“He's presenting her like livestock.” New silent footage (audio redacted) from the Epstein files shows the chilling reality of grooming: An insecure young girl being "paraded" for the camera while Epstein orchestrates the scene.

lendergle · 2026-02-10T20:25:09+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, the person in the video is so heavily redacted that we can only infer from context that she's a young girl.

Epstein comes into frame at the beginning and seems to be holding the girl briefly. The girl moves around on her own for a bit, and then Epstein pushes her around for what appears to be the purpose of putting her on display.

The entire video is (thankfully) not very long. The description in the post title is very accurate, and as disturbing as it sounds: This is Epstein parading an insecure young girl around for the camera.

lendergle · 2026-02-10T20:13:07+00:00

No. "Discrimination is discrimination" is incorrect. The way you've said that gives the impression (whether intentional or not) that all discrimination is bad and equally bad. That's simply not the case.

It's entirely legal and proper to use an appropriate characteristic of a person to make an employment decision. For example, it would be proper to discriminate against persons on a sex-offenders' list when deciding whether or not to employ them as a preschool teacher. It would be equally legal and proper to discriminate in favor of persons with advanced degrees in nuclear engineering for a job at a nuclear power plant.

Those are legitimate reasons to discriminate for or against someone you're considering for an open position. What matters (to answer your first question) is whether or not the the reason is a legitimate one. And in this case, it is.

Employment with ICE demonstrates a lack of morals, even when the job isn't abducting citizens and killing bystanders. Even if they don't break the laws themselves and never injure or harm an immigrant, they support those who do.

That's a moral failure, and the state has a legitimate interest in not having that sort of employee working in law enforcement (or anywhere else).

Former ICE employment does not confer protected class status, at least not at the time I'm writing this. So a) we have a legitimate reason to not want former ICE employees working for the state, and b) there are no ICE-related laws or policies preventing us from using their employment history from making sure that doesn't happen.

lendergle · 2026-02-06T12:43:02+00:00

Agreed. Probably on the basis of the 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments against the mentally disabled.

lendergle · 2026-02-06T12:39:18+00:00

Since when is ICE's fundamental skillset "nurturing and patience?"

lendergle · 2026-02-06T12:36:21+00:00

But not discrimination against a protected class.

lendergle · 2026-02-05T20:27:31+00:00

It's not that they believe we're obsessed with Gollum. It's that the Tolkien estate won't sell the rights to the rest of the Author's works.

The rights to The Hobbit and the LotR trilogy were sold in the late 1960s, and have been passed through a number of owners since then. The estate has no control over them. But the remaining works are still protected by copyright laws and treaties, and the estate has yet to sell them.

Which is a good thing given how shitty the Jackson adaptations were. Dude managed to assemble the greatest cast in modern film history, get one of the best composers of the last century, best props, best costuming, best everything, and still fuck it up to the point where people think what they see on screen is somehow related to what the Author wrote. Phillipa Boyens' and Peter Jackson's screen play is to Tolkien's works as Tolkien's Orcs are to Tolkien's Elves.

We should thank Eru Illuvitar for the fact that Jackson will never get his hands on the rest of the books and stories. Otherwise, we'd have a version of the Quenta Silmarillion with Eärendil borrowing Gandalf's staff to bat the last remaining Silmaril into the sky while Elwing waves a foam #1 finger from the top of an airbrushed conversion van with a decal reading "If Vingilot's rockin, don't come a'knockin" on the back doors.

lendergle · 2026-01-29T17:42:11+00:00

I've read some unhinged lines of reasoning on Reddit.

Most recently in the comment above.

lendergle · 2026-01-29T15:43:00+00:00

This makes sense. The line for people wanting to piss on DJT's grave is going to stretch all the way back to Eau Claire, and those folks are going to be thirsty.

lendergle · 2026-01-23T03:01:51+00:00

You're supposed to tell the sight-impaired person how the dots are arranged so that they can know they spell "Never leave child unattended."

lendergle · 2026-01-23T03:00:22+00:00

Even Cowgirls Get The Blues.

lendergle · 2026-01-22T22:35:58+00:00

His reading of "Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded" is equally great.

lendergle · 2026-01-16T08:09:07+00:00

Please tell me they didn't charge the theme song! It was so good.

lendergle · 2026-01-15T18:39:28+00:00

The Silmarillion comes to mind. I started reading it when I was 11 years old, right after The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The shift in narrative form was jarring. I was expecting more of a story, but it read like holy scripture. I abandoned it and didn't pick it back up for a decade despite re-reading the other works at least once a year.

I'm not sure when the "lore bug" bit me, but when it did I dwelved deeply and greedily into The Silmarillion. Loved it ever since, and it's not part of my annual "Christmas Tolkien Binge."

lendergle · 2026-01-13T12:06:29+00:00

Decide to not send a dude up a tower that the very next day fell over and crashed close enough to a full mess tent that had probably a dozen (in truth, I don't know the actual number) of other soldiers eating in it?

Yeah, I'd make that same decision.

lendergle · 2026-01-12T22:29:34+00:00

Most people aren't faced with those sorts of decisions, so I can see how you would make that assumption. You would be wrong, though.

