Reason Morning Links: Guess What Elmo Is Thinking About Today

• The FCC approves more unlicensed spectrum.
• European and American regulators restrict access to the diabetes medicine Avandia.
• When it comes to Don't Ask Don't Tell, Obama is to the right of the Log Cabin Republicans.
• A milestone in contracting out war.
• The further adventures of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
• Strikes! In France!
• Too hot for Sesame Street.

Finally, in honor of the late Eddie Fisher, here's Krusty the Clown:

Comments

[Johnny Longtorso]

Paulie Krugnuts: The Angry Rich

[John]

I refuse to give his column a hit. So, let me guess, he is angry at the "hoarders and speculators" for ruining the recovery.

[capitol l]

Hoarders, I love that show. It's like my football. I yell WOOO! when they find kitty skulls.

[Junior Freedom Scout]

It was about how the real taxpayers in America (incomes above 250k) are the luckiest people on earth and need to stfu then pay up.

[Fluffy]

I'd be happy to stfu and pay the people who are actually responsible for my income.

The problem is that the people Krugman wants me to pay had nothing to do with my income.

If we limit the payback to people who actually made a contribution, it gets hard to do. My parents don't want my money, so I can't send it to them. And Cyrus McCormack and Alexander Graham Bell and Henry Ford [etc.] are all dead and were already paid anyway. I can't expunge my debt to them by sending money to people in the inner city.

[Corduroy]

Even the aliens are anti-nuke

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech.....test=faces

[Johnny Longtorso]

Defying DOJ Instructions, Christopher Coates Will Testify Friday on New Black Panther Case

[Mike M.]

Yep, the truth will soon be coming out about what a racist piece of crap this bum Holder is.

[Pip]

It's gettin' good!

[Gray Ghost]

The more you read about the NBP story, the more disgusting it gets. I've no idea how one-sided the P.J. Media account is, but if even most of it is true, then that's some serious banana republic-type shit going on, and people need to be fired. At a minimum, and preferably investigated with an eye for getting indictments.

[Joe M]

"A court should not compel the Executive to implement an immediate cessation . . . without regard for any effect such an abrupt change might have on the military's operations, particularly at a time when the military is engaged in combat operations and other demanding military activities around the globe,"

So that pretty much eliminates EVER doing it.

[prolefeed]

Enough of the Democrats don't really mean it when they say they are for ending DADT -- they want to be perpetually in favor of eliminating it without actually fucking pulling the trigger and doing it.

They've got 60+ votes in the Senate to do a clean repeal of DADT, so they pile a lot of crap into the bill to alienate the two Rs from Maine.

Nothing like wanting to keep an aggrieved minority perpetually aggrieved so they will keep voting for the ones more or less secretly fucking them over.

[prolefeed]

Shorter reply: Harry Reid is a Mormon in a state with a lot of Mormons. No way is he going to have DADT repeal hung around his neck when he's running neck and neck for reelection despite a weak opponent.

[SugarFree]

The Persistent Attraction of Malthusianism

[Fluffy]

The annoying thing about that article is that it fails to do the OBVIOUS THING and point out that the statistical predictions of the science fiction authors listed have been debunked by history.

I read both Make Room, Make Room and Stand on Zanzibar. And the US population is currently higher than Harrison projected - but I don't see any resource crisis. I don't see any food riots. And Brunner's predictions have failed to come true as well.

I remember the paperback of the Harrison novel had an introduction where a decline in US living standards was "proved" to be inevitable by measuring the % of "world resources" our economy was utilizing, and then doubling the population and arguing that this would require us to consume more than 100% of "world resources" in order to maintain our per capita income. Even when I was eleven this struck me as mathematically absurd, for reasons that should be obvious to everyone here.

[Pro Libertate]

I observed no scarcity or population problems in The Stainless Steel Rat.

[Gray Ghost]

Plausibility problems, maybe, but that was part of the appeal. I'm really surprised that the series hasn't been made into a movie/mini-series. (Has Harrison just refused to license the property?) Slippery Jim DiGriz is one of the more picaresque characters in modern fiction, let alone science fiction.

[SugarFree]

It's been in development hell for two decades.

Check the date on the article...

[Gray Ghost]

Just as well, really, if De Bont was going to be the guy directing. What a mess. Wonder what Sonnenfeld could do with it, assuming he wanted to do another comedy/science fiction series.

