Best of Unstuck

Trolly · September 25, 2020, 4:41pm

Is there an address where we can send spidercrab a gift card for food that isn’t terrible?

WichitaDM · September 25, 2020, 4:44pm

Donations thread is way more amazing that I thought I guess.

CanadaMatt3004 · September 25, 2020, 4:53pm

Better yet, is there a place we can send gift cards for food that is much much worse?

Riverman · September 25, 2020, 5:27pm

The calorie counts on that Skyline menu are the most preposterous lies I’ve ever seen in print.

RiskyFlush · September 25, 2020, 5:29pm

I would pay to fund @Riverman on an Anthony Bourdain style travel show where he experiences the distinct cuisine found only in specific parts of the world, except he only visits Trump-branded properties.

Trolly · September 25, 2020, 5:35pm

Remember the Trump martini?

Trump Grill Could Be the Worst Restaurant in America

Riverman · September 25, 2020, 5:37pm

This would be the reverse of Bourdain’s “see guys, people that look and talk different can be awesome” theme. More like “yep, they all look the same and they’re all irredeemable.”

I’ve spent so much time in rural Ohio. It is (much) worse than you city slickers could ever imagine.

RiskyFlush · September 25, 2020, 5:53pm

It would be an instant hit in the post-Trump landscape. Every episode is one trainwreck after another. The most shocking episodes are the ones where the food isn’t completely terrible.

Imagine Kitchen Nightmares, but it’s only the first part of the episode where he sends back everything on the menu for being absolutely disgusting.

spidercrab · September 25, 2020, 6:22pm

I want to make something clear, in case it’s ambiguous:

I do not personally benefit from receiving non-cash donations. So far, I’ve received an Amazon gift credit and a Skyline Chili gift card. In both cases, I deposited an equal amount of my own cash into the unstuck paypal account.

So the transfer looks like this:

[ UPer ] ----non-cash donation—> [ spidercrab ] — cash donation in equal amount—> [ paypal ]

No one is actually giving me money. (And I don’t need any money.) It’s just a more interesting/convoluted/stomach-damaging way to contribute to UP.

hokie · September 25, 2020, 6:38pm

[ UPer ] ----non-cash donation—> [ spidercrab ] — cash donation in equal amount—> [ paypal ] —> [bankwire] —> [ATM] —> TITT1ES

DrChesspain · September 25, 2020, 6:43pm

This is the saddest money laundering scheme ever.

Trolly · September 25, 2020, 6:58pm

bUNXwFD

smrk4 · September 25, 2020, 8:09pm

Yeah, this is a pretty gross example of layering

anon38180840 · September 25, 2020, 10:14pm

I don’t know a ton about Skyline Chili, but I feel like you just have to go with the loaded chili. You stray too far and you might get punished.

BestOf · November 25, 2020, 8:32pm

Has it really been 2 months since the last update?!?! Oh boy, let’s get partially caught up today! There’s a lot of dunking on Trump for pozzing. It’s going to be mainly links because most of the threads these posts are from have been closed.

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/the-pozzidency-of-donald-j-trump-typhoid-donnies-slow-hypoxic-demise-sweat-thread-updated-100x-minute/2505/9547

IQ and voting

As I was reading this, the exact problem I have with what you’re saying (not that I disagree at all) is that the time scale involved in this process far exceeds our lifetimes, or maybe even the lifetime of a viable life sustaining planet. In fact, the collision of stupidity and power and its current manifestation may end up being so potent and destructive, that the world may not survive, at least in any recognizable form.

I’m aware the accelerationists believe on some level that this is a good thing, but the amount of human (and ecological) suffering involved will be so profound that I have a difficult time believing anyone who subscribes to that ethos is not a complete sociopath.

Basically, I believe we need to do something drastic to stop the stupidity RIGHT NOW. I don’t know what it is though. Definitely not by limiting voting rights. Maybe by investing in better education, but it seems we as a nation have long jumped off that wagon. Simply letting this play out and destroy itself does not seem like an option to me.

