Reason Morning Links: New Yorkers Love Walmart, North Korea Loves Clapton, Richard Holbrooke, RIP

• Richard Holbrooke dies. Last words were, "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan."
• Michael Steele will run again for RNC chair.
• New Yorkers want a Walmart.
• North Korea wants Eric Clapton.
• Stem cells may have cured man with HIV.

Comments

[James Ard]

The Norks can have Clapton, but they better not take Bramhall and Trucks.

[Crappy American Negotiator]

We'll let you have a Clapton concert if you give us... say... ah... YourEntireNuclearProgram! (draws in breath in anticipation)

[Corduroy]

Actually, I'll let them have Clapton in permanent exchange for their nuclear program.

Also, Cyrus family members, Bieberites, ICP and fan base, and lest he feel left out, Pauly Krugnuts.

Seems a small price to pay.

[The Mossy Spaniard]

You have good taste in guitar music, James Ard.

[Jocelyn Elders]

I like Eric Clapner.

[Aged Hipster]

Everything after the Blues Breakers album is just masturbation with a guitar.

[Jingles]

Sheryl Crow broke up with Clapton because he wanted buttsex and she didn't. True story.

[Some other guy]

Wait.
Why would anyone want buttsex with Sheryl "no TP" Crow?

[Dogged Lee]

Because they have a Santorum fetish??

[Aged Hipster]

Armstrong is more of a pussy than I thought. That long with a woman whose bitchiness goes up to eleven and not in the eight to ten range in attractiveness who doesn't do anal? I assumed good anal was the only reason he was putting up with her.

[Montani Semper Liberi]

The Wal-Mart link is great. I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth in Williamsburg all the way down here in WV.

[Old Mexican]

Re: Montani Semper Liberi,

What's great to read are the comments - some are spot on, others simply repeat the economics-illiterate talking points like: Walmart hurts Mom and Pops and thus jobs!

[John]

I love the whole "save the mom and pop business" line of thinking. Of course these same people would consider mom and pop to be exploitive rich if they made more than $250k a year, and would have no problem making sure their kids sell out to Warren Buffett to pay their inheritance taxes.

In these people's minds, people and businesses are not real things. They are just props to be used to make whatever emotional point needs to be made.

[wylie]

Of course these same people would consider mom and pop to be exploitive rich if they made more than $250k a year...

Not a problem, since Walmart's capitalist monopolism ensures that Mom'n'Pops CAN'T prosper.

(Ignoring the scenario where protectionism for the M&P's evually forces Walmart out of business, at which point the M&P's are making a killing. Then the whole thing start over again, with Farmer's Markets complaining that Mom'n'Pop shops are stealing all their business and a pile of elected morons start calling for more regulations against M&P's...rinse and repeat till we get a socialist utopia.)

[Fluffy]

If Mom and Pop are paying Manhattan rents for a retail space, they don't need any help from the likes of us.

[John]

They just pass the rent onto their customers. Of course why wouldn't those poor people in Harlem want to pay higher prices to support local business?

[Esteban]

Gawker had a piece yesterday of the Reasons to oppose. God, I hate that website.

http://gawker.com/5713001/how-do-we-keep-wal+mart-out-of-nyc

[Trespassers W]

Someone should hack that site and wreck my morning again.

[In Time Of War]

Y'know, if Wal-Mart hasn't already chosen a location, I've heard that columbia university might have some land available...
Just sayin'.

[generic Brand]

The best part:

The strongest support for Walmart came from city residents that unions and politicians claim to represent -- poor and working-class minorities: 81 percent of blacks and 77 percent of Hispanics endorsed the retailer setting up shop here.

Suck it, unions and liberals!

[SugarFree]

Link Storm!

Feministing writer talks about what's wrong with her vagina.

[Ice Nine]

OK, look, I'm all sympathetic n' stuff but I simply couldn't get past the "vulvodynia" paragraph. I don't know why exactly but I for one never, ever want to see that word again.

[SugarFree]

That means you didn't get to the part where they were shooting lasers into her snatch.

[Ice Nine]

Sounds like a killer pick-up line.

[Solanum]

when sex continued to feel like pouring acid on an open wound, I learned to grin and bear it.

Not too much else you can do when a sasquatch is making sweet, sweet love to you.

[SIV]

"Radical technology was required!"

[SIV]

"I tried to tell you, Elly!

You don't know the kind of patients
we've been getting lately.

You don't know what's going on out there.

The patients are getting strange.

They look all right on the outside,...

..but their insides,...

..they're deformed."

[sixstring]

A church's bell ringer passed away. So they posted the position and a man came in with no arms wanting the job. The clergy weren't sure he could do it, but he convinced them to let him try it.

They climbed the bell tower and the guy ran toward the bell and hit it with his head. They gave him the job.

The next day he went to ring the bell, tripped, bounced off the bell and fell to the sidewalk below. Two guys were walking past.

One asked, "Do you know this guy?"

The second guy responded, "No, but his face rings a bell."

The next day, the dead bell ringer's twin brother comes in for the again vacant bell ringer position. He also has no arms. They lead him up to the bell tower, he runs at the bell, trips and falls to the sidewalk below.

The same two guys walk by.

The first asks, "Do you know him?"

The second guy responds, "No, but he's a dead ringer for the guy we saw yesterday."

[The Mossy Spaniard]

+11:11

[Slut Bunwalla]

The first time I heard this joke, the person telling it added all kinds of extraneous details, drawing the whole thing out into a big story that lasted about 20 minutes, all for the sake of two of the dumbest puns ever made. It was fantastic.

[The Dan]

I seem to recall PeeWee Herman telling this on Letterman in the earlier 80's. All drawn out. Fantastic indeed.

[JoshINHB]

New Yorkers want a Walmart

Another sign of impending apocalypse.

[waffles]

Wal-right in that headline is cringe inducing and I'm only 25% hipster scum. But like any patriotic American I relish in the pain of hipsters. Even when I share in it.

