Reason Morning Links: Cash for Golf Carts, Charges for the Balloon Family, Senators for Simulated Necrophilia

• Health care negotiations: No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

• A suicide bombing in Iran kills dozens; the Iranian authorities blame the U.S., the U.K., and Pakistan.

• The coming crackdown on insider trading.

• Now available: the golf cart tax credit.

• Connecticut Democrats warn: Our opponent favors simulated necrophilia.

• It's an old-fashioned balloon hoax. By gar, it's been awhile.

Comments

[Johnny Longtorso]

The War Is Lost
...Living side by side with the Haqqanis' followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.

I had written about the ties between Pakistan's intelligence services and the Taliban while covering the region for The New York Times. I knew Pakistan turned a blind eye to many of their activities. But I was astonished by what I encountered firsthand: a Taliban mini-state that flourished openly and with impunity.

The Taliban government that had supposedly been eliminated by the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was alive and thriving...

[Jesse Walker]

Hold your horses, Johnny! I'm blogging that one separately...

[Johnny Longtorso]

Sorry.

[brotherben]

I am anxiously awaiting it. Seriously.

[Robyn Hitchcock]

And it rained like a slow divorce
And I wish I could ride a horse
And Balloon Man blew up in my hand

[@]

We're a globe of frogs.

[brotherben]

I prefer the term "freedom globe."

[Rich]

The IRS has also ruled that there's no limit to how many electric cars an individual can buy

I suppose there's no background check or waiting period, either.

[Slut Bunwalla]

W...why would there be a limit? Is there a limit on the number of non-electric cars I can buy?

[FrBunny]

Sex with dead people? There's no time!

[Anonymous]

That's okay. They'll wait.

[brotherben]

? Connecticut Democrats warn: Our opponent favors simulated necrophilia.

A marriage has to have sex.

[Edgar A. Poe]

It's an old-fashioned balloon hoax. By gar, it's been awhile.

Yes, a while. 🙂

[Attorney]

Did anybody else catch the bizarro bit on CBS News Sunday Morning yesterday where they used quotes from Jefferson and Jackson to justify federal regulation of banking? It was about the weirdest thing I ever saw. Last I checked, it's not available on the show's website.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The topics of two, perhaps three, of those morning links can be found in Weekend at Bernie's.

[healthscarequotes]

and in a more entertaining fashion, t'boot

[TP]

The original necrophilia simulation.

One thing I miss is Cold Ethyl and her skeleton kiss
We met last night making love under the refrigerator light
Ethyl Ethyl let me squeeze you in my arms
Ethyl Ethyl come and freeze me with your charms

[John Thacker]

Hmm. Doesn't quite have the ring of:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling ? my darling ? my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

[SugarFree]

I love the Internet.

Top Ten Songs about Necrophilia

[SugarFree]

Top Ten Songs About Necrophilia

[SugarFree]

Well, I was going to link you guys to the Top Ten Songs about Necrophilia, but if it has a link, it keeps getting deleted.

[Anonymous]

Read between the lines:

Oh my, my. Oh hell, yes. Honey, put on that party dress.
that toe tag and sheet complement your skin tone
Buy me a drink, sing me a song, take me as I come cause I cain't stay long.
guilt follows ejaculation, and then the crying
Last dance with Mary Jane: one more time to kill the pain.
and then the worms get a turn
I feel summer creepin' in, and I'm tired of this town again.
under orders of the county court

[Pro Libertate]

Video had nothing to do with the song, I think. Sounds like a drug song to me.

Like that Petty.

[Skid Marx]

I look forward to the bubble dad's lengthy incarceration while fully covering the costs incurred.

[SugarFree]

It's just too early for this.

[Skid Marx]

"You know, this has been displayed on a number of blogs, and most of the response has been negative. However, I think of it as the first step towards detachable vaginas."

Is that your writing?

[SugarFree]

Sadly, no.

[brotherben]

Suddenly I'm craving a roast beef samich.

[Xeones]

It is NEVER too early for that.

[SugarFree]

There comes a time when you're supposed to stop squatting over a mirror and get on with your life.

On the other hand...

"My vulva came out looking like a diseased turd."

[Groovus Maximus]

X, please stop playing with that vaginal speculum, it's NOT a toy!

[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]

Moscow mayor promises to winter without snow. Next up: Moscow mayor will flood the world!

[Abdul]

Connecticut Democrats warn: Our opponent favors simulated necrophilia.

These darned anti-necrophiliac fanatics are ruining this country! It's like a theocracy, without the superior infrastructure.

[Xeones]

STEVE SMITH NEVER STOP SQUATTING OVER MIRROR.

[Groovus Maximus]

Less rape, more fiber. Both will help those awful prolapsed hemorrhoids there, Mr. Smith.

[Jennifer]

Stop with the Connecticut-bashing! Granted, having a former pro wrestler as our Education Department head and senatorial candidate might be a tad laugh-worthy, but it's been literally weeks since the last time the FBI felt the need to investigate one of our elected officials, and our ex-governor has finished his federal prison term and paid his debt to society and the salary for his current taxpayer-funded job is only in the low six figures, and besides if it weren't for my state people traveling between Boston and New York would have no place to stop for a bathroom break. So there.

[Skid Marx]

Trust in the government to make great health-care decisions: "In a city ravaged by the highest rate of AIDS cases in the nation, the D.C. Health Department paid millions to nonprofit groups that delivered substandard services or failed to account for any work at all, even as sick people searched for care or died waiting."

Staggering need, striking neglect
The nation's worst-hit city awards millions for care and shelter without ensuring it gets to those it's meant to help

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ynamiclead

[J sub D]

If I am not mistaken (and I rarely am), taxpayer funded golf carts can be purchased from zhejiang jojoy leisure product co.,ltd.

The right people are now in charge.

[Skid Marx]

More from the WaPo story (it's unbelievable!):

More than $1 million in AIDS money went to a housing group whose ailing boarders sometimes struggled without electricity, gas or food. A supervisor said she was ordered to create records for ghost employees.

About $400,000 was paid to a nonprofit organization, launched by a man who once ran one of the District's largest cocaine rings, for a promised job-training center that has never opened.

More than $500,000 was earmarked for a housing program whose executive director had a string of convictions for theft, drugs and forgery. After the D.C. Inspector General's Office could find no evidence that he was operating an AIDS nonprofit group, the city terminated the grant but never sought repayment.

All told, the Health Department's HIV/AIDS Administration awarded more than $25 million from 2004 to 2008 to nonprofit agencies marked by questionable spending, a lack of clients, or lapses in record-keeping and care, a 10-month Washington Post investigation found. Many of the groups have since closed or are no longer providing AIDS services

[EJM]

? Health care negotiations: No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Is anyone letting their hair hang down?

[Jesse Walker]

Makes me glad that I'm a man!

(For fun: Compare and contrast.)

[?]

Is he related to Tommy Rich ?

[smartass sob]

Many of the groups have since closed or are no longer providing AIDS services

Apparently the only ones being serviced were the taxpayers...as usual.

[Skid Marx]

Government run healthcare is gonna be great!

[TrickyVic]

Simulated necrophilia? That's what a Congressman call sleeping with his wife.

[jtuf]

Connecticut Democrats warn: Our opponent favors simulated necrophilia.

What part of "simulated" don't the Dems understand? The videos just show acting and did not violate anyones rights. If those statists want my WWE tapes, they'll have to tear them from my cold, bare ...

[Used Golf Carts Guy]

The golf cart tax credit will have very limited appeal. I'm not sure how getting more new and used golf carts on the public roads is going to put a dent in the country's carbon emissions.