[Pro Libertate]

It's great fun. Science fiction doesn't have that many novels (or series) that are like that.

I've always been amazed that The Caves of Steel hadn't made it to TV or the big screen (aside from the short version with Peter Cushing on The Story Parade), because it seems like one of the few Asimov novels that would translate fairly well. It's still about people talking more than doing, but the ratio is better (for visual purposes, that is) in this book.

[Attorney]

In 1980, I had a college text that claimed that fossil fuels would run out in about 20 years.

[Pro Libertate]

We did run out. However, we've been secretly transmuting other elements into fossil fuels to preserve the illusion.

[Mike M.]

I think there have been people saying the oil would run out in twenty years since pretty much the day that Edwin Drake drilled his first well.

[JW]

Probably the same people who've been telling us for 30 years that economical solar power and/or fusion power is right around the corner.

[TrickyVic]

""Probably the same people who've been telling us for 30 years that economical solar power and/or fusion power is right around the corner.""

Or perhaps those who stand to profit from a peak oil scare.

I'm half convinced that Cheney had something to do with oil going over $100. I'm not a Cheney hater, but there was a reason he didn't want everyone to know about his energy meeting in the first term. If it would have been good for the people, politicians usually talk it up. But he wanted to keep his as secret as he could.

[Bender Bending Rodriguez]

I just want my flying car, dammit! I was promised there'd be flying cars by now!

[Hilo]

Wrote a novel in '90, publishing deal fell through, that was a bit of a rip on the Stainless Steal Rat sort of adventure. Set in 2012, in Russia, centered around a thriving under ground stock market. I really only made three predictions: 1) phones would be much smaller and more useful, 2) Sierra On-Line (given a fictive name) would be a combination of social network and encyclopedia database with an amoral support staff that will help you do anything from cracking bit code to the disposing of bodies for the right price, 3) a heist on one armored truck loaded with cigarette cartons was enough to buy an entire city off.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

I only recently read Make Room, Make Room, and the thing that struck me most about it was that the failure was predicated as much on the loss of skilled people and institutions that could put them where they were needed as on pure population.

But no one ever seem to mention it. Did that aspect make an appearance in the movie?

[Ayn_Randian]

"I don't think most contractors expect to be treated as nobly as our soldiers, but they don't expect to be forgotten, either," said Hascall Clark, who runs a group called American Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan

It's called getting paid 200,000 and getting to go home for 15 days every three months, dumbass.

The taxpayer funds contractors food, clothing, shelter, protection (from US Service Members), amenities, and ginormous overpriced paychecks.

That seems like sufficient recognition to me.

[John]

When I was a defense attorney in the Army, I had clients who were being kicked out of the Army for drug use or just generally being lousy soldiers who already had six figure plus jobs lined up to go to Afghanistan and Iraq as security contractors. Cry me a river for the fat guys with beards.

[Ayn_Randian]

The military desperately needs to realize what a morale-killer contracting, as an institution, really is. In Iraq, I participated in outsourcing Post Office operations to KBR. The company commander of the main postal unit was offered a Supervisor's position over the exact number of APOs he commanded - at triple his salary. So, they basically offered him 200K to do the job he was doing right there, while wearing civilian clothes, seeing his family four times a year as opposed to once, and without having to deal with Army and Soldier issues that commanders routinely have to deal with.

Contracting makes remaining in the military feel like a dumbass move.

[John]

Yes it does. And it also produces lousy services for soldiers. If the finance or the post office is fucking a soldier and it is military, the soldier's commander or first sergeant can go down and talk to another commander or first sergeant and get it straightened out. If it is a bunch of civilians, no one is going to give a shit who they guy is.

[TrickyVic]

""Yes it does. And it also produces lousy services for soldiers.""

I'm always hearing the private sector is better than government at providing services. The government is just a bunch of idiots.

Or perhaps a lousy government employee is not magically better because he/she joins the private sector.

Some people just suck, it doesn't matter who employs them.

[John]

A contractor is just a government employee. Soldiers give sucky service to. But there still is a rank structure. Among soldiers rank can still get things done. So, if it is important, things will happen. With civilian government employees, rank means nothing. So nothing gets done.

[TrickyVic]

""But there still is a rank structure. Among soldiers rank can still get things done.""

I don't dispute what you're saying. Certainly the military can get things done using rank when the private sector would just say fuck off.