[John]

Most people who live in New York are not hipsters. Most people in New York actually have lives and worry about things where are they going to buy stuff they need without going broke, as opposed to worrying about if they are making the proper ironic fashion statement.

Damn right people want a wall mart. You ever tried to shop for every day things in the city? Fuck the hipsters. I hope they all drown in the East River.

[waffles]

John, I hope everyone knows that most people are not hipsters. Hell 99.5% of people are not hipsters. It's just that the hipster style has become somewhat mainstream over the past decade and outlets like the NYT keep giving spoiled brats pedestals to shout from.

[Wind Rider]

Talk about a conundrum. Hate fucking idiotic hipsters, and I hates me some fucking Wal-Mart, mostly because it's the closest retail outlet to my front door, and I end up there far too many times for my liking in an average month.

[Kristen]

I'm the same way. I generally shop at Tarzjhay.

[John]

I think Wall mart sucks to. But that is only because I have enough money to shop elsewhere. If I were poor, it would work just fine.

[Azathoth]

Interesting. John, you never struck me as stupid. Goes to show, right?

"I can get my Sony 57 inch flatscreen at Wal-mart for about 900 bucks--but since I can afford it, I'm gonna pay an additional amount so I don't have to go to Wal-mart."

Why would anyone admit to doing something like this? And it works up and down the item list. Want a nice piece of aged romano? You can get it at Wal-mart for around 7 bucks a pound--or you can go to a cheese shoppe and pay $14 for some gratuitous snootiness.

I just can't understand the mindset of paying more for something that you can get markedly cheaper just because you can.

[John]

I will admit I haven't been to a Wall Mart in a long time. There was a time when I did go there. And they were nice stores that had good stuff at a decent price. But, during the 1990s after the old man died, they seemed to get dirtier and more poorly run. It seemed like there were two types of Wall mart, those in places where they were the only thing around and that were competently run and those in places where there was a Target where they just said to hell with it and stopped cleaning the floors.

Maybe they have improved in the last few years. I don't have one near my house, so I couldn't tell you. But I am willing to concede the possibility.

[cynical]

I hear you can save money at a restaurant by not tipping, or only paying like 2%. Why would anyone pay more when you can save money?

[Aresen]

Except when you don't tip in a restaurant, you mysteriously wind up with gravy in your lap.

[Montani Semper Liberi]

NY Post commentator PointBrake, troll or epic dumbass, you decide:

Wal-Mart is proven to cost more jobs than generate. WalMart puts local business out of business and crime rates subsequently rise in the surrounding urban area. Poverty is the root of crime and WalMart only contributes to the problem. Basically, poor people should not be in NY in the first place. This is not 1920 anymroe folks. Get out and get ahead. There are plenty of more affordable cities to live in.

[John]

It is New York. For his competition, that is not even epic dumb ass. In New York that is just ordinary every day dumb ass.

[Ska]

With eight million people, there is going to be a broad spectrum covered.

[John]

If a troll can make it there, he can make it anywhere.

[TrickyVic]

Especially the SW corner of 48th and 6th ave.

[TrickyVic]

And up a couple of blocks too.

[Corduroy]

epic dumbass

[Fluffy]

Actually, that guy is AWESOME.

He manages, in the same paragraph, to be anti-Walmart for the usual pinko reasons, while at the same time being anti-Walmart because poor people shop there and that sort of person shouldn't be in New York in the first place.

So he's a pinko who openly hates the poor.

That's fucking beautiful. I may print that and frame it. This guy is the soul of New York City.

[John]

I wonder who he thinks will clean the offices and pick up the trash and such if there are only rich people in New York.

[Wind Rider]

He doesn't. Think , that is.

[JW]

He's right. There are more affordable cities, especially those adjacent to NYC, so that they can still some into the city and do all the work that's beneath him.

[Aresen]

I thought garbage collection was union-controlled in NYC with garbage collectors earning more than dentists.

[Sandi]

I took a shit in New Amsterdam once.

[Aresen]

I thought garbage collection was union-controlled in NYC with garbage collectors earning more than dentists.

[Aresen]

Damn Union squirrels.

[VikingMoose]

wait a sec - what's the wage comparison between NYC union-controlled garbage collectors and dentists?

(are they Persian Dentists?)

[Python Reference Guy]

Are you suggesting that dentists are migratory?

[Ted S.]

He's the heart and soul of New York City.

[NoVAHockey]

"Basically, poor people should not be in NY in the first place."

It's really a shame that liberals somehow have the mantle of being for the poor, when they clearly can't stand them. I'd bet this guy hasn't done one hour of actual volunteer/charity work in his life.

[wylie]

It's really a shame that liberals somehow have the mantle of being for the poor, when they clearly can't stand them.

Ah, but you don't get it NoVA, they're SO concerned for the poor that they wish the poor were just never born. For their own good.

[The Late Dr. Tiller]

I tried to help. I really tried.

[Ska]

What about those 20 hours he got for soliciting a tranny hooker in the meatpacking district? Do those count?

[Wind Rider]

The tranny hooker was an innocent bystander, caught up in his quest to hump a fresh lamb shank.

[TrickyVic]

Have you been to the meatpacking district in the last few years? It's fancy shops and gallerys.

[Anonymous Coward]

Poverty is the root of crime

Run-of-the-mill dumbass.

[Single mom of feral children]

Yeah, it ain't my fault! Now, where's my chil' suppot and subsidies?

[Rather]

No, the question is where is the Anonymous Coward who knocked you up?

[Rather]

Never mind; he's on H&R bitching about poverty being someone else's problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you still upset that I left when you wanted to spoon? Geez, get over it already.

[Rather]

Lol, you know I get jealous when I share my man with another man; I'll try to wait my turn! 😉

[Anonymous Coward]

That's better. You may not be first, but you'll always be next.

[cynical]

Correlation is not causation. More likely: The same personal/cultural behavioral defects that cause one to become and remain poor also predispose one to commit crimes.

