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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / News of the Weird Open Thread

News of the Weird Open Thread

by Anne Laurie|  May 13, 20253:29 pm| 154 Comments

This post is in: Grifters Gonna Grift, Open Threads

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Anduril founder Palmer Luckey says the US should “expand our naval base on Guantanamo Bay into Liberty City [ie, a ‘freedom city’], an American Singapore of the Caribbean.” Anduril is backed by Tech Bros Peter Thiel & Marc Andreessen who support aspiring “network states” via Pronomos Capital. 1/

[image or embed]

— Jenny Cohn (@jennycohn.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 1:26 PM

I still have a Make Something happy – kiss an orc today button from a 1970 NYC street fair, but sometimes I wish Tolkien came with an ‘adult content’ warning.

2/ Link for post 1. x.com/palmerluckey…

[image or embed]

— Jenny Cohn (@jennycohn.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 1:27 PM

3/ Palmer Luckey’s tweet elicited this reply from the Charter Cities Institute, which promotes the idea of so-called “freedom cities.” x.com/ccidotcity/s…

[image or embed]

— Jenny Cohn (@jennycohn.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 1:29 PM

4/ chartercitiesinstitute.org/research/gua…

[image or embed]

— Jenny Cohn (@jennycohn.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 1:30 PM


5/ As I said, Anduril is backed by Thiel and Andreessen. bsky.app/profile/jenn…

[image or embed]

— Jenny Cohn (@jennycohn.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 1:31 PM

***********

Bonus:

34/ Related thread. They want the Presidio too. bsky.app/profile/jenn…

[image or embed]

— Jenny Cohn (@jennycohn.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 10:50 PM

35/ bsky.app/profile/jenn…

[image or embed]

— Jenny Cohn (@jennycohn.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 10:53 PM

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Previous Post: « Uncertainty, clawback and low income insurance in the Ways and Means bill
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Reader Interactions

154Comments

  1. 1.

    AM in NC

    May 13, 2025 at 3:32 pm

    These fucking children.

  2. 2.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 13, 2025 at 3:36 pm

    Liberty City? What about the state of San Andreas?

  3. 3.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    May 13, 2025 at 3:37 pm

    I support sending them all to Gitmo, as long as they can’t come back.

  4. 4.

    Old Man Shadow

    May 13, 2025 at 3:38 pm

    If you read Tolkien and walked away thinking he was in favor of destroying nature, enslaving the working class, entrusting concentrated power into the hands of one being to use for reordering the world, and trying to gain immortality, you’re a damned fool.

  5. 5.

    Jerry

    May 13, 2025 at 3:39 pm

    Nothing defines “liberty” more than building a gulag in it.

  6. 6.

    Jeffro

    May 13, 2025 at 3:39 pm

    @AM in NC: right??!?

    “I HAVE NO WAY TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN A NORMAL WORLD WITH STANDARDS!” = tech bros, MAGA, many others

  7. 7.

    Old Man Shadow

    May 13, 2025 at 3:41 pm

    @Jeffro: They want the privileges of being a citizen in a stable civilization without any of the obligations required. They are teenage shithead assholes.

  8. 8.

    Spanky

    May 13, 2025 at 3:42 pm

    A developed Presidio would add 120,000 residents

    Without thought of water, sewer, transportation …

    Massively idiotic. Which means full speed ahead!

  9. 9.

    Peale

    May 13, 2025 at 3:43 pm

    These are extremely wealthy people who could move to Singapore any time they damn chose, so why the hell do they choose to stay here? Oh, its because they all have major emotional issues where they will stick gum under benches in the park just because there’s a sign put up there that its not allowed.

  10. 10.

    Belafon

    May 13, 2025 at 3:43 pm

    @Jeffro: Walter Jon Williams got these people right in Hardwired: They believe they should be allowed to remake the world because their vision is pure.

  11. 11.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    May 13, 2025 at 3:44 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: First it was Bioshock, now it’s GTA, the really are getting their ideas from a computer game.

  12. 12.

    Gravenstone

    May 13, 2025 at 3:44 pm

    If we let them build their little city, would they promise to move there and never leave nor trouble the rest of humanity again?

  13. 13.

    narya

    May 13, 2025 at 3:45 pm

    This morning I listened to the Blogfather’s second episode, and boy howdy is it relevant. Emphasis on the “boy.”

  14. 14.

    Peale

    May 13, 2025 at 3:45 pm

    They already have their rentboys elected in El Salvador and Argentina. I didn’t exactly see them lining up with the unicorn money to invest there.

  15. 15.

    MobiusKlein

    May 13, 2025 at 3:46 pm

    The Presidio is pretty nice as it is today. Probably room for more housing, but not like it’s going to absorb 100,000 people.   Transportation to and from will be a nightmare.  No subways, limited freeway, and already tons of traffic.

  16. 16.

    Leto

    May 13, 2025 at 3:47 pm

    Naomi Klein’s article from a month ago directly explains all of this: The rise of end times fascism (The Guardian)

    But you don’t need to be a biblical literalist, or even religious, to be an end times fascist. Today, plenty of powerful secular people have embraced a vision of the future that follows a nearly identical script, one in which the world as we know it collapses under its weight and a chosen few survive and thrive in various kinds of arks, bunkers and gated “freedom cities”. In a 2019 paper titled Left Behind: Future Fetishists, Prepping and the Abandonment of Earth, the communication scholars Sarah T Roberts and Mél Hogan described the longing for a secular Rapture: “In the accelerationist imaginary, the future is not about harm reduction, limits or restoration; rather it is a politics driving toward an endgame.”

    …..

