is driven by the same impulse that drove white supremacists in the South during Jim Crow.
In the Jim Crow South, there were many regions where newly freed slaves outnumbered whites. But whites used vigilante mob violence and the passage of “black codes” to maintain their power.
Kendi alludes to the projection that minorities will make up most of the US population by mid-century.
“They’re trying to figure out a way to maintain white supremacy in the race of changing demographics,” says Kendi when asked about the purpose behind the census citizenship question. “You certainly have white supremacists who burn crosses. Then you have the white supremacists that push through voter ID laws to ensure that certain populations are suppressed specifically so that white voters can have a disproportionate amount of power.”
The last time I looked, there were more white people than black people, which pretty much guarantees disproportionate power (at the ballot box).
I wonder what his take on collectivized assumptions about racial groups is, in his book.
I wasn’t aware that only white folks are allowed to become citizens. Huh. Learn something new every day.
I recently had to explain to a particularly dim bureaucrat that it is literally mathematically impossible to randomly select 10 names from a list of 10 names.
You misunderstood the question. It was actually, “How do you decide which of these ten people you’re going to execute do you shoot first?”
I just ran the list and there’s good news and bad:
Mr7 will not be shot.
Mr10 will be shot twice.
that’s how you government, gentlemen
Bless you
Spot the Not, Beto version”
3 is the only one which is not 100% vapid gibberish.
Lillian Gish Name Removed From Campus Theater For ‘Birth Of A Nation’ Role
But this week, such stars as James Earl Jones, Helen Mirren, Martin Scorsese and several leading film scholars released an open letter calling for Bowling Green to retain Gish’s name on the theater. She shared billing with her sister on the theater name. Both were Ohio natives, but not alumnae of the school.
Up next for unpersoning: such stars as James Earl Jones, Helen Mirren, and Martin Scorsese.
From that “Everybody’s a racist but me” CNN thing:
Noah Feldman, a legal historian and Harvard Law School professor, said “Trump v. Hawaii” was the court’s worst decision since the infamous Korematsu case of 1944, in which the court upheld the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II on grounds that it was a “military necessity.”
“Like the Korematsu decision, Trump v. Hawaii elevates legal formalities as a way to avoid addressing what everyone understood is really at issue here — namely, prejudice,” Feldman wrote in a column.
Yeah, because rounding up American citizens and long time legal residents, depriving them of their rights and property, and putting them in detention camps is exactly the same thing as increased scrutiny of foreigners attempting to enter the country.
How dumb do these people think we are?
As dumb as your typical Democrat, I guess.
It’s pretty bold for Leftists to even bring up the Japanese-American internment since it was Democrat hero FDR who instituted it. I would think they’d want to avoid mentioning it as much as possible, but I guess their DoubleThink knows no bounds.
The parties switched! FDR would totally be a Republican today!