A lot of evangelical behavior makes sense when you realize it's not to convince you, it's to convince them that they're persecuted for their faith
— Kyle Marquis (@Moochava) June 5, 2023
Speaking of people who feel very, very cheated: Tucker Carlson is back on the air, sorta — it’s a ten-minute video on twitter, about how ‘we’ have been ‘silenced by lies, humiliated by taboos’. It’s not bad enough to be entertaining, but I’ll note that neither the set dressing nor his makeup skills are up to previous standards.
the downside is that carlson's pushing russian propaganda and lies without any subtlety, the upside is that not having a producer and cable studio behind him means he doesn't have anyone working to mask over his incredible contempt for everyone including, especially, his viewers https://t.co/hmLHp2lAls
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) June 6, 2023
no one hates freedom and america more than inherited wealth failboys who can't manage to hold down a job.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) June 6, 2023
Chetan Murthy
It occurs to me that that’s counterfeiting, isn’t it? The wilful passing of counterfeit money. But I guess the restaurant doesn’t care: they got paid in real specie after all. And server’s powerless. Servers need unions, and tipping needs to be replaced with a service charge as part of the bill. Ugh.
tam1MI
In other news, the Freedumb Caucus decided to flex their muscle today by killing a bill only they wanted. You can’t make this stuff up.
Major Major Major Major
They ever figure out why he got fired or are we still having to guess?
West of the Rockies
@tam1MI:
That photo of Gaetz…
He just looks so ridiculous, like a teenager trying to pass for an important literary figure or something. Or maybe it’s a thirty-something trying to sneak into a jr. high dance. He’s just… off and weird looking.
Major Major Major Major
@tam1MI: damn those are some pathetic quotes.
ColoradoGuy
Stunningly bad people-judgement. Of all the People You Don’t Want To Piss Off … a police officer, a judge, a nurse, or a restaurant server … a counterfeit $50 “tip” would be guaranteed to enrage. It would be unwise to ever return to that restaurant again.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Wait til the fundies start using fake trillion dollar coins
Chris T.
@tam1MI:
“We’re upset with you, Kevin McC, and we’re going to demonstrate that now by shooting ourselves in the crotch!”
Tony Jay
On a plus note, if you zip right to the end of Tick-Tuck’s little screed and then slowly rewind back through it with the sound off, it looks like he’s singing the Skibbidy-Bop.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chetan Murthy:
The seal says “Future Reserve Bank of Jerusalem,” and the disclaimer declaration clearly states “This is not leg[al tender],” and I think there’s something sketchy about the signature panel, so I suppose technically it’s not counterfeit money. (N.B.: I don’t know anything about the laws and regulations governing counterfeiting.)
But no question that there was intent to deceive. What kind of horrible excuse for a human person would do such a thing? I’d say something about “scum of the earth,” but I have too much respect for actual scum.
Chetan Murthy
@SiubhanDuinne: I think it’s enough that it mimicks $50 bills from the outside. I mean, there’s a standard counterfeit scam where you take two $20 bills, cut off a different end on each, then attach those two ends to a $1 bill. You can get a bank to accept the $20 bills b/c they’re mostly intact. And you can often pass off the doctored $1+$20-ends as a $20 in a stack. That’s definitely a crime.
But for sure, nobody’s going to go after these people: they’re usually the sort who sic the law on others, not those upon whom the law is sicced.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: ah, the scam persists: https://etvnews.com/price-city-police-department-warns-of-counterfeit-bills/
like a metaphor
or the God, when you drop it into the collection plate at church
NotMax
Major Major Major Major
A debt of atitude?
//
Related.
NotMax
@Tony Jay
If you keep the sound on while playing it backwards, he says “Vlad is the walrus. Goo goo g’joob.”
//
Splitting Image
@NotMax:
How big of a fuck-up do these guys have to be to make Squeaker of all people look like a strong leader?
NotMax
@Splitting Image
Poor players, that strut and fret their hour upon the stage, and then are heard no more: it is a caucus run by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
TS
@West of the Rockies:
Does he wear makeup – or use photshop before anyone is allowed to release the picture.
Weird it is.
Tony Jay
@NotMax:
Lyrics and Incidental Music by Nyarlathotep Jones & His Eldritch Orchestra, all rights reserved.
“On next week’s show, Tucker reads directly from the Necronomicon and asks, what is it about the traditional teachings contained in this staple of Western Civilisation that the Woke diversifiers in Washington don’t want your kids to hear about?! We’ll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.”