    Much like religious end-timers who long to escape the corporeal realm, Musk’s drive for humanity to become “multiplanetary” is made possible by his inability to appreciate the multispecies splendor of our only home. Evidently uninterested in the vast bounty that surrounds him, or in ensuring Earth can continue buzzing with diversity, he instead deploys his vast fortune to bring about a future that would see a handful of people and robots eke out survival on two barren orbs (a radically depleted Earth and a terraformed Mars). Indeed, in a strange twist on the Old Testament tale, Musk and his fellow tech billionaires, having arrogated god-like powers to themselves, aren’t content to just build the arks. They appear to be doing their best to cause the flood. Today’s rightwing leaders and their rich allies are not just taking advantage of catastrophes, shock-doctrine and disaster-capitalism style, but simultaneously provoking and planning for them.

    What of the Maga base, though? Not all are sufficiently faithful to earnestly believe in the Rapture, and most certainly don’t have the cash to buy a spot in a “freedom city” let alone on a rocket ship. Fear not. End times fascism offers the promise of many more affordable arks and bunkers, these ones well within reach for lower-level foot soldiers.

    It’s a long article, but worth the read. For those who want to listen to her expand on the article, she did a 20 min interview that’s also worth the watch/listen: Naomi Klein on Trump, Musk, Far Right & “End Times Fascism”

  17. 17.

    dmsilev

    May 13, 2025 at 3:47 pm

    @Old Man Shadow: Same sort of person who watches the Star Wars films and comes away thinking that the Empire were the good guys.

  18. 18.

    Trivia Man

    May 13, 2025 at 3:48 pm

    @Spanky: you clearly aren’t a visionary. Sewage directly into the ocean

    water comes from the giant tap that can be turned in the mountains

    Transportation? Why would you need to leave the compound? We will even have guard towers to keep you safe. A modern company town and you get paid in scrip to conveniently spend in campus!

  19. 19.

    Glidwrith

    May 13, 2025 at 3:49 pm

    Honest, it reads more like they’re pissy that someone else is on that land and THEY WANT IT.

  20. 20.

    AM in NC

    May 13, 2025 at 3:50 pm

    @Old Man Shadow: exactly. These people watch Andor and have no idea they’re the bad guys.

  21. 21.

    suzanne

    May 13, 2025 at 3:52 pm

    The Bay Area doesn’t need to develop the Presidio. They could just develop their “historic” parking lots.

  22. 22.

    Hungry Joe

    May 13, 2025 at 3:53 pm

    We should confine these choads to a dormitory (“FREEDOM HALL”), where they can spew their fanciful freshman rubbish harmlessly all night, every night. They can even have weed, as long as it’s the shitty ditch weed we sometimes ended up with (way) (WAY) back in the day.

  23. 23.

    Eolirin

    May 13, 2025 at 3:55 pm

    @MobiusKlein: It’s not like you can’t solve the transportation infrastructure issue with a large enough bag of money. The problem is these plans always involve missing steps or ignore details necessary to make them work or just assume mass migration despite a lack of vital services, etc etc.

    It’s absolutely possible for a nation state to engage in this kind of large scale planned community building, China’s done stuff like this, but to make it successful you need to be living in the real world, be willing to actually solve the infrastructure issues and it’s absurdly expensive. Libertarian fantasy isn’t going to bankroll these kinds of projects successfully, there isn’t enough of a return in it.

    A very socialist government interested in creating heavily subsidized affordable housing willing to engage in massive wealth redistribution could maybe pull it off though, if they put the right people in charge of it.

    And they’d just be cities at the end of the day

    These are interstate highway level projects. That system took a trillion dollars in inflation adjusted spending and over a decade to pull off and requires constant subsidization to maintain. Handwaving the costs because libertarian paradise somehow makes it revenue positive without taxes is insane.

  24. 24.

    Chief Oshkosh

    May 13, 2025 at 3:55 pm

    Of course we “let” them build it, and we tell them they can also create and run its government and the recruitment of its “citizens.”

    We encourage them to film the whole thing with auto upload to the Cloud. Mean time, we sell the rights to Apple or Disney (or both simultaneously – let the lawyers figure it out) and advertise the stink out of it as a show that is a cross between The Island (ah, but which one?), HGTV, and White Lotus on an infinity loop.

  25. 25.

    kindness

    May 13, 2025 at 3:56 pm

    It took 20 years of negotiating to get the current Presidio development program going.  If these yahoos think they can just wave their magic techbro/MAGA wands and create a whole new plan and implement it, they are all on drugs.  And as we’ve seen, MAGA highs are a powerful drug.  Makes people do stupid stuff.  As far as developing Guantanamo Bay…. that’s stolen land.  We’ll give it back to Cuba in some future Democratic administration.

    Who is this nutcase Jenny Cohn?  (thankfully) I had never heard of her before.

  26. 26.

    Belafon

    May 13, 2025 at 3:56 pm

    @Leto: Not particularly fond of “You must choose Earth or Space” types from either side. Yes, there’s a lot here, but there’s also a lot out there, and I personally would love to go exploring other planets. Some of us were made to go live on the savannah, across the ocean, under the water, on the moon, and on Mars.

  27. 27.

    Scott_S

    May 13, 2025 at 3:57 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: +1

  28. 28.

    MobiusKlein

    May 13, 2025 at 3:57 pm

    @suzanne: Alameda has a long history of anti-development.  Maybe part of the White Flight from Oakland.

  29. 29.

    Peale

    May 13, 2025 at 3:58 pm

    @suzanne: I read stuff like this and realize that the only way forward for intelligent life on the planet is for human extinction and hope that in a few million years, the evolved squirrels do a better job managing things.

