Reason Morning Links: Oort Cloud Edition

• Barack Obama releases a budget proposal.
• Anonymous launches AnonLeaks.
• Ron Paul wins the CPAC straw poll, and Gary Johnson finishes third.
• The Egyptian military dissolves parliament, continues extrajudicial detentions.
• The uprising in Gabon continues, as do better-known protests in the Arab world.
• Swiss voters reject an anti-gun referendum.
• The leading Wall Street lobby wants to keep the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law.
• A dubious decision at the Federal Trade Commission.
• The Solar System may have a ninth planet after all.

Comments

[Achtung Baby]

All we need is Paul to hire an image consultant and spruce up his granpaish image, and we have our Republican ticket in 2012...Ron Paul and Donald Trump!

[gaijin97]

So, the president's budget will 'save' $1.1 trillion over a decade...and spend another $1.1 trillion more than it takes in this year?

Man that guy is one wicked smart mathlete!

[Rich]

'Save' or 'create'.

[Corduroy]

According to CNN, these cuts are "painful", even thought the f*cking budget proposal is still $3.7T.

The libertarian principle of non-initiation of violence is getting harder and harder to maintain.

[Mike M.]

Yep, I noticed that the whiny-ass big government titty babies in the media started coordinating their tired old message this weekend.

[Sovereign Immunity]

And yet, people will lap it up.

[Fatty Bolger]

Maybe. Not so sure it's going to work this time, though.

[sage]

whiny-ass big government titty babies

Nice.

[generic Brand]

White House budget director Jacob J. Lew has told advocates of reform that the White House thinks any significant plan offered by the president would simply become a target for partisan attack. Key Democrats, including Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (N.D.), said they accept that rationale. Republicans argued that Obama was abdicating a responsibility to chart a path to solvency.

Well, he got that part right. It's hard for either party to complain when they both love spending so damn much.

[Rich]

the White House thinks any significant plan offered by the president would simply become a target for partisan attack

And so no "significant plan" can be offered?

With all due respect, WTF?

[generic Brand]

Because now that he doesn't have congressional majority, he is a bipartisan president. Duh.

[Ted S.]

Does anybody else recall how, when Reagan would propose a budget, the Democrats would immediately declare it "Dead on arrival", complete with ceremony?

[Vermont Gun Owner]

You can't blame failure on the opposition if you don't even try. Same reason the Republicans had to "waste their time" with the repeal bill.

[CrackertyAssCracker]

It's the houses job to originate all spending bills. They should get to originatin. All spending plans proposed by Obama should properly be greeted with a big middle finger, but its not his job to choose a path to solvency. It's theirs.

[rather]

The cryptoanarchy.org site is difficult to navigate-is it Feb 14th or April 1st?

[Old Mexican]

Re: rather,

It's time for your Haldol, baby - you're due.

[Warty]

Miss San Antonio is too damn fat.

And the planet is called Nibiru, not Tyche, you uneducated buffoons.

[Michelle Obama]

Miss San Antonio is too damn fat.

This is what I'm talking about, people.

[Oprah]

I know, Girlfriend. What a porker!

[Amakudari]

Ramirez says she is 5-feet-eight, weighs 129 pounds and is a size 2. ...

But Woods stressed it was for Ramirez's own good. "I said, you know, 'Get off the tacos, get off the chips and the soda.' Because she's 17, and that's what these kids eat," Woods told the radio station.

Finally, some real news.

[heller]

Oh sure, Ramirez = tacos RAAAAAAAACIIIIIIIST!!!!111won1

[Vermont Gun Owner]

She's only 17? Guess I'll have to go back to Miss Austin.

[capitol l]

On the sidebar to that story they have a picture of Cynthia Nixon and her girlfriend...her girlfriend looks like Rocky Dennis.

[DanD]

If she's fat, then call me a chubby chaser.

[Jerry]

Who couldn't be in favor of f?r den Schutz vor Waffengewalt, the Swiss of course! They take their referendums very seriously.

[MNG]

Heard Orrin Hatch got booed and heckled while speaking at CPAC. I guess John will want charges pressed...

[John]

Did he get run off the stage and was unable to make a speech? Was he shouted down? If so, yes. If not, which seems to be the case, then no.

I don't know why you have such an affinity for for brownshirt tactics other than you think anything is okay as long as your side does it.

[MNG]

Oh I see, charges depend on whether the speaker gives up or not...Kind of a "take the speaker as you find them" rule...

[John]

Yes, if my behavior is so bad that it prevents you from speaking and disrupts the event, I have committed a crime. If I just shout at you during your speech, but you are still able to get your message out, then no. It is a simple concept. You just refuse to admit the obvious.

[Lost_In_Translation]

A crime in dickishness perhaps. The organizers have every right to toss you out ass first. Let's not take this up to the criminal level though. Brownshirt tactics only work up until the point the civilized folk tolerate it. Now, hurl a molotov coctail and we'll discuss the length of your pound me in the ass prison sentence.

[John]

If they ask you to leave and you don't, you have committed a crime. It is that simple. It is really up to the organizers. They can throw out whomever they want. But once they ask you to leave, you should have to leave. And if you don't, they should be able to call the cops on you and have you arrested.

