Reason Morning Links: Mass-Produced Pot, Senate Extends Unemployment Checks, National Guard Troops Head to the Border

• Senate expected to extend unemployment benefits this week.
• Oakland may soon have marijuana factories.
• More National Guard troops headed to border states.
• Poll shows slipping public trust in Social Security.
• New vaginal gel cuts HIV transmission rates in half.

Comments

[Abdul]

New vaginal gel cuts HIV transmission rates in half.

Old vaginal gel still raises laundry costs.

[Jordan Elliot]

This is great news. In keeping with the good news, I'd like to step up and do my part to help.

I hereby offer my services in providing a "Gel Application Tool" to all women between the ages of 15-67 years of age that I deem attractive.

We all have to do our part.

[Nick]

67?

[disturbing]

15

[Jordan Elliot]

One word...

Osteoporosis.

67 seems to be the cutoff age where I can still go full bore and not leave a trail of broken hips in my wake.

[Nick]

Understood, but I was just wondering why doing your part meant going over mid-forties. Rule #17: Don't be a hero.

[Jordan Elliot]

I see your point, but the older ones can usually cook. Training the younger ones to do so usually takes up too much time and effort.

Sex is great, but sex and a killer Chicken Pot Pie is even better.

[How old]

are you?

[Jordan Elliot]

30

[SugarFree]

Maybe you could eat the Chicken Pot Pie right off of her dusty labia.

[Jordan Elliot]

Well, if she makes the gravy thin enough it would moisten the labia.

"Smells like fish, but it really does taste like chicken!"

[Warty is my bitch]

SF, I'm amazed you ever found someone to fuck you, even once.

[Warty]

SugarFree, are you just gonna take that lip from AnonoRetard?

[Warty is my bitch]

Go jack off little bitch. I gave you enough attention today.

[Warty]

And yet you keep giving me more.

[WTF]

I can relate. There are plenty of over-40s women who remain pretty smoking hot and retain a high "doability factor" into their sixties.

Not so sure about the "15" end of the range, however. Make it 17 or 18 and I'm with you.

[Jordan Elliot]

The low number is more of a disaster contingency. When the zombie rise, the need for repopulation of the planet will force one in to unusual circumstances.

Plus, getting them that young allows proper molding so they may be bartered to the XugarFriarch Clan.

[Suki]

I stopped reading at "Tool".

[Tim]

+1

[-]

It got worse.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Easy Credit, Hard Landing

[Johnny Longtorso]

Your spam filter is blocking me again. As punishment for that, Reason:

David Weigel

1. Who are you voting for in November? I've got the luxury of a guilt-free, zero-impact vote in the District of Columbia, which I would cast for Bob Barr if he was on the ballot. Since he's not, I'm voting for Barack Obama, the only remaining candidate whom I trust not to run the country (further) into the ground with stupid and erratic decisions,...

[Nick]

Voting for douchebags in some of the toughest neighborhoods in America?

[Skid Marx]

Well, people do tend to vote for their own kind.

[Eric Holder]

California currently allows the use of marijuana for medical purposes but in November it is to hold a ballot on a proposal to make it legal for recreational use

and to save or create thousands of Federal agent jobs.

[Tim]

You watch in a few years ICE will be raiding those factories to round up Mexicans who are expolited as $5 an hour marijuana pickers.

[Warty]

Why yes, allowing children to have webcams is a brilliant idea

[the]

video was removed

[Jessi Slaughter]

When I have my own perfect reality show you'll be hating out the other side of your slushy brain.

Fucker.

[Astrid]

Encyclopedia Dramatica currently has a three part section on "How to troll"

They're building better trolls.

[Tim]

Huh?

[Jordan Elliot]

........

Wow. Dumbassosity all around.

[hmm]

The internet is like spandex. It's a privilege, not a right. Some people shouldn't use either.

[JW]

Overall, the gel reduced HIV infection by 39 percent.

