Reason Morning Links: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs (and Terrorism)
- The AP fact-checks Obama's jobs speech: "Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due."
- For-profit college offers to pay companies to hire its graduates.
- Bank of America is considering cutting 40,000 jobs.
- Bryan Caplan asks some smart questions about universal college attendance.
- Andrew Goldman empties both barrels into Redskins owner Dan Snyder: "If I can be honest with you, I've spoken to several lifelong Redskins fans who are so distraught about your ownership that they say the only way to save the team is for you to sell it or even die."
- Three terrorists entered the U.S. last month with plans to detonate an explosive in New York or D.C. in honor of 9/11's 10th anniversary.
New at Reason.tv: Creating a Libertarian "Wall-E" with "Silver Circle" Director Pasha Roberts
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
Jobs?
We won them.
“Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due.”
I’m sure still being in office when the check comes would even be a deterrent. They simply can’t resist spending.
An IOU from President Obama? I’m out.
Prince Charles: Mankind ‘faces extinction’ unless mass consumption, global warming confronted…
We’re doomed!
Doomed!
Doomed I tell you!
Yes we must stop people from living in huge palaces and moving around in limos and private aircraft, we must stop the princely lifestyles.
Oops, Prince Charles does not mean that, he means that the average middle class family around the world should cut back on their lifestyle.
How do we stop consuming mass?
Subcutaneous chlorophyll!
energy=mass.
You’re missing a constant in that expression.
No Im not.
1. It isnt an equation, Im just saying they are two representations of the same thing and that “constant” is just a conversion from the units one is measured in to the other.
2. Im clearly using Planck units. E=m. The speed of light is 1 in Planck units.
Oh pshaw! You and your crazy “science.”
Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person! Ah blow my nose at you, so-called “Sharles Praance”! You and all your silly English stateests!
Ah don’ wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food-trough wiper! Ah fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!
I and my copyrights will live forever.
I’m not seeing much love for the Obama speech, but I don’t exactly roll through that many sites. Was it a game-changer?
Are the voters just wishing for Stimulus II? What do you think?
Think, in his head, he’s gone back to what worked for him in 2008.
The various pundits I saw last night were showing a surprising amount of love, but that might have been intoxication over the “2008 quality” delivery (wishful thinking on their part).
Perhaps in their sobriety of this morning they’ll realize the fucking plan is more of the same.
Amazing. I didn’t watch, long ago realizing that speeches are fluffy, nonsubstantive nonsense, but the idea that a speech was delivered well means anything at all when it comes to economics is staggeringly stupid. We don’t need a pep talk to go out and spend, invest, hire, and spend again, we need to eliminate the government parasite.
The very last thing we need is for the government to pay off its buddies again through bullshit “infrastructure”, tax cuts targeted to get votes, and whatever other nonsense this new stimulus package includes.
The House should laugh and propose massive spending cuts, tax reform, and deregulation. And make it clear that the Democrats can either sign on to save our economy from further decline, or they can watch from the bleachers in 2013. Not that the Republicans have the balls or likely even the desire (as a whole) to do such a thing.
Hear hear!
Unfortunately, Republicans have lots of buddies, too.
Precisely.
Getting new phone testing speed.
They should also demand to reveal these spending cuts in a televised event from the Oval office.
Fair is fair, right. If the Executive branch can demand to use the Legislative branch as a prop, why can’t the Congress turn it around?
Stimulus? Nobody said anything a stiumulus. This is a jobs program, get it straight.
Those 40,000 BofA workers will transition into teaching or modernizing schools immediately!
Meh.
The progs at Gawker are pissed at the reliance on tax cuts
The only interesting part of the entire speech was getting to see Nancy Pelosi display her contempt for our military veterans to a national TV audience.
You forgot: Rugby World Cup starts.
http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/index.html
It’s just that nobody here cares about things called “World Cup.”
2 worlds 1 cup.
+1. Rugby is awesome.
“I’m recognized as a war criminal in the bear community and I didn’t achieve that by being an idiot. I achieved it with poisoned donuts and a doctorate in tomahawk.”
I read that one yesterday. You can always count on Seanbaby to bring the funny.
Agreed. I just can’t stay away.
It’s like we’re raising our kids in the hopes that Chinese invaders will mistake them for pillows.