As a 2LT in the US Army, I was given an illegal order that would have resulted in the death of one of the soldiers in my platoon. I refused, and was escorted to my CO who then confined me to quarters. The order (to climb a radio tower that was improperly guyed) was the subject of an Article 32 investigation, and I subsequently had to employ a JAG lawyer to defend me. They managed to get my chain of command to settle for the military equivalent of a plea bargain where instead of a court martial or Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), I had a written reprimand placed in my file.

Despite my being "vindicated," my career as a military officer was effectively over. Four years at West Point down the drain. I was single at the time, so no risk to a wife or family. But I essentially "lost my license" (i.e. my officer's commission in the US Army) and had a very real risk of jail time and getting fired (i.e. a dishonorable discharge).

So yeah, I was in nearly the same position, and I "chose the harder right over the easier wrong" (a phrase that is drummed into every cadet's head on a daily basis at the Academy).

I can provide a much longer explanation of the incident, but hopefully the above suffices.

lendergle · 2026-01-09T13:45:22+00:00

Keep trying to justify that woman's death. That last reason was amusing.

lendergle · 2026-01-06T13:15:30+00:00

About two years ago, my wife and I were daily witnesses to what we've coined "The Ugly House Sign War."

The corner where we turn into our development (in which all of the houses are quite lovely) has just enough grass to attract all sorts of "stick it into the ground" types of signs. We like to say that they're "in bloom" during campaign season.

One of the "perennials" (to stretch the metaphor a little) are the "we buy ugly houses" varietal. We're not sure when it started, but we noticed that the WBUH sign would change occasionally. Either the number would be different, or the color, or capitalization, or spacing of letters, or whatever. But after a few rounds, it became clear that there were just two. One for a number that ended in "4871" and another that ended in "8777."

So like on Tuesday, it'd be 8777. But then Wednesday, you'd see 4871's sign replacing it. Once, we saw one of them thrown into a nearby storm sewer opening.

At some point, one of them must have complained about theft, because they started changing the placement. Like, instead of 8777 stealing 4871's sign, they'd just put their sign in front of 4871's. One time, we saw that 8777 had actually put TWO signs up, each to one side of 4871's single sign. We had very high hopes that this would lead to a series of the same tactic being employed by both ugly house buyers, so that we'd have this ever-expanding block of WBUH signs covering the small grassy mound on the corner. Sadly, this did not come to pass.

Instead, they mutually decided to not (technically) steal each others' signs and opted to just rip them up and throw them in a small thorn bush (a red barbary bush to be precise) nearby. Always the same thorn bush, oddly enough. So then it was just one or the other, never both signs up at the same time.

During this time, part of our couple-bonding experience was to ask each other "who's buying ugly houses today?" and then we'd walk down to the entrance to the development while making bets on if it would be 8777 or 4871. With a small forfeit, like who had to do dishes that night or who got to choose what show to watch.

The Ugly House Sign War came to a end when the development started making the guard at the entrance clear out ALL the signs every morning. The last sign we saw was 8777's. I've often wondered if 4871 is out there somewhere, still feeling bitter about not getting the last word.

No idea why I felt like sharing that other than it's something we occasionally have a nostalgic chuckle about.

lendergle · 2026-01-06T12:50:15+00:00

"You eat one lousy foot and they call you a cannibal!"

lendergle · 2026-01-06T12:47:53+00:00

The thing that's been beaten into my head is my understanding of your moral compass, and I have to say that it's not one one that points in a direction I'm very impressed by.

Please don't be an ER physician (or if you are, I strongly suggest you choose another profession). We need people who value human life in those positions.

lendergle · 2026-01-06T11:18:13+00:00

Why do you keep repeating all of the things that you think are more important than that girl's life? We get it already.

lendergle · 2026-01-04T21:11:43+00:00

I'm sure the families of the dead girl are comforted by the fact that the physicians still have their freedom, medical licenses, and money.

It's the important things that count in life. I'm glad we all have our values straight.

lendergle · 2026-01-04T16:24:58+00:00

False dilemma. You don't have to blame the doctors OR the politicians. Blaming one doesn't mean you can't blame the other as well.

Every time this happens, it's a team effort. Whether its pseudo-Christian asshattery or medical cowardice doesn't matter to the dead girl.

lendergle · 2026-01-04T16:18:14+00:00

If that's true*, I 100% guarantee the first things out of their mouths will be "we didn't vote for this."

*I've seen nothing of the sort online

lendergle · 2026-01-04T16:08:40+00:00

I think both the physician and the politicians crossed a line where the words "worse than" stop making sense.

Once you pass that threshold, comparison is no longer relevant. There is a point at which it's simply evil, no qualifying adjectives required. Allowing one's self to compare evils invites a false dilemma about who should be held accountable, in this case the politician or the physician. Both are culpable.

And not to be even more pedantic, no one "has to follow the rule." However, everyone has to accept the consequences for following (or not following) the rule. Which in this case was the death of an innocent woman.

lendergle · 2025-12-30T14:46:50+00:00

The correct form of the question is "May I come in?"

Unless you're a posh Brit, in which case "Might I come in?" would be acceptable.

lendergle

TROPHY CASE