  30. 30.

    Belafon

    May 13, 2025 at 4:00 pm

    @Eolirin: The high speed rail project between Dallas and Houston that is off again here – after being on again which was after being off which was after being on – would have allowed people to live in the smaller towns along the route, which would have reduced housing costs overall and kept small towns from shrinking, but people cannot seem to see beyond “You’re taking my car away” which wasn’t actually going to happen.

  31. 31.

    eldorado

    May 13, 2025 at 4:00 pm

    A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies

  32. 32.

    Llelldorin

    May 13, 2025 at 4:03 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    Came to say basically that. Can we get them to choose GitMo, then repatriate it to Cuba once they’re there?

  33. 33.

    PST

    May 13, 2025 at 4:03 pm

    Why does Gitmo need a Liberty City? Miami already has one. Isn’t that close enough?

  34. 34.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 4:03 pm

    For all the Techno-Utopian word salad grift in these proposals, I have yet to see one concrete paragraph on how they are going to deal with “the bears” issue.

    But hey, why grift MAGgot’s for their pennies with meme coins, cripto and tacky shoes spray painted gold when there are so many willing marks amongst the Billionaire classes and Wall Street.

    I guess they have never heard of Sawdi Arabia’s “Line City” (NEOM).

  35. 35.

    Hoodie

    May 13, 2025 at 4:04 pm

    They do understand that Gitmo has no fresh water supply, right?  Everything has to be desalinated and would require a massive amount of imported energy to support any significant population.   I guess this isn’t much different than fantasizing you can colonize fucking Mars.

  36. 36.

    Eolirin

    May 13, 2025 at 4:05 pm

    @Belafon: That’s particularly headdesk inducing.

  37. 37.

    narya

    May 13, 2025 at 4:05 pm

    @Eolirin: and we know how THAT project exacerbated segregation and destroyed communities of color…. The chances of something like this doing the same thing are 100%.

  38. 38.

    Llelldorin

    May 13, 2025 at 4:06 pm

    @Hoodie: I think using “understand” in the context of these guys is probably a category error. There are the sort of people who pay heavily to avoid needing to understand anything.

  39. 39.

    suzanne

    May 13, 2025 at 4:07 pm

    @MobiusKlein: It’s amazing how opposition to development is usually based in opposition to poor people. I see it in my own neighborhood all the time.

  40. 40.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 4:07 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    A reboot of Survivor? But with multi Billionaires instead of eye candy and villains?

  41. 41.

    Leto

    May 13, 2025 at 4:13 pm

    @Belafon: literally zero humans were made to live on the moon or Mars. But it’s ok; most humans have chosen to fuck up the Earth beyond hope AND we don’t have the resources for permanent space colonies. Everyone wins!

  42. 42.

    Geoduck

    May 13, 2025 at 4:15 pm

    “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 13, 2025 at 4:16 pm

    Anduril?!  Come the fuck on.   Narsil or GTFO!

  44. 44.

    The Audacity of Krope

    May 13, 2025 at 4:19 pm

    @dmsilev: Many of the most committed Star Wars fans I know have managed to convince themselves the empire represented pluralist, right based society.

  45. 45.

    Trivia Man

    May 13, 2025 at 4:23 pm

    @eldorado: Im doing my part?

  46. 46.

    Leto

    May 13, 2025 at 4:24 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m sure that one will pop up as well. The amount of right wing LotR named companies is… out of control. Tolkien is spinning fast enough in his grave that Doc Brown is considering him as the next power source for the train Time Machine.

  47. 47.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 4:24 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Narsil was shattered, then reforged as Anduril,

    which is all the project will say about the bears issue, is they hope there won’t be any bears.

    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling
    How a New Hampshire libertarian utopia was foiled by bears
    Seriously, this happened. You should absolutely read about it.

  48. 48.

    They Call Me Noni

    May 13, 2025 at 4:25 pm

    @Gravenstone: I could definitely get behind that!  It would be a very gilded prison, but a prison nonetheless.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    May 13, 2025 at 4:26 pm

    Pete Rose, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson among players reinstated by MLB

  50. 50.

    Baud

    May 13, 2025 at 4:28 pm

    @The Audacity of Krope:

    Vader was very good about accepting apologies.

  51. 51.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    May 13, 2025 at 4:29 pm

    @Baud: And at keeping the terms of his deals up-to-date.

  52. 52.

    Belafon

    May 13, 2025 at 4:30 pm

    @Leto: Literally zero humans are built to swim across the ocean either.

  53. 53.

    JeffH

    May 13, 2025 at 4:32 pm

    @kindness: Who is this nutcase Jenny Cohn? (thankfully) I had never heard of her before.

    I’m pretty certain she is not a supporter of this, just reporting on it, so the nutcase comment is way off base.

  54. 54.

    Ruckus

    May 13, 2025 at 4:34 pm

    @Old Man Shadow:

    They are teenage shithead assholes.

    I believe you may be giving them too much credit….

  55. 55.

    scav

    May 13, 2025 at 4:35 pm

    @Baud: The All-American rush to restore rewarding corruption continues apace.

  56. 56.

    Harrison Wesley

    May 13, 2025 at 4:36 pm

    They already have one of these things: Prospera, off the coast of Honduras. You’ll be surprised to learn that it’s something less than a roaring success.

  57. 57.

    Ruckus

    May 13, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    @Spanky:

    I’ve been to Gitmo.

    I believe these folks have their heads located in a rather dark, smelly place if they think it could be made into a large metropolis. Or even a mid sized one.