[Rather]

Only a defect can make one poor? Conversely, what makes you rich?

[The Gobbler]

Family and friends.

[Rather]

Gobbler, don't spoil my fun ;-(

[The Gobbler]

Oh. And a really big cock.

[Rather]

This gives a whole new meaning to your name....oh Tony.

[Bee Tagger]

Poverty is the root of crime

It's a wonder why there are even any white-collar crimes on the books. I'm so tired of lefty hipsters sticking up for fat-cat CEOs.

[JW]

I'm far from poor and I sill like not spending as much as I have to on every item that I buy.

Not that I likes me the Wal-Mart all that much as a shopping experience, but I will go there, if needed.

[Corduroy]

Noted trait of the rich - stinginess. Ask any contractor.

[JW]

Well, yeah. They send the help, in their ill fitting and poor taste clothing, to buy for them.

[cynical]

Another good one:

I was being slightly sarcastic about reviving slavery, but here's the next best thing:

Being at management's (big boss man's) beck and call 24/7 and not having a life of your own -- "If you don't show up for work on Sunday, don't show up on Monday."

Wow, good point. It must have sucked to be a slave. You decide you don't feel like working on the weekend, and the plantation owner says "Look, if you don't want to do the work, we'll have to let you go." What a raw deal for the poor slave, out of a job, kicked off the plantation. And they didn't even have welfare back then.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Stem cells may have cured man with HIV.

Sean Hannity is rolling over in his grave.

[BakedPenguin]

Sean Hannity is rolling over in his grave.

Oh, if only. And if he took down Olbermann with him...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone going to volunteer to be his test-f*ck?

[Virginia]

Timothy Brown is now considering a move from Berlin to Barcelona or San Francisco

I'm not sure what to make of that.

[DJF]

"""Sean Hannity is rolling over in his grave."""

If you actually read the article then you would know that it was a bone marrow transplant from a guy who was immune to AIDS and it was done in Germany. So only adult bone marrow was used and no embryonic stem cells and no US tax money was used so I don't see where Sean Hannity would care/

[Fist of Etiquette]

HFS. It was a joke based on the quoted sentence. I had been following that dude's case, but there's no good snark to be mined from the facts.

[John Thacker]

Why? This result, like others, was adult stem cells (i.e., bone marrow transplant), not embryonic.

Sure, theoretically embryonic stem cells could lead to results at some point. So far, though, all the positive results have been with adult stem cells.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Also, as of this writing, Sean Hannity is not actually dead.

[Ted S.]

Sean Hannity is dead?

dances on Sean Hannity's grave

[SugarFree]

Link Storm!

The Horrors Of Capitalism

It's been over a month now and I am slowly growing a thicker skin, adapting to our particular brand of starvation, the lack of human connection.

[John]

Wow.

"Many years ago I heard an activist from another country, somewhere with dictators and soldiers in the streets, say that in the U.S. everyone lived in a fog of confusion, that they couldn't see reality. It gave her the creeps. She would much rather, she said, be in her own country, where people knew what they were fighting for and against. And that was 25 years ago. Late stage capitalism has eroded people's humanity, has trashed the quality of people's lives so much that we're become accustomed to livinginhell. People in Cuba spoke to me with such compassion about Users. They said, "We know how much the people of the US must suffer. Is it true, " they would ask, "that people don't know their neighbors? I heard that no one meets your eye when you walk down the street. Is it really like that?"

[cynical]

That sounds suspiciously like neocons who pray for terrorists to detonate a nuke in the U.S. so we can all finally agree with them.

[Trespassers W]

"Is it true," they would ask, "that people don't know their neighbors? I heard that no one meets your eye when you walk down the street. Is it really like that?"

I always thought this was a feature, not a bug.

[SugarFree]

Exactly. People from small places (the writer grew up in NYC, mostly) know that absolutely everyone knowing your business all the time is far worse than some vague notion of anomie.

[cynical]

The internet must be a terrifying and lonely place for them.

[Tman]

That blog is hilarious.

This week the hardships, the logistical hassles and scarcities that are part of Cuban life have been a big part of our lives. A week ago I flushed the toilet and sewage came up through the shower drain. The septic tank for the building is full, and our bathroom is closest to it--but there's only one sewage removal truck for the entire city of Havana, and it's sent according to the priorities that are decided in some department somewhere-- as my therapist Jorge says "the situation is being analyzed."

[PapayaSF]

Maybe Cubans look people in the eye when walking down the street because they're hoping to find the sewage truck driver.

[Tman]

+1

[nekoxgirl]

So, she's complaining because in the United States we have more food than we can eat? And Cuba is better because they barely have enough food to eat? Does she think Americans stole all the food from the Cubans?

[BakedPenguin]

No one's stopping you from going back to stay, bitch. Srsly.

[Fluffy]

I don't say something like this often, but send that fucking bitch back to Cuba and let her fucking stay there.

She's longing for her daily breath of solidarity, so let her fucking have it. In spades.

[Ice Nine]

Racist!

[JW]

You're being too kind Fluffy. Clearly, she values suffering as a human condition more than that of being free. Let her embrace that ideal for her return.

Drop her in the Keys with an armed guard, with orders to shoot for non-compliance, and point her that-a-way for her swim back to Cuba.

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming back to capitalism is like walking into a brick wall. It's like being hurled into the middle ages.

Good thing that hyperbolic menstrual aid was free.

[Corduroy]

So why is she here? Medical treatment perhaps?

[SugarFree]

From what I can glean from her shitty prose, she went down to Cuba for some sort of quack medical treatment.

"Conchita is warm, bubbly, full of enthusiasm for her work of promoting natural medicine-- though her day job is still inventing vaccines. She has, she says, the complete flower remedy collections from California, Australia and her favorite, Chile, as well as Bach's original 38. She will arrange for me to see their nutritionist, and a famous homeopath."

Flower remedies.

[BakedPenguin]

So she's unaware that we have quacks here, or she just didn't want to pay their capitalist prices.

