All the carping lately that I’ve seen about Tesla and Elon Musk receiving tax subsidies is both deeply hypocritical and highly suspect. It’s probably his auto-selling competitors, the oil and gas industry, and their PR flaks planting those stories.

The truth is they all receive huge subsidies and government benefits. Absolutely enormous, far more than $5 billion.

Just like I wrote below, in an arena where all your competitors are receiving huge subsidies and interest-free loans and you forgo them, what happens to you?

Right, you fail and go out of business.

Personally I’d rather be subsidizing Musk and Tesla and all his attempts to create something new rather than the carbon-spewing warmongering earth-destroying industries likely planting these stories in friendly news outlets.

(Incidentally, the internet was subsidized/created by the US government to the tune of tens of billions of dollars over the past four decades. Just saying.)

Reading things like this, one marvels at just how less…predatory society used to be.

I can see now this was a staff ripe for a management consultant to come in with a rusty cleaver, that we operated at near-Soviet levels of overstaffing, but honestly? Who cares. All those people collected their paychecks, cashed them and used the money to pay taxes, buy cars, raise families and otherwise keep the economy chugging along. If you think a belching factory smokestack is ugly, try one with nothing coming out at all.

The evisceration of the American economy is another example or variant of the tragedy of the commons. One factory or newspaper owner finds it beneficial to himself to fire 90% of the staff and outsource copywriting to another country.

Then others are forced to do the same to compete.

It ends with no one left with enough money to buy the products advertised, and with not enough money to pay for an education to be literate enough in the case of a newspaper or online equivalent to even comprehend the product.

Race to the bottom, and like the paradox of thrift it all makes sense along the way.

Freja Beha Erichsen as Apollo from the 2011 Pirelli calendar.

I’m not usually one for pin-up calendars, but this photo is next level awesome for all sorts of reasons.

Art like talent is where it is.

Saying that you’re obese because of your genetics is like saying that you smoke because of your genetics, or that you’re an alcoholic because of your genetics. Or a criminal. Etc.

Yes, people have different metabolisms. Mine for instance is quite slow. And there are certain genetic tendencies. The evidence is pretty clear on this.

But look, I come from a family of fat violent criminal drug-addicted alcoholic rednecks. Seriously. My girlfriend once said, “The only way I see your family is in mugshots.” And she was 100 percent right.

But I’m not fat, I’m no longer violent, I’m not an alcoholic and most people would not identify me as a redneck any longer either. And I’ve never touched any drugs.

I somehow changed my genetics on several different axes!

Only, not.

“Genetics” is just an excuse. So what if something is a little harder for you than it is for me. Or vice versa. My partner can eat 500-800 more calories a day than I can and stay below my weight easily*.

Fair? No. Worth starting a movement on Tumblr for? No. I do what adults do: I fucking deal.

But we are not a nation of adults. We are a nation of delusional children who prefer to be coddled with the comforting contrivance than to deal with the disturbing truth.

*And yep, I do know exactly what I eat and count it accurately, because I eat very very very little, so it’s easy to keep track of. Usually one small item for breakfast 3-4 times a week, one small lunch, one moderate dinner, and a 1-2 ounce sweet of some kind at night. And that’s it. I never vary and never go beyond this.

Scott Walker: women only concerned with rape and incest in ‘initial months’ of pregnancy.

If the economy sours leading up to 2016, this guy has a significant chance of being our next president.

Not that it’ll matter much in the medium or long run either way; climate change is going to re-order the world in a way not seen since Roman times soon, starting in the next 30-70 years.

Contemporary politics or who happened to become president will seem utterly minor in comparison to that.

But still, he is a hateful moron and he is as likely as not to be president.

This is where I grew up.

Happens every year. I’ve seen a sturgeon, though at the time I thought it was a catfish. It was ~6 feet long, cruising up the Ichetucknee River.

Mullet also jump and sometimes strike boaters.

Fuck, I hate Obamacare supporters.

Is that all, Kevin? A rate increase of only 5.4 percent? Only twice inflation?

And with no rise in incomes in the past or foreseeable future?

These fucknuggets are smoking some grade A hash, people.

And anyone in the comments who cites a real massive increase is either accused of lying or that their story is “atypical” if they offer substantive proof.

I know the Democrats hitched their busted-ass wagons to the bunko that is the ACA, but ignoring all evidence, telling people suffering under the strictures of the ACA that they are “lying” when they are struggling to pay premiums and attempting to convince ACA victims that it’s a good thing — well, it doesn’t cast you in a very favorable light, really.

The ACA helped a few people. So what? So does every war and mass murder.

Doesn’t make it a good thing.

Vegans and fat celebration nutters should go move somewhere together.

The worst people in the world? Three-way cage match between utterly ahistorical Fat Celebration SJW tumblr stars who believe being 500 pounds can be healthy, or anti-vaxxer 9/11 troofers who homeschool and believe the earth is 6,000 years old, or or a vegan atheist rational “skeptic” who believes he/she is the paragon of logic on this earth.

Aliens, the planet is ready for destruction now. I mean, we are doing it ourselves but you can do it faster.

Whoa, this will be cool if it comes to pass.

PowerShell’s remote execution implementation (for lack of better terms) is clunky, slow and error-prone.

Windows lacking SSH support is a huge, huge deficit. Finally Microsoft seems to be realizing that.

This is what I call laying the motherfuckin’ smack down.

Good for her. The FA movement is odious.