  58. 58.

    different-church-lady

    May 13, 2025 at 4:38 pm

    My dream is to someday have enough money to be insane.

  59. 59.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 13, 2025 at 4:39 pm

    @Jay: Narsil was shattered, then reforged as Anduril

    No shit.

  60. 60.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    May 13, 2025 at 4:40 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    LOL

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 13, 2025 at 4:40 pm

    @different-church-lady: Eccentric.  If you are rich, it’s eccentric.

  62. 62.

    different-church-lady

    May 13, 2025 at 4:41 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: No, I want more money than that.

  63. 63.

    Leto

    May 13, 2025 at 4:45 pm

    @Baud: just ask Captain Needa.

  64. 64.

    bjacques

    May 13, 2025 at 4:45 pm

    @Jay: Exeunt, pursued by bears.

    More Libertarians wanting to suck from the government tit. Fuck me. I was a Libertarian in my teens, partly thanks to your countrymen in Rush (later I realized they had a sense of homor after all). But exposure to other Libertarians cured me of that.

     

    And, damn, but Eurovision really is sn antidote to all this “gelul” (bullshit, chingazos, enzo). All that goofy, gloriously cheesy (but earnest) color against the idiot greyfaces currently running our country. I’m rooting for Estonia’s Tommy Cash and his song ”Espresso Macchiato”.

  65. 65.

    Belafon

    May 13, 2025 at 4:46 pm

    I think we’re currently doing the “getting humans into space” part wrong. We should have been continuing the steps the Apollo program started.

    I doubt the Polynesians got to Hawaii because one citizen kept building boats and pushing them out to see until one floated.

  66. 66.

    Harrison Wesley

    May 13, 2025 at 4:48 pm

    @Jay: Also Galt’s Gulch in Chile, though that was sunk by fraud rather than bears.

  67. 67.

    TONYG

    May 13, 2025 at 4:49 pm

    Brilliant idea.  The prisoners in Gitmo can be used as slave labor, and then killed and cremated when they’re too old or sick to work.  It’s a business model that  worked profitably for German corporations from 1940 through 1945.   My theory of “libertarians” is that they’re all just Nazis under a very thin facade of “freedom”.

  68. 68.

    Belafon

    May 13, 2025 at 4:52 pm

    @Belafon: “to sea.” way to ruin a joke.

  69. 69.

    RevRick

    May 13, 2025 at 4:55 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: That’s no fault of mine.

  70. 70.

    Bupalos

    May 13, 2025 at 5:00 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: That was my thought. “SHHHHHHH BE COOL! BE COOL! They’re volunteering for Gitmo, I think we can work with this.”

  71. 71.

    artem1s

    May 13, 2025 at 5:02 pm

    @Jay: ​ 
    It’s funny how they always put these things in places where they can’t grow enough of their own food to be self sustaining.

  72. 72.

    Belafon

    May 13, 2025 at 5:06 pm

    @artem1s: Ayn Rand never explained how that was supposed to work.

  73. 73.

    hells littlest angel

    May 13, 2025 at 5:07 pm

    LED-accented skyscrapers

     

    Sure. Whatever.

  74. 74.

    Sister Golden Bear

    May 13, 2025 at 5:10 pm

    @Hoodie:

    They do understand that Gitmo has no fresh water supply, right?  Everything has to be desalinated and would require a massive amount of imported energy to support any significant population. I guess this isn’t much different than fantasizing you can colonize fucking Mars.

    It’s easy to have a Glibertarian Gault’s Gulch paradise, all you need is <checks notes> for it to be completely underwritten and subsidized by the federal government.

  75. 75.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 5:13 pm

    @Belafon:

    Social Security, Welfare and Medicaid, but she was hush about it.

  76. 76.

    JML

    May 13, 2025 at 5:15 pm

    As a huge Tolkien fan, seeing all these faux libertarian right-wing shitbags appropriating LotR nomenclature for their grifting makes me want to start swinging for the knees. God, these people suck.

  77. 77.

    Captain C

    May 13, 2025 at 5:16 pm

    @Belafon:  Or who would clean the toilets or do the other scutwork in Galt’s Gulch.

    I also have a bit of headcanon in which once all the Galt people vanish into Galt’s Gulch the rest of society starts running swimmingly and a generation or two later an exploration party is sent to Galt’s Gulch, only to find a few ruins, a ton of corpses and skeletons, and evidence that GG descended into an all-way civil war soon after its inhabitants locked themselves in, likely over who would clean the toilets.

  78. 78.

    Sister Golden Bear

    May 13, 2025 at 5:19 pm

    @Peale: It’s also the same warlord/pirate mentality behind Trump’s approach to trade—it’s not winning if you simply buy something, e.g. a place in Singapore, you need to crush the proles, take it (the Presidio, etc.) from them, and hear the lamentations of their women.

  79. 79.

    lou

    May 13, 2025 at 5:22 pm

    @Old Man Shadow: In Tolkien’s foreword refuting ideas that it was an allegory about WW2:

    “The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Baradur destroyed but occupied….In that conflict, both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.”

    Yeah, they really didn’t get Tolkien, did they? And it pisses me off to see misuse of Tolkien terms. Isn’t that violation of copyright or something, or has LOTR fallen out of copyright?

  80. 80.

    KNay

    May 13, 2025 at 5:24 pm

    This proposal is feveriest of fever dreams.

  81. 81.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 5:27 pm

    Over the decades, dozens of these grifts have been tried, Seasteading, Rethug gun humpers, cults, MAGgots, Libertarians, all have failed or are failing.

