Reason Morning Links: From Yemen to YouTube

• The FDA approves the five-days-after pill.
• The New York Times shines a light on the secret war in Yemen.
• The president condemns a phantom Social Security privatization plan…
• …and wades into a Manhattan "mosque" muddle.
• North Korea gets accounts on Twitter and YouTube.
• Abbey Lincoln, RIP.

Comments

[John]

he Obama Administration frequently used federal resources to promote the President's agenda. In many cases, the Administration relied on the reach and resources of federal agencies and their personnel to promote certain of the President's favorite programs. The White House also leveraged ties to the arts and entertainment community to embed propaganda in the content of television programming and artwork. These propaganda efforts violated appropriations riders and federal law prohibiting the use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda purposes.

The White House also used its inherent visibility advantages to multiply the effectiveness of websites containing misleading and controversial information. The White House used its resources to push visitors to websites that urge grassroots activism based on false and misleading information. The President's right to sell his policy recommendations to Congress and the public is not disputed; however, using the resources of the federal government to activate a sophisticated propaganda and lobbying campaign is an abuse of office and a betrayal of the President's pledge to create "an unprecedented level of openness in Government."

http://pajamasmedia.com/files/.....Report.pdf

[tarran]

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. -H. L. Mencken

[JoshINHB]

+1

[Johnny Longtorso]

German Millionaires Criticize Gates' 'Giving Pledge'
...I find the US initiative highly problematic. You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the USA. So the rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That's unacceptable. ...

Great Outdoors Initiative a federal land grab?

[Rhywun]

It's the "I'm already taxed up the ass, why should I give anything more?" effect. I see it here in NYC too.

[waffles]

"Washington Democrats are beginning to sound like the pitcher in Bruce Springsteen's 'Glory Days' -- wistfully pining for the policy debates of the last decade," said the spokesman, Michael Steel.

Golly gee! He's so hip and with it!

[Johnny Longtorso]

NY Times: Academic Bankruptcy

BREAKING: New paper makes a hockey sticky wicket of Mann et al

[John]

From the abstract of that paper

"We find that the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature. Furthermore, various model specifications that perform similarly at predicting temperature produce extremely different historical backcasts. Finally, the proxies seem unable to forecast the high levels of and sharp run-up in temperature in the 1990s either in-sample or from contiguous holdout blocks, thus casting doubt on their ability to predict such phenomena if in fact they occurred several hundred years ago."

That is devastating. If the proxies don't predict better than random numbers, then there is no way to tell what the temperatures actually were in the past. And thus there is no way to make a case that today's warming is historically unprecedented. Game set and match.

[tarran]

The only proxies directly "attacked" by the paper are the dendroclimactic (tree based) ones.

The interesting thing indictment of the whole AGW cult comes from the fact that the priests misuse of statistics.

One of the interesting problems McIntyre ran into when publishing his attacks on the original Mann hockey stick paper was that the Climate "Science" journals declined to publish claiming that the statistics in his papers were wrong, and statistics journals declines to publish claiming that his work really wasn't groundbreaking in that he was doing regular normal statistics.

Even the various whitewashes that "exonerated" the CRU in the wake of climate gate were forced to admit that the climatologists had needed to start working with professional statisticians instead of making it up as they went along.

[John]

That always astounded me to. Statistics is a field unto its own. Why the climatologists were unwilling to bring in professional academic statisticians to assist with their work or professional code writers to assist with their models I leave to you to decide. But most of the damaging climate gate e-mails related to the fact that man and company were lousy statisticians and code writers. Yet, we are supposed to take their statistical work and models written with their code as gospel.

[stuartl]

Why the climatologists were unwilling to bring in professional academic statisticians to assist with their work or professional code writers to assist with their models I leave to you to decide.

Grad students are cheaper?

[Brett L]

Wow. I'm not sure you can write "this theory was shit" any more clearly in an academic paper.

[John]

"If recent trends continue, four years at a top-tier school will cost $330,000 in 2020, $525,000 in 2028 and $785,000 in 2035."

In the words of Herb Stein, "If something can't go on forever, it won't"

[DG]

For example, it is absurd for Columbia and N.Y.U. to be have competing philosophy departments at a time when there are few jobs for philosophy academics.

Fixed.

[Zeb]

Hey!