Not fucking reduces HIV infection by nearly 100%.

[Rich]

But one's partner must consent to that method.

[So JW]

how many kids don't you have?

[JW]

Thousands. Millions. Why? Do you want one from me? My elite sperm doesn't come cheap.

[swillfredo pareto]

Not fucking reduces HIV infection by nearly 100%.

And not fucking someone who is HIV positive reduces it 100%. Unless you are still sharing needles and getting blood transfusions in Africa.

[Subsidize Me!]

Or DC.

[Law Student]

Or at the VA.

[jtuf]

The discovery has been making news around the World. Acording to one article, the target for the gel is African women in areas where they feel to intimated to decline sex to their boyfriends or husbands.

[jtuf]

Come to think of, giving those women guns and teaching them how to shoot would be effective in preventing the spread of HIV.

[JW]

Good point. Creating a culture where the women have sexual power is the first step to reducing HIV infection. Unfortunately, this gel may take that very important step back a few paces.

[Bill]

But in women who had high adherence (using the gel more than 80 percent of the time), the risk reduction was 54 percent, compared to women in the placebo group.

Pretty impressive since it's not even being used as directed and transmission rates seem to be higher in Africa anyway, probably due to 3rd World types of health issues.

[Tim]

"But Kaplan said the premises of small growers could be a fire hazard, citing fire brigade reports about the danger of the many high-powered lamps used indoors to help cannabis grow."

Another great libertarian victory ground under the dead heel of gubmint regulation regulation.

[Gubmint]

Oh, and we'll also be outlawing LEDs.

Thanks for your cooperation.

[Isaac Bartram]

gubmint regulation regulation

You know things have really gone to far when you have to regulate the regulators.

[Tim]

What are you talking about about?

[Suki]

Oakland may soon have marijuana factories.

I can't wait until Monsanto starts producing the super-seed for this crop.

[Tim]

Organic Pot, the next big thing.

[Suki]

Aren't the pots for Pot mostly mineral?

[Ska]

You can enjoy that schwag, I'll take chemically treated, perfectly monitored hydroponics any time.

[Tim]

Some folks will want their weed nurtured old school! Grown deep in the woods with buckets of human waste!

[jtuf]

The latest trend is "organic hydroponics". Yes, it's an oxymoron. These days, "organic" just means the producer is in with the green clique.

[Brett L]

If you run shit through a blender with water, you could do it.

[R C Dean]

I used to, err, know this guy, who grew organic pot indoors. Great stuff.

[hmm]

I'm all for it. Saint Louis needs jobs.

[dbcooper]

This is not good:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl.....journalist

[Suki]

In other news, the NAALCP is still racist.

[Stretchy]

+1 My favorite part of the story is how some of the remarks were greeted with laughter. I'm sure Keith Olbermann will be doing a week-long series on how the entire NAACP is racist based on this one incident.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38321920/ns/us_news-life/

[Ding Bottle]

Wow, amazing, how long will they let it go on I wonder.

http://www.privacy-tools.be.tc

[Solanum]

Andrew Sullivan annoyed with guest blogger Dave Weigel for not buying into his Sarah/Trig Palin conspiracy theory

And I waited to see "all the evidence" for Palin's narrative presented and all the evidence against it debunked. But pfffttt. It came down to "I believe Sarah Palin" (really, Dave? really?)

[Abdul]

11-year old girls get trolled into hysterics, and Andrew Sullivan walks free.

I'm re-evaluating my faith in a just God.

[John]

Me to.

[John]

Sullivan needs to be fired. The Atlantic truly has no standards or shame. First, they shouldn't allow their writers to use ghost bloggers. If someone is reading something by Sullivan or McArdle they should have confidence that the writing is theirs not some anonymous hired hand. I can't believe any decent editor would let him get buy with that. It is committing a fraud upon the readers.

