Reason Morning Links: START Treaty Close, More U.S. Incursions Into Pakistan, Net Neutrality Nears
- Senate close to approving new START treaty with Russia.
- U.S. to send more Special Ops ground troops into Pakistan.
- GOP expected to benefit from new census. Texas to pick up 3-4 seats in the House.
- Haley Barbour on how Mississippi blacks fared during the civil rights era: "I just don't remember it as being that bad."
- FCC set to pass a set of "net neutrality" rules.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t…..1QCq11xJDQ
So, what is free speech? what is protected speech? what is healthy man-child love? Is there a libertarian answer?
After Polk Sheriff’s Office detectives and State Attorney’s Office lawyers became aware of this pedophilia training material, undercover detectives contacted Greaves and offered to purchase his book. Greaves mailed what he referred to as his own personal copy of his book, signed, after being paid $50, to an address in Lakeland and within the jurisdiction of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
So this is obscenity? I mean the polk county sherrif was just asking for it.
Were there actual pictures of minors engaged in sex acts or just illustrations? One is like playing GTA. The other is like actually stealing cars.
From what I’ve seen, no actual images or even graphic illustrations. It’s more like reading about playing GTA. Or as ‘Good Morning America’ put it, the Anarchist’s Cookbook for Pedophiles.
In that case, I’ll have to side with the author on this one.
So, what is free speech?
All of it.
what is protected speech?
All of it.
what is healthy man-child love?
None of it.
Its not rocket surgery, people.
Rocket Surgery?
I would hope not!
U.S. to send more Special Ops ground troops into Pakistan.
The Obama Administration realized they have a surplus of troops since they completely withdrew from Iraq.
GOP expected to benefit from new census. Texas to pick up 3-4 seats in the House.
Gentlemen, start your gerrymandering.
Most scientists in this country are Democrats. That’s a problem.
…Or could it be that disagreements over climate change are essentially political?and that science is just carried along for the ride? For 20 years, evidence about global warming has been directly and explicitly linked to a set of policy responses demanding international governance regimes, large-scale social engineering, and the redistribution of wealth. These are the sort of things that most Democrats welcome, and most Republicans hate. No wonder the Republicans are suspicious of the science….
Haley Barbour on how Mississippi blacks fared during the civil rights era: “I just don’t remember it as being that bad.”
It looks like we found our 2012 Republican presidential nominee.
I agree.
Perfect quote to take out of context. Thanks for perpetrating the story, Balko.
(he was referring to the unrest in his community during integration – that the transition in Yazoo City from segregation to integration wasn’t as bumpy as other places)
But I agree, it was kind of a tone deaf mistake for him to make.
AFSCME gets their knickers in a twist about the evil neocon hatefest known as ’60 Minutes’.
More fun AFSCME
I don’t know who to believe! Why would our public servants willingly bankrupt the communities they sacrificed so much for? It doesn’t make sense!
They’re still pissed about the hate getting bumped up from two minutes.
Haley Barbour on how Mississippi blacks fared during the civil rights era: “I just don’t remember it as being that bad.”
It wasn’t that bad for Haley.
I tend to agree with the legal view that the FCC knows it will get shot down in court and it is doing this to just get the headache over with. They’re just cleaning house of what the administration wants to do even if it’s a loss.
In fairness to Barbour, he was apparently explaining why his hometown (Yazoo City) didn’t have violence when integrating, unlike nearly every other municipality in Mississippi, not claiming that it “wasn’t that bad” everywhere in Mississippi.
Not that anyone actually cares about what people actually say.
+1. I would have expected better from Balko.
Yeah, Ace had a post about this yesterday. Apparently Barbour’s brother was the mayor of Yazoo City and was pretty moderate and pragmatic about integration. Plus, he was a kid for most of when the civil rights movement was taking place, which is sure to color his memories.
color his memories
racist!
LOL-didn’t even think about that unfortunate turn of phrase.
Ah, but my tongue is firmly in cheek. We may have come far from civil rights, but I think much too sensitive. Then again, I perpetuate it.
FCC set to pass a set of “net neutrality” rules.
Prepare yourselves for the coming battle of the titans, as regulators and legislators will one day engage in all out war over who gets to control every aspect of our private lives.