[capitol l]

Yes, not leaving when asked is trespassing. However, you're saying that the disruption is a crime unto itself, meaning that if the heckler chased the guy off the stage, but peaceably left when asked to do so he would still face charges.

[John]

Again, I think that would be up to the organizers. If the heckler ran the guy off stage before the organizers could call the cops and get him out, then yes it would be a crime. If the organizers thought such behavior was fine, the it wouldn't be. I don't think just because you are successful in shouting the guy down before the cops get there should necessarily excuse you.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Trespassing is the crime we're talking about. Running the guy off the stage (assault) could also be a crime. But yelling loudly is not a crime as long as you do not assault the speaker and leave when told to (escorted out).

[capitol l]

Also, as minge pointed out, different speakers are effected differently by hecklers. Yelling profanities at Libby Dole is going to get a markedly different reaction from yelling the same thing at Bill Hicks.

[Zeb]

You'd have to yell pretty loud to get a response from Hicks.

[Brett L]

You've never seen the videos of him screaming "Take this drunk cunt out of here! Take her someplace nice!", I take it.

[Zeb]

Seems to me that if the audience at an event is free to cheer their approval of things, they ought also generally to be free to express their distaste for whatever is going on as well. Unless there is a predetermined expected standard of behavior, then people can do what they feel unless and until they are asked to leave by someone in charge. If they refuse to do that, they are trespassing, but before that, no one is committing any crime.

[generic Brand]

Seems to me that if the audience at an event is free to cheer their approval of things, they ought also generally to be free to express their distaste for whatever is going on as well.

THIS. And actually I am more turned off by the constant cheering, applause, standing ovations at one of these speeches. That interrupts the flow of the speech far more than one or two instances of heckling. But I guess it has the benefit of stroking the speakers, er... ego.

[capitol l]

Couldn't you simply ask the heckler to leave, and if they don't call the cops to have them arrested for trespassing?

No, it would be better to have a "new law" that "does something" about the scourge of political hecklers.

[John]

I don't disagree with you. But MNG would. He thinks the Muslim students out in California should not have been charged even though they made a scene, were asked to leave, and didn't.

[Lost_In_Translation]

asked to leave can be elevated to "escorted out" before criminal charges need enter the picture.

[John]

You can't lay hands on someone. That is battery. All you can do is ask them to leave and then call the police if they don't.

[Lost_In_Translation]

then how do bouncers work?

[MNG]

I said they deserved their suspension from organization funds and campus recognition. I just don't get a hard on for law enforcement options like John the good conservative...

[John]

It is the difference between "conduct" and "disorderly conduct".

[Lost_In_Translation]

Which has been so abused by police I have no idea where the line is anymore. Bouncers make better police than police sometimes.

[generic Brand]

Disagree. Bouncers throw someone out for any reason they want. Not wearing the right kind of shirt, talking to loudly (in a club no less), doing the jive when everyone else is doing the hustle... Since there are no rules posted in a club, the only test is admittance and once you make it past that you should be free to enjoy yourself, as long as you are not harming anyone else.

[Lost_In_Translation]

you have not run in to many police lately. Atleast bouncers desire to hurl people through doors is mitigated by the fact that if they start empyting the bar/club of all its customers the owners will get a bit perturbed. Police inhibition seems only to be from the paperwork to file.

[generic Brand]

Atleast bouncers desire to hurl people through doors is mitigated by the fact that if they start empyting the bar/club of all its customers the owners will get a bit perturbed.

Not really though. If more people get thrown out, the club is seen as "more exclusive" and becomes even more popular. It really just depends who you throw out I suppose. I got thrown out once and had no desire to go back there. But the people who saw it happen probably immediately sided with the bouncers and said "Good. Keep riff-raff like that out of here, see." (I guess it was a 1920's themed bar...)

[Lost_In_Translation]

sounds like a win win. Atleast you weren't beaten by batons on a streetcorner.

[generic Brand]

True, but I was assaulted for nothing more than heckling the bouncer. Is that acceptable to John? A forceful expulsion from the premises for laughing at the guy for being a prick?

Yeah, I was being kind of a dick. But there's nothing illegal about that. He pushed me twice and then put me in a full-nelson or something and dragged me out of the club. I had my hands up the whole time to show I wasn't doing anything. Outside were some officers; I went up and tried to report the assault and they pretty much told me they have no jurisdiction there. My tax dollars hard at work.

[Lost_In_Translation]

You were being a dick, you got half nelson'd out. Sounds fair to me.

[R C Dean]

True, but I was assaulted for nothing more than heckling the bouncer.

Perhaps you were removed for refusing a request from an agent of the owner of the property to leave. Which is to say, you were trespassing.

[generic Brand]

That's just it though. I was never asked to leave. I would have complied had I been. But the bouncer had a problem with me, and that's where it stopped and started.

I agree completely that management has the authority to refuse service to anyone in their establishment. What they don't have permission to do is forcefully remove prior to asking. That's assault. And then because the cops don't do anything, it's a completely unchecked system. Hence, why I don't go there anymore.

