Reason Morning Links: More Names on No-Fly List, Shooting in Las Vegas, Regulating Tax Preparers

• Obama administration beefs up no-fly lists, announces security changes in response to attempted Christmas bombing.
• Man angry about dispute over Social Security benefits opens fire in Las Vegas federal building.
• IRS to take closer look at tax preparers.
• Dating website for beautiful people boots 5,000 members for putting on weight over the holidays.
• Debt-ridden Dubai debuts world's new tallest building. (Note: Jesse Walker mentioned this in yesterday's morning links.)

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

I'm going to guess that the IRS will be collecting certification fees from tax preparers. Perhaps even an annual license renewal requirement?

[Warty]

Dating website for beautiful people boots 5,000 members for putting on weight over the holidays.

The solution

[The Art-P.O.G.]

I can barely believe either of those websites are real.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

We all know good-looking people, but do you know anyone shallow enough to join a "beautiful people" website?

[Kyle Jordan]

Can you imagine the amount of purging that went on after the emails went out?

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Yeah, but then they probably started kicking people off for having unfortunately yellowed teeth.

[SugarFree]

"These sour grapes are fantastic!"

[Ska]

From the link:

Come on people beautiful is something you get to know.

boxspelunker promoted this comment

Boxspelunker....now there's a quality screen name.

[SugarFree]

Or...

annakelly
01/04/10

@ilovehermakeup: I agree wholeheartedly re: "fattie." To me, the word has become *almost* as offensive as "fag" or the n-word, and shows that the speaker is narrow-minded, immature, and possibly has a cruel streak. I don't know how professional the CEO of a website has to be, but saying "fattie" reflects terribly on the site as a whole.

[Kyle Jordan]

So Annakelly would probably have a heart attack if I called someone a fat nigger faggot, right?

And I shouldn't have to do this but I'm going to play it safe and say that I used the words I did to illustrate a joke or an attempt at bad humor. I am perfect simpatico with Obese African-American Homosexuals. Morbid or otherwise.

[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]

Too late, KJ. Reason has already contacted your employer.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Guffawin'

[Suki]

Hi SF! WB!

[R C Dean]

I don't know how professional the CEO of a website has to be,

A CEO of a website for "beautiful people"? Not very.

[Kyle Jordan]

So long as he's not fat or burned horrifically, Cropsy style, he's GTG.

[The Gobbler]

I loved this piece:

Purity Balls: Protecting Girls From Making Choices

http://jezebel.com/5440014/pur.....ue&s=x

Because if a girl doesn't have the freedom to choose getting knocked-up and aborting, she might just as well live in Gaza.

[Suki]

LOL!

[wylie]

the vids in that link were a good laugh.

"i'm about my daughters growing up with as much liberty and freedoms as any woman in society."

Not "any person". Sure, a bit semantic, but i think it's telling.

[wylie]

Also, came for "purity balls". Left disappointed.

I thought it was going to be some sort of sex toy dammit.

[dbcooper]

These people never realise that they're falling for the PR game and promoting the source of outrage. Well played Beautiful People PR/marketing types.

[Mensa Member]

Maybe ...

[Suki]

Like everybody at the cheerleader table in a high school cafeteria?

[Suki]

Good Morning reason!

Obama administration beefs up no-fly lists, announces security changes in response to attempted Christmas bombing.

Are they going to post the updated manual on the interweb too?

[Johnny Longtorso]

When does the Reason dating site open up, and when do we get to purge the Obama voters?

Epi, X, Warty, SugarFree, want to submit your dating profiles?

[The Art-P.O.G.]

This would be a really bad dating site. There'd be about 4 males for every female, not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Suki]

Art, what's wrong with all you boys who flirt with each other on here all day actually hooking up?

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Me missing that action, that's what's wrong with it. 😉

[Suki]

Airline tickets are cheap now, Art! You don't have to miss out 😉

[SugarFree]

BBM seeks crusty old WW for scab-picking and romance.

[SugarFree]

Oops. That was Art's.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Thanks, SugarFree! There's no way I ever could've worded my own personal ad in such an appealing way!

[Kyle Jordan]

"Plaintiff met with (the case manager), who was allegedly disrespectful and told the plaintiff to move back to California,'' Foley's report says."