[SugarFree]

Yeah, I'm not sure why she didn't want to support local mom and pop quacks.

[SugarFree]

Digging further...

I've been too busy to write and frustrated by the lack of access to my blog, and am running low on wifi time in the lobby of the incredibly over the top hotel; Melia Havana, so just a quick update. I've had a lot more tests and more to come. They are determined to understand everything about my pain. The MRI machine is finally fixed and I get that Monday morning, plus x-rays to check my spine for arthritis and other organic changes, and an ultrasound of my shoulder. The physiatrist diagnosed fybromyalgia and prescribed magnetic and electrical treatments. I am SO well cared for here! I adore my PT, who gives the most amazing massages to ease pain in my pelvis and upper back. We alternate working out with weights, on a bike, doing leg lifts, etc, with heat lamp treatments. I started outon Tuesday walking 16 meters and yesterday did 50. I also started B12 shots for the neuropathy (nerve pain) which seem to help. Jorge says we'll reach our goal, to have me dancing again when I leave.

-
Ah, fibromyalgia. Now I get it.

[JD]

Nothing better than fake medicine for a fake disease.

[JW]

and am running low on wifi time in the lobby of the incredibly over the top hotel

Clearly, all the product of the glorious workers revolution.

Holy fuck, I feel the stupid actually reaching through my monitor and making me stupider for reading it. Thanks a lot, dick.

[Fluffy]

Remember how Falwell used to claim that AIDS was God's judgment on homosexuals? [Or maybe that was Robertson, I can't remember.]

That was pretty lousy.

But I guess I commit that sin, too. Because it seems like fibromyalgia is God's judgment on whiny pinko granola bitches.

When was the last time you saw, say, a Big 10 offensive lineman come down with fibromyalgia?

Or one of those guys who club seals to death for their fur. None of those guys ever seem to get fibromyalgia.

Whalers. Also an occupation with very few fibromyalgia sufferers.

Wall Street traders? Lumberjacks? NASCAR mechanics? Do any of those guys ever get fibromyalgia? It doesn't seem like it.

[Charlotte Sometimes]

Ohhhh, fibromyalgia. Amazing how many women improve when they get on an SNRI. I've been transcribing for 14 years and have never seen that diagnosis in a male.

[Fluffy]

It's shocking how her fibromyalgia improved when she was surrounded by impoverished slaves who catered to her every whim and talked to her like she mattered.

That whole "living among your equals and having to earn their companionship and their service" thing is a real bitch of a disease vector. Good thing there are still places like Cuba where you can go and have skeletal prison camp denizens give you daily massages and make you pretty flower arrangements.

I bet this dingbat has no idea she's a Draka.

[SugarFree]

According to The All-Mighty Wiki, it runs 9 to 1, female to male. My post-menopausal-female-dominated profession was led me to know way too much about fibromyalgia.

[Charlotte Sometimes]

According to what I've transcribed, apparently fibromyalgia also responds nicely to losing weight, getting in shape, and having an affair.

[SugarFree]

The most difficult of prescriptions for the average sufferer.

[Charlotte Sometimes]

SF: But you now have some helpful suggestions for your suffering colleagues.

[Ice Nine]

>>Ohhhh, fibromyalgia. Amazing how many women improve when they get on an SNRI.

Yeah, but as soon as the fybromyalgia is beaten back, in comes the dread total body/total symptom Candida invasion!

[Ted S.]

Candida, we could make it together

[Kristen]

Holy fuck, the douche is strong with this chick.

[The Gobbler]

"The MRI machine is finally fixed"

Great news!

[Trespassers W]

Some tincture of violet oughtta fix her raging hysteria.

[Ice Nine]

And perhaps her vulvodynia? (Yeah, I know...)

[Corduroy]

Even dumber than I had surmised

[Patriot Mike]

Perhaps some hemlock...

[Kristen]

I hate to tell her, but that bastion of capitalist piggishness, Whole Foods, carries all 38 Bach's flower essences, too. Just for easily-duped hipster assholes like her.

[SugarFree]

I've heard of the them, but ignore most health-food quackry. I had no idea 38 20ml bottles of flower extract is being sold for around $500.

What a bargain at 65 cents a milliliter!

[Kristen]

My dog training mentor swears by them (for dogs). I tried to use them for crate training (my dog is terribly afraid of the crate) - far as I can tell they didn't even work a little bit. So now I use the bottles for cannabis tincture.

[SugarFree]

And I went to a hippie co-op to buy my eyedropper bottles for the same use.

The utility of hippie economics occasionally extends beyond hempseed granola that shreds your colon like eating a handful of thumbtacks.

[Corduroy]

This is too good not to post. A reference guide on the 38 Bach's Flower Essences.

Agrimony - mental torture behind a cheerful face

Aspen - fear of unknown things

Beech - intolerance

Centaury - the inability to say 'no'

Cerato - lack of trust in one's own decisions

Cherry Plum - fear of the mind giving way

Chestnut Bud - failure to learn from mistakes

Chicory - selfish, possessive love

Clematis - dreaming of the future without working in the present

Crab Apple - the cleansing remedy, also for self-hatred

Elm - overwhelmed by responsibility

Gentian - discouragement after a setback

Gorse - hopelessness and despair

Heather - self-centredness and self-concern

Holly - hatred, envy and jealousy

Honeysuckle - living in the past

Hornbeam - tiredness at the thought of doing something

Impatiens - impatience

Larch - lack of confidence

Mimulus - fear of known things

Mustard - deep gloom for no reason

OakOak - the plodder who keeps going past the point of exhaustion

Olive - exhaustion following mental or physical effort

Pine - guilt

Red Chestnut - over-concern for the welfare of loved ones

Rock Rose - terror and fright

Rock Water - self-denial, rigidity and self-repression

Scleranthus - inability to choose between alternatives

Star of Bethlehem - shock

Sweet Chestnut - Extreme mental anguish, when everything has been tried and there is no light left

Vervain - over-enthusiasm

Vine - dominance and inflexibility

Walnut - protection from change and unwanted influences

Water Violet - pride and aloofness

White Chestnut - unwanted thoughts and mental arguments

Wild Oat - uncertainty over one's direction in life

Wild Rose - drifting, resignation, apathy

Willow - self-pity and resentment

PT Barnum would be proud.