    But I do like that the ‘marks” in the latest grifts aren’t antisocial loners with a few bucks* but instead, MOTU’s, VC’s, Techbro’s, CryptoBro’s and Wall Street.

    Of course, Felon Husk will always have his “Starbase” city in TexASS, with it’s Breeder and Baby Compound, and Muskovites.

    I wonder how many Soutpiel “refugees” they will take in.

    I am guessing zero.

    * there was a Vice expose on a gunhumpers “town”, basically gunhumper A “leased ” small plots on ranchland in the middle of no where to fellow gunhumpers. No services. One of the most “enthused” “home”, was a stack of hay bales, covered with blue tarps and a bucket in the corner as a toilet. Bailed one month into the winter. Rugged Individualist my ass.

  82. 82.

    Old Man Shadow

    May 13, 2025 at 5:29 pm

    @lou: No, no, the Hobbits wouldn’t have been slaves in a United States run Middle Earth. They would have been “associates”. And we would have brought jobs to the Shire. Jobs tearing up trees and building extraction equipment, blasting hilltops, and dumping the dirt and runoff into the streams. And a couple of Hobbits would end up mildly wealthy while the remaining ones got sick and bitter and then we’d run political campaigns to tell them all it was the Elves fault.

  83. 83.

    Another Scott

    May 13, 2025 at 5:31 pm

    Are there any bears on Cuba??

    I see Jay got there first.

    Looks like they’d have to worry about Demarest’s Hutia instead.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    SW

    May 13, 2025 at 5:32 pm

    Permanently Ineligible.  Lifetime ban seems more appropriate.  We are engaged in a huge national experiment with gambling. Professional opinion seems to be that a certain fraction of the population will develop a problem with gambling much like some cannot drink socially.  If compulsive gambling is an illness it is probably time we addressed how we deal with people who suffer from tha illness.

  85. 85.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 5:33 pm

    @Captain C:

    Roanoke.

  86. 86.

    opiejeanne

    May 13, 2025 at 5:34 pm

    @KNay: I don’t understand any of this.

  87. 87.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    May 13, 2025 at 5:37 pm

    @Old Man Shadow:

    They want the privileges of being a citizen in a stable civilization without any of the obligations required. They are teenage shithead assholes.

    Another label for them:

    libertarians.

  88. 88.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 5:38 pm

    @Old Man Shadow:

    “interns’ not “associates”.

    Lotho and the rest of the Sackville-Baggins would have done well.

  89. 89.

    Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin)

    May 13, 2025 at 5:39 pm

    @Captain C: We ought to read “The Masque of the Red Death” again. Poe had a good idea of how a literally gated community could face disaster.

    By the way, whatever happened to “Glenn Beckistan”?

  90. 90.

    Spanky

    May 13, 2025 at 5:45 pm

    @Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin): Glenn Beck! I had to Google to see if he was still alive, and now I’m disappointed.

  91. 91.

    Ruckus

    May 13, 2025 at 5:46 pm

    @Old Man Shadow:

    They are teenage shithead assholes.

    Me thinks you give them too much credit!

  92. 92.

    sukabi

    May 13, 2025 at 5:52 pm

    ya know a 90% income tax rate for these guys sounds way too generous, should probably make it 100% until they’ve achieved and maintained actual poverty levels for at least a decade…. that should be time enough for them to learn how to be humble…

  93. 93.

    Harrison Wesley

    May 13, 2025 at 5:53 pm

    @Spanky: I’ll be dipped in shit. That guy is thirteen years younger than me. Dunno why I thought he was older.

  94. 94.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 5:57 pm

    @sukabi:

    Ideally, once you have accumulated $1 billion dollars, you get a cheap trophy from the Government saying “You Won Capitalism” and every penny after that is taken.

  95. 95.

    Ruckus

    May 13, 2025 at 5:57 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Didn’t see any bears when I was there. But that was a while ago….

  96. 96.

    Tehanu

    May 13, 2025 at 5:58 pm

    @JML: As a huge Tolkien fan, seeing all these faux libertarian right-wing shitbags appropriating LotR nomenclature for their grifting makes me want to start swinging for the knees.

    Kneecapping with a side of necklacing would work for me.

  97. 97.

    Trivia Man

    May 13, 2025 at 5:59 pm

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: like a house cat- convinced of their own independence while utterly dependent on a system they dont appreciate or understand

    Edit to correct the quote

  98. 98.

    Uncle Cosmo

    May 13, 2025 at 5:59 pm

    @Jay: Social Security, Welfare and Medicaid, but she was hush about it.

    From what I can tell her attitude was

    If the eeebil State is stupid enough to give me money for free, I’m smart enough to take it without a smidgeon of apology or gratitude.

    Say what you will, it’s an ethos, kindasorta…

  99. 99.

    Splitting Image

    May 13, 2025 at 6:00 pm

    @Harrison Wesley:

    I’ll be dipped in shit. That guy is thirteen years younger than me. Dunno why I thought he was older.

    Hate ages people. Look at Stephen Miller.

  100. 100.

    H.E.Wolf

    May 13, 2025 at 6:02 pm

    @JML: May I just say that “swinging for the knees” is a great idiom.

    I wish I could find the tale I once read about a wise emperor who employed a person to follow behind him and whisper, “You have power… now.”

    These current malefactors of great wealth are not wise. They look in their mirrors and think they see Charlemagne, not Mussolini or Ceausescu.

  101. 101.

    cmorenc

    May 13, 2025 at 6:03 pm

    @different-church-lady: another apt term for being rich enough to not have to do anything you don’t want to do is to have a “fuck you” level of wealth.

  102. 102.

