Reason Morning Links: Earthquake in Sumatra, Nuke Standoff in Iran, Praying for Liberals

• U.S. demands access to new Iran nuke facility.

• EPA, Senate move ahead with greenhouse gas proposals.

• Christian conservative group starts "adopt a liberal" program, encouraging members to pray for a specific lefty.

• Hundreds dead in earthquake off the coast of Sumatra.

• Defense Secretary Gates expresses doubts about counterinsurgency plan in Afghanistan.

Comments

[John Tagliaferro]

Dude! What happened to the blog?

U.S. demands access to new Iran nuke facility.

I guess this administration wants to be a voyeur to the preparations for the destruction of Israel, but will just end up with a bunch of civil service martyrs when Israel gets tired of watching. Even more believable, they will arrive saying "We are from the USA and we are here to help."

[bookworm]

I find it very hard to believe that Iran has any intention of destroying Israel. They know what we would do to them.

[FrBunny]

From the Adopt-a-Lib piece:
(Semantic aside: Ironically, "liberty" and "liberal" share the same Latin root, liber, an adjective meaning free.)

Leave it to the WaPo to think that's a clever dig at fundies rather than liberals.

Not that both aren't deserving.

[prays for no typos... second guesses... goes for it: SUBMIT!]

[FrBunny]

FUCK. There was a blockquote in there. I swear!

[John Tagliaferro]

How do you get this new and improved blog to remember name and website?

[Rich]

... encouraging members to pray for a specific lefty.

Sort of a "Two-Minute Love", if you get my drift.

(Testing, 1, 2, 3)

[John Tagliaferro]

It is ironic that anybody complains about they prayers of others. If the people who don't believe in a diety truly do not believe, then the prayers are just wasted words and thoughts. For the people who do believe, then they know God is only going to go along with some of them, not all of them.

The WaPo owns their own print and webspace, they can waste it on anything they wish, of course. But why waste it complaining about something like that?

Guess I just did the same thing, with someone else's storage and bandwidth 🙂

[invokes the FrBunny prayer and clicks submit]

[Joe M]

Okay, everyone, remember, do NOT reply to individual comments. If we all work together, we can preserve the old style. We must maintain chaos. Hey, wtf, no preview button? I'm sure to look even more ridiculus than usual now.

[FrBunny]

Deal!

[Joe M]

Thanks! I knew I could count on you!

[John Tagliaferro]

Okay, everyone, remember, do NOT reply to individual comments. If we all work together, we can preserve the old style. We must maintain chaos. Hey, wtf, no preview button? I'm sure to look even more ridiculus ridicules than usual now.

FTFY

[John Tagliaferro]

So, no strike through any more?

Is anybody documenting the lost features?

[Johnny Longorso]

I'm too busy abusing the reply to comment 'feature'.

[Rich]

I just wanna see the cool wrap-around!

[mr simple]

this new layout both frightens and confuses me.

[mitch]

Oooooooo.... slalom...

[WWJGD]

Not nearly depressing enough for a Balko post.

[Joe M]

Oh, we don't count the morning links on his personal tally.

[anarch]

Refreshing the page takes me to the top again. No good.

[John]

The new format sucks. And the "daily brickbat" section is stupid to. Just leave it the way it was.

[Joe M]

I, for one, have wanted to comment on brickbats many times; glad that's an option now.

[FrBunny]

Without email links in the names, how will we know if a comment is from our own dearly-beloved John, or just one of the dozens of other Johns in America? HOW?!

[James Ard]

I don't think the loss of the preview feature will bother us much, John. We obviously never use it.

[John]

"Without email links in the names, how Without email links in the names, how will we know if a comment is from our own dearly-beloved John, or just one of the dozens of other Johns in America? HOW?! "

That is no problem. The misspellings are a secret code to the initiated.

[John]

There was a preview function?

[WTF]

This absolutely sucks.

[R C Dean]

So far, lost functionality includes:

(1) "Remember me"
(2) Preview.
(3) Blockquotes.
(4) Going from one post/comment thread directly to the next.

Testing:

bold
italics
strikethrough

[Abdul]

Like anyone ever used the "preview" feature.

[I]

I always do. Or did.

[Barack Obama]

There are those who say this new format should not have been tried. That we should just keep the old format we had. That it has worked well enough for years and needs no improvement.