I'm siding with the Government here.

"Nevertheless, Wicks filed his lawsuit alleging that in cutting his benefits, his civil rights were violated by the agency because of his race (black)."

:sigh:...

[The Art-P.O.G.]

All I could do was sigh after reading that story, too.

[Xeones]

Johnny, you'd think that would be a good idea, until you end up with just a sea of bearded dudes with glasses and maybe, like, four women.

[Kyle Jordan]

Three holes, two hands, and large enough breasts could accommodate up to six at a time. And implants for the ones whose bust may need to be enhanced for the tittyfuckin' could happen.

So, six at a time, 30 minute time limit, rests for the girls every two hours. Throw in a couple of hookers as backups and I think we could pull it off.

[Johnny Longtorso]

I knew you guys would come throught for me.

[Jake Boone]

It is completely beyond me why we don't have more women posting here. What could the reason possibly be?

Maybe it's my shirt.

[SugarFree]

Day-glo Hawaiian is not a good look on everyone.

Funny, open-minded, politically aware, and ruggedly unoffendable women are in short supply all over. That a bunch of jerks that know way too much about science fiction and prog rock have as many as we do is a sheer miracle.

[Warty]

Now you've forced me to post prog-metal in space.

[SugarFree]

There are four or five Mastodon songs used in-game for Br?tal Legend.

[Warty]

I thought about getting that, but got Dragonage instead. Maybe I'll have to get BL once it hits the discount racks.

[SugarFree]

Best Buy had it for $40 on the 360 last week. The writing and the voice work are just fantastic. Gameplay is not ultra-complex, but it's never super-repetitive.

[Kyle Jordan]

Don't blame me dude. I'm just taking my que from the government.

When a precious and vital resource such as tender, yet resilient and strong tensing girlflesh is scarce, you have to ration its use to serve the most it can.

[The Gobbler]

"pull it off"

exactly

[Kyle Jordan]

Yeah the six figure takes in to accont the possibility that some guys probably wouldn't want to take a trip on such a well used outlet but may enjoy the show and manual means of fulfillment.

Damn, some of the shit I'm posting today is fucked up.

[SugarFree]

Your New Year's Resolution to be more like your hero SugarFree is kicking in.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Heh. I have no idea what you mean, Gobbler. 😀

[Warty]

Kyle, you're not thinking outside the box here. With a good knife and some creativity, the number of usable holes can be raised to at least 11.

[CT Official]

counterterrorism officials have examined "thousands upon thousands" of names from the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list

Wow! There's another weird name!

Besides TIDE, I mean.

[Kyle Jordan]

So the more identities added means the TIDE is rising, no?

[Suki]

+1

[CT Official]

Yes, Sir. "Kyle Jordan" and "Suki" are on The List.

[AQAP Official]

Debt-ridden Dubai debuts world's new tallest building.

Cool.

[Suki]

Anybody see this on the Super Collider?

Legal paper, I think he means that if the world is destroyed there will be no recourse because there will be nobody left standing.

[Rich]

Future news: "Tied up in the legal system for two years, the long-awaited Super Collider experiment will finally take place on December 21, 2012."

[Kyle Jordan]

I can't tell you how much I would dearly love this to happen.

Hell, there might even be mass suicides because of it.

[wylie]

Yet another reason i support the LHC.

[ed]

The developer of the newly opened tower said it cost about $1.5 billion to build the tapering metal-and-glass spire

Isn't that what the new Yankee Stadium cost? I wonder if you can get a hot dog at the Burj Khalifa.

[Suki]

Has to be a Kosher one. Thinking Hebrew National did not get a concession.

[ed]

Camel dogs! Getcha camel dogs heah!

[Kyle Jordan]

Best part about a Camel Dog is that you don't have to buy a drink. It has water in the hump in the middle!

...

[ed]

That would be a Dromedary Dog?.

[WWJGD]

Quote of the decade, IMO:

"Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded,"

[Rich]

The IRS plans to require tax preparers to pass a test and register with the government to better police a largely unregulated industry used by most taxpayers.

Based on my experience as a, um, client of the Taxpayer Compliance Program, I believe the "largely unregulated industry used by most taxpayers" refers to the IRS itself.