[SugarFree]

Chestnut Bud - failure to learn from mistakes

If this really worked, they'd never have any repeat business.

[Fluffy]

So I guess you need to use the Beech, the Vine, and the Water Violet, before you even stop laughing at how stupid the other choices sound?

[DanD]

Sweet Chestnut - Extreme mental anguish, when everything has been tried and there is no light left

?I tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter...?

[Warty]

The comments are magnificent.

written by Paul, November 14, 2009
Dear Aurora,

Thank you for this beautiful account. My heart goes out to you and your loved ones in Cuba. I am from India, I watch with increasing horror the relentless march towards a consumerist and capitalist society. Already we are half-blinded by a pervasive commercial media, and willing to give up our resources in the name of development.

Yes, you stupid cunt, Indians want to have air conditioning and cars and not to have their babies die. Fucking imagine that.

[NoVAHockey]

Related -- I loathe the claim that US infant mortality rates show that we're somehow some backwater when it come to the rest of the world. Completely disregards the interventions and efforts provided here to premauture infants that would not be attempted anywhere else.

[Single mom of feral children]

Save my babies! I gots checks coming!

[wylie]

It's kinda funny that immigrants would complain about the exact reason they immigrated to America. "I want a better life for me and my familiy....but making money is bad."

Sorry Hector, Aziz, and Raj, but "a better life" and "making money" go hand-in-fucking-hand. I'm also sorry that the burden of not-being-a-stupid-douche rests solely on yourselves.

[rho]

This is a feature of large-scale immigration, not a bug. People are fully capable of holding two seemingly conflicting views at the same time: 1) I want to take advantage of the riches and pleasure of Western culture; 2) I want to turn Western culture into the godawful shithole I ran away from because it feels like home to me.

Sometimes cultural Shake-n-Bake works. Sometimes it don't. When it works, it's alright. When it don't, it sucks balls. Open borders skeptics figure "why take that gamble?"

[Fluffy]

Yes, the horror of watching 200 million people get lifted out of poverty in a 15 year time span.

It blinds me! MY EYES!!! MY EYES!!!!

[BakedPenguin]

...troll or epic dumbass, you decide...

Why can't he be both?

[J sub D]

See Edward/Max comments for further evidence of the phenomenon.

[J sub D]

See Edward/Max comments for further evidence of this phenomenon.

[Montani Semper Liberi]

Allow me to put in a plug for a great article co-authored by a college friend debunking the Wal-Mart destroys jobs myth that was published by Cato.

[Old Mexican]

Very nice paper. Thanks for the link.

The culprits behind the anti-Walmart hysteria are always pro-Union zealots; they cound't care less about Mom&Pop; outfits (which, by the way, are never unionized anyway), nor about the poor or they ability to find affordable goods to buy.

[Anonymous Lurker]

surprising how high of R squared they were able to get in the regression on # of small biz. seems like some very solid points.

[generic Brand]

Anecdotal evidence:

My dad owns and operates a vending machine business. He buys 95% of his supply through Sam's Club, which is in the Wal-Mart family. Sometimes though, Wal-Mart has sales on 24-packs of soda or even on chocolates. So in actuality Wal-Mart is actually helping his small business stay afloat with their lower prices.

[Prohibition Kills]

Nearly every youth sports program I have been involved with uses Sam's Club to buy affordable concessions to earn profit to help with league costs. It's great.

[SugarFree]

Link Storm!

Um, ok.

CWnerd12
12/13/10

I literally squeed when I saw dear Andrej on Jezebel. ANDREJ PEJIC IS THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.

Srsly my love for him and his pretty knows no bounds. My boyfriend is a trans-boy who wants to present as androgynous but still identify squarely as male, and Andrej is a huge inspiration to him. So much so that in the fututre, we intend to have two pomeranians, one name Fritzi, and one named Andrej.

[John]

Are you sure that is not one of the Nelson twins?

[Fist of Etiquette]

I'm pretty sure those are the twins from Hellboy II.

[wylie]

The chick with the spear was especially hot!

[sage]

Ye Gods. What a freakshow that site is.

[Ice Nine]

Hipster alert!

[T]

My boyfriend is a trans-boy who wants to present as androgynous but still identify squarely as male

Wait, what?

[Ska]

Do you see that statement as some sort of nonsense? What a patriarchal neanderthal you are.

[SugarFree]

A born-female (surgically altered or not) that wants to look androgynous but is too butch to pull it off.

I'm not sure when I became fluent in feminist nonsense. But I seem to have it down.

[T]

Okay, that's even more bizarre than I originally thought. I wish these people the best of luck in overcoming their biology to be whatever it is they desire.

[R C Dean]

My boyfriend is a trans-boy

OK, genetically female, but surgically altered to pre-pubescent male.

who wants to present as androgynous

Who went to the trouble of major surgical and hormonal treatment to change its sex, but wants everyone to think it is sexless

but still identify squarely as male

But still thinks of itself as a male, even though it is genetically female, physically pre-pubescent, and appears sexless.

In short:

Totally bugfuck insane.

[Ice Nine]

"...signed the softly spoken teenager"

And he's softly spoken no less. Who might have guessed?!

[Pip]

And they wonder why people want to beat them up:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4ojR.....LeMale.jpg

[Slap the Enlightened!]

Have a Cosmotarian Christmas!

[BakedPenguin]

There was a huge debate here in Orlando about a WalMart Super Center being built along a stretch of highway that has a high-crime, mainly black neighborhood to its west, and a more upscale, hipster, mainly white neighborhood to its east.