Well the time for bickering has passed. And you're now stuck with this dog's ass of a format.

[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]

Arrgh, this new template is maddening. What's next, accounts??

(4) Going from one post/comment thread directly to the next.

Hmm, I never used to be able to do that on the old site either.

[P Brooks]

strikethrough test.

If this doesn't work.....

[P Brooks]

*GNASHES TEETH*

[@]

Snark tools lost! Oh my!

[T]

Why do you think we're all here, if not for snark?

Well, okay, the obscenity, petty bickering, and strange cultural references are entertaining, too. But it's mostly the snark.

[jtuf]

Christian conservative group starts "adopt a liberal" program, encouraging members to pray for a specific lefty.

This is much beter then the "adop a conservative" program run by the left. That program involves threatening parents with court action if they don't send their children to the local state run school.

[jtuf]

I think the blockquote tag isn't working anymore.

Oh, and please bring back the review button. I know it takes up processing power, but it helps us create high quality posts.

[FrBunny]

[citation needed]

[P Brooks]

? Defense Secretary Gates expresses doubts about counterinsurgency plan in Afghanistan.

IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Two articles, taken together, that tell you all you need to know:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/w.....pay-acorn/

...Instead we can just go to the Bank of America community website, which notes that the firm works with ACORN in more than 20 cities to provide "special mortgage products." Or we can go to the ACORN Housing website, which describes a program that produced $246 million in mortgages from Bank of America with "flexible underwriting and discounted pricing." Or this page, which describes a program with low down payments, no private mortgage insurance, no cash reserve necessary, and flexibility on income requirements, such as being able to include public assistance.

Yes, ACORN and Bank of America joined forces to become the ultimate subprime lender. So much for the organization's lofty social justice rhetoric.

Yet there's more. In February, right after the inauguration, Bank of America reported that it had made $2 million in national grants to ACORN Housing Corporation between October 2007 and June 2009 (planned). Only a handful of conservative outlets (Michelle Malkin, for example) picked up the story....

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon1030hh.html

...As economist Russell Roberts of George Mason University points out, Bank of America reported that nonperforming CRA-eligible loans were a significant drag on its third-quarter 2008 income. Its earnings report states: "We continue to see deterioration in our community reinvestment act portfolio which totals some 7 percent of the residential book. . . . The annualized loss rate from the CRA book was 1.26 percent and represented 29 percent of the residential mortgage net losses."...

[R C Dean]

So, CRA is 7% of their book, but 29% of their losses?

Oh, yeah, CRA had nothing to do, nothing at all, with the mortgage meltdown. Nothing to see here, just move along.

[WTF]

So does Suderman have an uncle in the shitty server business?

[John Tagliaferro]

I, for one, welcome our new partially enabled HTML overlord.

[Art-P.O.G.]

I have to say that I like the new format visually now (it's grown on me). Once we get the Preview button and all the rest of the greatness back, we're going to be golden, Ponyboy.

[T]

So, apropos of nothing at all, the contact for web site technical issues is [e-mail].

[Mike Laursen]

Christian conservative group starts "adopt a liberal" program, encouraging members to pray for a specific lefty.

Is it some kind of subliminal Satanic subversion that the Washington Post URL refers to an "undergod"?

[@]

As an unemployed designer, I feel qualified to note that the new logo fails on many levels, the most obvious being that it covers most of what used to be the online part of reason.online. Now it's reason.something, maybe an "o", or perhaps an "e". Regardless, it looks like a mistake. Somebody visiting here for the first time would not know what it is or why only part of it is visible. And where's the rest of the word? The bottoms of at least three or four more letters should be visible beneath the tilted logo.

That is all. For now.

[Mike Laursen]

Where are you seeing this new logo?

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

When various believer friends and acquaintances say their going to pray for me, I understand that they are genuinely concerned form my welfare and wish me the best, and I take it in that spirit.

This feels different. Much more like they are planning to shoot Jesus Rays (tm) at the unbelievers until God fixes them.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

The formatting changes have been applied to the historical Hit & Run.

Anything you ever posted with blockquotes or strikeouts is now incomprehensible.

[links of london Necklace]

It was a very nice idea! Just wanna say thank you for the information you have shared. Just continue writing this kind of post. I will be your loyal reader. Thanks again.