I originally interpreted that as a bear of another kind.
Me too. I expected it to link to Andrew Sullivan.
The world really may end this weekend. The New York Times has run a positive editorial concerning Sarah Palin.
But when her throat was cleared at last, Ms. Palin had something considerably more substantive to say.
She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).
In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.
Her second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money.
“Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done?” she said, referring to politicians. “It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed ? a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.”
Because her party has agitated for the wholesale deregulation of money in politics and the unshackling of lobbyists, these will be heard in some quarters as sacrilegious words.
Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09…..d=fb-share
All those things are true. And all of those things need to be said and aren’t being said by pretty much anyone else.
Yes.
All those things are true.
If this was all there was to Sarah Palin, and if she didn’t think we should send assassins to kill people who publish leaked classified information and/or that we need to pray for the strength to destroy witches, I’d be pretty OK with her.
Don’t let the piss blow back into your leg fluffy. I have a news flash for you, every single Presidential candidate, including Ron Paul and Gary Johnson, would authorize the assassination of this country’s enemies if they needed to as President. Guarantee it. You sound like Joe Boyle back in 06 telling us how Congress was going to defund the war in Iraq when the Democrats took over. Good luck with that.
And further, don’t pull and MNG and change the subject. I thought the party line is that Palin has a 70 or 80 IQ and is an evil populist worse than Obama? Will you admit she makes sense occasionally?
If he thought it was necessary, damn straight he would. You are kidding yourself if you think that Ron Paul wouldn’t do very nasty things and have people killed to defend this country. He may actually believe what he is saying now. But once he got in office, the responsibility changes them.
Look at Obama. I don’t think that Obama was lying about his objection to assassination and such back in 2008. I think he really thought he would be different than Bush. Circumstances proved otherwise. You are a naive child if you think that will change if you just get “your guy” in there.
“If he thought it was necessary, damn straight he would.”
If my uncle had tits, he’d be my aunt.
I know Zeb, your guy would never ever change a position or have circumstances drive him to do things that he never planned to as President. Just because that has happened to every President in the history of the country, means nothing. We just haven’t gotten “the right people in charge”. Gee where have I heard that before?
Presidents do what they’re told or they end up like JFK.
I don’t have a guy.
And my overly flippant point was more simple. I just don’t think that assassinating Julian Assange is likely to be an issue any president will need to seriously consider.
Not necessarily!
Kiss, kiss!
YFQ
He’d write a letter of marque for the mafia to do the job.
Fluffy’s point is about Assange, not assassination.
The point being, RP wouldnt choose Assange as a target.
What if Assange went underground and started running cyber attacks that were blacking out whole states? Do you think he would then? I think he would. And I think the whole thing about “I will not assassinate anyone” would go out the window.
In the end, they will all do nasty things to defend the country if necessary. And they are all going to do things they never thought they would do once in office. So getting your panties in a wad of this or that hypothetical is pretty pointless.
You are the one making up hypotheticals.
Assange has done what he has done. Palin (apparently) said that makes him worthy of assassination. Paul hasnt said, but Im pretty sure it doesnt rise to that level for him.
Paul wanted to issue letters of marquis and reprisal for Bin Laden. Obviously he is okay with assassination. Duh, that isnt the issue.
“What if” have to be the two greatest words in the statist playbook.
John, you’re the one proposing faulty hypotheticals – as robc pointed out, the issue Fluffy brought up was the specific example of Assange, not the general issue of assassination.
Palin, while admittedly making some sense in that article, went out of her way to suggest Assange be executed for what he’s done, not for what he might do if he decides to become Doctor Evil. To many voters, that in and of itself is a disqualifying statement if she is seeking the office which has appropriated the authority to unilaterally label any person a “terrorist” and kill them without due process.
Would everybody pull a Captain Archer and go from erring on the side of not killing people when it’s needed to torturing and stealing to get what’s necessary when desperate? I suppose that’s the point of STE, but it’s worth noting that there is no power in the world that could destroy the US, other than a MAD scenario which is obviously impossible to plan for.
So, Spoonman, you’re saying if it’s, say,
A) A madman about to blow up the sun — assassinate.
B) A gadfly leaking government secrets that probably shouldn’t be secret — don’t assassinate.