Naturally, the poor people thought about jobs brought to their neighborhood, and low-cost food and other products. The hipsters thought about increased traffic through their neighborhood, and (not really mentioned) the declass? effect of having a WalMart nearby.

Unfortunately, the hipsters had more political clout, and they won.

[John]

Hey, why can't those poor people buy their stuff from Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn like everyone else? Don't they know Wall Mart is exploiting them?

[kinnath]

I bought reproduction mission-style pulls for all my cabinets from rejuvenation.com.

Yet I shop regularly at Target and semi-regularly at Wally World.

I guess I'm just a tragically mixed-up middle age hipster-wannabe that can't really pull it off.

[Pip]

"I guess I'm just a tragically mixed-up middle age hipster-wannabe that can't really pull it off."

You have old man's penis?

[generic Brand]

Sure, why help the people of Pine Hills (notoriously high crime area with a high school that has 87 languages spoken in it) by bringing in lower priced food and decent paying jobs when you can preach to them about the consumerism Wal-Mart will bring to the area and the death of such quaint woodlands?

[John]

http://online.wsj.com/article/.....on_LEADTop

Tom Paulenty on the moral case against government employee unions.

[Old Mexican]

I will take the guy seriously when he finally comes around to make a moral case against government - period.

[John]

Against all government? Wouldn't that require him being an anarchist?

[Karl]

No, no! An anarcho-capitalist! He'll have his cake and eat it too!

[wylie]

Libertarianism: Being against all gov't, because that's the only way to reign in the gov't that we need to grudgingly keep.

[Old Mexican]

Re: John,

Against all government? Wouldn't that require him being an anarchist?

One does not need to be an anarchist to make a moral case against government, John. Even robbers and thieves repent for their sins...

[John]

"One does not need to be an anarchist to make a moral case against government,"

If all government is immoral, then there should be no government. Thinking there should be no government makes you an anarchist.

[Fluffy]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

[Old Irish saying]

"If there's a gov't, I'm against it."

[Citizen Nothing]

A necessary evil is still an evil.

[Episiarch's Greatest Hits]

"Are you purposely obtuse, or just unbelievably stupid?"

[Old Mexican]

Re: John,

If all government is immoral, then there should be no government. Thinking there should be no government makes you an anarchist.

Thinking there should be no disease makes me a medical doctor. Right?

[cynical]

lolwhut? Are you some sort of troll designed to make libertarians look incoherent and hysterical?

[nekoxgirl]

From what I can tell, John's down with the warfare state, just doesn't like the welfare state.

[Old Mexican]

Oh, and I am an anarchist. I am trying to show you that just because one makes a moral case against government does not make one an anarchist.

[generic Brand]

Thinking there should be no disease makes me a medical doctor. Right?

What? Those aren't even the same line of reasoning. Anarchy = no government, so thinking there should be no government makes one an anarchist.

Medical doctors, last time I checked, were in the business of curing diseases. So why the hell would a medical doctor won't all disease gone?

John's argument is similar to "thinking no meat should be eaten makes one a vegetarian (or a lesbian)"

[Old Mexican]

Re: generic Brand,

Medical doctors, last time I checked, were in the business of curing diseases. So why the hell would a medical doctor won't all disease gone?

The same way an anarchist would want all government gone. However, I don't have to be a medical doctor to ARGUE a moral case in favor of fighting diseases. The same way, I don't have to be an anarchist to make a moral case against government, or a woman to make a case for vaginas.

John's argument is similar to "thinking no meat should be eaten makes one a vegetarian (or a lesbian)"

Or a Buddist. Or someone that suffers from gout. See the trend?

One does not have to be an anarchist to MAKE a MORAL CASE against government. One can make a moral case against pot smoking, and still be a pot smoker. I can make a case against having cats, but that would be no surprise since I hate their guts... but I digress.

[Barack Obama]

"Even robbers and thieves repent for their sins..."

Let me be clear. Not all of us do.

[J sub D]

The raison d'etre for unions is protecting the workers from being exploited by the evil capitalist owners of the means of production. As it relates to public employees this is a non sequitur.

[T]

Well, if you view the voters as both the owners and means of production in the public sector, the unions are doing a bang-up job of protecting pubsec employees from them.

[cynical]

Businesses exist for capitalists to exploit workers. Unions exist for politicians to exploit workers.

[Jersey Patriot]

I'm pretty sure the government can exploit workers just as well as the capitalists. It's not like government mines and oil wells don't have bureaucrats cutting corners on safety and pressuring folks to work unpaid overtime. Government unions can also protect cops and firemen from having to use their jobs in a political way. Note, I didn't say it ended the practice, but it gives the cop/fireman the power to stand up against a political use of their job. Exploitation takes many forms.

[Corduroy]

"Government unions can also protect cops and firemen from having to use their jobs in a political way."

ROFL

[P Brooks]

Late Stage Capitalism.

ObamaCare has the cure. Yay!

[Mike M.]

Up to 30 degrees below average - Cold put east in vice grip: record lows possible from Key West to Atlanta. See how low temperatures will go.

[Mike M.]

Up to 30 degress below average - Cold puts east in vice grip. Record lows possible from Key West to Atlanta.

[Mike M.]

Up to 30 degrees below average - Cold puts east in vice grip. Record lows possible from Key West to Atlanta.

[Mike M.]

Up to 30 degrees below average - Cold puts east in vice grip. Record lows possible from Key West to Atlanta.

[P Brooks]

WalMart hasn't destroyed nearly as many Mom and Pop stores as the dreaded cupcake truck scourge.

[Ice Nine]

If you're talking chocolate-frosted cupcakes here, you'd best tread lightly, son.

[nekoxgirl]

Awesome!

[Mike M.]

Up to thirty degrees below average: Cold puts east in vice grip. Record low temperatures possible from Key West to Atlanta.

[BakedPenguin]

The late, lamented Spy Magazine had a great article on Holbrooke entitled Bland Ambition. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it anywhere on the webz.