    Baud

    May 13, 2025 at 6:03 pm

    @SW:

     If compulsive gambling is an illness it is probably time we addressed how we deal with people who suffer from tha illness.

    Manipulate them for profit?

  103. 103.

    Trollhattan

    May 13, 2025 at 6:03 pm

    @Splitting Image:

    The most prized possession of Familie Miller is the photo of him taking his first goosestep.

    “Achtung!”

  104. 104.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 13, 2025 at 6:07 pm

    @Leto: Musk absorbed the space-colonization fandom of the 1970s and 1980s. A lot of that was the same kind of thing, born of the urban crime, economic and energy crises of the era. Some subset of humanity would go off and live at the L5 point in rotating colonies that looked like California suburbs inside. They had the idea that these people would be the construction crew for a geosynchronous ring of solar power satellites that would solve the energy crisis, but it seems to me like building the colonies would be more difficult than building the solar power satellites even if we decided the Earth had to depend on them.

    It all seemed like space fans were trying to construct a problem that had their preferred solution, which was really that they could emigrate from stinky old Earth and be free of it all in this idyllic environment.

  105. 105.

    Captain C

    May 13, 2025 at 6:08 pm

    @Trivia Man: With the exception that house cats are usually fun to pet and often enjoy it themselves.

  106. 106.

    Alex

    May 13, 2025 at 6:08 pm

    Let’s WHITE LOTUS that bad boy up !!!!!!

  107. 107.

    scav

    May 13, 2025 at 6:08 pm

    @Baud: That’s right.  And have institutions celebrate the manipulators with achievement awards!

  108. 108.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 13, 2025 at 6:09 pm

    @H.E.Wolf: Charlemagne, the Magical Burger King, same difference.

  109. 109.

    Trivia Man

    May 13, 2025 at 6:10 pm

    @Captain C: agree. Mine give so much and ask so little. I am happy to trade care for petting and snuggles. But libertarians are more prickly

  110. 110.

    lou

    May 13, 2025 at 6:15 pm

    @H.E.Wolf: ​
     Roman generals, when celebrating their triumphs, had a slave ride in the chariot with them whispering “look behind you, you are mortal.” Or memento mori, if you will.

  111. 111.

    lou

    May 13, 2025 at 6:16 pm

    @Old Man Shadow: ​
     Scouring the Shire!

  112. 112.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 13, 2025 at 6:16 pm

    @Captain C: The funny thing is that Robert Heinlein, who later became a libertarian nutbag, actually wrote a similar story (“Coventry”). In the future, society sets off a walled-off area for people who simply cannot abide the more or less liberal social contract that most people live by. If you opt to go there, they drop you there with actually a pretty sweet set of technological kit for survival. A dopey criminal does this, figuring he’ll be a rugged individualist there, and discovers that, surprise surprise, the place is run by tyrannical gangster syndicates. It kind of functions, but is miserable and dumb. Eventually he reforms by helping to uncover a plot to break out and conquer the rest of the country.

  113. 113.

    Betty

    May 13, 2025 at 6:19 pm

    @Baud: Pete was worse than just a gambler. He was a sex pest as well. Guess that doesn’t matter to the MLB.

  114. 114.

    Baud

    May 13, 2025 at 6:21 pm

    @Betty:

    Trump lobbied for it.

  115. 115.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    May 13, 2025 at 6:21 pm

    @Betty:

    Even worse, he had a 14 year old girlfriend when he was in his mid-30s

  116. 116.

    Chief Oshkosh

    May 13, 2025 at 6:21 pm

    @Baud: Shoeless Joe I can understand. But Pete Rose, fuck that guy. A total, complete asshole on every level.

  117. 117.

    Chief Oshkosh

    May 13, 2025 at 6:22 pm

    @different-church-lady: How do you know that you’re not already there, but nobody’s told you?

  118. 118.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 13, 2025 at 6:26 pm

    @Belafon: I figure we’re not going to be able to do really large-scale space colonization without somehow mastering the management of closed ecologies with people in them, which is very poorly understood–and if we did understand it we could probably make a lot of headway at not destroying our own biosphere, so it’s not an either/or

    But at the moment, the most cost-effective way to explore the universe is NOT to send people there. If there’s a good case for actually developing artificial intelligence, it’s that.

  119. 119.

    Baud

    May 13, 2025 at 6:29 pm

    FDA and RFK Jr. aim to remove ingestible fluoride products used to protect kids’ teeth

  120. 120.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    May 13, 2025 at 6:32 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    If that asshole is voted in by the baseball writers clowns, that should be on this plaque:

    “A Total, Complete Asshole On Every Level”

  121. 121.

    Penn

    May 13, 2025 at 6:33 pm

    It is amazing how the rich fail to notice that the cyberpunk genre is about a distopia.

  122. 122.

    BethanyAnne

    May 13, 2025 at 6:36 pm

    @Jay: That book was amazing. The fact that each of the fuckups managed to warn the author that they had the means and will to shoot him was part of what boggled my mind.

  123. 123.

    BellyCat

    May 13, 2025 at 6:37 pm

    Just trying to understand how Google translate — AI VERSION!!!1! — renders something comprehensible out of this gobbledygook.  JFC…

  124. 124.

    Leto

    May 13, 2025 at 6:38 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    which was really that they could emigrate from stinky old Earth and be free of it all in this idyllic environment.

    That, but Klein also writes about how they’re accelerating this process. It’s been combined with Christofascism and an “end times” mindset. Not just him, Musk, but a very large contingent of the tech douchebags; this has also filtered down, via grift, to all the rest of the usual shitheels hawking stuff.