What kind of crazy shit is that?
To be fair, I think Palin has said since then that she meant that we should be legally pursuing Assange with the same gusto that we’re militarily pursuing al Qaeda et al. Since her original comment was some social media throwaway, I don’t think her recanting/clarification should be disregarded.
That said, I don’t think Wikileaks really did anything that justifies legal action, either, so I don’t care for her comment whether it has assassination overtones or not.
Didn’t see that walkback but it does merit consideration.
Okay, big props for STE reference right there. Criminally underrated show.
So how often do you jack off to that Sarah Palin photo you keep in your wallet, John?
Of course we should kill people who leak classified documents.
I doubt she would actually whack the wikileaks dude. But she is no more or less likely than the rest of them. Circumstances drive Presidencies. You guys live in la la land if you think you can put anyone in there who wouldn’t do some nasty things if he or she thought it was necessary to defend the country.
I believe in killing political enemies if you can get good results by doing so.
No retard. Presidents of both parties do what is necessary to defend the country. That is why Obama has made such a fool of people like you.
I still believe in assassinations if it brings good results.
You’re either with ME, or with OBAMA! Herp derp.
Yes Rather, haven’t you shit enough this morning?
No, I think it’s You’re either with Sarah the GILF or with Obama.
+1
Pretty soon John will be sucking Perry’s cock like a good little partisan hack, though.
So the NYT writes a pretty positive editorial about Palin and that is not worth noting? The New York freaking Times? Yeah, that is end of world kind of stuff. All I did was link to a single editorial. And you are making dirty jokes. But I am the one with the issues about Pailin? Is she never to be mentioned like Voldemort? Do you guys really have so little self control that you can’t have an intelligent conversation about the woman?
THE MSM SUUUUUUUUUUUUX! Unless it agrees with me.
You know, John, that half the Palin comments here are made just to wind you up, right? That’s what happens when you wear your heart on your sleeve, dude.
True enough CN. I am a very easy target in that regard.
You’ve become too personally involved with Palin, John, at least in the minds of the commentariat, for anyone to take your comments on the subject seriously now.
It happens to all of us.
After the incident at the zoo, I no longer even bother to try to join in any office discussion of meerkats.
Its funny, because I was the first person on here to say that Palin would be the VP nominee in 2008. So if anyone should give a damn, it should be me.
The rest of you either said “who?” or mocked me.
But I have no vested interest in her. I thought she would be relatively good until she actually campaigned.
Maybe it was your words, here, robc, that clued me in: On the night before McCain picked Palin, I called it at the bar with my work pals, who all said “Who the fuck is Sarah Palin?”
That one “prescient” prediction elevated me, briefly, to an astounding political guru/sage in their eyes.
I called it in Jan of Feb of 2008. She was the only fucking obvious choice.
And that was back when McCain was 5 minutes from dropping out of the race.
yes, the military people covered by the UCMJ who agreed to protect classifed and who already know that treason comes w/ heavy consequences. Not, the civilians who have never made such a pledge. As much of a DB as Assange is I can’t find fault w/ him not protecting classified; he’s under no obligation to.
That is why Bradley Manning will spend half a century in the brig.
As for Julian Assange – not an American, that would depend on how dangerous a threat the information he is leaking is. If it’s going to get Americans killed, he should be eliminated.
“The world really may end this weekend. The New York Times has run a positive editorial concerning Sarah Palin.”
Don’t kid yourself. The NY-Times knows Perry is going to blowout Obama next year so they’re hoping Sarah will get in and split the TP vote so Romney can win the nomination.
Very good point. How sad is it that you have to read the NYT and the WAPO like the soviet era Pravda?
You who isn’t Pravda? The Washington Times. Fox News. Nothing but the straight dope from them.
So much for the War on Drugs!
dont forget mount rushbo the rah-de-o entertainer
Fuck that. They’re all Pravda. I don’t even take the shit I say at face value.
Any Palin thread is sure to bring out the long knives.
She makes normal people crazy. People like rather are retarded anyway. But I don’t understand why you can’t link to a single fairly remarkable editorial without it turning into a shit fest.
She certainly makes ME crazy. *fap fap fap*
Christ you’re annoying.
Yes. Yes it is.