Second, the Atlantic has been around since the Civil War. It really once was a serious publication. And it should be. It is a liberal publication but it is serious. Some lunatic obsessing about the most tawdry and disgusting of conspiracy theories is beneath the publication. Hell, it is not even interesting anymore. Even the National Inquirer has more interesting and relevant stories to tell.

If I were the editor of the Atlantic, I would tell Andy no more ghost blogging and no more blogging about Trib Palin. When his panties got in a wad about it, I would fire his ass and be done with it. At some point their giving him a platform is just exploiting is obvious mental illness.

[MNG]

"I can't believe any decent editor would let him get buy with that."

hehe

[John]

Be careful with Andy's cock in your mouth, he is HIV positive.

[wasn't it in your]

ass?

[John]

If it was, do you have a problem with that? What do you no like homosexuals?

[Warty is my bitch]

John, I can't wait till you come out of the closet.

[MNG]

Sex with neocons is more your style John.

As is careless posting!

[John]

Maybe so. Why do you feel the need to defend someone as deranged as Andrew Sullivan? Is there anyone on your side no matter how vile you won't defend?

[MNG]

I'm not defending Sullivan. I'm laughing at your sentence suggesting he get an editor with a typo in the very sentence.

[MNG]

I happen to think Sullivan is a goofball. Hard to imagine why anyone ever takes him seriously.

[John]

Fair enough.

[Citizen Nothing]

Get a room.

[Skid Marx]

Define neocon. Show your work.

[hmm]

You know you've lost the war when the Grammar Nazis show up.

[Suki]

All conscientious readers should refudiate Sullivan.

[Suki]

Squirrel,

Thank you for rescuing this from the spam filter! xoxo

[Fluffy]

Sullivan is embarrassing himself with the Trig Palin stuff and has been for a long time, but I don't think you understand guest blogging, John.

Guest blogging keeps site content rolling over during time periods when the host blogger is not available [I assume there's vacation time in Sullivan's Atlantic contract] and also helps build readership by dragging some of the guest blogger's readers to your site. It's an extremely common practice and I doubt site editors have any problem with it.

[SFC B]

Wasn't the problem though that Sullivan wasn't identifying when a guest blogger was posting? I don't think people are objecting to Sullivan using guest bloggers, but objecting to a time when Sullivan had someone ghost-write his stuff and didn't identify it until he was caught.

[Fluffy]

That would be different.

But it sounds like John is objecting to the fact that he let Weigel guest-blog openly.

[John]

No. I was objecting to his ghost blogging. Guest blogging is fine. But Sullivan has a staff of people who write his stuff. You don't know when something is posted if he wrote it or one of his staff. That is my objection.

It came out a few months ago. He never openly admitted it until someone outed him. He never even told his readers he used ghost bloggers until another site revealed it. When it was revealed one of his staff said "I have been stewing in his cerebral juices long enough to know what he would write". Chew on that one for a while without vomiting.

[Citizen Nothing]

Kind of like Ron Paul? (Sorry, sorry...)

[Warty]

That was about as dignified as Jessi Slaughter's videos.

[hmm]

trite, retarded, stupid, useless, waste of bandwidth, waste of air, waste of perfectly good nitrogen fertilizer,

[An Iota of a Cracker]

What are you lookin' at, sugar tits?

[Suki]

Senate expected to extend unemployment benefits this week.

Great! The afternoon comment flood won't change in quality.

[Rich]

As you might say: +1

[John]

Speaking of Dave Weigel.

If the media had any standards, which of course it doesn't, the journolist would have killed the careers of everyone involved. It really is the biggest journalism scandal since Dan Rather's fake but accurate memos. Get this.

Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists. The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. "George [Stephanopoulos]," fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is "being a disgusting little rat snake."

Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama's relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama's conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, "Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares ? and call them racists."

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/07.....z0uE747SUQ

[Suki]

First Obama, now Weigel. Just drive the oak stake through my heart.

[I read it]

and thought big deal. Both sides pull the same trick. Who cares.