“U tebya problemy s muzhskim dostoinstvom?...”
satby
Well, it’s 4:20 am here and I’m awake after a really stressful two days. Talk about feeling cheated, I couldn’t get back to sleep because I was trying to mentally write the yelp review on that animal hospital that would warn people off.
There was an old malicious trope about various religions/ethnic groups that claimed those groups didn’t consider dishonesty a sin when dealing with outsiders. I often feel like the fundie evangelicals I run into in this red state believe that. Ripping off a desperate pet owner, ripping off a restaurant server, ripping off people needing car repairs… It’s always a naked power move against someone not in a position to fight back; and ethics need not be involved. Breathtaking.
eclare
@satby:
Wait, what happened?
NotMax
@satby
They haven’t by now all gravitated to the payday loan business?
Shank of the evening.
;)
Chris T.
@satby: Uh oh, is kitty OK?
Vet practices all over the US are having issues these days in part because of COVID (and in part because of all the usual MBA-oriented aspects of Big Business with VCA and other Big Businesses that are trying to take over vet practices).
NotMax
Received the invitation for step-nephew’s wedding this August. No way offered to RSVP other than online.
When last spoke with his mother (my step-sister), I asked about the pre-invitation mailing that read “formal attire.”
She responded that it wasn’t quite accurate, that a solid colored shirt and trousers would do just fine. I’ll take her at her word on that (after all, she’s the Mom of the bridegroom).
Plan to root around Ross and TJ Maxx on upcoming visits to town for what are known here as aloha wedding shirts. White with a subtle floral pattern.
Baud
@Splitting Image:
Their power is in riling up the base with fascism. They had no chance of doing that when the issue was using the threat of default to enact massive cuts to the budget. If the issue were trans people or abortion, they would have had more influence.
NotMax
@NotMax
Decidedly displeased that rather than just the wedding the whole mishegas has now mutated into a three-day event.
Rehearsal dinner (whatever that is) for “close family” on Friday, wedding and reception on Saturday and a breakfast on Sunday. Gonna be a lot of forced grinning and bearing from this end.
Aussie Sheila
@ColoradoGuy:
Speaking/writing as someone who waited tables all through my university years, I concur. What Aholes. They would be game to return. Although I disapprove mightily of tipping as a substitute for a living wage, I understand completely its necessity in the brutal labor market visited on the US working class, particularly in the food and beverage sector. It was an eye opener for me thirty years ago. I never forgot, and I never failed to tip. It is disgraceful and demeaning.
I was often tipped in Oz when I was young. I treated it as a welcome plus to a minimum wage job. I never expected it, I was never expected to live on tips and I never did.
Shalimar
@Splitting Image: Give McCarthy some credit this one time. He played them. 6 Freedom Caucus members were enough to dump him if all the Democrats voted against Kevin too. The only way the debt ceiling agreement was a good deal from his point of view was if Jeffries agreed that they wouldn’t. This is confirmation that he got that agreement from Democrats.
OzarkHillbilly
And if they sat in my section they would be wearing their dinner.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Oh dear, that is a lot. As just a step-uncle do you really have to attend all three days, or does your step-sister, who presumably will, need your support? And is slipping away during the reception no longer a thing?
NotMax
@Aussie Sheila
Once, when temporarily working solo on the 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift at a small cafe (sandwiches, salads, muffins & bagels, soft drinks, coffee, espresso) to supplement income from my regular work when business was slack there I was quite surprised to fish out a hundred dollar bill from the tip jar.
Aside: manager pulled me into a confab to note that of all the employees working there (place was open 24 hours except the more or less half hour when the person on the graveyard shift was tasked with mopping the floor), only my cash drawer balanced to the penny every time.
satby
@eclare: Just the dealing with the worst vet hospital I’ve ever encountered in over 40+ years of pet rescue. I think they’re competent, but their focus on making a profit far surpassed their concern for the care and comfort of Duke. Or not, depending on who I talked to. Long, long story which I heavily abbreviated at the GFM page. But he’s home, not being held hostage; still very sick but improved, the positively predatory bill paid. It’s not just the bill, I still never got a straight answer regarding when they began giving him medication other than just an IV. My previous encounter there with a different vet was great, I wasn’t at all expecting the chaos and ripoff that occurred the last two days. But the jackal community saved us and we are so grateful.