[R C Dean]

Actually, there's probably no better pre-law major than philosophy . . .

Oh. Never mind.

[Law Student]

I was a biology major in undergraduate school and people give me shit all the time. As if their nonsense philosophy or sociology degrees mean anything.

[BeltwayLurker]

Nothing changed when you arrived here.

[Zeb]

But it makes such a good joke. "Lot's of good jobs down at the philosophy factory." I don't think a lot of people know what philosophy is. Of course there are a lot of really idiotic academic philosophers too, which doesn't help.

[robc]

Key bit:

The final point is particularly troublesome: since the data is not easily modeled by a simple autoregressive process it follows that the number of truly independent observations (i.e., the effective sample size) may be just too small for accurate reconstruction.

Climate scientists have greatly underestimated the uncertainty of proxy based reconstructions and hence have been overconfident in their models.

[robc]

Also:

While the literature is large, there has been very little collaboration with university level, professional statisticians

This is the huge bit to me. I know enough statistics to know that at a certain point I have to talk to the pros before releasing things.

The president of a company I used to work for was one of those Pros. Meetings with him often involved him whipping a book off his shelf and radically changing models or statistical tests I was using. Usually making them much more complex.

[John]

Joshua Conrning linked to this piece this weekend. And warming cultist Neu Mexican said something to the effect of that it was interesting and certainly brings proxies into question but nothing earth shattering. It was amazing. I guess he thinks they can prove anything without knowing what past temperatures actually were.

[robc]

Non-controversial (at least here) example from a college football board. Over last 2 years (since coaching change) a team has a record of 16-3 in situation A and a record of 4-4 in situation B (ignore some obvious details like that quality of opponents might be different in the situations, the argument was at 1st order analysis). I ran a z-test and said, "Eh, null hypothesis cant be thrown out, confidence isnt high enough for me to assume anything but random chance". People who had an agenda WOULD NOT ACCEPT THAT.

A sample size of 8 just isnt enough to draw a conclusion (although the confidence was about 80%, so its not far off - I think another year of data will change things).

[John]

People have a hard time accepting that sometimes unlikely things do happen. Not every outlying event is a sign of a larger trend. Sometimes they are just that; outliers.

[robc]

The problem is when the event makes some rational sense. AGW could be happening. The football question "Does having extra time to prepare help an opponent vs a Triple Option offense?" is very reasonably possible.

But, the statistics dont justify answering either yes YET.

What this paper shows is that we have no clue if the 90s was the warmest decade of the last millenia, or if 1998 was the hottest year. The models cant predict spikes. So, how many spikes in the past are missing? Until they can answer me that, I go with the null hypothesis that the spike is a random spike.

[robc]

The problem is when the event makes some rational sense. AGW could be happening. The football question "Does having extra time to prepare help an opponent vs a Triple Option offense?" is very reasonably possible.

But, the statistics dont justify answering either yes YET.

What this paper shows is that we have no clue if the 90s was the warmest decade of the last millenia, or if 1998 was the hottest year. The models cant predict spikes. So, how many spikes in the past are missing? Until they can answer me that, I go with the null hypothesis that the spike is a random spike.

[robc]

Damn you squirrel.

[John]

Exactly. Sometimes teams lose. And there is nothing to say that they didn't just happen to lose four times against a team coming off a by week. And sometimes it just gets hot. Unless you know what the historic temperatures are with a pretty serious degree of accuracy, there is no way to say that 1998 wasn't just a abnormally hot year or that the last 10 years wasn't just a hot decade. Without the proxies and a good idea of past temperature, the global warmists don't have shit.

[Butts Wagner]

Exactly, those people with an agenda probably try to belittle the coach's offense as being a "high school" offense that once it's figured out, every other team will learn how to stop it.

[robc]

try to belittle the coach's offense as being a "high school" offense that once it's figured out, every other team will learn how to stop it.

Mostly past that point, I think. Clemson has faced it 3 times the last 2 years and given up more yards & points each time. 🙂 🙂 🙂

Now its just a "a defense with extra time can figure it out". Maybe. But more than against any other offense? Thats the followup question. But, first have to show statistically different results vs regular week before we move on to question 2.

[John]

The option offense rules. It is briliant in college. I heard all through the 1990s how Tom Osbnorne and Nebraska ran an outdated offense that couldn't win big games. Then he went 59-3 in five years including destroying Miami and Florida and Tennessee in title games and the pass lovers just looked away and pretended it didn't happen.