[John]

Reporters masquerading as "straight news sources" coordinating a message to suppress a story and help a candidate. Yeah, that is no big deal. I am sure you would feel the same way if they had gotten together to make sure the Abu Garib story was never covered.

Why don't you just be honest and say

"I read it. I am a liberal. I am totally okay with a state run media as long as they are on my side."

[Warty]

Pick a fucking name already, retard.

[Skid Marx]

Allow me to suggest the name Retard.

[hmm]

Hey, that sort of thing takes time, thought, and an IQ greater than that of the dog that just scooted it's ass across the lawn and licked his balls.

Givem' a break.

[Warty is my bitch]

I'll try out that one.

[James Ard]

Too bad nobody cares. Probably because everybody already knew.

[Brett L]

It is handy to have a list

[Darkeyes]

+1

[John]

What is striking here is not so much the partisanship but the venal mediocrity of it all. Remember when this thing broke they claimed it was just a place for the "best and the brightest" to bounce ideas off each other. Now look at these e-mails. The quality of thinking is just horrible. Not one of them ever seems to have an interesting or original thought. It is no wonder big media is dying.

Imagine if Ring Lardner and HL Menken and those of that day could have had a "journolist". Wouldn't it have made for great reading if nothing else? Compare what that would be to this garbage. The quality of minds who are involved in and successful in journalism is just pretty low. And that goes a long way to explaining why no one reads newspapers or the big media anymore. It is not so much that they are partisan. It is that they are just boring and written by people with very limited minds.

[Citizen Nothing]

Mencken's is something like his own personal journolist. Great reading. The man was incapable of writing an uninteresting sentence.

[Citizen Nothing]

Mencken's Diary
sorry.

[John]

And now we have Spencer Ackerman writing

"What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction."Smash... through a plate-glass window... snapshot of the bleeding mess... live in a state of constant fear..."

Edward writes better prose than that. The journolist e-mails are not shocking or even annoying. They are just pathetic.

[Law Student]

"being a disgusting little rat snake"

These guys really have an obsession with rats dont they?

[John]

Yeah. See above. What is sad about it is how uninteresting it is. These clowns can't even write decent insults.

[Rich]

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget [, said] "We could ... have people collecting more in benefits than they're expecting to see."

IOW, people *might* get more than *nothing*.

[Warty]

I'm beginning to suspect that Lindsay Lohan may not be terribly smart.

[MNG]

She's hot. Adding intelligence would just make her dangerous, like Salt.

[Warty]

She'd be a lot hotter if she quit drinking long enough for her face to un-bloat.

[MNG]

Alcohol is the equalizer for hot girls like her Warty. Let's not unilaterally disarm!

[Debra Lafave]

She's too pretty for prison!

[Jordan Elliot]

So what are the odds that she kills herself in jail?

I got ten bucks that says she does. It'll happen after the first pics of her holding someones pocket are circulated world wide.

[John]

Nah. The jail personnel will keep her from doing it. If they allowed someone that famous to off herself there would be hell to pay. It is not like she is some homeless meth head no one will miss.

[MNG]

Yeah, I imagine they would iso her anyways.

[MNG]

She should just get her agent to pay some tough person to go to jail right before her and watch out for her. She's incredibly rich you know.

[John]

It is LA MNG. They have a special celebrity section of jail. It will be a breeze. Nothing will happen to her. Her going to jail is not like you or I going there.

[Jordan Elliot]

Plus add in the fact that someone who defended OJ straight up walked on her. That's gotta be a blow to the ego.

[John]

She has to be seriously fucked up. I guarantee you Shapiro was making big money off of her. And a guy like Shapiro loves the publicity. For him to quit she has to have been an unimaginable pain in the ass.

[SugarFree]

Has there ever been a steeper plunge from hot and successful to wrung-out has-been than Lohan?

[Jordan Elliot]

She's got the slit wrists in the bathtub Fururama-esque thing going on about her.