I'm just taking a stab at those who think the private sector is almighty over government. It has nothing to do with private vs. government. It has to do with the quality of the people hired, or lack thereof.

I don't think I would call contractors government employees though. If so, government services could never be privatized since that requires government contracts.

[Apogee]

But perhaps this is an indictment of how government contracts are secured in the first place.

Maybe the private government contractors don't need to give a fuck because they aren't really performing a private service - they're cronies rewarded politically regardless of their performance.

The analogy of private operations and the private sector is proof to that assertion, as private sector operators better please their private sector customers - or else. The only way out of that arrangement is - magic! - government regulations protecting that business.

[Whappan?]

I think this reflects a common misunderstanding about privatization. Merely awarding a monopoly contract to a politically connected private firm doesn't address the problems with government run institutions. The people awarding the contracts are still government, political operatives, and the private firms awarded the contracts don't really face market competition. It's still playing with other people's money with none of the market's feedback.

[cynical]

"'I'm just taking a stab at those who think the private sector is almighty over government."

They're privately owned, but they're doing public-sector work, with all the accountability of public sector employees. I mean, is there really that much difference between government paying a person to do a job, and government hiring a middleman to do a job? Yet, the former employee is considered public sector and the latter, even if never did any work except for governments, would be "private".

[Mike M.]

A lot of the contractors are just retired and former military guys anyway.

The government will never admit it, but massively downsizing the active-duty military while at the same time increasing their workload and responsibilities the way we did in the nineties made absolutely no sense whatsoever. It certainly didn't save Americans any money, that's for damn sure.

[Gray Ghost]

Are the service academies (West Point is the one that sticks in my head) still having near half of their graduating class getting out after their initial term of service? Boggled my mind when I saw the stat a few years ago.

[Kolohe]

Are the service academies (West Point is the one that sticks in my head) still having near half of their graduating class getting out after their initial term of service?

It's actually more like 2/3 that get out, but the system is designed that way. In most fields there's about 3 times as many first level (i.e. butterbar - O-3) jobs as there are second level (i.e. O-4) jobs.

[Ayn_Randian]

A lot of the contractors are just retired and former military guys anyway.

I hear this a lot. My response is: so what?

massively downsizing the active-duty military while at the same time increasing their workload and responsibilities the way we did in the nineties made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

What downsizing? End-strength is to increase by 78,000 Service Members from the 2007 numbers. We have not anything but minor fluctuations in numbers since 2001.

[Mike M.]

What downsizing?

The downsizing that took place in the nineties, after the original Gulf War and the collapse of the old Soviet Union.

[Ayn_Randian]

I misread that. When you said "the way we did in the nineties", I thought you meant "recent downsizing, just like what occurred in the nineties, was a mistake". Instead, you meant to allude to the one episode of downsizing.

[TrickyVic]

Also the perceived level of troops necessary to conduct a war has been downsized. Not quite the same thing, but that philosophy plays a role in setting overall troop strength.

[TrickyVic]

""What downsizing? ""

Since the Reagan era?

Consider the number of troops we deployed to fight in Vietnam to Iraq.

[John Thacker]

Contracting makes remaining in the military feel like a dumbass move.

If the contractors are able to actually save the government money while paying their employees more, then I

I have to think that the situation you described is good for soldiers. Perhaps bad for the armed forces, since it means that they have to shell out more competitive salaries to keep guys happy, but so what? That would be like the erroneous argument that the draft saved Americans money (instead of that being an accounting fiction, again similar to the problems with regulation or not valuing homemaker contributions).

[John]

Poor Shepard Fairey

To be sure, Fairey still supports Obama, and he says he would use his talents to assist the president's re-election efforts in 2012. But he said that he couldn't design the same Hope poster today, because the spirit of the Obama campaign hasn't carried over to the Obama presidency.

"To say I feel disappointment is within the context that I know he's very intelligent, very capable, very compassionate," Fairey said. "I think he has the tools, and he does not trust his instincts in how to apply them."

http://hotlineoncall.nationalj.....fairey.php

[Fluffy]

The tool that was required was honesty.

Without that tool, no other tool matters.

And this is true even from the perspective of not letting down progressives. There are lots of ways an Obama presidency would inevitably annoy me, but he could have kept progressives happy if he had merely told them the truth. But that was too fucking hard, I guess.