[Lost_In_Translation]

The bouncer decided you "needed" to leave. You could still file civil action against the business owner if you feel that you were assaulted. To me it sounds that you got a bit too lippy for the big burly guy that is paid to get rid of troublemakers. If you really think people will be sympathetic to your plight, you should get some money. Else you're tacitly admitting that it wasn't that bad and you're just miffed that you got kicked out when you weren't causing a scene as you saw it. Next time, don't be a dick to the bouncers.

[generic Brand]

I guess the point I didn't make but intended to was that this was an instance of the bouncer getting pissed and using his authority as enforcer to enact justice regarding himself. Management never directed him to escort me out. It was just one guy not liking what a patron was doing and said, "I'm a bouncer I do what I want."

Like I said, I don't get back there, so lesson learned. But I was just disagreeing with your original post that bouncers are a good example of enforcement. They are still people in positions of authority and will abuse that if it suits them.

[generic Brand]

Sorry, your original post was that they were "better" than cops; not necessarily that they are good enforcers.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Don't be a dick is the lesson I'm getting, be it to cops, large men or potential ninjas. Your legal rights don't come in invisible force field versions yet.

[JoshInHB]

I don't know why you(MNG) have such an affinity for for brownshirt tactics other than you think anything is okay as long as your side does it.

Because he's a lefty.

Anything is acceptable as long as it advances the socialist cause a little bit. Everything that fails to do that is unacceptable.

[MNG]

"I don't know why you have such an affinity for for brownshirt tactics other than you think anything is okay as long as your side does it."

Er, my position is viewpoint neutral. I hesitate to get the law involved for both the muslim students and cpac particpants (whom are hardly 'on my side').

[Sovereign Immunity]

When you and John get divorced, who will get custody?

[John/MNG (mmf)]

MNG touched the clammy skin of John's chest. It was disgusting. MNG moved his hand down John's chest and then touched his small penis and then his small nuts and then his small thighs. MNG was an Down's Syndrome mongoloid and drank urine. Rather was urinating and John was not hermaphrodite right now and MNG drank urine. And MNG glittered in the sun so they were in Warty's basement. John had Klinefelter's syndrome. People with Klinefelter's syndrome have small testicles and reduced fertility. MNG is retarded even when he is in his special needs class. Rather walked down into Warty's basement and MNG could sense her urine with his enhanced retard senses. Rather said "I'm peeing and you are a mongoloid and John is a hermaphrodite." MNG nodded and John nodded. Rather then said "You should have naked gay retard and hermaphrodite sex so I can watch and shit myself." It was so not erotic and Bella watched until the sun came up and they all went to school and did not tell anyone what happened.

THE END

[Lost_In_Translation]

worst story ever...i hope you die

🙂

[Warty]

Leave it to the professionals, kiddo. You're not cut out for this.

[Amakudari]

It's okay, I'm pretty sure this is plagiarized from a recent David Brooks column.

[SugarFree]

Awesome.

[heller]

I think it's a parody of bad /fic.

[p2 TTS]

He thought about her all night. What would his mother think? Despite his promise not to masturbate, it was 3am and he couldn't take it anymore.

Mommy's bed was scented with her menses, and his throbbing was painful. He quietly touched himself while she snored. His pre-cum lubricated his finger tips, and he no longer had to reach for the dribble that drained from his mother's mouth.

He moved quickly; if his mother suspected he was hard she would grab his crotch, sit on his chest and scream Your seed is sacred!

Despite the fear of his mother's hairy and bare wet ass, he continued. He could not help himself, the fantasy of Rather pulling away the blanket his mommy had carefully tucked around his body as she admonished whispering mommy's milk is sweetest beckoned him

[Achtung Baby]

Damn mid-major conferences think they deserve to play in the BCS national Championship Game!

[Johnny Longtorso]

I read somewhere that if the BCS was in charge of the NFL, the Superbowl would have been New England vs. Atlanta (the 2 best records out of respectable divisions) and Green Bay's late season charge wouldn't have mattered.

[generic Brand]

We can only dream of such a system... alas, now I have to listen to Packers fans and ESPN analysts who get a boner at the mention of Aaron Rodgers all year.

[Achtung Baby]

Hey, Brett Favre lasted all of about a year before John "Man God" Elway ran his Broncos all the way up the Packers' collective asses.

[Ted S.]

The Broncos only won the Super Bowl because they were violating the salary cap rules.

[Vermont Gun Owner]

At least we won't have to hear about how Big Ben is such an incredible quarterback that he's won 3 Super Bowls (oh yeah, I guess while playing with the best defense in the league).

[Vermont Gun Owner]

Green Bay's late season charge wouldn't have mattered.

To be devil's advocate, New England's 'last season charge' was 8 in a row, including beating Green Bay.

[MNG]

George Will on Defense Budget

The United States spends almost as much on military capabilities as the rest of the world spends, and at least six times more than the second-biggest spending nation (China).