To answer your question, not that I can think of.

[The Angry Optimist]

Tara Reid.

[SugarFree]

Tara Reid was never on her way to a serious acting career. She had a sharp decline, but she didn't fall as far. Natasha Lyonne had a pretty hard fall as well (apparently all the way to hepatitis crack whore) but she was destined for indie films anyway.

Lohan had went from The Next Big Thing to America's Number One Source For Oral Herpes in about two years.

[Ska]

So if I just hit 5th base, then it's all good?

[SugarFree]

At this point, I'm not sure you could avoid disease even if she only looked at your penis. She's basically an STD basilisk.

[JW]

Chlo? Sevigny?

Wait, never mind. She started at stage 2.

[Leroy]

Britney Spears

[SugarFree]

She'd be a contender. She went from hot to yuck in the time it took to say "Federline."

[Ska]

Just let me know when she starts doing light bondage videos with Sinn Sage.

[P Brooks]

I'm beginning to suspect that Lindsay Lohan may not be terribly smart.

Another dream lies in ruins.

[SugarFree]

Try not to ever see a January Jones interview.

[Nancy Pelosi]

Are you serious?

[Warty]

The fake redhead seems way more tolerable, which is good since her tits are magnificent.

[Jordan Elliot]

+?

Christina Hendricks is a goddess.

[SugarFree]

Christina Hendricks' husband is one fugly dude.

[Warty]

He looks like some sort of shifty-eyed Turk or something.

[SugarFree]

You might remember him from his breakthrough performance as the cop car divider licker from Super Troopers.

[The Angry Optimist]

"The snozberries taste like snozzberries!"

[Jordan Elliot]

That's inspiring.

[John]

That is just wrong. There really is no justice in the world.

A lot of really beautiful women are at heart very insecure. So they go out and find the fugliest guy they can. That way there is no worries about their husbands ever taking the spotlight off of them. A lot of the hottest women in my law school class were married to this wimpy doofy guys. I could never figure it out. Until finally a female friend of mine explained that for some people the show is always them. And the last thing they want in a spouse is someone who will interrupt the show.

[hmm]

They're all fucking bat shit insane. Every goddamn one of them.

[John]

I think being pretty and the center of attention their whole lives does something to them. I know a few strikingly attractive women who are also normal. But they are rare. Most of them are batshit crazy and live pretty sad lives.

[hmm]

I mean all women. Don't let them fool you. They're all bat shit insane.

[Warty is my bitch]

Wrong John. It's a Marilyn Monroe/Norman Mailer thing.

[P Brooks]

Who (or what) is January Jones?

[SugarFree]

Ms. Jones

[Astrid]

Mass. may join effort to bypass Electoral College

I'd be willing to bet they'll change there minds the first time Mass. becomes a Red State.

[Suki]

What a stupid law! Is that even constitutional?

[Astrid]

If I remember correctly, it's up to the states themselves to decide how they use their votes in the electoral college. So it's probably constitutional, but still a bad idea.

[R C Dean]

The good news for Massachusetts voters is that, by rendering their votes statistically insignificant, they will be spared any Presidential electioneering.

Of course, they were pretty much a guaranteed Dem vote anyway, so I doubt anybody wasted much time on them.

I wonder, though, how excited they are going to be when the state goes 60% Dem and all their votes are cast for the Repub who got 50.1% nationwide. Even worse if their electoral votes swing the electoral college for the Repub.

[Ska]

While lending more credence to the whole 'D or R, what's the difference?' angle.

[grrizzly]

No, this law will make Massachusetts voters at least somewhat significant. As of now presidential campaigns simply avoid Massachusetts all together. Presidential candidates visit Massachusetts only to raise money, they don't campaign there.

Also, the law really comes into effect only when the states that have voted for this policy have a majority in the Electoral College. Therefore, Massachusetts will never cast votes for a Republican candidate unless this candidate wins nationwide. And many people think that's more fair than the current system. I certainly fail to see any advantages of the Electoral College. What kind of principle is that that only "battleground" states have any say in the campaign?