[John]

yeah but the truth is that the policies Progressives' love are not popular and generally are the worst possible thing you can do in a bad economy. The time for progressive policies is when the economy is so good it succeeds in spite of them not in the worst economy in 70 years.

The other truth is that the Progressives haven't had a new idea in 50 years or more. They are a backward looking political minority with asymmetrical influence considering their absolute numbers. And the best they can hope for is sneak their policies through in good times under the cover of "centrism"

That is the truth. But I don't think Progressives would have been very happy if he had told it to them.

[Fluffy]

Obama lied to them about all the non-economic stuff too.

If he had even only lied half the time, the lefties would be happy to go to the wall for him.

Look how well conservatives treat GOP figures who only lie half the time.

[John]

The non-economic stuff isn't real popular either. That is the difference between Libertarians and Progressives; Libertarians at least understand they are an unpopular minority. Progressives really think they are popular and the country wants their policies. They don't get their policies because they are constantly being thwarted by powerful mysterious behind the scenes forces and interests.

[Fluffy]

The non-economic stuff isn't real popular either.

Obama got elected by saying the non-economic stuff, so that makes his supporters distrust any protest by the Obama administration that they can't do certain things because "they aren't popular".

It's like when we talked about DADT the other day. Obama could do something about it if he wanted to. He could evade GOP opposition and render it impotent. But he doesn't. And when he says to his leftist supporters, "Wah wah wah I can't do that it's not popular!" they discount this, because the people who would get pissed off if he changed DADT hate him already and will never vote for him anyway.

It's like how you can't understand why any GOP politician wastes ten minutes trying to placate academic types who make spurious accusations of racism. Those people are never going to vote for you anyway, so why not just shake your junk in their face?

[John]

DADT is kind of a side show. I am not really sure what all of the non economic stuff is beyond the war. And Obama in his defense didn't run as an anti-war candidate. He said during the election he was going to pull our of Iraq by 2011 and go big into Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also never said he was going to repeal any of the Bush anti-terrorism policies (except closing GUITMO which like DADT is a sideshow). Progressives just didn't listen. They thought he was really an anti-war candidate and was just saying that stuff to get elected. If anything, they are pissed now because he was actually honest and did what he said he was going to do.

[prolefeed]

DADT is kind of a side show.

It's not a side show for the 5% to 10% or so of the population that is gay or bi. You know, that diehard Democratic constituency that might swing elections if they take a hard look at what the Ds have actually done for them when they had the power to do so, and stay home or even defect to the Rs.

[capitol l]

Also, a lot of the things that Obama could have done didn't need congressional approval. Such as DADT, actually ending MedMarijuana raids, Gitmo, scaling back the Afghanistan war, etc, etc.

Take for instance the Gitmo thing, he fucking ran on closing it down, and won! So obviously this issue was not a deal breaker for people.

It is painfully obvious that Obama has neither the moral compass, or the intestinal fortitude to pursue the slightly positive aspects of the progressive* agenda.

*Unless these issues are just red meat for the constituents and a cover for economic adventurism. Like social issues for the right.*

[John]

*Unless these issues are just red meat for the constituents and a cover for economic adventurism. Like social issues for the right.*

He is a Chicago machine politician. Stealing will always be the priority.

[capitol l]

Really, I don't think his being from Chicago means that Obama is more craven,or corrupt, than a politician from anywhere else. Which doesn't say a lot about politicians in general. I think he's just a run of the mill poll driven pol. "Oh, 63% of people want Gitmo to remain open...so be it"

And, that is not even the root of it. Take Bush II, I don't think he was influenced by popularity and polls to nearly the same extent. We saw how that turned out. These elected officials, and their policies, are a direct product of a behemoth government.

You put that much control and power in anyone's hands and the urge to tinker is just too much. The only good leader we could ever have is someone who absolutely doesn't want to be there.

[Junior Freedom Scout]

intestinal fortitude

I know you mean guts, but I always thought it was testicular fortitude, as in cojones.

[SFC B]

"Intestinal Fortitue" is gender-neutral.

[Geotpf]

Repealing DADT most certainly does require Congressional approval. It is coded into law, specifically 10 U.S.C. ? 654. Obama can not overturn it without Congress passing a new law repealing that provision.