After listening to recent Defense Department testimony, Randy Forbes, a six-term Virginia Republican on McKeon's committee, was exasperated. He said that for four years the department, whose $708 billion budget - his number - is the size of the world's 22nd-largest economy (the Netherlands), has not complied with the law requiring auditable financial statements. And he charged that "none" of the budget is "even in a position to be audited." He said that the department is not "qualified" to talk about efficiencies if it "does not know where our defense dollars are going" and that it cannot comply with the law if it "does not even have mechanisms in place to perform the audits."

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), writing to Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, said that "the Pentagon is one of the few agencies in the federal government that cannot produce auditable financial statements in accordance with the law." So "I will continue to push for a budget freeze of all base budget non-military personnel accounts at the Defense Department until it complies with the law regarding auditable financial statements."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....05062.html

[Eric Holder]

"Today, the industry's view ... is Dodd-Frank is the law"

Well said.

[MNG]

EPA to Assess Irrational Part of Risk?

Imagine you are told you will contract either of two fatal illnesses, cancer or heart disease. Which way would you choose to die?

Most people opt for heart disease. Understandably. They believe cancer brings greater pain and suffering, and while we can control the risk of heart disease, we don't feel we can do much to reduce the risk of cancer. So it's scarier.

But death by heart disease is far more likely. The illness is the leading killer in the United States. In 2007, the last year for which final data are available, heart disease killed 616,000 Americans. Cancer was second, killing 563,000. And heart disease kills people across a broader range of demographics.

Wouldn't it make more sense to be more afraid of what's more likely to kill you?

Yes, but that's not how we perceive risks. Risks have psychological and emotional characteristics that make some feel scarier than others, the probabilities notwithstanding. A long, painful cancer death may not be any worse than a long, painful heart disease death, but we think it would be, and feel we can't control it, and that makes cancer more feared.

That is precisely what a new proposal at the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to acknowledge. When assessing whether a new regulation would be worth the money, the agency projects how many lives it would save vs. the costs of implementing it. But now, the EPA suggests that death by cancer is so frightening to the public, cancer deaths should carry greater weight in its calculations than deaths by other causes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....tml?sub=AR

[capitol l]

Wow, howdja get all of dem words from one page to another...that's fancy typin' there pardner.
---------
Good thing that I didn't put that in caps, or John would be calling the cops because I "shouted down" minge.

[Sovereign Immunity]

When assessing whether a new regulation would be worth the money, the agency projects how many lives it would save vs. the costs of implementing it.

Wouldn't it be even more cost-effective to adopt regulations so we can find out what's in them? That M.O. seems to work swimmingly.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to downsize respectively and merge the EPA and HHS? I see really no difference between the two.

[Rich]

When assessing whether a new regulation would be worth the money, the agency projects how many lives it would save vs. the costs of implementing it.

I'm gonna call bullshit on this.

"If it saves just one child's life, ...."

[Lost_In_Translation]

Oh great. Regulation by Olbermann.

[heller]

WTF? The lead in makes no fucking sense with the rest of the story. It asks which one would you prefer to contract, but then it says it should be cancer because that kills less people than heart disease. But the hypothetical is you have to get one. And the EPA shit makes no sense either.

[hmm]

Wouldn't it make more sense to be more afraid of what's more likely to kill you?

No, and the article goes on to answer why no is the answer, which is funny given they are trying to prove the opposite. You aggregate the impact of the disease by saying it kills more, and then survey that aggregated position on an individual level where the understanding of the diseases per individual will vary. The issue isn't rationality, it's information and an understanding of the diseases. It seems this tactic is the number one mistake made by public policy analysis and the skew is usually an attempt to justify government intervention on behalf of the irrational public.

Like I pointed out to you before, irrational would be telling each individual that a death Heart Disease is worse than a death by cancer, supporting that argument with some facts and then having the survey return in favor of cancer. That would be irrational.

Jesus Christ this isn't rocket science and I swear more economists and public policy people manipulate and screw this up to justify their own beliefs than any other assumptions.

[hmm]

Your assertions concerning irrationality are become irrational and your defense of irrationality as a reason for government interference by the smarter more rational people is becoming blatant.

Fuckin' rationality, how does it work?

The cake is a lie.

[MNG]

hmm

I don't agree with every article I link to, I just find it thought provoking. My reaction to this piece is that rationality could take into account how awful a disease is as well as the likelihood of it killing you.

[hmm]

Okay. I'll give you it was knee-jerkish. Given how often rationality is abused as a reason for control and my disdain for such abuse it's hard not to rail on the assertion that the all wise government or academic people will somehow choose better than the individual. That has always chapped my ass.

[Mitt Romney]

Ron Paul wins the CPAC straw poll, and Gary Johnson finishes third.

And me? What about me?

[The Ghost of Duke Ellington]

It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing
(doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah)

[JoshInHB]

Fuck You! you statist fuck.

[Johnny Longtorso]

The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals

[Warty]

The 1980s was an epoch of President Reagan's manly wisdom and the terrifying threat of Cold War annihilation. America had sobered up from the flashy lights of 1970s disco. We were skipping all night cocaine and sex parties to focus on our careers. Spiritual leaders like Jerry Falwell were telling us that Christianity was in the majority again. On the other side, there was a subculture of homosexuality creeping up on our youths. It gave them an excuse to wear tight jeans and to sneak off to public parks for quick releases with hairy men of different ethnicities.