Yeah, the keywords in their regulation is legal website. So who gets to make the rules as to what is legal?
Australia’s White Summer
Australia swaps summer for Christmas snow
Snow and ice covering buildings and cars on December 19, 2010 at Mount Hotham,Victoria, as snow fell in Australia. The usual hot and summery December weather was replaced in parts by icy gusts sweeping up from the Southern Ocean, giving the country a taste of a white Christmas. Snow has fallen in parts of east coast states New South Wales and Victoria.
Snow fell in Australia on Monday, as the usual hot and summery December weather was replaced in parts by icy gusts sweeping up from the Southern Ocean, giving the country a taste of a white Christmas.
Snow has fallen in parts of east coast states New South Wales and Victoria, leaving ski resorts ? some of which are usually snow-free at this time of year ? with dumps of up to 10 centimetres (four inches).
“It’s white, everything is white,” Michelle Lovius, the general manager of the Kosciuszko Chalet Hotel at Charlotte Pass told AFP.
“It’s white, everything is white,” Michelle Lovius, the general manager of the Kosciuszko Chalet Hotel at Charlotte Pass told AFP.
So racist. Its sad.
Next, she’ll probably be telling us “I just don’t remember this episode of climate change as being that bad.”
Now you know what they mean when they talk about the White Australia Policy.
It should be noted that Mount Hotham Village, Victoria lies at 1,750 metres or over five thousand feet above see level.
While unusual, winter conditions are not unknown at high elevations in Australia in the summer, especially in the lower latitudes.
Contrary to many Americans’ (and also Canadians’) cartoonish views of Australia as some constantly sunburned tropical desert or beach resort the southern quarter of the continent is firmly in the cooler temperate zone of the world.
When I was a kid in Hobart, Tasmania, I recall playing in the snow on Mt Welington (4,170 ft) in the morning and then going for a swim at Sandy Bay in the afternoon all in midsummer. only happened once, though.
Also, hot and summery does not really describe the usual December weather in the Australian alps where Mount Hotham is located.
Like most places at higher altitudes the temperatures run many degrees cooler than those at sea level.
Australia’s real?
Yes, but Crocodile Dundee is fiction. 🙂
I still have my doubts about “Tasmania”.
🙂
Oh, it’s real.
And so is the devil.
“Raaaaacist!!”
He’s why I stopped voting.
He’s because you stopped voting (atleast your equivalents in the land of a thousand lakes.
No. I voted in 2008. But because the Minnesota Dem Machine stole the election (e.g., “Oh look! We just found 100 more ballots in the trunk of a car! And surprise! All 100 voted for Franken!) I shall not vote again.
Boy howdy, the Democrats in Palm Beach and Broward Counties needed them fellers when they tried to do that for Al Gore in 2000.
My Palm Beach County election officials (Democrats) promised live on CNN on day 2 of the recount to “do whatever it takes to ensure that Al Gore gets elected president”. Surprisingly, nobody batted an eyelash. Amazing to me how hard they worked to steal that election, and the story continued to be how it was republicans stealing the election via mysterious police roadblocks that nobody could find and the networks “calling the election for Bush” at 2 am (after having called it for Gore at 7pm, while polls in western Florida were still open). And most prominently because of a supreme court decision which dared to apply Florida law to a Florida election.
And this from a “pox on both your houses” 3rd way guy.
As far as I can tell, the only people who don’t recognize that as an outright attempt to steal the election for Gore either don’t live in Florida or are diehard Democrat partisans.
I really didn’t care who won at the time (I voted for Harry Browne) but the longer that shit went on the more obvious it became.
That night when they called Florida for Gore (as you say, before the polls had even closed in W. Florida), they were still claiming that North Carolina was “a toss-up”.
Bush won NC by like 14%, but we know that neither Bush nor Gore could have won Florida by more than a couple of thousand votes,
Network asshats.
Were there actual pictures of minors engaged in sex acts or just illustrations?
Well, it’s not like any of us own the book, but from what I heard when the guy first made the news, it’s a pickup/relationship advice book with fictional stories to illustrate the advice. For pedophiles.