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/the-presidency-of-donald-j-trump-old-man-yells-at-cloud-presidential-edition/2788/3215

COVID-19: Chapter 6 - ThanksGRAVING

The school thing is such a terrible convo. Yes it is terrible that a global pandemic is fucking up the school year. Yes inequality transfers to shelter in place like every other fucking thing from diet to job opportunities to incarceration rate to health care. But that doesn’t fucking matter when it comes to the best path and the best path doesn’t matter because, like, we are never going to do it. Ever. And it’s not because of damage to kids, and ESPECIALLY not due to damage to underprivileged kids. Gtfoh.

So tell me, guise, the kids who have one parent working two jobs and no support at home? What happens to that kid when their parents gets sick from them and goes to the hospital or dies? Suddenly a safety net appears? One that is inaccessible for, like, curbing a fucking pandemic?

What happens to the latch key kid who goes back to school and a teacher or student pozzes and sends everyone home for 2 weeks several times a year? Suddenly they get a better education from that disruption than they would have from a dedicated distance learning program?

Stop. What we are talking about here is a fucking cavity that we are saying we just don’t have time to fill and instead are going to live with it until we need a god damned root canal.

COVID-19: Chapter 6 - ThanksGRAVING

COVID-19: Chapter 6 - ThanksGRAVING

Man, take it up with the WHO. I’m not saying anything they and other world health orgs haven’t been saying.

Big institutions can’t have biases?

Anyway that isn’t even the issue here. The issue is how we all have this thing in our heads where we view and judge all governments outside Western Civilization through an entirely different lens than governments where we can better relate to the people. Hell maybe it would be better if we could do the same for Western governments where we take out all humanity, nuance and mitigation and just put everything down to evil corrupt reckless dystopian systems ruling the people, but the point remains that China DID crack down on this issue, but things still slip through the cracks because you can’t just eradicate things on a whim, and THEN China did a very efficient job containing the virus. The kind of containment job that most Western governments are functionally incapable of.

But here y’all are, saying the fault lies with RECKLESS SCARY CHINA. Because there’s a bias that you don’t even want to investigate inside yourself. When asked what China should have done differently, you break down into cognitive dissonance and say that’s not the issue. But that IS the issue! China in fact did what you think they should have done, both before and after the first human contracted this virus! They didn’t bat a thousand because that’s impossible. But you’re over here saying they refused to swing the bat or even step up to the plate! Which is false! And then you’re like, “no, the WHO proves me right because the WHO said they needed to take some at bats.”

Then people are like “what the hell does Oklahoma have to do with this” well obviously it’s proof that things slip through the cracks even with government crackdowns!

COVID-19: Chapter 6 - ThanksGRAVING

I’m convinced the schools issue is just a way for some (not necessarily here) to “what about the children” and “we must think about the children” to justify all the terrible bullshit they are doing to spread the disease in the other aspects of their life. If you are eating out every week, traveling to Florida to party on the beach, attending Trump rallies, attending huge indoor events maskless like church you don’t care about anyone but yourself. These people don’t give a fuck about public education and have largely been voting to either directly or indirectly cut funding to it for decades. The whole children need school thing is just cover for their overall monstrosity and to try and put that in the column and safe and necessary along with restaurants and bars to “win” their dumbass covidiot political conversations.

That being said schools should be a top priority. I think we all agree here on that. But the covid denial crowd isn’t using kids in schools in good faith whatsoever. So I am going to be extremely skeptical of any non-peer reviewed study on this issue.

This issue isn’t that complicated and the fact we are going round and round on it for literally 6 months now here is really grinding my gears. Treat school as a top priority. Take steps to reduce communal spread and open schools taking what precautions you can. The real problem is Karen needs her Chili’s and salon time so it is impossible to control the spread outside of school.

The bottom line is that school isn’t going to be safe from a community perspective with widespread Covid cases. It doesn’t really matter if kids spread it at 25%, 50% or more. It’s just one more vector for rampant spread and death. School can be fairly safe but not in most places currently in the US that are filled with selfish dipshits.

That gets us caught up to November, from what I remember the beginning of the month was rather uneventful…

Marksman · January 1, 2021, 7:49pm

Ramsay’s tik tok is great. He duets people who have food/cooking tik toks and mostly flames them.

RiskyFlush · January 1, 2021, 8:01pm

Recommend a clip or two?