It is not the alignment, it is the alignees.

[James Ard]

I'll take a Heisman running back over a Heisman quarterback every time.

[robc]

I'll take a Heisman running back over a Heisman quarterback every time.

Even better is when you arent sure which they are, like Eric Crouch or Joshua Nesbitt*.

*please please please please please (only will happen if we go undefeated)

[Citizen Nothing]

I laugh at your Joshua Nesbitt -- laugh I say! -- and raise you a Terrell Pryor.

[robc]

Let me know when Pryor has a 1000 yard rushing season.

Or passer rating over 140.

Or a yards per attempt greater than 10.

(Okay, he had the passer rating in 2008, but fell off dramatically in 2009)

[robc]

Also, what the hell kind of running back is Pryor? He only carried the ball 12 times per game last year. Wuss.

[robc]

Thievery

[Citizen Nothing]

Ha! And I have this for you!
Er, wait. On second thought, skip that one.

[robc]

I will also take Heisman as coach. Suck it Cumberland!

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Or as my old coach used to say, sometimes it ain't the X's and O's, it's the Bill's and the Joe's...

[tarran]

I think it will be the next ten years' worth of satellite observations that will really give people the hard data -in sufficient quantities - needed to figure out what's going on.

Of course, most of the satellites making observations are run by the state - often by the very same people who are behind the travesty that is the surface observation record. Hopefully, though, this time they'll actually publish their raw data and allow grownups to look at it.

[dbcooper]

John R. Christy from Univ. Alabama at Huntsville publishes a lot of the satellite data, and he seems pretty even handed.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energ.....mategate/0

[Mike M.]

China officially passes Japan to become world's second largest economy.

[Suggy Wow]

OK thats making a lot of sense dude.

Lou
http://www.web-privacy.es.tc

[Solanum]

Apparently SugarFree's insulin levels overloaded this weekend and caused him to morph into an anonymity-bot.

[SugarFree]

I never looked at it that way dude lol

Loub

http://www.web-privacy.es.tc

[T]

And even the bot SugarFree screws up links. There is consistency in the universe.

[SugarFree]

I was wondering if anyone was going to catch that.

[Nipplemancer]

we are one step closer to the singularity

[hmm]

Can you actually take steps closer to a singularity or is it a constant evenly distributed progression without definable steps. Are we on the outside watching the the approach or the one approaching the singularity?

[Suki]

North Korea gets accounts on Twitter and YouTube.

At last, those traffic girls can have a place to voice their state opinions.

[Brett L]

Now all they need is electricity and computers!

[Suki]

A few more cars would help too.

[The Angry Optimist]

In the interest of promoting the American spirit, I suggest that a multi-level Wal*Mart be built on Ground Zero. Capitalism!

[John]

I like that idea. It would also bring cheap goods to the Manhattanites.

[Suki]

Do you mean a Super Wal*Mart or just a regular one but bigger?

[tarran]

Please! New York City was the basis for Metropolis, the home of Superman.

The question thus answers itself!

[Rocket Surgeon]

Actually, I think Chicago was the basis for Metropolis. NYC was the basis for Gotham, Batman's hometown.

I think! And I'm not going to look it up because that would be cheating!

[Suki]

Doesn't matter. Tony Stark is hotter than Bruce Wayne or that newspaper guy.

[Nick]

From Wikipedia:

The co-creator and original artist of Superman, Joe Shuster, modeled the Metropolis skyline after Toronto, where he was born and lived until he was ten.[1] Since then, Metropolis has become a city inspired by Chicago, Cleveland, Toronto, Vancouver, New York City and Los Angeles.

One of these things is not like the other.

[Brett L]

That ought to mobilize Nooyawkers against the redevelopment. Every hipster in the Boston-Philly corridor would be chaining their skinny-jeans clad ass to the front of the building in protest.

[Rhywun]

They'd have to push their way through thousands of people lining up for a job first.

[Jerry]

Gutfield is trying to start a gay bar next to the mosque, I think he was calling it the Aprostate or something.

[Suki]

Last week, KISS said they would play daily across the street and give out free BLT sandwiches.

[?]

I'm all in favor of Kiss rocking and rolling all night and partying every day, but can't they do it farther away from the Hallowed Ground?, like in Labrador, or maybe Greenland?