@Chris T.: And they leverage the fact that people have to make snap decisions under duress trusting in the expert giving them the information. But Duke is improved, and now that he’s getting treatment at home I expect it will continue. I wish I could sue them for his delayed treatment and suffering, but it would be good $ after bad. I’m gobsmacked, still, that they would wait all day (or until the next morning depending on who I talked to) to even give him something to reduce his fever. And the thing is, they’re self-righteously angry with me, for questioning their plan of care and disputing the bill AND being less than grateful for their heroic efforts. Which for the first 8 hours consisted of several blood tests and an IV only. No treatment, no medications.
OzarkHillbilly
@Shalimar: The only thing this proves is that the GOP still can’t get their shit together and that the Freedumb Caucus is nothing but a bunch of clowns running around screaming, “LOOK AT MEEEEE!!!”
different-church-lady
So… tired… of… crazy…. people…
Tony Jay
@satby:
That was one of the staples of the War of Terror era when wingnuts needed a framework they could wrap their newly minted Islamophobia around and one of the constituent parts was a deliberate misinterpretation of the concept of taqiyya, where the idea that believers under immediate threat of death were allowed to lie about their religion to avoid being persecuted morphed was into a doctrine whereby all muslims were allowed, even encouraged and expected, to lie to non-believers in service of their faith.
Basically, they wanted an excuse to say that all muslims needed to be rounded up, imprisoned, expelled or just plain genocided because, looky here, their own religion forbids them to be honest with non-muslims, so how can we ever trust them to be around our stuff?
And, yeah, it became pretty damned clear, pretty damned quickly, that wingnuts adopted that concept as a bad-faith excuse for lying through their teeth about everything. After all, if those raghead-loving Libs didn’t have a problem with muslims doing it, they’d have to be hypocritical doody-heads to complain about good, Christian people doing it right back to them, wouldn’t they? And it was in service of an actual good cause, so no harm, no foul.
Bunch of pricks.
satby
@NotMax: is it there on Maui and is your mom going to be able to attend?I
Ah, I see mom will be there. Nice, give her my regards.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Were it only li’l old me would have no compunction about making myself absent but will be serving as chauffeur to Mom, who will want to attend the entirety. Location is roughly an hour and a quarter drive from her digs so repeated trips not really all that convenient.
Have met the kid in the flesh maybe a total of four times ever. Doubtful I could pick him, nor he me, out of a crowd.
satby
@Tony Jay: you’ve nailed it. When we say everything is projection with those folks… it really is.
NotMax
@satby
Nearby to Bear Mountain, NY.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Ah, it’s your mother’s side of the family (there being various ways to become an uncle). Well, aloha to all. I’m sure you’ll get through it … somehow.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Actually my stepfather’s (deceased) side of the family.
A surfeit of smoke breaks.
;)
satby
Not… quite… dawn yet but the next rescue kitty to be is already waiting for me to bring food out to my porch. He (I think) is a ratty looking, dirty, skinny, close relation to Bitchleen. He has another nearly identical sibling much more skittish than he is, who eats after he finishes. I can only tell them apart because the first guy’s ears are chewed up from fights. He now doesn’t run as long as I have food dishes in my hand and has even tolerated a single pet once in a while. I should be able to capture him in another month. I hope, anyway. Waiting a bit longer for more light, too early and a local raccoon will also belly up to the food bar.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Still have 2½ months to re-perfect my Buster Keaton visage.
:)
prostratedragon
@NotMax: ‘Bout what I figured😉😇
Aussie Sheila
@satby:
I am so sorry! I have just parted with the best part of $3500 for tooth extractions from my two cats. The first cat was sent home with no antibiotics, with predictable results given the state of cat mouths. An additional $500 plus and a fortnight later, he is finally ok. Vets are a mixed bunch. Often very caring, but assistants often very undertrained and underpaid. It shows in the final care and attention.
satby
@Aussie Sheila: oh, man; compared to that bill I and Duke got off easy. Glad your guy is ok now!
WereBear
@satby:
@Aussie Sheila:
Yes, I have a very good vet now but that’s always a tricky thing. Glad for happy endings, anyway.
Aussie Sheila
@satby:
He is ok, but I am still waiting to see how his brother goes. $1800 for him, because I insisted he get an antibiotic shot before I took him home. The anti biotic plus additional blood test for feline HIV came to $150 over the base line of $1700 for the extractions.
Australian vets charge like wounded bulls. But what can you do ? Animals must be cared for.
Chris T.
@satby: Sure, but those are Oz dollars. 😀 (The US vs Australia $ exchange rate varies a lot, right now it’s US$1 = approx A$1.49, so it’s cheap-ish for US residents to visit Oz. You also get NZ$1.65 right now so that’s even better. Last time I was in Oz I didn’t do so well though…)
Chris T.