Do you use tik tok? I believe I may have fallen prey to the messaging that using it even once would instantly convert me into a communist.

Oh wait, I’m already a communist

BestOf · February 26, 2021, 9:02pm

Thanks @anon46587892 for catching us up on November and December, I’ll try to work on getting us caught up on 2021 today, starting with these terrific posts:

TRUMP is exactly like MUSSOLINI … his term should end that way

Why y’all keep asking where the police at? Y’all ask where Miley’s at when Hannah’s on stage?

After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/the-presidency-of-donald-j-trump-episode-xiv-t-minus-97-hours/3759/5890

#BREAKING: In television news interview, CEO of Parler says attorneys representing the company have dropped them as a client.

Liz Cheney just invited Donald Trump to go hunting.

Dealing with Deplorable Family and Friends

Day after the storming, while dropping off her groceries, I asked my mom if she had any mea culpa for me.

“For what?”
“For the whole Capitol thing?!?”
“That was ANTIFA!”
“Oh my god. I swear Mom, this is where it gets to where I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Oh honey, no. Not again.”
“Here, I want to show you some things.”

And then from there, due to this place’s awesome aggregation, I showed her a quick rundown of some of the eyewitness stuff that had been linked. Now this isn’t the first time I’ve sat down with her in front of the computer and shown her things. But this time was different.

After almost an hour of me showing diff clips, pausing along the way for personal monologues and back and forth Q and A, she asked me to turn it off and said she was tired of all the anger and hate she was seeing. I reiterated a few things softly to close the sale for the day and called it good.

Came back the next day to deliver the second half of her groceries after shopping (stimulus had her stocking up) and she said she wanted to talk to me. Said she’d been thinking all night about things and she was done with politics. That they’re all crooks and she’s through. Said 75% of congress is probably corrupt, I said it’s higher except for Bernie — and he’s naïve, which she nodded to.

She tried to put up some half-hearted defenses the day prior but all my wearing her down has had an effect, she knows who Trump is but it took this final act of overt hubris to seal the deal. The split between what she was told on Fox and the reality I showed was too much to deny also. She now knows everyone but me has been lying to her all along.

Unstuck’s Playlist A-Z

If you’re living in the 1630s then you’re most likely a big fan of god, and cockfighting, and maypole dancing and public executions, you also have a favorite sickle and your fire-making skills are top-notch, but your meals are soup and your desserts are bread and you have six boils on your taint that might be the plague but are probably just scabies because you wear burlap underwear and your bed sheets are an upside-down rowboat

But now it’s spring break 1635 and for some reason your family has decided that this year you’re going to chaucer it up and go on pilgrimage to the motherfucking Vatican, sweet! It was quite a walk but you made it to Rome and you’re finally inside the outrageous Sistine Chapel, which to your 17th-century eyes is unimaginably dope.

Most of the music you have heard up to this point in your life has been total amateur hour; at your local tavern it’s open mic night every goddamn night and by far the biggest genre is songs about fart puns. But now the Vatican church choir enters the room to sing a song, and they’re pretty good at singing, which makes sense because they have really only one priority in life, which is to avoid infinite agony in the unquenchable flames of hell by being the best band in the world. And if from time to time that requires a little light castration to keep the voice angelic, well shoot, at least you’re tithing like you mean it

For Easter they even have a very special song: The only time all year this song is allowed to be performed is during Holy Week, and the only place in the world the song can be heard is the Sistine Chapel. Which is possible because nobody’s invented a recording device.

And then they start singing. Now, I happen to be an atheist/agnostic person. But would 1630s Me have been an atheist if I was standing precisely there, in the Sistine Chapel, when my grueling life and the deep easter silence was broken by this unfamiliar unearthly music that began filling the room straight up to Michelangelo’s freakshow masterpiece on the ceiling? I just don’t know.

M is for the Miserere, composed in the 1630s by Gregorio Allegri
–my favorite version
–a live version

epilogue: people liked the song so much it began to get a mystical reputation, which made the pope guard it even more closely, and the Vatican successfully kept it a secret for almost 150 years.