[prolefeed]

No, I think New Yawkahs deserve non-stop Kiss.

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Latest iteration is "Suspicious Packages"

[Suki]

The New York Times shines a light on the secret war in Yemen.

Must not be that big of a secret.

[Suki]

The FDA approves the five-days-after pill.

Finally getting around to that one?

[Solanum]

Japanese increasingly resort to parent mummification to claim retirement benefits

Read the comments are your own peril. The stupid contained within will likely induce Warty-levels of killing rage.

[Brett L]

"THIS is an ex-parent!"
"No, 'e's just pining for the fjords"

[Warty]

A hit with the first paragraph of the first comment.

People always fight about how much religion is allowed in public schools, but the one true God that Wall Street follows is The Almighty Market. They ask the same questions about The Market that Christians ask about God. In times of trouble, will The Market be our salvation or damnation? Why does The Market allow good things to happen to bad people?

Also, I assume that these Japs have mummified their parents.

[Zeb]

Do these people have to work really hard to misrepresent things this badly, or is the information most people encounter really that bad?

[Only Whites Are Racist]

NEW YORK (AP) - When Rodolfo Olmedo was dragged down by a group of men shouting anti-Mexican epithets and bashed over the head with a wooden stick on the street outside his home, he instinctively covered his face to keep from getting disfigured. Blood filled his mouth.

"I wanted to scream, but I couldn't because of the beating they were giving me," said the 25-year-old baker. Nearly five months later, he is still taking pain medications for his head injuries.

Recorded by a store's surveillance camera, the assault was the first of 11 suspected anti-Hispanic bias attacks in a Staten Island neighborhood, re-igniting years-old tensions between blacks and Hispanics in New York City's most remote borough.

And although most of the suspects were described as young black men and investigated for bias crimes, a grand jury has indicted only one of seven people arrested on a hate-crime charge.

But Isaias Lozano, a day laborer, said he knows why he was attacked and robbed in December by "morenos" - the Spanish word he uses to describe his black neighbors.

"They hate us because we're Mexicans," he said while sitting at El Centro del Inmigrante, a center for immigrant day workers. "They aren't robbing just anybody."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100816/D9HKHJ480.html

[The Gobbler]

Makes me view the name Rita Moreno in a whole different light.

[Suki]

They can't be blamed. Whitie taught them to hate Hispanics.

[John]

In other news Dave Weigel is still a ratfucking leftist. Did you know Rand Paul might be "Crazy enough to win"?

http://www.slate.com/id/2263796/

[Suki]

I am not even going to look.

[Atanarjuat]

The title uses the words "crazy" and "wacky", but doesn't explain how that describes Paul. The only thing it says about him is that he ran a better campaign than Grayson and is the "best of the Tea Party candidates." I learned in 6th grade writing class that the body of the paper should have some relation to the title.

[John]

In Weigel's defense to him and his readers it is taken as a given that Rand Paul is crazy. So, he probably didn't think he needed to explain it.

[Warty]

He's just giving his audience what it wants. Pay him no mind.

[dbcooper]

Often writers don't choose their own article titles too.

[Citizen Nothing]

Writers never write the headlines.

[SIV]

Why that Rand Paul Neanderthal probably doesn't appreciate quality feminist TV like Mad Men !

[dbcooper]

*yawn* Kultur War *yawn*

You forgot to use "cosmotarian."

[SIV]

Goes without saying

[prolefeed]

You mean THIS kind of feminism from Mad Men (someone emailed these lines from the most recent episode to me):

girl 'a' leans in and gives girl 'b' an unexpected peck on the cheek
girl a: what? i'm hungry
girl b: i have a boyfriend...
girl a: so. he doesn't own your vagina...
girl b: yea... well he's kind of renting it

[MP]

SSA Trustees: Social Security is in the red this year, will be increasingly in the red indefinitely starting in 2015.

America (with fingers in ears): LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU! LA LA LA LA LA

[JoshINHB]

America Pauly Krugnut and the Dems (with fingers in ears): LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU! LA LA LA LA LA

FIFY

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08.....ef=opinion

[P Brooks]

Nice

Around 631 workers at General Motors' Indianapolis stamping plant, represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, have decided not to go ahead with a vote on a new contract which entails reduced wages.