All those things are true, but those observations aren’t exactly novel. Hell, it half sounds like Ralph Nader’s platform.
Sadly, when he is not talking about nationalizing industries and having a 100% tax rate on all income above a hundred K, Ralph can make some sense.
I like to burn straw.
Personally, what I get from that editorial is that someone is “crafting” a hell of a “message” for Palin. This is not entirely consistent with her ’08-’10 stuff.
Megacorporate lobbyists need freedom too! Why does Sarah Palin hate “free speech”?
Bryan Caplan asks some smart questions about universal college attendance.
College is the new high school. If Obama really wants teeth in his college initiatives, he should charge anyone failing to go on to university with truancy.
Junior College is the new Continuation High School.
Summer school.
DEA bans synthetic drug known as ‘bath salts’By Patricia Kime – Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Sep 8, 2011 19:32:43 EDT
The Drug Enforcement Administration is invoking an emergency authority temporarily banning the designer drug mephedrone, known as “bath salts” or “plant food.”
The action, announced Wednesday, will make possessing and selling the synthetic stimulant illegal for at least a year while the DEA and the Department of Health and Human Services study the effects of the chemical on public health.
The ban went into effect Thursday.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/…..d-090811w/
A recent death attributed to synthetic marijuana…
http://www.startribune.com/loc…..02953.html
The dude’s natural stash was siezed so he used synth MJ — which is why he killed himself (according to tha cops).
Sounds like a moron from the article. Pointing a loaded gun at someone & yourself is about the dumbest thing you can do high or not. I get tired of people making excuses for stupidity. Most people would never point a loaded gun at themselves no matter how out of it they were at the time.
Andrew Malcomn whoever he is in the LA Times gives a brutal takedown of Obama.
Obama wants $140 billion largely to update roads and bridges. Obama wants another $245 billion in business and individual tax relief. He also wants to extend unemployment benefits.
And he wants it all right now. Seriously. Now that his Martha’s Vineyard vacation is over, this situation is urgent.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.co…..olls-.html
The MSM sucks unless it writes something I agree with. Then I’ll use it as a source.
Do you really have to spuge on every thread? Do you take viagra or bull seaman to do this?
The troll only orgasms when you reply.
True. But Rather or whoever that is is getting increasingly pathetic and weird. At some point, I might ask Reason to ban them. You can’t just make a point of shitting on every post a person makes.
Careful, John. The Kochs get cranky if you use the KochPhone for trivial shit.
Yeah but if they banned them, whoever it is might get help, which they clearly need. And I have a KochPhone with the extended minutes plan.
John, I like the alternate spelling of “spooge” but I’d suggest that using an umlaut would be way more metal.
Sp?ge.
New metal band name: Blud Sp?ge.
Why the (first) Stimulus failed
http://online.wsj.com/article/…..on_LEADTop
“One of the major patterns Messrs. Jones and Rothschild uncovered was that the top-down stimulus was poorly targeted. In one redolent example, a federal contractor said he was told to use smaller, nonstandard tiles that are harder and more expensive to install in order to increase the cost of the project. That way, the government could claim the money was moving out the door faster. The famous Milton Friedman line about government ordering people to dig with spoons to employ more people comes to mind.”
I forget, which one was the first one?
Was it the $152 Billion “Economic Stimulus Act of 2008”? Or the “Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008” that guarantee up to $300 billion in mortgages for subprime borrowers? Or the $787 Billion “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” which is now the baseline of our budget?
Which one didn’t work right? I really think the fourth time might be the charm.
take your pick – but I imagine the article is in response to the 787bil boondoggle.
Russian drunk gets attacked by polar bear, walks it off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f…..bBP_-sQRkk
Drunk Russian? Is the bear OK?
Are we shooting for a bear trifecta?
dude…it was even a chick. I bet it was a mother-in-law. Bear didnt stand a chance.
A direct result of AGW. Clearly that polar bear would never have been there had its ice not melted.
Insight: Cisco suits on China rights abuses to test legal reach
By Sui-Lee Wee BEIJING | Thu Sep 8, 2011 8:36pm EDT
BEIJING (Reuters) – Two lawsuits by three Chinese dissidents and a human rights group accusing Cisco Systems Inc. of abetting imprisonment and torture could have far-reaching impact on how U.S. technology companies conduct business in authoritarian regimes.