As for Gitmo, he politically can not close it down. For one thing, Congress has blocked him from using any US site to hold the prisoners held there. Also, there are prisoners held there who the US basically knows are terrorists, can't send back to their home countries for one reason or another, and can't convict in a court of law. Legally and morally, they should be released in United States territory. Problem is, one of them certainly will then commit a terrorist attack in the US and Obama will be hung from the rafters for such. Bush left an unfixable clusterfuck with Gitmo.

[Fluffy]

Obama could destroy DADT for the time frame of his Presidency by simply administratively voiding any DoD disciplinary actions undertaken under the policy.

And he got outmaneuvered by the Congress on Gitmo because he's a nebbish. Did Bush get specific Congressional approval to send anyone there? Nope. He had them put on planes and sent there. I would have had the prisoners transferred long before Congress could do anything to stop me, in his place. I wouldn't have months of discussions or planning, I wouldn't have leaked trial balloons to the press about where they might go, or any of the idiotic nonsense the Obama adminstration did. I would have taken off my inauguration suit, walked into the Oval Office, picked up the phone, and air force transport would have been on the way to Cuba.

Even with the Congress' action, if Obama really wanted to confront the Congress on this issue he could. The Congress can't do an end run around due process by passing a law forbidding the executive branch to "spend any money" on releasing or transporting people in US custody. It's as if the Congress tried to pass a law saying you can't pay anyone to open doors at federal prisons, and so now all prisoners there have to stay inside and get food airdropped to them. I would counter that I took an oath to enforce all the laws of the United States and the Congress can't order me not to transport criminals to the US to face trial without first repealing the underlying statutes defining their actions as crimes. And I'd say "Fuck you, Congress. Come and get me."

[Eric]

My thought is that Obama doesn't really care about foreign policy that much one way or another. He was just playing his base, and had no real problem with Gitmo/rendition. He certainly didn't have a problem pushing through "health care reform".

[creech]

Progressive, the true Reactionaries!
Actually, they look back to the Middle Ages of Lords and peasants.

[Pip]

I think he has the is a tools

[John]

"A conference call Thursday with liberal bloggers and progressive media reportedly turned ugly/awkward Thursday as White House chief strategist David Axelrod was excoriated for the Obama administration's continued swipes at supporters among the "professional left."
Susie Madrak, a blogger at the liberal site CrooksandLiars.com, chimed in and asked Axelrod, "Are you familiar with the term hippie-punching?"

http://www.theblaze.com/storie.....um=twitter

[grrizzly]

What is hippie-punching?

[Death Panelist]

A waste of time.

[John]

Honestly I am not totally sure. I guess it is kind of a variation on "blame the retarded kid" as in "blame all of your political problems on the damn hippies who supported you".

[Fluffy]

It means spitting on your best supporters in order to prove to undecideds that you're "not an extremist".

Basically it dates back to the Sister Souljah episode, if not further. It helped Clinton a great deal to have a radical leftist to shit on, because that helped defuse voter fear that he personally was a radical leftist.

It was funniest when John Kerry tried to do it during his Presidential campaign, attacking Dean's best supporters as dirty rotten "unserious" hippies. Considering the fact that Kerry had achieved a public persona precisely by being a dirty hippie himself.

[John]

I never understood why Kerry didn't go after Michael Moore for his Sister Soulja moment. Kerry basically allowed Bush to paint him as a surrender candidate.

[Slut Bunwalla]

I don't know if you noticed, but when it came down to it, Kerry was a terrible politician. He really had no idea what he was doing.

[Tom]

What is the term's origin, though? I mean, it's metaphorical, not literal, so there must be a reason that THAT particular term has taken off (rather than "leftist-punching" or "extremist-punching" or whatever). It must have had some existing background.

I've been curious about this since I saw the Axelrod report yesterday. Everybody's just chattering about this phone call as if "hippie-punching" is some widely used expression, and so nobody bothers to explain it.

[TomD]

What is the term's origin, though? I mean, it's metaphorical, not literal, so there must be a reason that THAT particular term has taken off (rather than "leftist-punching" or "extremist-punching" or whatever). It must have had some existing background.

I've been curious about this since I saw the Axelrod report yesterday. Everybody's just chattering about this phone call as if "hippie-punching" is some widely used expression, and so nobody bothers to explain it.

[Fluffy]

I first saw it used by Atrios beginning in around 2003. To leftist bloggers, it's a widely used expression, and the audience for this story is leftist bloggers.