[l0b0t]

Spy... I miss you so. Thanks to Spy, Donald Trump will always be a short-fingered vulgarian, I never bothered with American Psycho, & Bette Davis will always be "Separated At Birth" from the Evil Apple Tree in Oz.

[BakedPenguin]

I never bothered with American Psycho...

God, they used to rail on Bret Easton Ellis...

[PapayaSF]

Great mag. I've been selling my old copies on eBay for a decent profit (many went for $15 each).

[PapayaSF]

Correction: on eBay and Amazon.

[generic Brand]

Doesn't the libertarian part of you die when you are forced to use PayPal through your eBay sales?

[PapayaSF]

Doesn't bother me. Actually I have a friend with active Amazon and eBay stores with great reputations, so I give her stuff to sell for me, and give her a nice commission.

[Mike M.]

Up to thirty degrees below average: Cold puts east in vice grip. Record low temperatures possible from Key West to Atlanta.

[Spur]

Assange granted bail - now - where has the War on Christmas been this year? I've barely seen anything - is the bad economy hurting the Seasons Greetings War Charge?

[BakedPenguin]

where has the War on Christmas been this year?

I can't answer that, but maybe this will help.

[Spur]

Assange granted bail - now - where has the War on Christmas been this year? I've barely seen anything - is the bad economy hurting the Seasons Greetings War Charge?

[John]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/.....Leaks.html

Glenn Greenwald proves again that he is an intolerant self promoting bitch.

UPDATE: CREW executive director Melanie Sloan responds that Greenwald's resignation is "quite welcome."

"Glenn is using CREW merely as a foil for his own press ambitions rather than to make any real policy points," she said, adding that she learned of his resignation from the press. "This is the second time recently Glenn has chosen to take his disputes with CREW public without discussing them with us."

She accused Greenwald and other progressives of "demonizing us for disagreeing" on WikiLeaks.

"I guess the current position du jour is 'You're supposed to be on WikiLeaks side no matter what, and if you are varying from that, you're terrible, you're awful, you're evil,'" she said.

[Spur]

I'm sure CREW is an organization close to your heart John.

[John]

Not really. But, that doesn't change what an insufferably smug douche Greenwald is.

[Fluffy]

Good for him.

CREW shouldn't get to pretend to be a government accountability organization if they're going to oppose citizens having information about government activities available to them.

I would have quit those bitches, too.

Look, there are anti-Wikileaks arguments to be made. But if you make them, you shouldn't go around pretending to be a government accountability organization - because all anti-Wikileaks arguments involve in one way or another arguing that there are things more important than government accountability.

It's funny to see John call out Greenwald for doing exactly the right thing. John shits on the ACLU because they aren't pro-2nd amendment enough for him, and to him that undoes all the other work they do. But when someone else takes the single-issue blowtorch to CREW, that's "intolerant douchery".

Typical John.

[John]

I think there are reasonable arguments both ways on Wikileaks. I am leaning more towards saying you can't after Assange the more I think about it. But I can see both sides of it.

And I don't see why CREW can't make those arguments. And the head of the group can't make them. Greenwald is free to disagree and say she doesn't speak for him personally. But to quit in some public way and act like there is no reasonable way to disagree with him, like he always act, is just him being a smug douch

I will never understand your man crush on Greenwald. That mother fucker would take away every economic freedom you have if he had the chance. He is absolutely one of the most intolerant assholes writing today. But because you share a few enemies, you think have this love for him.

Typical Fluffy.

[Fluffy]

No, John.

We have a government that has completely slipped its constitutional leash. You acknowledge that every day.

CREW is an organization that purports to hold that government accountable.

The only way for it to do that, in our situation, is to take an adversarial position vis-a-vis our government's ongoing and pervasive attempts to not be accountable.

And I use the word "adversarial" because it's pretty much directly analogous to the adversarial relationship between a prosecutor and a public defender.

If there was an organization that claimed to speak for public defenders, and it came out and said, "You know, too much focus on Miranda lets guilty people get away a lot. We should stop doing that so much!" that would be an example of an argument that a reasonable person might make, but not one the head of a public defender organization should ever make.

Similarly, you can make an argument against Wikileaks and be a reasonable person. But not if you're the head of a government accountability organization. Because now I have to assume that, today and every day, CREW is aware of all sorts of shit that they aren't telling us because they think it would be "irresponsible" of them to tell us about it. And as soon as I have to think that about CREW, they aren't a credible government accountability organization any more.

I have no illusions about Greenwald. He's a progressive, and his economic views are atrocious. But when he's right, he's right. You're so bound and determined to hate him for being an economic progressive that to you, even when he's right, he's still wrong. And that kinda sucks.

Maybe I do the same thing to Palin, but every time I see a Palin article even now I scan it because I'm hoping to see her say something friendly to libertarianism.

[generic Brand]

^This. Greenwald may not get everything right, but he's right about Wikileaks and the occasional civil liberties post he writes.

By the way, Palin writes?! I thought she just sort of blathered.

[John]

Also, Greenwald has been associated with them for a long time. Why didn't he at least talk to them and hear their side of the story before resigning?

He didn't talk to them because this, like everything for Greenwald, is about him posing and getting love from people like you who should by all rights hate his guts.

[Fluffy]

What else is there for them to say?

[cynical]

"Why didn't he at least talk to them and hear their side of the story before resigning?"

On what planet is the article they post in HuffPo not "their side of the story"? He didn't resign over rumors about them, he resigned over the group's own statements.

[Mike M.]

Hundreds of new cold and snow records set in the USA: 426 record low temperatures set in the last week from south Florida to New York State.

[Old Mexican]

Weather is not climate!

Government builds roads!

[Brett L]

Even when David Brooks writes a column I mostly agree with, his quoting of Karl Marx and use of college socialist terms like "bourgeois values" makes me want to punch a baby. Writing a paeon to the middle-class work ethic in the language of people who hate the middle class... tone-deaf or just plain stupid?