As part of a tentative sale agreement, JD Norman Industries had asked for pay cuts as a prerequisite for acquiring the stamping plant from GM. Originally, the plant's 650 workers represented by UAW Local 23 were scheduled to vote on 16 August on the proposed contract, The Associated Press said.

According to local bargaining committee chairman Gregory Clark, the majority of the workers at the facility still do want to consider the latest proposal or vote on it. He believes that the union's regional and international representatives do not have the right to override this stance, the Indianapolis Business Journal said.

The local unionistas would rather see the plant closed than accept a new contract.

Thank goodness we rescued the UAW.

[Suki]

...and wades into a Manhattan "mosque" muddle.

That is much more informative than the NYT coverage. They actually noticed the flipflopping.

[Mike Laursen]

I don't get it. Why did he even go there? Obama is capable of keeping his mouth shut -- e.g. his silence on the gay marriage issue.

[JoshINHB]

Barack " always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening"

[John]

Obama either doesn't want to be President or he is just stupid.

[BeltwayLurker]

There is no doubt he wants to be president.

[Ted S.]

It could be both, you know.

[alittlesense]

I really don't understand the huge flap about Obama's comments on the mosque. As I understand it, he said yes they do have the right to build it, but it's a really bad idea to build it there.
Why is it hard to understand the difference between what you have the right to do and what might be considered a dumb thing to do?
We have the right to do many dumb things. Unfortunately we have lost the simple truth that freedom necessarily includes the freedom to fail or do something stupid.

[?]

It's an election year.
Next question.

[Not an Economist]

It was the way he said it. One day he came out strongly for the right for the mosque to be built, without any qualifiers, and the next day his spokeman said that doesn't mean it should be built. So he is trying to play both sides of the fence here.

[Timon19]

I admit I haven't read the entirety of his remarks (because it makes my teeth itch to read anything he says), but I thought he was defending the right to build it, but emphasizing that he wasn't commenting on the wisdom of it, which is different from proclaiming it a bad idea.

[Brett L]

Maybe you shouldn't make that statement at the White House Ramadan feast if you want to be that nuanced about your position.

[Warty]

Think of the poor lawyers

[The Gobbler]

""It's really just a big Ponzi scheme," said Bullock, 33, of Bridgewater. "They're just cranking kids out for $45,000 a year.""

[SugarFree]

Ben Rothman, 32, said he enrolled in Loyola Law School Los Angeles after working a string of "dead-end jobs," with the impression that a law degree would be "a ticket to a high salary." He says this notion was strengthened by Loyola's job placement figures, which showed nine in 10 graduates landed jobs.

However, Rothman, who graduated last May, says he soon questioned the value of his education when classes proved so easy that he slept through them and still achieved middling grades. He began wondering whether admissions officers would have "let a dead squirrel roll in."

Now, more than a year after graduating, Rothman is embarrassed to tell friends he is still jobless, living with his parents and $135,000 in debt. Even Loyola's recent decision to retroactively raise grades in hopes of boosting employment prospects for alumni did nothing to help him, he said.

32. Never had a real job. Slept through his classes. Got "middling grades." School publicly raised grades retroactively.

Have you considered, Mr. Rothman, that the problem might you?

[SugarFree]

"might be you?" stupid typing.

[John]

Do the administrators at Loyola thin that employers are so stupid that they won't realize the grades have been raised and discount them accordingly? Actually considering the hiring models of most law firms, that is not as preposterous a bet as it appears. But still, that is just pathetic.

[BeltwayLurker]

Wasn't that your grade and job history, Sugga?

Nobody should believe job placement and average salary numbers from schools. They use every way to lie possible.

[SugarFree]

My poor grades were in high school. I did fine in college. And my last dead-end job was when I was 22.

[cynical]

Hopefully it comes to lawsuits. I think lawyers are a species that eat their own kind when prey becomes scarce.

[P Brooks]

I read that "pondering academia" piece, yesterday.

The highly evolved CHAIRMAN of the Religion Dept at Columbia has this to say:

Last spring, N.Y.U. announced plans to increase its physical plant by 40 percent over the next 20 years; this summer Columbia secured approval for its $6.3 billion expansion in Upper Manhattan.

Nice work, asshole. Gliding gracefully (serenely!) over the large scale theft of property to carry out that "expansion". Fuck you.