But then the secret got out. How? Because in 1770, freaking Mozart went to the Sistine Chapel and heard it performed. He heard it on a Wednesday, then went back to his hotel and wrote the whole thing out from memory, then went back to hear it again on Friday to make tweaks.

He was fourteen years old at the time! And the news of what he had done spread quickly, and he came very close to getting excommunicated, but the Pope had an eleventh hour change of heart and decided instead to embrace Mozart and his genius. So, after 150 years the Miserere was finally free to leave the Vatican, and Mozart had invented music piracy.

Follow the link, the picture itself is a GOAT but its use here was chef’s kiss

**Official** Physicists are freaks and very weird dudes LC Thread

I worked at a butcher shop for a couple years and did 2 deer seasons. A big-antlered buck is like 1/200, super rare, we’d get fewer than one a night and we’d process like a hundred a night. Every big antlered buck except one rare time, the guy wanted it specialty skinned so he could mount it. Little antlers were pretty common and most of the time they’d ask for them so they can get just the antlers mounted on the wall. I’d have to slice the neck all the way around and then cut through the spine with a hacksaw. then I’d put the head on the ground and with my foot on its face I’d start with the hacksaw right to its skull to get the antlers out. I’d try to do a triangle shape so it’s only 2 cuts, and then smack it against something to get any brains out.

Poker player was a better job. Scientist is probably the best so far. I’d like to try mailman at some point, mailman seems fun. But none of that packages shit, just letters.

Your Favorite Posters

There was this guy that posted the pic of Trump looking at the eclipse and got somethin crazy like 64 likes on it but I can’t remember his name so…shrug

I’m reluctant to name names but I just wanted to call out that I appreciate the role everyone plays in this forum, because I see it kinda like an ecosystem.

Some post short, almost commentary that keeps threads moving.

Some post more detailed analytical pieces that add a depth of information.

Some post sarcasm or memes that adds levity.

Some post links to high quality information that helps aggregate and spur on more discussion and analysis.

Some post more unique takes that might often get disagreed with, but still help people look at different perspectives.

Some are able to succinctly summarize entire topics.

Some don’t even post at all themselves, but their sprinkling of likes helps encourage more participation.

Some are complete pricks, but at least you make everyone else look good…

So as lame as it might sound, thanks to everyone no matter how you choose to participate. We’re all playing a role that makes the community what it is, whether you get a specific callout in threads like this or not.

*Sorry if this isn’t necessarily in the spirit of the thread. I think its cool seeing people getting named and appreciated. Just wanted to share a view I have thats more indirect.

The Presidency of the Joes: more like INFRASTRUCTURE WEAK

My personal experience is meaningless to the overall health of the forum, and I’m not sure that anyone else feels this way, but I can tell you that I feel less inclined to participate lately mostly because I am very angry at what is happening and I don’t take any enjoyment from arguing with Biden optimists (whether self identified or not) or even Biden pessimists who just don’t seem to care.

I like you guys, and I don’t think anyone here (with maybe a few exceptions) has any really unsavory beliefs or motives or anything. But it’s genuinely hard for me to find an ounce of happiness or optimism about anything right now. With Trump, it was the same, but the anger and fear I felt from him was also kind of a uniting force, and would give me flickers of hope that if things are so fucking bad now and all of the stuff we’ve been doing for decades has led us to this moment, maybe this can be a time where things change.

Right now I’m left feeling nearly as bad, but also much more isolated because a lot of the people that had that same righteous anger and fear and hope have now turned into people patting me on the head and telling me that actually $1400 is exactly what was promised and hey $15 minimum wage in 5 years and “man looking back on it, I think people were right and Biden was the right choice”.

Honestly like, I get why a lot of people are put off by some of the aggressive lefty posters here, but for me personally it is very comforting to feel like I’m not the only person looking around and feeling that way. I don’t even know if I’m right about the things I believe, but I know for a fact that I’m in for 4-8 years of having those beliefs completely ignored, and then probably 4-8 years of a Republican who will make things 10x worse, before maybe getting my hopes up again for a few months that we can do better. It’s just fucking depressing, and I’ve got 50 more years of this if I’m lucky!

Mental Health Thread

Mental Health Thread

The one thing I’ve been told is to be more forgiving of myself when I make mistakes.