The lawsuits filed in May and June target a second technology company for complicity in human rights abuses in China after Yahoo Inc. in 2007 paid to settle a case in which it was accused of aiding the prosecution of dissidents.
Both cases could provide answers to an evolving legal question: Can U.S. companies be held liable if foreign governments use their products for repression?
The first lawsuit, filed in May by the Human Rights Law Foundation in Washington in the Federal District Court in San Jose, California, accuses Cisco of designing products to help the Chinese government persecute members of China’s banned spiritual group, Falun Gong.
Last Friday, the rights group amended its original complaint, saying it had new evidence that Cisco customized its products specifically to enable the authorities to persecute members of Falun Gong, some of whom were alleged to have been tortured and killed by the Chinese authorities.
http://www.reuters.com/article…..9E20110909
If foreign companies want access to China’s markets, they’ll play by China’s rules. This is only the beginning. Western corporations will take it up the asshole and love it for a chance to get access to 1 BILLION customers.
They take pretty hard here too. The Chinese government take a 1/3 stake in your company. The American government takes 40% of your profit every year.
of course TEH [CORPORATIONZ] will bend-over for profit. question is, will the courts?
Of course they will. They’re pretty much subordinate to corporate interests.
In thirty years, China will be demanding that Facebook censor even American profiles that say anything remotely controversial about Chinese politics or the CCP, and Facebook will comply. That’s our future. Our Constitution will eventually be reformed along Chinese lines, not the other way around.
ha ah to true the wignuts on these sighte wont be happy till [THE CORPROCATIONS] run everthing.
Hey Everybody! Let’s do the [COPROCATE]!
spoof fail ! pluralz use zee…see
In 30 years, will Facebook even be around anymore? Ten years ago, AIM was all the rage among young people as the preferred method of communicating but who uses that anymore?
I don’t pretend to know what will be the new hot way to communicate decades from now, but I’m willing to bet that if its start being censored for the benefit of China, people living in the (relatively) free world will just jump to some other kind of technology to preserve their right to speak freely.
If the comments on that Caplan piece are any indicator, the defenders of universal college are about to switch from “it’s an economic necessity” to “the humanities are universal human goods and you are all evil philistines who want to kill the culture if you don’t think we should be paying people big bucks to teach community college women’s studies to hairdressers.”
And of course the fact that the “hunamnities” on college campuses such as they are have been run by outright Marxists for forty years and have spent all that time taking tax money while giving the middle finger to the very tax payers who funded them has nothing to do with people turning on the humanities. People just don’t appreciate the beatings they get.
so for john, all that followed fm fluffy’s imagining what someone may say?
That company selling the course videos (I think that was linked here?) shows that the public still has a craving for the humanities…they just want the classics.
Yeah. That guy has made a fortune. Did you see where he gets hate mail from professors because his courses do not emphasize gender and race issues enough? It is not enough that they own the colleges, even the private sector must toe the PC line.
It’s “TOW THE LION”. Sheesh!
Who’s the guy?
They’ve already switched to that, at least if you hang out with humanities types. My non-H&R internet “circle” is loaded with otherwise interesting people who can’t stop fretting about how to prove to the public how important the humanities really are, we promise, you’d believe us if only you weren’t so damn stupid and uneducated. Profs in places like the UK and Canada are way ahead of the curve on this, since they’ve been even more subsidized than domestically. That’s the playbook.
LONGVIEW, Wash. (AP) ? Hundreds of Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha.
Six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/longshor…..21214.html
I’ll be along in a minute to pretend to condemn this.
commie terrorist criminal calip[HATE]
commie [UNIONZ] traitor-scum criminal calip[HATE]
So, all of those people are in jail now, right?
No arrests. They were just protestors. Holding people hostage and tearing shit up is harmless fun you know.
Destroying property is wrong, unless it’s destroyed from 3,000 feet in the air by the USAF.
Im sure it is the legislatures fault, not cops supporting their union buddies.
Yeah. I’m sure dunphy would say that if the legislature would only pass laws against destruction of property and kidnapping, the cops could act. Until then, their hands are tied.
No, no, no. Officer Safety. The whole Longview PD couldn’t take on 500 longshoremen without serious danger to the officers.