[Pogo the Clown]

I remember several black friends of mine being angry at Clinton for that, and they said they would never vote for him. It had me worried for all of a week. Every now and then they still gripe about not being taken seriously, and I remind them of the incident and what they said. 'Seriously, you wonder why the rest of us don't take you seriously? I'm telling you to your face that your vote is a gimme, and you are still going to vote for the guy we are running this year.'

[Corduroy]

Hippie-punching sounds like fun

[Pip]

In a very unusual move, University of Illinois trustees Thursday denied giving emeritus status to controversial retired professor William Ayers.

The vote, at a U. of I. board meeting in Urbana, was unanimous and came after a passionate speech by board chair Christopher Kennedy, who invoked the 1968 assassination of his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in saying that he was voting his conscience.

The other trustees, without comment, also voted against the appointment.

Ayers, the Vietnam War-era radical, had been an education faculty member at UIC since 1987. He retired effective Aug. 31 and then sought the emeritus faculty status, a largely honorific title that includes some benefits such as library privileges.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/.....5265.story

[John]

Ayers listed Sirhan Sirhan as one of America's "political prisoners" in his book. Good for Christopher Kennedy for standing up for his dad.

It amazes me how many liberals will allow people like Ayers into polite company when mainstream liberals would have been the first people he would have killed had he had the opportunity.

[Warty]

I need me a union job

[Fist of Etiquette]

Is that David Axelrod at 1:16?

[Rich]

At least *they* weren't fucking sheep.

[Mike M.]

Stephen Colbert to testify on Capitol Hill this morning in character, which is totally appropriate since this Congress is such a complete and utter joke.

[sage]

Another explosion of retard.

[hmm]

No dumber than this.

[Corduroy]

Gack

[TrickyVic]

It's only dumb when a D does it. When an R does it, it's brilliant. 😉

[R C Dean]

Desperate attempt to take some of the news cycle away from what should be a crushing blow to the DOJ and the administration at the civil rights hearings.

Bwahahaha.

[Rich]

Friday. Gotta dust this off again.

[Rich]

"As troop deaths have fallen, contractor deaths have risen. It's not a pretty picture."

FTFY

[Pro Libertate]

You know, I thought that Eddie Fisher had died decades ago. And, even if I had known he was alive, I'd have figured he was much older. Carrie's in her mid-50s, though, so I guess that makes sense.

[John]

The guy dumped his perky cute wife and small children to get the greatest piece of ass then known to man. I guess you could say he had his priorities.

[Robert]

I'd've thought what Pro thought too. Eddie Fisher was chiefly known to me as the name 45+ years ago that our stepgrandfather used when we played guessing games about famous names. When he told us the answer, my sister & I always said, "Who?" OK, "always" was probably twice over the course of a few years, but that was it.

[John]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....-City.html

Nudists and libertines at war in France.

[grrizzly]

What a shame! In Houellebecq's Elementary Particals Cap d'Agde was a paradise of harmony where nudists and the others knew how to respect each other territory.

[I Ain't No Houellebecq Girl!]

Viva la libertines!

[Red Bull]

Elmo is shown running around the hem of Perry's dress while she sings.

And he never looks up! Stupid puppet!

[R C Dean]

Threadjack (if you can jack a links post):

The highly respected former head of DOJ voting rights enforcement :
testifies

[There is a] deep-seated opposition to the race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act against racial minorities and for the protection of whites who have been discriminated against.

Coates also testified that he was reprimanded by Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King when he asked attorneys in job interviews if they could enforce the law equally.

Its hard to imagine how it could be any worse. This should be a top news story today. Any media outlet that doesn't cover this good and hard can be safely categorized as apparatchik.

[Pip]

This is wonderful news.

[Gray Ghost]

With the lack of fallout in the MSM from Journolist, isn't it apparent that most media already can be characterized that way? How the Journolist guys still have jobs and are getting hired for other journalist gigs is absolutely baffling to me. I've given up trying to figure out anymore which stories get legs and which don't.

[Fluffy]

It would be fantastic to see the administration take a hit for, say, not protecting voting rights in majority-African-American communities and districts. Wasn't there a pretty egregious case in Mississippi recently involving rigged elections and squelched white registrations, etc.?

Anything other than that fucking lame and weak Black Panther story would be awesome.

[R C Dean]

I agree. But if the Black Panther story is the hook, its now got some absolutely devastating sworn testimony hanging from it. And I wouldn't be surprised, given the testimony that this was a broad policy at DOJ, to see other cases brought into the light of day.