[Corduroy]

just plain stupid

[Corduroy]

I'm liking the descriptive term choices today. Reason should get polling options built into the comments where we make our own polls and get to see the voting results, as predictable as they might be.

[Vince Foster]

Sounds like Holbrooke was worried about cablegate and about to pre-emptively drop a dime on Hillary.

[Warty]

Timeless Winter

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

Crappy internet video isn't nearly fast enough to keep up with the musicians, but I believe that the guitarist's pinky is faster and stronger than my index finger.

Show off bastard.

//tuned up the old six string recently, doing student exercises again...

[BakedPenguin]

It would be more impressive if they were really playing in the cold. I once played an outdoor gig at around 45?, and my fingers did not respond that well.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

The one time I tried to play in the cold it took more than an hour for the strings to settle down and give me a consistent tune, too.

[P Brooks]

Glenn Greenwald proves again that he is an intolerant self promoting bitch.

Your obsession with Greenwald is painful to watch. Seek professional help.

[Old Mexican]

The Statist's lament: The triumph of Austrian Economics.

"The Fed: The Chicago School's Achilles Heel" Robert Murphy

http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy/murphy174.html

Excerpt:

In a recent post "Triumph of the Austrian Economists," David Frum laments the displacement of the respectable Chicago School as the economists of choice among the political Right. Frum fails to see that conservative Republicans are justified in switching their allegiance to the Austrian economists, because supply-side monetarists have a glaring blind spot when it comes to the Federal Reserve.

[...]

Frum's line about "Hoover era officials" who wanted to "purge the rottenness out of the system" is a reference to Andrew Mellon, treasury secretary to Herbert Hoover. In Hoover's memoirs, he describes the White House discussions following the stock-market crash of October 1929. Hoover explains that Mellon did indeed advocate a policy of liquidationism, in which the federal government would stand back and allow the market to run its natural course.

This is the point at which modern Keynesians ? a category that includes David Frum himself, whether or not he chooses to use the label ? stop quoting from Hoover's memoirs. "Aha!" they say, "Hoover sat back and did nothing, and that's why the 1929 crash turned into the Great Depression. Quick, let's spend some more borrowed money!"

Unfortunately for the Keynesians, if they would just read the very next page in Hoover's memoirs, he explains that he rejected Mellon's advice. Even though people like Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, and yes, David Frum continue to insist otherwise, Herbert Hoover was a big-government man who instituted a New Deal lite.

[nekoxgirl]

Conversing with most liberals about Hoover is like trying to argue with a FDR campaign commercial circa 1932. You point out all the things that Hoover DID do but they still revert back to arguing he did nothing because FDR said so, I guess.

[generic Brand]

Even though people like Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, and yes, David Frum continue to insist otherwise, Herbert Hoover was a big-government man who instituted a New Deal lite.

Sort of like George W. Bush before Barack H. Obama.

[P Brooks]

My boyfriend is a trans-boy who wants to present as androgynous but still identify squarely as male

A walking, talking Ken doll?

[Wind Rider]

Coming to off Broadway this spring - "Aspiring to be Pat"

[wylie]

Ken dolls have vaginas? (Apparently firefox thinks you can't pluralize vagina...ok then.)

[BakedPenguin]

Apparently firefox thinks you can't pluralize vagina...

What a sad life some developers lead.

[SugarFree]

But "whore caverns" is perfectly acceptable.

[BakedPenguin]

Try using that on Feministing.

[SugarFree]

Memebase

[Frayed Knot]

It seems to prefer the Latin, vaginae

[Wind Rider]

Love or hate Wal-Mart, it's almost impossible not to admit that when it comes to establishing traffic flow in and out of their locations, Wal-Mart pretty much takes the prize for having some of THE most fucked up traffic pattern schemes around.

[robc]

I used to think this. But both free standing Chick-Fil-As near me have managed to make Wal-Mart look like geniuses.

[T]

I usually have no problems near mine. Driving through the parking lot? Deathrace 2000 time.

[Slut Bunwalla]

I could be wrong, but I doubt that's Walmart's fault. Probably the fault of the city zoning or whatever.

[MattXIV]

I wonder how much is deliberate. One of the malls around here clearly designed the traffic flows so that it would be easy to get in but difficult to get out.

[robc]

If you know any triathletes, send them the following, although they probably have already seen it.

Im training for an Ironman

[Dogged Lee]

"Stem cells may have cured man with HIV."

Kill a baby, save a queer.

[Aresen]

We'll kill you first, okay?

[cynical]

Twas adult stem cells...

[Aresen]

I like Walmart.

Sorry to shock you.

However, their prices are 7 to 20% lower on brand name products and if you pay attention to the labels their house generic brands, you can save 30 to 50%. [Eg: Their generic "Equate Antiseptic Mouthwash" is the same as Listerine to 1 part in a thousand, yet costs less than half.]

I'm not going to go to Walmart for top of the line items, but for everyday use items, I like the store.

/ heretic mode

[T]

Can't beat it for consumable goods.

Like ammo, toilet paper, and soap.

[P Brooks]

WalMart has the best price by far on Mini-Mags. That's why I go.

[John]

http://www.doublex.com/blog/xx.....gracefully

Hanna Rosen; old people should hurry up and die so we can afford ethanol subsidies.

Double X is really in its own way more pathetic than feministing. At least the feministing girls are occasionally vulgar. Doulbe X is a collection of prudish ex wives you never want to meet again.

[Warty]

I looked over the blog, and it was just profoundly uninteresting. Depressingly so.

[John]

As I said, it is more pathetic than Feministing. Feministing is a bubbling cauldron of stupidity, but it is at least interesting in its own twisted way. Double X is just as stupid but without any of the fun parts.

[cynical]

Oh, I guess that explains the name. I thought it was a gene thing.

[Rhywun]

"This guy is the soul of New York City."

Actually, the survey would seem to indicate otherwise. If 71% of us want a Wal-Mart here, it stands to reason that around the same percentage of us know this guy is a douche. The "silent majority" effect.

[Jose]

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