Thank you for sharing this. Your statement about being forgiving of yourself reminded me of a meme that I saw earlier this week & a conversation that I had with my GF regarding the feeling of guilt.

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Most everyone knows who Freud was, but not as many know Max Stirner, a 19th century German philosopher known for his work on nihilism and existentialism among other things.

Anyway, MsConwoman and I were talking about how one of the mini-breakthroughs that she had was in re-framing the memories she has that are associated with guilt. For example, when she was a child she had broken some item at a store, and had attached a feeling to the memory that was not only laden with guilt but also with a sense of being a bad person who did a bad thing. That sense of guilt, that leads to shame, that leads to [insert negative self-perception here] gets repeated and internalized, becoming a part of who we are.

Every time we recall a memory we are rewriting it–essentially creating a new memory. Now, quite often the rewritten memory is so similar to the previous iteration that there is very little difference. But there is no limit to how differently we can rewrite the memory. We can push it. We can shape it. It’s size and characteristics are not defined by the laws of physics. To me at least, it can seem a little scary to acknowledge having that kind of power.

It’s interesting that in German the word for guilt is the same as the word for debt(schuld). We don’t necessarily associate those two words as easily if we are mono-linguist English speakers. Although, anyone raised in the Christian faith may recall saying the Lord’s Prayer, and asking to “forgive us our sins/debts/trespasses”.

The feeling of guilt and/or debt has played a key role in human sociology. The tit-for-tat, I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine, the sense whether it’s reciprocity or revenge. It underlies how we function and interact with other humans. How we cooperate with them, and how we hold grudges. Humanity as we know it does not exist without the sense of guilt. There is no ignoring it. There is only dealing with it as part of the condition of life.

So, how do we harness that feeling of guilt? What is the counter move? If it’s a left jab, then what is our head feint and counter? Forgiveness. That’s it. Forgiving ourselves and others. But that is easier said than done.

So, I was reflecting this week on how to approach the challenge of gaining more power over my sense of guilt and why it can be such a struggle to be as kind and forgiving to myself as I strive to be to others. What if I failed? What if I pushed a negative memory so far into a positive re-framing that it reverse judo flipped me into being some kind of self-assured asshole? As I was walking down the sidewalk thinking about all of this, I saw a black spray-painted stenciled message on the pavement: “Your anxiety is lying to you.” Yeah, it sure was. Thanks random person in my neighborhood. Thanks random meme. Thanks superuberbob. Thanks MsConwoman.

GOP Insanity Containment: Beets, Gazpacho, and Lube

I think what you are saying is related to my point but I actually think religion precedes AM radio/Fox news which precedes Qanon.

As a kid who was brainwashed in the Lutheran church and through AM radio simultaneously I think I am qualified to speak on this. When you teach a kid that a magical being who loves you will solve all your problems you detether them from reality.

I very distinctly remember being at my grandma’s funeral at 10 and praying the entire time for literally like 2 hours to bring her back to life. When it didn’t happen and there wasn’t even any semblance of a sign that it mattered that put a niggle of doubt in my mind. Then there was the intersection of politics and religion that occurred constantly. I went to the lutheran school associated with our church. A kid in my class was expelled in 7th grade for bringing a condom to school. Every election there were people at the parking lot entrances to the church/school handing out pamphlets of who to vote for. Being a democrat would get you socially ostracized.

Worst of all was the abortion protesting. Wichita was pretty much the epicenter of abortion protesting in the early 90s and beyond starting with the “Summer of Mercy”. My parents took me to those protests and I stood there like a good little boy with my “God hates abortion” sign or whatever it was. My parents were both arrested that summer. Eventually the movement got what they wanted and some nut shot and killed the abortion doctor George Tiller.

Then there was the AM radio brainwashing. Literally driving to and from everything it was on. Driving to school, church, sports practice, vacations it was always Rush and his slightly less fun AM people spewing the propaganda into our heads.

When it was time to go to college I had long since started to check out (although the right wing brainwashing was still there, more on that in a minute). I did not really believe anymore and was drinking and using church as a place to meet people my age for sex. There were always the “bad kids” at church and by this point I was one of them. My parents decided they weren’t going to give me a penny to go to college unless I went to a 2 week christian reeducation camp in Manitou Springs called Summit Ministries. I made a financial decision and I went even though I knew it would be awful.