[The Gobbler]

+1/2 (the IRS took the other 1/2)

[wylie]

+1/16 (adjusted for after the passage of obamacare and cap&theft;)

[Nick]

From the Brickbats:

Strath Haven High School in Pennsylvania suspended Michael Hance for "defiance of authority." The senior was punished for wearing a Santa Claus suit to school shortly before Christmas.

"Defiance of authority" is a new one for me. When did it become a punishable offense in and of itself?

[SugarFree]

When did it become a punishable offense in and of itself?

About four seconds after the first person to consider themselves in charge was defied.

[Nick]

The solution to this is for all students to show up dressed as Santa. Then the humorless prick will know he's not really in charge.

[SugarFree]

One of my many run-ins with the petty authority and amazing stupidity of high school officials was dress code-related.

It was the week before prom, and a certain number of seniors were allowed to to work for two days building the prom setts and decorations. I was eligible to work because I had hurt myself so badly taking last years prom apart. (Worked for an hour, got credited for he whole day.) And anything is better than class.

The fun part is that we were allowed to wear shorts to work on the building--hot dirty work. This was rare because out high schools was obsessed with shorts. All the teachers carrying fabric rulers to measure your pants obsessed.

Anyway, all we were told is that we could wear shorts that day. Everyone shows up in shorts. Then we were told that we had to go to home room first. But then we were told we could only wear the shorts in the gym, where construction was to go on. We couldn't wear shorts to homeroom.

It took the entire time of homeroom for those idiots to figure out that they couldn't have it both ways.

We were then told couldn't wear shorts on the 2nd day of construction.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

You just had to ruin it for everyone, didn't you SugarFree? Speedos are not shorts.

[SugarFree]

As I recall, they were hideous neon orange nylon monstrosities. This would have been May 1988.

[VikingMoose]

*does some quick math*

HAPPY 40th, Sugar Free!

[SugarFree]

I got into kindergarten a year early. I have until July before my 1/2 + 7 becomes a horrifying 27.

[T]

Like you care about societal acceptance. You relish being a creepy old man.

[SugarFree]

I should beat you with my cane!

[The Art-P.O.G.]

I can only assume you were also wearing a pair of these.

[SugarFree]

'88, not '83, youngster. I think I was wearing these by then.

I did stay an A-Team fan long after it was cool, but not until it became cool again.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

The fact of the matter is that Mr. T tells us what's cool. We don't tell him what's cool.

[wylie]

With the color-changing t-shirt! Was only 6 at the time, but i loved those clothes. which is fine for a 6yr old. not so much for all the young adults of the period....

[alan]

Happy B-Day Man

One day while in senior high, I saw this picture of Jeff Beck that was astoundingly cool, so I decided to replicate the style. I borrowed my cousin's wedding tux vest (very comfortable blue cotton and by the way I still have it), and I wore it with nothing underneath it. I got away with it until forth period when one teacher decided it was too defiant of the dress code. She was going to send me home to change, but I told her I had a ton of clothes in my locker.

[Kyle Jordan]

His first day back he needs to wear the outfit again. Or come to school naked. If he's not wearing anything, he's not wearing anything that can offend anyone, right?

[Kyle Jordan]

These threaded comments are really starting to piss me off.

[yet another dave]

don't defah ma authoritah!

[benchwarmer]

It's an old catch-all charge. I was proudly suspended 6 times from H.S. for the same damn thing and this in the 60's.

[wylie]

Mr. Burns: I thought i told you to get rid of those sideburns!

[P Brooks]

H&R Block issued a statement supporting the new regulations.

Never saw it coming.

[CaptainSmartass]

Rent seeking? In my tax preparer? It's more likely than you think.

[Pro Libertate]

Starting?

[SugarFree]

Ugh. It's like a Thomas Hardy poem. I'll leave it to you to figure out which of these plastic surgery disasters is the Titanic and which is the iceberg.

[Kyle Jordan]

"Casey Johnson And The Difficulties Of Being A "Lesbian Socialite"

.....

SF, where the hell do you dig up these sites?!