That is a fight I would pay to see.
This must be the terror attack we feared.
I do like how the Longshoremen are fighting to push the Engineers Union out of the jobs. Workers of the world unite, unless you don’t.
Given the three-day weekend, one could argue that today is actually Thursday.
No. No one couldnt.
Ananopussy or Rather or whoever certainly forgot their meds this morning. Good God.
Trust in PALIN will all thine heart, and lean not in thine own understanding.
Threaded comments have got to go. We had untreaded comments for years and everything was just fine. They don’t really add that much to the debate and allows the real weirdos to shit on every single post.
Every word of Sarah is pure: she is a shield unto them that put their trust in her.
HEY REASON, BANHAMMER THIS SHIT^^^^^
Consider it a compliment that you drive some unstable person to such lengths.
Morglbl – Stoner de Brest
Morglbl – The Monster Within Me
I am curious if anyone is going to be at tomorrow’s Baltimore show..
commie [UNIONZ] traitor-scum criminal calip[HATE]
Ron Paul talks about Perry “assaulting” him. Sorry to disappoint, but it sounds like a pretty unremarkable event after all.
Corndog
http://www.pensitoreview.com/W…..rndog2.jpg
I have to say, after seeing the Bachmann picture and now the Perry picture, that if I were a public figure I would never, EVER eat a hotdog or hotdog-esque food in public. One would have thought Perry would have learned that lesson as well after seeing what happened with the (in)famous Bachmann photo.
1. Ron Paul took a lie detector test. The lie detector tapped out.
2. Ron Paul is an element on the periodic table.
3. Ron Paul could lead a horse to water AND convince it to drink, but he doesn’t believe the government has the right to so he refuses.
4. King Midas shook hands with Ron Paul once. Nothing happened.
5. Studies by the World Health Organization show that Ron Paul is the leading cause of freedom among men.
6. Ron Paul wasn’t born. He liberated himself from the womb.
7. The chief export of Ron Paul is liberty.
8. When fascism goes to sleep at night, it checks under the bed for Ron Paul.
9. Ron Paul eats Total Gyms for breakfast.
10.If Ron Paul had lived in Sparta, the movie would have been called “1”.
11.When Chuck Norris gets scared, he goes to Ron Paul.
12.Ron Paul lost his virginity to Susan B. Anthony.
13.Ron Paul doesn’t cut taxes, He kills them with his bare hands.
14.Ron Paul delivers babies without his hands. He simply reads them the Bill of Rights and they crawl out in anticipation of freedom.
15.If you pull Ron Paul’s finger, a band will march by playing Yankee Doodle Dandy.
–SAYO
#12…..Ewwwwwwwwww
Take with a grain of salt, since this is the Mother Nature Network, but if wind power could be cheaper than nuclear, that would be pretty significant. I appreciate that the piece leads off by acknowledging that it only matters if wind is cheap without subsidies: “Some major wind projects like the proposed TWE Carbon Valley project in Wyoming are already pricing in significantly lower than coal power — $80 per MWh for wind versus $90 per MWh for coal — and that is without government subsidies using today’s wind turbine technology.”
Say your are building all those wind turbines, you would still need a huge amount of transformers in order to be able to transport all that electricity over long distances at high voltages. And the wind towers will also be a huge deathtrap for migrating birds.
The future of nuclear.
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22867/
Without a economically valid storage system, wind power blows.
And the NIMBY is strong with wind. I was in western Maine recently — big local blowback (get it? get it?) against proposed turbine towers from the local granola-ites.
It’s like that everywhere, a proposed wind farm in Highland County, Virginia generated all sorts of opposition from the environuts. People started talking about their viewshed and how it would be ruined forever.
The beautiful thing about turbine towers, though, is how easily they can be disassembled once we learn to harness the power of unicorn farts.
The “view” people have less of my respect than any other type of environmentalist.
Because what’s so great about the view? Answer: the fact that they can pretend there are no other humans while they’re looking at it.
Environut: “Fuck the unicorn-fart powered generators. They make the whole neighborhood smell like cinnamon!”
Driving out west this year, I noticed a lot of wind turbines and I thought they looked neat. I guess they still kill birds but I find that to be a silly argument since way more ecological devastation happens if there is an accident related to coal or nuclear.