Awful it was. Every day there were hours of class telling you about how the liberal media and college was going to feed you lies. They taught extensively that the Earth was 6000 years old with “scientific” proof. I always laugh when you guys bring up Ken Ham because he was there spewing his lies at this camp in 1999. They taught about the dangers of socialism. They taught about the evils of abortion. It was two weeks of hell for me. I called home the first week every day begging to come home. The weirdest thing was some older guy who worked there pulled me aside about halfway through and told me he had been having dreams about me. In them he was supposed to talk to me because I would do great things. Even at 18 I realized I was likely being groomed for sex and so just walked away completely grossed out. Eventually it ended.

I say all that to get to my point. After that I was never going to have faith in God in that sense. The control of “religion” was gone. But the control of the right wing propaganda I had been subjected to continued. I am very ashamed of that.

I continued to spout anti-evolution nonsense to my friends. I continued to spout anti-climate change stuff. I supported Bush both elections and the Iraq war. I was anti-gay marriage. This went on for almost a decade after leaving the re-education camp. The right wing propaganda was much stronger than the religious propaganda.

I credit the 22 pol forum and my wife with starting to deprogram me. Now I look back at all the people stuck in that with anger and fear. Mostly because the Christian movement in this country isn’t religious. It is a hate filled political organization camouflaged by some crappy songs and fake prayer time. Look at how the Christian leaders were willing to sacrifice everything for Trump.

TL, DR: I grew up in an insane right wing church family and the AM radio brainwashing is much stronger than the religious brainwashing. Religion primes you for right wing nuttery which is now priming people for Qanon.

And now a break for character limits

BestOf · February 26, 2021, 9:03pm

NSFW warning

Fashion and Apparel - Deals and Showcase

The following post is a public service announcement and may contain NSFW images.

Women’s underwear is a zillion-dollar industry with tons of great and diverse product, but what about men’s underwear? I’m going to share my decades-long experience navigating this underserved market that’s laced with sedated fashion design and then outline what you should be doing but probably aren’t doing. All puns intended.

This might sound bizarre, but there’s only one style of underwear I consider viable with tight tolerances on what I find acceptable. That style is known as the trunk (sometimes sports trunk or square-cut) and is the undisputed king of men’s underwear. They’re form-fitting like briefs but have a small inseam, yet don’t confuse them with boxer-briefs which are a different and misguided style of underwear that should only be worn for exercise. The problem is that although trunks are the stone cold nuts for reasons I’ll articulate, finding quality, good-fitting pairs is somewhat difficult. Let’s meet our common styles of men’s underwear in order from worst to best:

Boxers

(These are good for nothing.)

Briefs

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(These are good for pro wrestling.)

Boxer-briefs

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(These are good for exercising.)

Trunks

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(These are good for styling out of control and being sexy as fuck.)

Advantages: The trunk has a few advantages over other styles, the first and foremost being comfort. Once you adjust to a properly-fitting trunk, it will be difficult to wear anything else. Compared to briefs, they have enough inseam to prevent upper-inner thigh chafing, they don’t cuff where your legs meet your goin, and they don’t ride up your ass. Compared to boxers they’re form fitting, so they keep the kids in the car with the windows rolled up. Compared to boxer-briefs, they have less material constantly squeezing your thighs to remind you that your underwear aren’t designed properly; they also don’t show the mid-thigh panty line. On top of fit and comfort, trunks are the most stylish with good proportionality and tend to feature more fashionable prints, colors, accents, and materials.

Dimensions: I don’t allow much latitude in the variation of the inseam: minimum of 2" and maximum of 3". You will absolutely feel the difference in 1". Any shorter is actually annoying and doesn’t solve the problems presented by briefs. Any longer and they start to encroach on the boxer-brief’s territory of hideous proportionality and mid-thigh panty lines. The 3"-4" range could be a gray zone for people with longer legs but I’ve never seen a pair that long on a model that had the right look. Personally I’ve found 2.5" to be ideal, but the incredibly annoying thing about trunks is precisely this variation in inseam. You’ll be lucky to find pairs with listed inseams at all let alone accurate ones, so it comes down to visual inspection, brand familiarity, and chance (to some degree). I’m going to help you out here.