[The Gobbler]

^^THIS^^

[Ayn_Randian]

While I was reading that report, I noticed that there was a title called "Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights".

I want that title. I would be knee-deep in Arpaio's ass on Day 1.

[TrickyVic]

From RC's link

"Like me, Coates testified about the history of open and pervasive hostility inside the Voting Section to protecting the rights of white voters. This hostility first emerged in the case against Ike Brown in Noxubee County, Mississippi, going back as far as 2004:"

Is that to say it's a bipartisan problem over two administrations?

[J sub D]

Besides being a complete bigoted assjole, Sheriff Joe is also a fucking thief.

Is anyone surprised?

[J sub D]

Besides being a complete bigoted assjole, Sheriff Joe is also a fucking thief.

Is anyone surprised?

[J sub D]

I see the squirrels are back.

[TrickyVic]

No law is going to tell sheriff joe how to spend the money.

It will be interesting to see the Joe supporters defend it. They will probably see it as him saying screw you to authority and like him more for it.

[J sub D]

Besides being a complete bigoted assjole, Sheriff Joe is also a fucking thief.

Is anyone surprised?

[The Gobbler]

http://www.therightscoop.com/v.....wn-heckler

[Pip]

Chris Cristie is teh awesome!

[Apogee]

AFAIC, that's what's needed in 2012.

[Butts Wagner]

US or Israel create computer worm to take down Iranian nuclear reactor

[TrickyVic]

I'm not sure if that's a smart idea. The Iranians could possible modify the code we give them and use the same technique against us.

[Apogee]

Our weapons labs still use memos delivered by clerks, along with bakelite handled levers to adjust the machinery. Why fix what isn't broken?

Much more difficult to break in.

As for our power grid - Iran better hurry up, they're running out of time to sabotage something that's going to self destruct anyway.

[Shalom Patrick Hamou]

_______________________________

Tract on Monetary Reform
_______________________________

Our economy is slowly dying, your job, lifestyle are dominated by anxiety.

The economy is kept alive artificially.

No one is proposing a solution because no one has the slightest idea of why it is happening and many have vested interest in the present system.

However an objective observation of the phenomenon can help us understand it and provide us with an innovative solution.

Of course we can't solve the problem with the tools that brought us there in the first place and we need a new ideology.

_______________________________

- Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?

- Well, remember that what an ideology is, is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to -- to exist, you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not. And what I'm saying to you is, yes, I found a flaw. I don't know how significant or permanent it is, but I've been very distressed by that fact.

- You found a flaw in the reality...(!!!???)

- Flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak.

- In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working?

- That is -- precisely. No, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I had been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.

_______________________________

In order to alleviate those economic woes wee need to create, as fast as possible, a new credit free currency that will solve the credit crunch and bring incremental jobs, consumption and investments to the present system.

An Innovative Credit Free, Free Market, Post Crash Economy

Tract on Monetary Reform

It is urgent if we want to limit social, political and military chaos.

_______________________________

Is the fulfilment of these ideas a visionary hope? Have they insufficient roots in the motives which govern the evolution of political society? Are the interests which they will thwart stronger and more obvious than those which they will serve?

I do not attempt an answer in this place. It would need a volume of a different character from this one to indicate even in outline the practical measures in which they might be gradually clothed. But if the ideas are correct ? an hypothesis on which the author himself must necessarily base what he writes ? it would be a mistake, I predict, to dispute their potency over a period of time. At the present moment people are unusually expectant of a more fundamental diagnosis; more particularly ready to receive it; eager to try it out, if it should be even plausible.

But apart from this contemporary mood, the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.

Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.

Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

_______________________________

Credit Free Economy
More Jobs, No Debt, No Fear.
Prosperous, Fair and Stable.

_______________________________

[?????]

thanks

[Pip]

What fiasco?

[Warty]

There's enough left to piece it together.

[Pip]

Even the google cache version is now comment-free.

[Apogee]

Strangely quiet here regarding the aforementioned fiasco.

We must ask, Mr. Warty, did you have your 10:11AM comment approved by the ABA?

We'll give you a few minutes to email the paperwork.

No rush.

[Apogee]

UPDATE: HERE

A small number of commenters - or more accurately, a number of small commenters

Ouch.

I prefer "little people"