[R C Dean]

I certainly fail to see any advantages of the Electoral College.

Its consistent with the principle that pure democracy is not an unalloyed good. A pure majority Presidential election would mean that the President would concentrate, both as a candidate and as a ruler, on mollifying large urban centers. There's more to the country than that, and the Electoral College forces a somewhat broader view.

[cynical]

"I certainly fail to see any advantages of the Electoral College."

By assigning a fixed influence to each state, it ensures that other states' votes are not diluted by, say, Chicago signing up a bunch of dead "voters" or California sneaking a bunch of illegals into the polls. Corrupt state and local governments can steal representation from their own people (who in theory have some ways to hold them accountable and prevent this), but not from the people of other states (who have no recourse but federal intervention); as a result, it minimizes interstate strife and reduces the likelihood of another civil war somewhat.

However, that's just a justification for the concept of electors over direct election, not a justification of the formula for the number of electors per state.

[Slap the Enlightened!]

They'll change the law, of course. See "Teddy Kennedy".

[Joe M]

The law should just say the electoral votes of MA will be given to the Democratic candidate, always and forever. Just get it over with.

[Joe M]

If enough states did this, candidates would never ever campaign anywhere other than big urban areas.

[grrizzly]

And why is it bad? Isn't it where most people live?

[Reverend Horton Heat]

I've got a rural point of view.

[CrackertyAssCracker]

Yall can secede whenever you want to. We promise not to invade and burn down all your cities.

[Mass. Voter]

Under the proposed law, all 12 of the state's electoral votes would be awarded to the candidate who receives the most votes nationally.

Excellent.

[Skid Marx]

So there's really no need for the voters to vote. That's a mighty damn efficient system.

[Spartacus]

The first time this means their votes go to a Republican, there will be howls of outrage. And I will be laughing my ass off.

And yes, it is up to the legislatures of the states to decide how their electors are chosen (Art II, Section 1).

[Spartacus]

You know, this could lead to some interesting stuff. What if a big group of flyover states all entered into a pact to create a voting bloc in the electoral college? They could amass more votes than any single state, and suddenly become Highly Relevant.

[dbcooper]

Analysing the (London) Times paywall:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medi.....readership

[John]

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com.....s-the-pits

Heinlein like cities are possible on the moon.

[Brett L]

What are we waiting for. I hear they just breed hot redheads.

[hmm]

How could reason not morning link the 11 Annual Gathering Of The Juggalos Infomercial

Definitely NSFW, but funny, sad, scary?

[JW]

None of the above. Sugarfree'd.

[hmm]

Well if that doesn't scream, "hmm is a flaming retard."

Lets try that again. I only made it 2 minutes in, so I refuse to take responsibility for anything after that.

Again: Language NSFW,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0xewi_Gdc8

[JW]

Please tell me that's a parody.

I weep for our future.

[Warty]

"Comradery"

[Warty]

God, that was painful. Let me share some of my earbleach.

[dbcooper]

Nothing says sneaky rapist like a wispy pube stash.

[Mike M.]

Stupid racist idiot Shirley Sherrod "resigns" from position at USDA after telling NAACP that she didn't want to help a white farmer.

[hmm]

Is that racist?

[Slap the Enlightened!]

Only when white people do it.

[highnumber]

Context is meaningful. (and Breitbart is apparently an ass)

[highnumber]

Does it when your knee jerks like that?

[jtuf]

From the unemployment benefits article:
"The same people who didn't have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn't offer relief to middle-class Americans," Obama said.

I don't know what is sadder, Obama's Orwellian redefinition of "spend" or the fact that neither yahoo new nor Reason called him on it.

[prolefeed]

New vaginal gel cuts HIV transmission rates in half.

Not fucking scumbags can cut HIV transmission rates by up to 100%.