I own worse things. But they’re by people who went to Oxford and Columbia and shit, so it’s not illegal for them to make worse things.
Are any of those books How to Pick Up Your Daughter (or Maybe an Attractive Cousin) at the Next Family Reunion by David Epstein?
You might can find that in the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. Assuming all of the copies are not checked out at the time. There may be a waiting list.
There’s a mini ice age coming, says man who beats weather experts:
http://www.smh.com.au/environm…..1945a.html
“I have not a clue whether his methods are sound or not. But when so many of his forecasts seem to come true, and when he seems to be so consistently ahead of the Met Office, I feel I want to know more. Piers Corbyn believes that the last three winters could be the harbinger of a mini ice age that could be upon us by 2035, and that it could start to be colder than at any time in the last 200 years. He goes on to speculate that a genuine ice age might then settle in, since an ice age is now cyclically overdue.”
I was going to criticize the mini-ice age concept when we are overdue for a real one, but yeah, covered.
I’m accelerating my offerings to Gaia. Burning used motor oil in car tires brings only frosty indifference. I’m hoping that burnt offerings of raw crude in environmentally sensative areas might arouse her hot wrath.
*sensitive
Fallen Angels
One of my least favorite Niven novels.
I’ve not read that one. After Footfall and Lucifer’s Hammer I suppose N&P can have one flat “destroy the earth” novel.
I believe it’s free at the Baen online library. Whole lot of axes ground in that book, as well as a lot of hat tips to fans and in-jokes. The ideas and descriptions though of what the Ice coming back would look like are worth the time spend reading the book, IMHO.
I few good scenes. Some fun expositions on the nature of fandom. But overall very weak. Not worth owning.
The science is settled. We need to act now to make sure all nations emit as much carbon as possible to prevent this fatal cooling. Developing nations will need aid to get their carbon outputs up and expand their economies to make certain that the planet doesn’t freeze.
I can think of a few “weather experts” who could use a good beating.
Bastards tell me it’s going to be sunny and mild… and it’s cold and rainy!
The skiing is gonna be fucking fantastic, then!
A little story of jury nullification to warm your heart on a cold Tuesday morning.
12 random peers. I pretty much oppose Voir Dire (as used to seat juries). If anything it should be greatly limited (Something like max 18 in the pool, to get down to 12 plus alternates).
Why do you oppose Voir Dire? The 6th amendment guarantees an impartial jury not a jury of one’s “peers.” Isn’t voir dire an acceptable method of identifying those who may be partial?
Hence limited voir dire. My understanding is that the meaning of “impartial” is to get your uncle or the victim’s cousin off the jury.
I dont see how, for example, someone who opposes the death penalty isnt still impartial in a capital murder case. They arent partial towards or against the accused. But I dont think they have to be in favor of the law in question to serve.
Yeah, I posted that story on a gun forum last night. A lot of government-conspiracy nuts hang out there and keep reminding everybody about jury nullification as a way for the people to assert themselves.
Nobody commented on the issue at all.
And … two guys risk their lives in an inflatable boat to rescue a deer that had fallen through the ice. For their nice act, the police fine them $90 for not wearing PFDs while doing it.
Actually, it seems that the impetus behind the fine was failure to respect the cop’s authoritai:
“although the rescuers meant well, they disregarded orders given by officers on the scene.”
Where is it written that you have to do what a cop tells you, if you’re not being placed under arrest and not doing anything illegal?
Unwritten rule…don’t tase me bro.
“Where is it written that you have to do what a cop tells you, if you’re not being placed under arrest and not doing anything illegal?”
The Commerce Clause.
No, no. Its the Necessary and Proper Clause.
Which is Founderese for “Respect My Authoritay!”
**yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn**
Morning, everyone! Just getting up SINCE I’M ON VACATION TILL JAN 3, 2011!!!! Those of you working – GET BACK TO WORK, AND QUIT STEALING FROM YOUR EMPLOYERS!
While I’m thinking about it, Happy Generic, Nondenomenational, Secular, Civic Festive Season e’erbody!
Also, Merry Christmas and Happy Hogmanay.