That's a spoof, I hope.

[George Micheal]

Nope, it's pretty accurate.

[Rich]

That's a spoof, I hope.

More from this site. Tough to decide.

"I have been sitting here with two Stegosaurus models for 20 minutes now, and I just can't figure it out. How did these dinosaurs?bristling with spikes and plates?go about making more dinosaurs without skewering each other?"

[I Heart Capitalisms]

More please. This is (accidentally?) brilliant.

[Rich]

Oh, if you insist. One more.

Now you're on your own.

[Amakudari]

Christwire is, sadly, fake.

Here's the classic, for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

[Fatty Bolger]

Fucking fucking, how does it work?

[John]

Wow. If only I would have known back in the 1980s that all night cocaine and sex parties were on the menu.

[Lost_In_Translation]

The quote reads like the '80's ditched the cocaine of the '70s and people started working again. I know that not right at all. I mean...Miami Vice?

[Spartacus]

I was there for the 80's. Don't remember much of it, but I can say that cocaine and sex parties were not extinct.

[Corduroy]

That piece of satire has been around for a while

[Zeb]

And posted here many times by Mr. Longtorso.

[R C Dean]

We were skipping all night cocaine and sex parties to focus on our careers.

Speak for yourself, buddy.

[rather]

"On the other side, there was a subculture of homosexuality creeping up on our youths. It gave them an excuse to wear tight jeans and to sneak off to public parks for quick releases with hairy men of different ethnicities."

Different ethnicities? I'm glad to hear gay sex is multi-cultural. This site is a joke, right?

[John]

Gay sex is okay as long as it is among, you know the right kind of boys. Then it is just some youthful fun. Once it starts involving "those people" then it becomes the sick and depraved corrupter of our youth that we all know it to be.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Catholic schoolboys obviously...Zing!

[Suit]

HE BROUGHT AIDS TO THE COMPANY PICNIC!!!

[capitol l]

Jeezus Hasselhof Christ, is this the first time that you people have seen this link? Am I in a Twilight Zone episode where I am the only one privy to Longtorso's nefarious multiple Golden Girls gone gay linkage?

This link is not some shiny new toy to be played with, it's fucking evil: pure unadulterated evil. The hyperlink from hell, as it were. How do you think that Johnny got to be the way he is? People aren't born like that, his black soul was spawned from that link.

Longtorso, there is a special circle of hell waiting just for you when you leave this earth, I hope you like pineapple...of course you do you Golden Girls watching freak.

[Johnny Longtorso]

I need my pain, it made me the man I am today.

[Pip]

The woman in the first pic is damn cute!

[Solanum]

SugarFree|2.17.10 @ 8:46AM|#
The Gay Agenda of The Golden Girls

Johnny Longtorso|2.18.10 @ 9:34AM|#
The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals

Johnny Longtorso|2.19.10 @ 8:31AM|#
The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals

Johnny Longtorso|2.21.10 @ 11:59AM|#
The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals

Johnny Longtorso|7.26.10 @ 9:05AM|#
I tried to link "The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals" again in reply to John/Suki, and it got marked spam.

Dude...

[Warty]

I thought this seemed familiar. It doesn't matter. Gaze into its horror once again.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Sorry, I didn't mean to go so long between the last couple of reposts.

[Rich]

lulz

[SugarFree]

Some people just can't appreciate a running joke, Johnny.

[Syd Henderson]

I blame listening to John Sebastian and the Lovin' Spoonful in the womb.

[yet another dave]

I uh, ahem, got news for you... If they were watching golden girls I'm pretty sure they were already homosexuals

[Jesus]

Clowning you heathens again!

[The Psalmist]

Make a joyful noise!

[Jesus]

A joyful nose!

[Jesus H. Fartnoise]

I bring gasses to the masses.

[Warty]

So every Swiss household has a beautiful Sig 550 in it, and some Swiss people don't like that? What a bunch of cunts.

[Zeb]

Ugh. You should hear the coverage of this on Deutsche Welle. It is intensely disturbing just how fully Europeans (for the most part) have swallowed total gun control. The "common sense" view there seems to be that all privately owned guns should be locked up (probably at a police station) unless being used at a range and even then they should probably be using air guns. Good for the Swiss.

[GoNavy]

It is not just the Swiss that get to bring their Army issued weapons home. At least in 1977, my cousin, who was in the Danish Army reserves, had a HK G3 and all his battle kit in his closet.

Some of the Danes remember 1940.

[JD]

According to their Wikipedia page, the Danish army has been reorganizing to downplay their role as an anti-invasion force and better organize for overseas deployments (ie UN peacekeeping operations). Next time the lamps start going out throughout Europe, it is going to get ugly.

[Nick]

From the Brickbats:

Police in Pakistan have arrested Muhammad Samiulla, 17, for blasphemy. He allegedly wrote derogatory remarks about Muhammad, the founder of Islam, during a school exam. But police refuse to say what Samiulla wrote, because to repeat it would be blasphemy.