[alan]

"Casey Johnson And The Difficulties Of Being A "Lesbian Socialite"

They said she had been dead for several days. Looks like for a socialite she didn't get out much. Read the TMZ story, and it also appears the Johnson&Johnson; fortune is busy applying scrubbers the story.

[Rich]

Nice try, SF, but you can't fool me.

That picture's a fake, because the watch and ring are not covered in, um, stuff like her arm.

[Warty]

Are we sure neither one is a tranny?

[Kyle Jordan]

She said it was a six and a half inch clit...

[VikingMoose]

yes, ProGlib.

Starting.

[P Brooks]

hideous neon orange nylon monstrosities.

Parachute pant cut-offs?

[SugarFree]

No, more like this, only they were probably OP.

I did own three pairs of parachute pants in middle school, though. Black, gray, and a red pair that I wore on my disastrous first real date. I swear I was wearing a skinny tie. Perhaps even a piano key tie.

[Kyle Jordan]

Were you rocking a Vanilla Ice 'do?

[SugarFree]

Luckily, no. Never dyed my hair or even wore the common hair products. I gave up on tying to fit in fairly early on in high school.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Dude...your description of what you wore on your first date...awesome.

[SugarFree]

It came back to me in an epileptic seizure of shame-memory. Black button-down shirt, a red skinny tie, red parachute pants (with black zippers), and black and white checkered slip-on Vans.

This was the really tall girl named Dawn, who I took to see Red Dawn. She looked and dressed almost exactly like the blonde from Weird Science.

I saw a picture of her about 15 years ago. She did not keep those looks growing up. Oof.

[P Brooks]

Startling.

[alan]

Hippie Mum played a perfectly executed joke on me when my siblings and I had lunch over her place Sunday.

She told me, 'you were always my special child.'

I said, 'huh', because it sounded weird coming from her.

'I read Silvia Plath while I was carrying you.'

I was suspicious. 'You read Silvia Plath to me.'

'No, son. I stuck my head in the oven a couple of times. You lost oxygen.'

[Kyle Jordan]

+1 for your mom. That's funny.

[SugarFree]

Hit her with a little of this, next time:

Thalidomide

O half moon---

Half-brain, luminosity---
Negro, masked like a white,

Your dark
Amputations crawl and appall---

Spidery, unsafe.
What glove

What leatheriness
Has protected

Me from that shadow---
The indelible buds.

Knuckles at shoulder-blades, the
Faces that

Shove into being, dragging
The lopped

Blood-caul of absences.
All night I carpenter

A space for the thing I am given,
A love

Of two wet eyes and a screech.
White spit

Of indifference!
The dark fruits revolve and fall.

The glass cracks across,
The image

Flees and aborts like dropped mercury.

[alan]

Bad idea to do that if you knew the woman. She would just do her Lou Reed singing Venus in Furs imitation to shut me up.

[Xeones]

Yo, fuck threaded comments.

[Kyle Jordan]

Word.

Wait a minute...

[Mark]

Just tried to browse beautifulpeople.com, got a message saying they are limiting the number of users due to high traffic following national media exposure.

Personally I think they're lying; I think the beautiful people don't even want us plebes LOOKING at them. Which begs the question: How do they know what I look like? Maybe I should turn off the webcam...

[Warty]

We call you people "normals".

[T]

You wouldn't know normal if it bit your withered taint.

[P Brooks]

Threaded comments should die from a spurting neck wound.

[Warty]

What about a suppurating gut wound?

[SugarFree]

Would shitting dick nipples be spectacularly fatal enough?

[Warty]

Those aren't nipples, those are cannons. Shitcannons. Dickshitcannons.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

What an odd illustration.

[SugarFree]

Art, send me an email. I've got a .pdf of The Jaunt to send you.

[thumb's up]

What is that they pixillated on the ends of those... things?

[P Brooks]

The IRS should issue a special edict requiring all federal officials, elected and appointed, to prepare their own tax returns, by hand.

[P Brooks]

Spurting neck wounds present a more spectacular visual.

[Warty]

You've never seen fountaining pus, I take it.

[P Brooks]

And any Congressman who gets his taxes wrong should be shot in the throat.

[P Brooks]

Warty, you are correct; I have never seen fountaining pus.

I can say, without hesitation, that this causes me no regret.