There’s a perfectly good rational thing to celebrate today. Its the Solstice, which means that — unless something goes terribly wrong — at 6:43 EST the days in the Northern Hemisphere begin to lengthen again and Fimbelwinter is yet again averted.
I will be celebrating with mead and a yule log.
I’m celebrating because today my dog turned 100 in dog-years.
She started celebrating last night with bacon-wrapped shrimp, parmesan encrusted tilapia, mashed potatoes and al dente green beans.
Damn – 100 years. Happy Birfday, Puppy!
Yeah, happy birfday!
Always nice to see a Discworld ref.
My pooch will be 77 in dog years on Valentine’s day. My folks eldest is something like 112. Doesn’t look a day over 80.
Just started the thief of time.
Only discovered the series about 2 years ago.
Laddie Good Dog!
I will be celebrating with mead and a yule log.
“No homo.”
What? When did wine and fire become homo? Will they leave nothing for us breeders? Next I’ll be having to say ‘no homo’ whilst talking about charring meat on a grill…
No homo
For some reason mead often gets categorized with beer. I think categorizing with wine is probably worse.
Cider, yeah, thats basically apple/pear wine.
But fermented honey? Im pretty sure mead is its own category. Not really like wine or beer, in my very not even remotely humble opinion.
Mead is mead. The process is closer to making wine that to making beer.
Mead is mead
That is what I said.
The process is closer to making wine that to making beer.
BS. You dont squeeze the bees to get the honey out.
All 3 are similar from the add yeast point on, its getting to there that is different, whether crushing fruit for the juice, or mashing grain, or pouring honey into the fermenter.
Mead is by far the easiest. Unless you count the stealing honey from the bees part.
That is what I said.
And I concurred. Sorry if the tone was inappropriate.
All 3 are similar from the add yeast point on, . . .
I agree, and I disagree.
Sure show mead is easy — honey, water, yeast. Then it takes forever to ferment and longer yet to clear.
Melomel is like making wine.
Braggot is like making beer.
I started out with mead and moved to making wine. Don’t care for beer, so I haven’t tried to make any.
I’ve talked to lots of beer guys that dabble in mead. And sure enough, making mead is liking making beer, just easier.
I’ve talked to lots of wine guys that dabble in mead. And sure enough, making wine, just easier.
I got a second place last year in the mazer cup international with a product that was in the carboy for 4 years before I bottled it.
So I don’t actually think making mead is that much like making beer or making wine.
So I don’t actually think making mead is that much like making beer or making wine.
I think here is our agreement. It isnt really like either of the others.
Ive only made beer, Ive considered making mead (and hard lemonade – which I guess would really be more like lemon wine (with lots of added sugar)) but havent done it.
I make all three, all grain beer is hardest due to more possibilites for infection/poor conversion (on average, wine is second when you have potential for bad things in the crush (this is however slightly mitigated by the more robust yeasts used) and then mead…hell nothing eats honey practically so infection is neigh impossible…I energize and nutrient all my sweet meade yeast when fermenting jsut to give it a chance (honey of course has mild antibiotic properties). So, mead, in my opinion, is NOT wine or beer. It is mead and it is beautiful.
side note, I did a traditional and only fermented for 7 months in secondary…then bottled. It is clear but not as clear as I would have liked.
Had more to do with Yule Log. It was funnier in my head than when I posted it. Alas, no edit and no delete leaves bad jokes on occasion.
I had mead once and it’s a lot closer to wine than beer. Either way it was pretty repulsive – it reminded me of a really sweet white wine.
I had mead once and it’s a lot closer to wine than beer. Either way it was pretty repulsive – it reminded me of a really sweet white wine.
Then you didn’t have a good one. When I was making it, I would use a dry champagne yeast.
Also, mead is quite good heated on a cold snowy day.
My favorite mead, though, was a sparkling cranberry mead, aged a year after bottling. Quite the annual ritual for a few years – open up last year’s batch for Thanksgiving, start a new batch.
A really nice sack mead works in any situation where you would serve a Sauternes. But that’s a “sometimes” drink.
I’ve made bone-dry cherry melomels and off-dry pyments that work in any situation that a dry red wine would be appropriate.
Meads can be hopped and will have similar mouthfeel and flavors to big robust beers.