@Aussie Sheila: They should do a Convenia (cefovecin) injection after oral surgery on a cat, unless there’s some contraindication (there are a lot of possible ones, and ideally they should also ask you if you can pill your cat). One of mine had some oral surgery pretty recently and she got a Convenia shot and was fine.
frosty
@NotMax: In my brother’s neck of the woods. Nice area.
lowtechcyclist
Well shit, that makes it all make sense. How did I never see this before?
It’s a simple enough formula. People who act like assholes are going to be disliked. So if they come up with reasons for acting like assholes towards people where they can say it’s on account of their religion, people are going to dislike them and reject their religion as well. And then they can go into “help, help, I’m being repressed” mode.
But it’s working a bit too effectively for them lately, because so many of their own children don’t want to be a part anymore of a religion that apparently requires them to be assholes. The kids are alright.
Princess
I took my cats to the vet yesterday and it was traumatic for all and expensive for me. I do like and trust my vet. But I am coming to feel more strongly that vets are not a place for cats. I don’t think I could treat my cats if anything serious emerged (because they could not handle it) so I’m not convinced of the value of the diagnostics to us. I had a vet come to the house once and that was so much easier.
LiminalOwl
@West of the Rockies: Is it just me, or does that picture look like The Joker sans makeup?
LiminalOwl
(duplicate removed)
LiminalOwl
@LiminalOwl: Wait, that was supposed to be in another thread, and referred to Matt Gaetz. Can it be moved? Or deleted and replaced where it ought to be? Apologies for early-morning klutziness.
trnc
@Chetan Murthy:
I guarantee you that fake 50 guy votes for tax breaks for billionaires every time.
Strictly from a legal perspective, I doubt it’s considered counterfeit because it’s so obviously fake. I also assume that passing off novelty money in this way is not illegal because of the nature of tips, which can be zero. IOW, it’s not like trying to pay the actual bill with it. We also don’t know from the tweet if the guy paid with a credit card and tipped there.
I fully agree that it’s time for tips to go away, but somehow they’ve become more prominent for counter service for non-wait staff type jobs. I tip sometimes because minimum wage is too little, but I’ve read that some companies keep the tips that go on cards. Those managers belong in the same hell as the guy with the fake 50.
Geminid
Pope Francis was admitted to a Rome hospital today, for abdominal surgery.
MagdaInBlack
@LiminalOwl: It’s ok, he’s embedded in the link @ # 2 comment. I knew who you meant. And yes, he does.
mrmoshpotato
That feeling that Dump’s dad should’ve been smothered in his sleep decades ago? Yes. Burn in hell you shit*****!
Kay
They fired this professor because he criticized Christopher Rufo and Ron DeSantis.
If Rufo and DeSantis were two liberals who fired a conservative professor for criticizing them there would be 15 Washington Post and New York Times articles and op eds about it and Elon Musk would hire Matt Taibbi to write 10,000 (inaccurate) words about it. Because he’s a liberal there’s not a peep out of any of them.
Matt McIrvin
The religious tract disguised as money goes back a LONG way. I’ve been seeing those left on tables for decades.
And, yeah, forcing members into unpleasant confrontations with the general public to reinforce loyalty to the group is a standard tactic of mind-controlling cults, and Christian evangelicals’ “evangelizing” definitely has a powerful element of it.
satby
@Princess: my annoyance was that aside from the IV, they didn’t do anything I couldn’t do myself at home; and charged me an obscene amount for diagnostic testing of dubious value, the most expensive of which still hasn’t even gotten results back yet. And will probably be inconclusive. I know over diagnostic testing on humans as liability protection happens here; apparently the vet industry wanted some of that sweet, sweet grift.
Aussie Sheila
@Chris T.:
They did, after I insisted the second cat get antibiotic treatment before they released him after surgery. Simply careless with the first one. No excuse given cat mouth germs.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Two of the 3 times I’ve been in the vicinity of Bear Mountain there were thunderstorms with torrential rain. Years ago there was an outing where we grabbed the kabobs and swam to cars. Most recent was last year on a trip out via Amtrak, had just been enjoying the beautiful Mohawk valley when wham! Then after some minutes we could see again. Hope you all have better weather, a la return trip.
evodevo
@Splitting Image:
Marjorie Traitor Greene is learning…she’s been backing KKKevin and came out in favor of the debt ceiling deal…
evodevo
@NotMax: LOL we did that to our son’s beach wedding…he instructed us to wear khaki pants and white shirts…Mr. Evodevo wore his Hawaiian shirt and I wore red and white patterned pants…needless to say they were pissed, but we sure stood out in the wedding photos…(we didn’t really do it on purpose…we are old and just forgot, and to us, “beach wedding” meant Margaritaville )
Geminid
@evodevo: Greene is trying to develop some gravitass.