    She does talk about remedies for this, but I’m in a foul mood. I want 90% tax rates over $50M, and 100% at 60. I want massive investments in our social safety nets, public education, and bike lanes crisscrossing this entire nation. I want 15 on the court. I want the insanity to stop. It’s been 250 years of this shit.

  125. 125.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 6:39 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Funny thing is, despite all her themes and book sales,

    She wound up having to live out her life as a mooch.

    She wasn’t on SS/Welfare/Medicaid to take free money from the State, it was because she pissed away her retirement and old age, long before she was of retirement age.

    So much for that whole ethos’s in her “books”.

    I have been a “rugged individualist” 3 times in my life. 2 of the three times it was as “unhoused”.  The first time I was unhoused, was in my 20’s, but it was community, (squats) that helped me survive.

    Second time I was “unhoused”, and my first time as a “rugged individualist” I had a small sailboat. Sea food, hunting gleaning, wild foods, wild gardening, going up and down the coast for what I could take for gigs, and what I could bleg. I would sit in a popular spot, on a blanket, carve Celtic Runes into cedar planks I harvested from old cedar stumps, burn the runes in and sand the surface off. Small ones were $10, large ones $25, but the big payoff was people offering me one shot handyman jobs.

    Third time , T and I bought a rural property with no services. Dug a well, dug a septic field, built a house, built a power house, installed wind and solar, heated mostly by wood with a solar assist, grew 80% of what we ate, we had some money for a while, but then,………….

    4th time, unhoused. Mobile, living in a car with T and 2 cats, urban foraging, staying away from the unhoused encampments not because of drugs or crime, but because the cops would raid them and take all your stuff. I knew all the good wifi spots, all the places to park unnoticed.

    It is a shit ton of work to be a “rugged” individualist.

  126. 126.

    Chief Oshkosh

    May 13, 2025 at 6:41 pm

    @H.E.Wolf: I think it was “All power is fleeting…”

  127. 127.

    Jackie

    May 13, 2025 at 6:43 pm

    @Trollhattan: Miller’s family are disgusted with him. They are Jewish.

  128. 128.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 6:43 pm

    @Ruckus:

    No large furry men with beards who liked to hang out with other men,…………………………….. that whole “sailor” thing was wrong?

  129. 129.

    BellyCat

    May 13, 2025 at 6:49 pm

    @Geoduck: Applauding this well-placed chestnut.

  130. 130.

    Steve in the ATL

    May 13, 2025 at 6:51 pm

    @Baud: and now Bart Giamatti is turning over in his grave.  For shame, MLB.

  131. 131.

    frosty

    May 13, 2025 at 6:52 pm

    @BellyCat: ​ Yes, I just read this to Ms F, yet again. She said “I think I’ve heard this.” I said, “Yeah, probably from me.”

    The last line just slays me: “The other, of course, involves orcs.”

  132. 132.

    SW

    May 13, 2025 at 6:53 pm

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think it is long past time when we should stop pretending that there is something virtuous about being an athlete

  133. 133.

    BellyCat

    May 13, 2025 at 6:55 pm

    @Jay: BTW: when you post, I am (and I suspect many others are) keenly interested in your viewpoint. Hard won insights merit contemplation in direct proportion to the challenges survived.

    Yes, I’ve been drinking. Why do you ask?

  134. 134.

    BellyCat

    May 13, 2025 at 6:58 pm

    @frosty: With you on this. NEVER gets old.

    My outlook as a kid was transformed by Tolstein. My someday-hopefully-ex-wife’s outlook was transformed by Ayn Rand. (Ooof!)

  135. 135.

    Chief Oshkosh

    May 13, 2025 at 6:59 pm

    @BellyCat: Even without drinking, yes, I read Jay’s post closely.

    But to be clear, I also read his posts when I’ve been drinking. Just not as colsley.

  136. 136.

    Chief Oshkosh

    May 13, 2025 at 7:03 pm

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yep.

  137. 137.

    Captain C

    May 13, 2025 at 7:10 pm

    @lou: Like this.

  138. 138.

    NaijaGal

    May 13, 2025 at 7:24 pm

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    @Jeffro:

    Their vision relies on chauffeurs, cooks, housekeepers, cleaners, private pilots, bodyguards, and other serfs workers with no families, wants, desires or aspirations of their own, ready to give up their lives to achieve the bros’ fantasy.

    These are people who never read this article (paywalled, but I’ll summarize):

    Bayesian maker says crew should have had time to rescue passengers.

    The gist of it, for those who don’t have a Financial Times subscription, is that a tech entrepreneur and members of his family drowned in poor weather when their superyacht crew rescued themselves but somehow forgot to grab the owners. The initial conclusion is that everyone on the boat could have been rescued. I don’t know if this says anything about how the family treated the crew.

    They’re not techbros, but I have never forgotten how Howard Schulz and Mike Bloomberg reacted when publicly attacked by political adversaries in 2020. They just couldn’t believe it was happening to them and had no effective response because no one in their orbit had contradicted anything they said or did in eons.

  139. 139.

    Timill

    May 13, 2025 at 7:44 pm

    @NaijaGal: Here’s a Yachting World article from around the same time.

    My quick take is that there were about 16 minutes from the start of the anchor dragging to the sinking, which is enough time to alert the passengers. I expect that the duty watch roused the rest of the crew when the dragging started (hence they were all on deck or nearby at the sinking) but didn’t anticipate anything worse than having to set storm sails and stand offshore. So they didn’t wake anyone else. Particularly at 5am local time…

  140. 140.