[John]

The whole legal industry scan is coming to an end. Companies are not longer going to let law firms rob them blind. This guys are just the first and easiest to go down. Give it ten years and they will be coming for the graduates of the top law schools to. The days of getting a six figure job because you are out of the right school even though you can barely walk and talk at the same time are coming to an end. The whole legal business model in the law is insanity and has to end.

[cynical]

Fuck him? I mean, yes he's just criticizing them for being idiots, rather than for being idiots and malicious, but I'm not sure why he needs to introduce a distraction to his argument.

[Warty]

Dwarf vs. clowns

[Nipplemancer]

stay classy juggalos

[P Brooks]

Those poor, poor, baby lawyers. Perhaps we should just club them for their pelts.

[JW]

I don't think they could stand the competition from the nutria industry.

Funny how a half-wit like me could read the dismal legal job market tea leaves allll the way back in the early 90's and bail on law school (the best decision I ever made, by far), but yet, these Very Smart People? have been hoodwinked by the evil law school mills.

They must be *really* evil to stump so many highly enlightened souls.

[John]

I wasn't smart enough to read it. But, I studied hard and was very flexible and willing to do anything and go anywhere. So, I came out okay. If I had stood around waiting for someone to hand me the big paying job in the place I wanted to live doing exactly what I wanted to do, I doubt it would have worked out so well.

[JW]

But, you're smart enough to make the best of it and not whine endlessly about how unfair it all is.

I took a job in a well-regarded DC law firm prior to applying so 1) I could get recommendation letters and 2) to see if I really liked the field. I didn't and I would have been a terrible lawyer, until the day when I ate one from the mind-numbing, soul-robbing boredom that I repeatedly encoutered.

I did meet a number of attorneys who *loved* their job, but generally, they were the partners. For every one of them, there were about 7 who hated it, sobbing in the hallway/ladies room, or temping as a paralegal, making 10 bucks an hour with $80,000 in loans.

[R C Dean]

I was a miserably unhappy law firm associate (as were nearly all of my peers). But, we figured it would be worth it when we made partner.

Then one day I looked around and realized that most of the freakin' partners were miserably unhappy, too.

So I went in-house. Much better.

[SugarFree]

The always-nuanced politics of Jezebel.

[Warty]

I love that the only time you'll find unflattering pictures of women on there is when they're on Team R. And note the fawning over the Obama family photo-op a few posts down.

[John]

And how Carli Fiorina self funding her campaign is a step back for America but Dan Corzine and Nanny Bloomburg doing just didn't warrant so much as a second thought.

[marlok]

When rich liberals run, they're "giving back."

[JW]

But, they aren't the patriarchal aesthetic ideal. Aren't we supposed to be celebrating their plumpness?

[John]

http://www.yourtango.com/proco.....heir-looks

I wonder if girls at Jezebel have seen this.

[Warty]

It wouldn't apply to them, because weight loss is an oppressive tool of the patriarchy. You should know this, you monster.

[John]

Bang a fat chick. It is your patriotic duty.

[Citizen Nothing]

"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl." -- H.L. Mencken

[zoltan]

Looks don't matter when both partners are ugly, fat, and careless. I'm not sure I know any relatively healthy man or woman who would consider dating a fattie, but maybe that's because my friends are young, in decent shape, and have good self-esteem. The fact that this is a good thing is lost on the fitness and beauty haters at Jezebel. (Though they seem to care a whole lot about make-up...mmmm, slathering chemicals all over your porous skin is so glamourous!)

[The Gobbler]

Lorin 10:24 AM

"I'll give the same advice in regards to campaign spending as I would to Bristol Palin- put a cap on it."

[John]

They really do hate breeders don't they?

[mr simple]

If ever there were a strong argument for privatized school systems and against whatever studies degrees, it's the comments section on that post. The disconnect is staggering.

[JW]

Successful, Rich, White Republican Women Are Resembling Rich, White Republican Men Making Professional Po-Mo Victimology Empaths Look Like the Sniveling Losers That They Are.

Fixed.

[Virginia]

http://m.nypost.com/p/news/loc.....yrmyNBxz4L

union fires employee for trying to unionize.