Maybe he was just speaking in the third person.

[Muhammad]

But police refuse to say what Samiulla wrote, because to repeat it would be blasphemy.

Actually, refusing to repeat it is also blasphemy.

[Corduroy]

Kind of like child porn in the USA.

[Mo]

I'm warning you! If you say "Jehovah" one more time (gets hit with rock) RIGHT! Who did that? Come on, who did it?

[Gregory Smith]

Read my article of how the Black Chamber of Commerce told Obama: "We don't need him! We are doing fine and making great strides. The NBCC accounts for more Black dollars in the Gulf Rebuilding than the federal government. We are providing opportunities at every level of the American economy. The NBCC is the largest Black business association in the world and no one senator who has a phobia about meeting a group of Black business persons is going to stop us."

That's right, the people don't need Uncle Obama to pay their bills, they can do it themselves!

Obama's budget is a disgrace, and can someone tell the media that "spending" is not "investing?" Buying gold is investing, buying stocks and mutual funds is investing, giving money to pork projects is SPENDING.

http://libertarians4freedom.bl.....obama.html

[capitol l]

Read my article

How about I don't, blogwhore.

[Gregory Smith]

I got you to reply, didn't I? That means I got you to waste your time.

[Brett L]

Did anyone else think for a moment that the "Black Chamber" of Commerce was some sort of super-secret organization created by the coporatists to sow FUD among their enemies?

[Gregory Smith]

I'm sure they're a legitimate organization, they put Obama in his place after all.

[creech]

Obviously funded by one Koch brother or another.

[Upgrayyed]

I thought it was part of WuTang?

[Johnny Longtorso]

Stuffed mice an art craze

[Corduroy]

That is soooooo ironic.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Like rain on your wedding day?

[waffles]

stolen from that boring steve carrol movie? brooklyn hipsters are lame and getting lamer. I think that their style became too mainstream and popular too quickly. It's no longer elite, there just a bunch schmucks doing weird shit while screaming, "LOOK AT ME! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LOOK AT ME!"

It's a pity the NYT gives them a full page in every sunday paper, Meh, just evidence that the NYT hired a bunch of hipsters and will slowly but surely get their comeuppance.

[waffles]

I realize it's the post and not the times. And people have been stuffing mice for centuries (the sick fucks). It only confirms my suspicion that it takes a bunch of hipsters to make a movie as tragically unfunny as Dinner for Schmucks

Yar.

[Richard Gere]

I was ahead of the curve on this one.

[robc]

Valentine's Day, as celebrated, is basically Geoffrey Chaucer's fault. Huh, learned something new. Well, fuck you Geoff. And learn to spell.

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

[Rich]

OTOH, he *did* write The Miller's Tale.

[generic Brand]

And learn to spell.

I think it's obvious what you're getting into when he spells "Jeffrey" G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y

[alittlesense]

To make cheese?

[robc]

Blessed are the cheesemakers.

You gotta problem with courting rituals from ye olde englande?

[Brett L]

I thought "chese his make" was some sort 14th century code for giving head.

[Clich? Bandit]

I swear to that Hassleoff guy that this site is harming my career. If i keep snorting and belting laughter out loud they are going to put me in a closet.

[hmm]

Um, clich?. See it not I do. Fail you have.

[Amakudari]

One-Armed Legless Man Bashes Male Nurse

A male nurse had to be rushed to the emergency unit after being badly injured by a disabled patient who had no legs and only one arm. ... The male nurse suffered a serious knee injury and was offered counselling after the attack. ...

The NT News understands the 50-year-old patient assistant carer was trying to handle the disabled man when the man punched the carer repeatedly with his good arm and flailed his stumps angrily.

[SugarFree]

and flailed his stumps angrily

That's a fantastic turn of phrase.

[Don Mynack]

Freaking Focker.

[Lost_In_Translation]

"50-year-old patient assistant carer"

you mean male nurse? Who comes up with these titles?

[Zeb]

Is "carer" a word?

[Sovereign Immunity]

It should be caregiver.

[generic Brand]

Was his name Bob, Matt, or Russell?

[Sovereign Immunity]

Art.

[robc]

Jack.

[Vermont Gun Owner]

Way to fight those stereotypes, male nurse. Managing to get beaten up by Anakin after Obi-Wan but before the suit.

[SugarFree]

WHAT ABOUT PADME? NOOOOOOOOOO!

[Vermont Gun Owner]

Even getting beaten up by him then wouldn't be so bad. Even though he's super emo he does have the JEJ voice.

[Johnny Longtorso]

How Data Mining Can Help You Score on the First Date

[robc]

The moron commenters are volokh are barely discussing the beer data, focusing on the other questions. Dont they have priorities?

[Ted S.]

Some of us don't like beer.

[kinnath]

But what about mead drinkers?

[waffles]

excellent predictor for post-coital crying in the fetal position.

[kinnath]

Not from my experience

[waffles]

are you sure? isn't mead that stuff that comes in clear bottles and tastes like raspberry pop and lemonade?

[kinnath]

no

[kinnath]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=mead

[pancakes]

you call it trollin' I call it willful ignorance.