    Eyeroller

    May 13, 2025 at 7:46 pm

    @Jay: Medicare, Medicaid was for the poors even more then than it is now.  She was a heavy smoker and already had lung cancer, and a social worker helped her sign up for Social Security and Medicare in 1976.  Of course even Snopes justifies it as “consistent with her world view.”  But she would certainly have been against Medicaid since “helping is futile” as long as it wasn’t her.

  141. 141.

    NaijaGal

    May 13, 2025 at 8:38 pm

    @Timill

    Found a free article from another source (don’t know how reputable) that goes into detail about another yacht anchored close to the one that sank that was essentially fine in the same storm.

  142. 142.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 8:47 pm

    @BellyCat:

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Thank you.

  143. 143.

    Aziz, light!

    May 13, 2025 at 8:54 pm

    We’re going to need a bigger Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B.

  144. 144.

    Jay

    May 13, 2025 at 9:06 pm

    @NaijaGal:

    Luck, skill and boat handling make a big difference. When I lived aboard, there were many times I had to sail in storms, anchor, etc.

    A lot can go bad, quickly.

    Only thing I ever had go bad, for sure, was when I was to pick up T at Grandville quay, to go out, anchor and watch the fireworks.

    She had the picnic basket, I had the wine.

    Coming into False Creek I throttled back, and that’s when I learned that the high pressure line, (diesels have 2 lines, a low pressure feed line, that feeds the high pressure line, that feeds the injector), had burst.

    It was spraying enough diesel around the engine compartment, that throttle back, made no difference.

    So at high speed, 8 knots, 9.2 miles an hour for those not nautical, I had to swing into the quay, do a 180, yell at T to jump, that I could not stop, and she did.

    So we made it out to anchor off Kit’s Beach, cutting off all the fuel was the solution to killing the engine.

    So I reeked of diesel, below decks reeked of diesel.

    I patched the line with various tapes, zip ties and hose clamps. Not enough for a long run, but enough to get back in a short run.

    So, we watched the fireworks, drank some wine, ate the picnic, ( I really did not appreciate her brownies, that time, reeking of diesel, I did the next).

    So, we sailed back to my berth in Eagle Bay, under spinnaker, and I managed to make it past the two reefs, through the gap and into my berth under jib alone, no need to fire up the engine.

    That was our 3rd date.

  145. 145.

    Matt

    May 13, 2025 at 9:08 pm

    First official act of any city these creatures build: eliminate the age of consent

  146. 146.

    Buggrit

    May 13, 2025 at 9:10 pm

    @Baud: My new side gig: smuggling fluoride from Canada.

  147. 147.

    MagdaInBlack

    May 13, 2025 at 9:17 pm

    @Jay: ❤️ @ 3rd date dramatic entrance.

  148. 148.

    Kayla Rudbek

    May 13, 2025 at 10:20 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: I remember reading some of that stuff as a kid, with the pictures of the tubular rotating space colonies in orbit. I don’t think that they had figured out just how much radiation astronauts are exposed to by going outside the atmosphere with its ozone layer and the Earth’s magnetosphere also diverting a lot of charged particles.

    But even some of that 1970s-1980s stuff acknowledged that a lunar or deep space colony would have a high demand for warm clothing because it would be more energy efficient to run the colony a bit cooler, so angora rabbit breeding would be a Thing on the colony (smaller and easier to feed and transport than sheep or goats, alpacas and llamas being too exotic for the 1980s, chinchillas also too exotic and probably not suitable for shearing or plucking).  In practice,  I wonder if angora fiber would shed too much and clog up the ventilation systems. Silkworms would probably be the best option if you wanted a small-size source of fiber for clothing.

  149. 149.

    Kayla Rudbek

    May 13, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    @Timill:

     

    @NaijaGal: the crew had probably been screamed at by the passengers/owners to not disturb them no matter what

  150. 150.

    sukabi

    May 13, 2025 at 11:22 pm

    no reason at all for a person to be able to “aquire” a billion dollars… means the tax rate is way too low, the tax breaks are way too high and corporate pay is way out of whack for the C Suite bunch.

  151. 151.

    Jay

    May 14, 2025 at 1:35 am

    The first few months here, T landed a seasonal job, I landed a retail job.

    We landed at Crab Park. The car was parked away.

    So we had a Taiga tent, other camping gear from before.

    Accumulated some stuff. Solar panels, AGM batteries, and inverter, etc.

    $5800 minimum, in one shot with an earning record got you a chance at a 1 bdr.

    T landed a job with SFU. Covid hit and it became remote. I was an “essential worker”.

    Then the KKKops came to Crab Park to “clear out the unhoused”.

    We got the cats and our daypacks to the car.

    When we returned to clear the rest out, well, sleeping bags were gone, tent was gone,  Ensolite pads were gone, MSR stove was gone, cooking gear was gone, solar panels were gone, batteries were gone, solar panels were gone, inverter was gone, etc, all gone to the dump. KKKops had raided the camp. About $7800 worth of ” stuff” for day to day living. Acquired at one paycheck at a time

    It was early Covid, so a bunch of her co-workers were working remote.

    So, lucky us. We got to “homesit” a place in East Van, another place off Robson, for free, T worked remote, I was  still an “essential worker” long enough to accrue 1st month, last month and damage deposit, plus car insurance.

    Then of course, Covid, so we wiggled in.

  152. 152.

    NaijaGal

    May 14, 2025 at 2:37 am

    @Jay: Holy shit! That’s quite a third date.

  153. 153.

    NaijaGal

    May 14, 2025 at 2:38 am

    @Kayla Rudbek: This is exactly what I thought.

  154. 154.

    brantl

    May 14, 2025 at 8:41 am

    @Belafon:  I thought  it was better the first way.

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