[The Gobbler]

In a move of stunning hypocrisy, the United Federation of Teachers axed one of its longtime employees -- for trying to unionize the powerful labor organization's own workers, it was charged yesterday

[The Gobbler]

Unfucking Believable

""I was fired for trying to start a union at the UFT," said a dumbfounded Callaghan, who worked for the union's newsletter and as a speechwriter for union leaders for the past 13 years.

Callaghan said he personally told Mulgrew on June 9 about his intention to try to organize nonunionized workers at UFT headquarters.

"I told him I want to have the same rights that teachers have," said Callaghan, 63, of Staten Island. "He told me he didn't want that, that he wanted to be able to fire whoever he wanted to.""

[P Brooks]

Environmental groups Sunday faulted federal authorities for allegedly failing to monitor the safety of Mojave Desert events such as the California 200 ?- an off-road race in which eight people died when a vehicle crashed into onlookers.

Environmental groups said they have long complained that the Bureau of Land Management, which issued permits for the race in the Lucerne Valley area Saturday, lacks the adequate staff and ability to regulate off-roading events that attract large crowds.

"The feds have allowed a 'Mad Max' atmosphere to develop with too many people and too many machines crammed into too little space," said Kieran Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit environmental protection group. "The feds don't have the resources, and apparently not the interest, to regulate off-road vehicles properly."

Saturday's crash was tragic, but inevitable, Suckling said.

"You can't put these huge crowds together with fast and powerful machines and not expect these kinds of accidents," he said. "Our collective failure to rein in excessive off-road vehicle use is not only destroying the ecosystem but killing people. The federal government clearly does not have the manpower to sufficiently organize and regulate these events, and if you don't have the manpower to do it safely, you shouldn't be doing it at all."

L A Times

Never let a tragedy go to waste.

[JW]

Weeping anal sores, these people are.

I saw video of that accident. It was a self-correcting event, with spectators, literally, lining the road. Frankly, I can't believe it only happened once.

[Warty]

Our collective failure to rein in excessive off-road vehicle use

Bitch, you failed. Don't try to blame me.

[P Brooks]

Don't stand there.

Fixed.

[Atanarjuat]

While most state courts face harsh budget cuts, the 1st District Court of Appeal gets a $48 million 'Taj Mahal'

[P Brooks]

spectators, literally, lining the road.

Search youtube for "group B rally".

[JW]

Oh, I'm very familiar with the crowds at rally racing and the like. I just never understood that desire to sacrifice yourself to the laws of fiziks for a good view.

I love me a good road race, just at a rational distance from the road.

[hmm]

Solving the mosque issue with a mosque summit will be difficult since only half of the opposing forces drink beer.

[Optimist Prime]

Daily Beast contributor Dana Vachon threatened with police intervention for not deleting a photo he took of a TSA agent. via his Twitter feed

"I was just made to delete an iPhone picture of a bearded Islamic security guard at JFK."

"TSA made me delete the picture, and threatened to call the police when I refused."

"When I asked what law allowed them to censor pictures none was cited, and I was asked if I supported the "battle" against terrorism."

"The TSA guard was a young, bearded Islamic man, and the picture, to me, embodied the glorious ridiculousness of post-9/11 life."

"A TSA manager asked why I wanted the picture; I told her one day people would want to know how we lived in 2010 l, and I hoped to show them."

"The manager noted alcohol on my breath, I told her I was not drunk but had a dinner party last night, to my knowledge this was not illegal."

"When I asked the guard to cite the law allowing summary deletion of photos he threatened to confiscate my phone."

"The manager asked why I wanted such a photo, seemed paranoid; I asked her to please tell me the law allowing deletion of photos, she failed."

"I then told her that when rights of images and speeches are infringed upon dark things tend to follow, citing Stalin and Hitler."

[hmm]

learn to upload...

[hmm]

scratch that...he uploaded the image, fuck the man and his minions. The free and rapid flow of information is a bitch.

[Citizen Nothing]

My wife will be flying with me tomorrow -- her first run-in with full-body scanners. She, like me, will opt for the pat-down. But she can be a real hot-head when it comes to her privacy and her civil rights. I fear she may not accept that discretion is the better part of valor. Should be fun.

[hmm]

@Newyorkist A TSA guard made me physically delete it it under threat of police action and confiscation; "Call me officer," he said.

I would insist on being addressed as The Supreme and Omnipotent Easter Bunny after a retarded comment like that. And when he refused I would refuse his absurd request.