[Vermont Gun Owner]

Hmmm, and my last beer loving girlfriend (an IPA girl) is 23 and still a virgin.

[R C Dean]

still a virgin

And you know this how?

[Vermont Gun Owner]

Well, I suppose it's possible that's changed in the past couple of months but I doubt it.

Sadly, if I have a superpower, it's attracting the oldest possible virgins. I don't know why, but I am apparently irresistible to them.

[T]

I'd guess it's because they see you as completely non-threatening sexually. Sorry about that, man.

[Ted S.]

He checked to see that she has an unruptured hymen?

[Sovereign Immunity]

Silly boy! We can be born-again virgins at will!

[Old Mexican]

The Egyptian military dissolves parliament, continues extrajudicial detentions.

In Revolutions, as in Democracy, the progressively worse person gets to be in power always.

[Old Mexican]

Swiss voters reject an anti-gun referendum.

They must be crazed gun-nuts, all of them!

[Or, maybe, they're on to something...]

[Lost_In_Translation]

I knew they were on to something when they rejected the "euro"

[Isaac Bartram]

Actually, much of Europe does see the Swiss as militaristic crazed gun-nuts.

Some of this vote can be seen as an attempt by certain urbanites in Switzerland wanting to be more like their more sophisticated European brothers and sisters.

The only cantons that voted in favor were the heavily urbanized ones and even in Zurich it only got fity point something for and forty nine point something against.

It's sort of a Redstatecanton/Bluestatecanton thing.

It's surprisingly common, see also Australia and Canada for the same sort of thing. With majorities living in big cities, rural dwellers are feeling increasingly put upon by petty regulations they don't think apply to their way of living.

[NotSure]

Britain used regulation creep to eventually ban all guns, yet it still has a higher crime rate than Switzerland. There are even people that are calling for knife bans, dead serious.

[Isaac Bartram]

Britain has a higher crime rate than most of the world when one considers theft and violent assault. In spite of have a hight violence rate they do manage to keep homicides down for what ever reason.

Most liberals blame gun ownership, just as they do for the rather large number of homicides that the US has, in spite of having a lower overall violent crime rate than most of the countries that have stricter gun control.

Until the early nineties Switzerland had extremely open gun laws, on a level with some of the less restrictive US states.

[R C Dean]

Clearly, crazed gun nuts.

I mean, look at how many murders are committed with that beautiful Austrian iron they keep in their houses! How many children accidentally blow their heads off!

Have they no souls?

[Zeb]

From what I have heard, the main (public) argument for the gun restrictions was based on the relatively high rate of gun suicide in Switzerland. Because people who want to kill themselves could never figure out another way to do it, apparently, or something.

[JD]

Switzerland's suicide rate is on par with most Western European nations, but the antis always complain about suicides usng guns to justify stricter restrictions.

I like to point out that suicide rates don't correlate with gun ownership--look at some of the Asian nations with a near-total ban on gun ownership. Gun ownership does correlate with more suicides using guns (or at least it does looking at the state-by-state data in the US) but you are just as dead no matter what method you use.

[JD]

I'm doing my part to save Switzerland's youth from a violent death at the hands of a gun by buying up as many K31 carbines as I can afford.

[Isaac Bartram]

JD, small item of trivia.

Did you know that if you remove the buttplate from a K31 you will find a slip of paper with the name of the last Swiss soldier issued that rifle on it?

[Old Mexican]

Ron Paul wins the CPAC straw poll, and Gary Johnson finishes third.

Neo-cons go batshit crazy, claiming that strawpolls are meaningless! Except, of course, when a neo-con wins... THEN it is an accurate measure of people's preferences.

[Mike M.]

If libertarians can organize as well in the general political realm as they have at CPAC the last couple of years, we might really be able to get someplace. It may be yet another encouraging sign that it's finally starting to happen.

[Solanum]

Critics knock no-knock police raids

Typical USA Today fluff piece, but it's good to see this getting some national exposure.

[Spartacus]

Bill Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, says the onus for the increase in no-knock cases is on the judges who authorize such warrants.

While I partially agree with Bill Johnson, it is also true that judges do not sit around making up warrants, and can only sign what is brought to them. Therefore, Bill Johnson is a responsibility-evading sack of shit.

Still, it is good to see that he feels the need to pass blame on to someone else, which is at least a tacit acknowledgement that what they are doing is wrong.

[Pro Libertate]

If Tyche is discovered, they should name it Pluto, not Tyche. Then all will be in order in the solar system again.

The discovery of an outer gas giant is an interesting possibility, because astronomers have usually ruled out a massive gas giant in the Oort Cloud because it should be kicking out comets more than observation suggests. Usually good for science to see theories challenged by anomalous real events.

[SugarFree]

I don't care what the bitch-ass astronomers say... Pluto is still a planet to me.

[Vermont Gun Owner]

They still say it's a planet.... a dwarf planet.

[generic Brand]

The correct term is "little person" planet.