Materials: Poly/spandex blend is preferable to cotton/spandex which loosens with movement and exercise–not great for running the jewels–and cotton also absorbs moisture which is awful. Also, the poly blend just feels, conforms, and retains shape better without being clampy, and in my experience it lasts longer. There are some other factors that affect fit & comfort like the waistband, contoured pouch, and piping. For example, the piping can be fashionable, but I’m careful with it on the leg cuffs due to issues I had with elastic piping that gripped more than the waistband.

Tips and Showcase: Use your eyes for the length. Some pairs incorrectly listed as boxer-briefs are actually trunks and vice-versa. The Discover watermelon trunks pictured above are exactly how a 2" inseam should appear on the model (they are indeed listed at 2"). However, here’s another pair they list at 2":

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These are clearly shorter in length though, probably about 1", which is just too short in my experience to get any of the benefits. And another 2" pair that looks correct:

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A proper 2" seam will have about 1" of inseam visible from the bottom of the pouch on the model. Some other things to notice about these particular trunks is that they appear to have a nice 1.75" waistband (that won’t roll), a contoured front pouch delineated with a piping detail, and non-elastic piping on the cuffs. They’re 95/5 cotton/spandex blend which wouldn’t be my first choice.

Next up and appearing to be just slightly longer,

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this Calvin Klein (Power FX Low Rise) trunk has no piping but appears to have a 2.5" inseam. Fabric is microfiber which is perfect so I’d consider these a buy. They don’t list an inseam spec. Note that these are low-rise trunks like the Discovers, but not all trunks are low-rise.

One my favorite brands for trunks is 2(X)ist. They tend to be on the shorter side (2" to 2.5") and have consistent fit, feel, quality, and stylish designs. Examples:

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That last floral print looks more like a 3" inseam than a 2" to me. They also have different side seams (7" top floral vs. 8" bottom floral). Adding another inch (4" inseam) is where I think it starts to lose the look and feel of a trunk and become more of a boxer-brief.

Greg Homme makes this product they refer to as a boxer-brief

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but you know better and already realize that this is, in fact, a trunk. Oddly, this pair pictured below with a longer inseam is listed as a trunk:

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That looks like a 3.5" inseam and the fabric is perforated which really rides the boxer-briefs line. I think I’d still go with trunk on those though, whereas the ones below are definitely too long.

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Here are some more examples for the SHOWCASE:

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Where to buy: A lot of these images are from CheapUndies which is a clearance site, but they are hit-or-miss on stock. Popular sizes (M, L, XL) usually sell out fast. There are plenty of other sites like that doing underwear. I also check regular retailers for sales and clearance.

How much to pay: Generally expect to pay anywhere from $8 to $13 on clearance for interesting designer pairs. Retail price is usually $15 to $30. For couture stuff like Versace it’s more obviously.

By the way, I’ve chosen some pretty SFW pics so far. Shopping for men’s underwear online can be a bit weird due to the shrinkwrap effect:

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Seriously would it behoove them to only use the small-dicked models, growers, and mannequins for these shoots? Sometimes it feels like hog shopping.

What is the most obscure thing you do regularly?

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I like to read old newspapers. It’s an endlessly fascinating window into history. Obviously contemporaneous journalism shouldn’t be mistaken for history. Most of it is probably close to true, but never the whole truth. Nevertheless, it reveals at least what people were exposed to as part of their day-to-day lives.

Google had a project for digitizing newspapers, and although it ended years ago, the archive is still freely available at Google News Archive Search. There are lots of obscure papers, short-lived papers, and Canadian papers (many in French). But also a lot of complete collections of papers that span decades (e.g., 38,000 issues of the Reading ¶ Eagle from 1868-2008).

Sometimes it’s interesting to pick a noteworthy event (e.g., the Scopes Monkey Trial) and explore how it was covered at the time it happened. And that coverage of course might be different in different parts of the country.