The Thin Black Duke
@evodevo: Although I hate to admit it, MTG isn’t stupid. She’s more of a cynical opportunist than true believer, and MTG can see it’s time to fold. She’s not going to go all in on a losing hand.
apocalipstick
@Chetan Murthy:
No, it’s not counterfeiting. It is raging assholery.
Manyakitty
@satby: is the hospital part of a chain? That kind of abuse is utterly vile and needs to be noted publicly.
evodevo
@Geminid:
Well, she’s got lots of that LOL
satby
@Manyakitty: well, my yelp review will be lit.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: It would be interesting to know if the vets own the test lab. There was a study of an area in Texas where doctors owned the test facility. Compared to a control group, they ordered many more tests. Hence medical care was significantly more expensive
HumboldtBlue
@Chris T.:
WereBear
@satby: After $500 worth, my vet said we could do ten times that and still not get to the bottom of Reverend Jim’s IBS.
Mr WereBear concocted an herbal thing which helped him get all the way to 13. Which, considering he was held as evidence in an abuse case, is a triumph of his will to live, yet again.
WereBear
@evodevo: I will never understand the Dungeon Master attitude of those bridal groups for whom posing for pictures is more important than having fun… but, it is their party.
Steve in the ATL
@satby:
rotating tag?
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
I’d say just go to the wedding itself, and skip the other stuff.
The rehearsal dinner (whether or not there’s an actual rehearsal) is normally for people who are already in town anyway, either because they’re in the wedding party and have to be in the rehearsal (again, if there is one), or because it was just logistically easier to get there the day before than on the morning of the wedding day.
You and your mom aren’t already there, and as you say, you’re not close enough to them that you should feel an obligation to be there. So skip the rehearsal dinner unless your mom insists that she wants to be there.
And same deal with a breakfast the morning after the wedding. It’s always assumed that things like that are for people who are still in town, and this gives them a chance to hang out with family and friends a bit more instead of looking for breakfast on their own while they wait around for it to be time to head for the airport.
Same deal, skip this too unless your mom insists.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax: Sounds like you’re there for your mom. You could comment on BJ live from the event.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
So have I, but I don’t recall having seen any that would have looked enough like real money to actually fool anyone, even at a casual glance. The color would almost always be ‘off’ enough by itself to keep that from happening, usually a noticeably brighter green.
James E Powell
@Kay:
It would be a story told over and over for the next ten years.
mrmoshpotato
Yes please!
Steve in the ATL
@James E Powell: only ten years? I thought you were the hyperbole man!
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: Bitchslap the living shit out of this shit**** institution of “higher” learning! Fucking fascist piles of shit!
Jackie
Chris Licht is out at CNN.
“According to Puck News’ Dylan Byers, “Warner Bros. Discovery will announce that Licht will be stepping down as chairman and CEO of CNN” within the next 48 hours.”
Don’t let the door hit you where the sun don’t shine!
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: What exactly would this “bitchslap” involve? Remember the students attending the school didn’t sign up for this. It was done to the institution after they had begun their studies.
Wapiti
@trnc: We’ve got an ice cream chain here in Seattle, Molly Moons, which is 100% no tip. No tip jar, no tip line on the charge machine. They apparently pay their people well and have a good benefits package, but they decided (~2019) that tips are not a public good.
Citizen Alan
@Aussie Sheila: And this right here is why I have never been a pet owner. At those points in my life when I could have easily afforded a pet, I was living in places that did not allow them. And at those points when I had my own home and really thought about getting a dog or a cat, I was struggling professionally and was genuinely afraid that I could not provide the animal with proper vet care that I could afford.
cope
@NotMax: Maybe some gummies?
H-Bob
@Tony Jay: “believers under immediate threat of death were allowed to lie about their religion to avoid being persecuted” … in England, that goes back to the Reformation, where the Jesuits used equivocation to avoid lying under “enhanced interrogation”!
The Lodger
@lowtechcyclist: Considering the “fold-in” nature of these things, the passer’s introduction to the afterlife should be Al Jaffee with a bullwhip.