Imagine a TLC program where explorers finally made it to Pluto. We could call it "Big People, Little World"

[Vermont Gun Owner]

I was debating that joke but decided it was better to leave it as a set up. Glad the assist didn't go to waste. Although I'd hope we only sent basketball players on the trip.

[pancakes]

I thought you knew that algebra was all razzamatazz. A Globetrotter always saves the good algebra for the final minutes

[Vermont Gun Owner]

You gotta Globetrotter that explosion up a little, Farnsy. Make it an implosion.

[Pro Libertate]

Sorry, it's official. Besides, I have it on good authority that Pluto is actually a space station.

[Vermont Gun Owner]

The Chinese built Pluto in 1019.

[Ragin Cajun]

Therefore, we must close the Death Star gap.

[generic Brand]

Whose authority???

[Pro Libertate]

The Federation's.

[JW]

That's no planet...

[Climate Scientist]

The science is settled!!!

[Lost_In_Translation]

Wouldn't that make Pluto look like it went on a planet eating binge fest.

[Pro Libertate]

Making it the official symbol of obesity.

[Vermont Gun Owner]

I just had to read up on the official definition as I assumed being in the Oort cloud would make it basically impossible to meet the 'clearing the orbit' requirement. Apparently a planet doesn't actually have to clear its orbit, it just has to be gravitationally dominant. I guess that still rules out the possibility of binary planets.

[Brett L]

The smaller one's always a moon.

[db]

That's no moon.

[Vermont Gun Owner]

Even if the difference is less than (for instance) 1%?

Even if the barycenter is between the two objects (not inside of either)?

[Zeb]

I think that such a discovery would probably warrant a new category.

[Brett L]

I don't think it needs to be inside one necessarily, but my brain did short out trying to think of what that would like to have, say, Mars only as far away as the Moon. We might even share an atmosphere, or at least a tunnel of significant non-vacuum.

[Vermont Gun Owner]

Yeah, at a certain point calling one the dominant planet doesn't seem to fit. I checked and it looks like they still haven't figured out what the cutoff will be. Two possibilities are based on the barycenter or the shape of the orbit around the star. The first would include Pluto/Charon will excluding Earth/Moon. The second would be based on the relative gravitational effects of the star and the other planet and include the Earth/Moon while excluding Pluto/Charon.

[R C Dean]

"Dwarf planet", "Gravitationally dominant".

This place just gets kinkier all the time.

[Sovereign Immunity]

I blame that sicko Sugar Free. He looms large.

[The Truth]

The Chinese have surpassed him in fan/fic.

[Pro Libertate]

Which is why other civilizations avoid us. Sol is considered too deviant.

[Vermont Gun Owner]

A star should settle down with just one planet, not share its warmth with multiple partners! We cannot allow this polystellagamy to continue!

[Pro Libertate]

Beats the situation in the Centauri system. Trust me, you don't want to know.

[JW]

I head that Proxima is a bottom.

[Ted S.]

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

[scratches head]

[No Knock]

Critics knock no-knock police raids:

Dressed in black and carrying assault rifles, members of a local multi-jurisdiction police unit burst into a dark home in Ogden, Utah, one night in September shouting, "Police! Search warrant!"

A video of the incident made by the Weber-Morgan counties Narcotics Strike Force and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency shows a man suddenly appearing in a hallway holding a shiny object that an officer thought was a sword, but was really a golf club, according to Weber County Attorney Dee Smith.

In the instant he appeared, the video shows, three shots rang out and the man, Todd Blair, 45, fell to the floor, dead.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/n.....4_ST_N.htm

[Corduroy]

Bill Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, says the onus for the increase in no-knock cases is on the judges who authorize such warrants.

You see, our problem is that the judges are our enablers. We just don't know how to stop asking.

[Fatty Bolger]

Maybe, but there is a valid point there. Judges should not be authorizing so many of these without more evidence that they are truly necessary.

[P Brooks]

A video of the incident made by the Weber-Morgan counties Narcotics Strike Force and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency shows a man suddenly appearing in a hallway holding a shiny object that an officer thought was a sword, but was really a golf club, according to Weber County Attorney Dee Smith.

Many pistols are blued, or otherwise non-reflective. Obviously, if a police officer kicking down your door in the middle of the night does not see a shiny object in your hand, he should assume you have a high-cap .40 S&W Glock, and shoot you down like a dog in defense of himself and his noble comrades.

See how this works?

[hmm]

I wonder if my Hello Kitty AR15 is threatening looking?

[hmm]

Pluto is a planet.

[joshua corning]

The Solar System may have a ninth planet after all.

They are calling it Tyche...

I say fuck those guys I am calling the new planet Satan.

[Pro Libertate]

It should be called Nemesis (after the name of the once-theorized companion brown dwarf), of course, but I think that name spooks astronomers.

[hmm]

We should call it V'Ger.

[hmm]

Or Gallifrey.

[Vermont Gun Owner]

Kronos.

[The Doctor]

nah Gallifrey was destroyed in the Time War...everyone knows that

[hmm]

It came back in another episode, forgot which it was. 3 seasons ago maybe?

[Syd Henderson]

I liked the proposal in "Schrodiger's Cat" to name the next two planets Mickey and Goofy.