But more often, I’ll just start exploring randomly. It’s almost impossible not to find something interesting that leads to further research. I came across the page at the top a few months ago while wandering aimlessly through 1925 (reading mostly about battles between Prohibition agents and moonshiners). At first I thought it was a nautical disaster and was confused about how it had happened in Ohio. I simply had no idea the US Navy had a fleet of Airships (i.e., Blimps) in service in 1925. This led to me getting sidetracked into research about this disaster, and then airships in general including their role in polar exploration in the 1920s.

I find myself drawn to exploring coverage of racial politics and racial violence, especially in Southern newspapers. Mini race riots, Klan meetings, editorials about civil rights, etc.

I found a 1949 week-long series of articles in the Tuskaloosa News about local Klan activity. I was prepared for the worst, but it was surprisingly anti-Klan. It’s a bit nuanced, but while the paper seems to agree with the general aims of the Klan, they take great issue with their terrorist tactics and secrecy and think the organization is counter-productive. From an editorial published at the end of the series:

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Often there’s something that seems interesting but lacks context. Townsend, Montana, 1897:

I wondered what this was about and kept looking until I found just the bare bones of a story about a famous big-city (Helena!) Black boxer who runs into trouble with the local Sheriff when he tries to bring his traveling boxing exhibition to town. How is this not a movie starring Michael B. Jordan as Ike Hayes and Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Poole?

Finally, the greatest nugget I’ve unearthed, demonstrating that snarky petty White grievance goes back farther than you might think.

Aaaaaaaand we’re caught up. I’ll try to get back to every other week or so on these.

BestOf · March 19, 2021, 5:55pm

Let’s get caught up on the best posts from the last 3 weeks, shall we?

LOL Democrats - How do you do, fellow kids?

LOL Democrats - How do you do, fellow kids?

That’s what the GOP has said for decades: Democrats want to keep the poor poor. Trump really drilled that message. It’s conspiracy nonsense to me.

For decades the Dems have sold out the working class in favor of the owning class. That isn’t conspiracy nonsense.

When the Dems voted in favor of the Taft-Hartley Act that severely restricted the rights of unions to organize and strike and paved the way for things like so-called “right-to-work” laws. That was Dems doing the bidding of their corporate masters, and shitting all over the working class.

The war on drugs, the growth of the prison-industrial complex, and the militarization of police were bi-partisan.

When Clinton did welfare “reform”(aka gutted welfare), was that him caring about poverty or doing the bidding of his corporate masters? Or when he championed NAFTA, was that good for working people? Did that reduce poverty, or did it increase corporate profits at the expense of working people?

When Obama let the banksters off the hook for the largest financial fraud in history, and millions lost their homes, was that him caring about poverty or serving his Wall St. backers?

When Dem politicians use right-wing talking points to shit on UHC/M4A, they aren’t doing that in order to alleviate poverty, they are saying those things to protect the interests of capital.

The 2020 NDAA passed with overwhelming Dem support in Congress. $700B+ for bombs and occupations, when it’d be better spent on green/sustainable jobs, and education. Those Dem politicians voted for that; they have agency. “They got money for war, but can’t feed the poor.” -Tupac

I really wish the Dems were as pro-worker and anti-poverty as the image that they curate to gain support. I don’t normally quote the Bible, but it’s right when it says that “a man can not serve two masters”. We live in a class based system that is violently enforced. The struggle is real, and the Dems, for the most part, are on the pro-capitalist rather than pro-worker side of the struggle. It sucks that they are, but that’s the reality of a pro-business party in a capitalist society. It’s why Trump’s and the GOP’s attacks on the Dems resonate–because there is truth behind it.

It’s like our country is a fully provisioned restaurant owned by the wealthy and staffed by the Dems & GOP. The Dems serve scraps and claim that’s all there is, while the wealthy have food fights in a private dining room. The GOP serves straight up salmonella, and claims it’s both sides’ fault. I’d rather eat scraps than salmonella, but they are both lying to us.

Just because the GOP is worse, and just because the Dems do some good some times, that doesn’t mean that the Dem politicians by-and-large aren’t subservient to their capitalist masters–the very ones that are prosecuting and winning the class war against us.

That catches us up for now, see you in a few weeks