So don’t give up after one try.
At least there’s hope then.
Its all good. As you can see from the mead/wine/beer fight, everyone jumps someone about something here.
everyone jumps someone about something here
Thats a damn lie!
Oh wait…nevermind.
Do you buy or make mead?
Buy. The local craft beer bar is hosting both the lighting of the yule log and mead flights. One of the owners was telling me he helped a friend bottle some mead, but I don’t know if they sell/serve it in the bar.
QUIT STEALING FROM THE TAXPAYERS
“although the rescuers meant well, they disregarded orders given by officers on the scene.”
By ignoring the orders of the cops, those guys robbed dozens of municipal employees (policemen, firemen, DPW shovel-leaners) of precious overtime pay, and an opportunity to have their heroicism be portrayed by the media.
The guys in the boat are lucky they didn’t get shot.
As Mayor Daley the Elder said, “The Police aren’t there to create disorder – the Police? are there to preserve disorder.”
I’ll take two jars of order preserves please (they’re great on toast).
Is Obama seriously going to agree to real cuts in Social Security?
I find it nearly impossible to believe he can follow through on this trial balloon. If he agreed to this he would be guaranteeing a primary challenge from the left, and the likelihood that he could actually lose would skyrocket.
GOBAMA!
Nice reporting by Politico. The plan to cut SS is a “scheme,” not SS itself.
I wouldn’t bet on getting rid of her with anything less than a stake in the heart and an exorcism.
I’ll add the required “nukes from space, to be sure”
Beheading, cremation, salting the ashes?
Nope. She’s got one of them minority-majority districts, designed to ensure that no white person ever holds that seat, as a way to combat racism. Something about how creating political ghettos for black voters is the way to combat segretation, I believe.
Given her district, she’s there for as long as she wants to be.
Reversist!
No only that, locking up her district makes more districts republicans can win.
The GOP will strengthen her district, if that is at all possible.
Since Texas is adding 3-4 districts, on average the districts will shrink in geographic size. If there are any republican precincts at all in her district, they will get pulled out.
“Spread my work ethic, not my wealth.”
Sign seen at a tea party rally.
“These rules fulfill a promise to the future ? to companies that don’t yet exist, and the entrepreneurs that haven’t yet started work in their dorm rooms or garages,” Mr. Genachowski said in remarks prepared for the commission’s meeting on Tuesday in Washington. At present, there are no enforceable rules “to protect basic Internet values,” he added.
I guess if you choose to willfully ignore the entire history of private Internet development thus far, brain farts like this start to make sense.
Also, is there any human in existence that’s less funny than Al Franken in his current incarnation?
“Maybe you like Google Maps. Well, tough,” Mr. Franken said on Saturday on the Senate floor. “If the F.C.C. passes this weak rule, Verizon will be able to cut off access to the Google Maps app on your phone and force you to use their own mapping program, Verizon Navigator, even if it is not as good. And even if they charge money, when Google Maps is free.”
Could somebody please take this hapless clod out behind the woodshed and show him how to use complex newfangled technology like proxy servers? A vigorous throttling might be in order as well.
Mr Assange claimed the newspaper received leaked documents from Swedish authorities or “other intelligence agencies” intent on jeopardising his defence.
“The leak was clearly designed to undermine my bail application,” he said. “Someone in authority clearly intended to keep Julian in prison.”
http://www.news.com.au/feature…..5974366476
Jimmy’s not threatened by Julian’s release from jail. Jimmy’s happy for Julian.
Julian Assange doesn’t approve of leaks… against him. I really don’t understand why the contributors and commenters on this blog lionize this hypocritical, cowardly cretin.
“”U.S. to send more Special Ops ground troops into Pakistan””
So we just signaled to the world about what we are about to do in a combat zone. Are we going to prosecute the leaker?
I really don’t understand why the contributors and commenters on this blog lionize this hypocritical, cowardly cretin.
Objecting to statist assholes going ballistic about person X, threatening to kill him, setting up an apparent frame job on him, trying to put him on trial even when they have no jurisdiction
does not equal
“lionize”
The Moncler Outlet not only offer many adult Moncler down jackets
Thanks