The birds can take one for the team. I’m beginning to think that the Left doesn’t want a solution to the energy problem (if there even is such a thing). They won’t be happy unless we roll back the industrial revolution.
No. The birds can’t take one for the team. That’s why we have no DDT. Birds are not, apparently, team players.
I seem to always miss this point, what is it that makes nuclear unnatural?
It works, can be done now, all the wrong people could make money from it, and it wouldn’t be a hairshirt for society.
Got it, thanks for the clarification.
Ah geez, Terrell, our hearts just pump piss for you. Maybe you should think about hocking one of those absurd doorknobs stuck on your ears to make a payment or two on the “mortgage of all the real estate” you own.
Why piss away an hour watching a speech when you can read it in five minutes?
I read the transcript first, for the substance (or lack thereof), then watch the video for pure hateful enjoyment of the theatrics.
A Republican senator threatened to walk out on the special deficit-reduction supercommittee if other members push for new cuts in defense spending. The remark by Sen. Jon Kyl (R.,Ariz.), a defense finance expert and frequent budget negotiator, threatened to shatter any hope for compromise or bipartisan cooperation as the deficit panel held its first public meeting Thursday. ‘I’m off of the committee, if we’re going to talk about further defense spending,’ Sen. Kyl said at a luncheon organized by the conservative Foreign Policy Initiative…
So it begins…With common sense exceptions…
http://link.email.washingtonpo…..FA0Q5/E4/h
Defending the indefensible. We are fourteen trillion dollars in debt. How can you do that unless you just don’t give a shit?
PALIN is nigh unto all them that call upon her, to all that call upon her in truth.
Delight thyself also in the PALIN: and she shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Rest in PALIN, and wait patiently for her.
hey bubba look-up palin’s dress causin’ she aint fat like da fat ol lady…taint uglies neithers
Bipartisan stupidity. How good is it for our national defense if our economy collapses? Hmmm?
I heard a quote on partisanship on a Teaching Company CD this morning that I posted at Urkobold. As true today as it was in Hanoverian England.
I’m definitely voting LP.
Gary Johnson/That Crazy Blue Dude in 2012!
Military = Republican Welfare Program
Only difference is that instead of trotting out the single moms with her kids, they use guys with their legs blown off who aren’t self-aware enough to know that they’ve been screwed by the State in pursuit of some politician’s dreams of glory in some god-forsaken sand pit.
It is worse than that. At least the welfare moms actually got the money. People like Kyle would fuck the guys with blown off legs in a heart beat if that was what was necessary to keep their contractor buddies well paid.
Anybody have a link to *the actual text* of Obama’s American Jobs Act? I don’t consider the “fact sheet” posted on the White House site as a true “unveiling” of his plan.
Let me be clear.
We have to pass it, NOW, in order to find out what’s in it.
With all due respect, Mr. President, inciting your minions to hound their congresscreatures into passing unread stuff is bullshit.
Yep:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…..203D26.DTL
Didn’t catch the speech but heard about it. I thought the only things in it worth passing were the payroll tax cuts (though there are better stimulative cuts thatn how this is designed the GOP still look like massive hypocrites and class warriors to oppose this) and the tax credit for hiring vets.
The infrastructure spending is still silly, the infrastructure bank is a terrible idea, and the money to “save” teachers and firefighters is goofy.
If I were Obama I would suggest tax credits, maybe targeted to hiring, to be paid for with savings from drawdowns in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. If the Dems demanded infrastructure projects I would have returning military units do some with money budgeted for them to do the same in other nations…
How are the payroll tax cuts any different than just handing out money? I know they are different because people earned that money and it is theirs. But the problem doesn’t seem to be there is a lack of money. It is that people who have money won’t spend it or lend it. I am not sure how a payroll tax cut solves that.
The steps of a good man are ordered by PALIN: and he delighteth in her way
HEY REASON…
I know that sarcasmic. But my point is that the problem is not a lack of money but a lack of spending and investment. I don’t see how the payroll tax solves that.
The payroll tax, being among the most regressive taxes, when refunded will be immediately spent. The point is a lack of money–not as capital but in consumers’ pockets. Investment, the theory goes, will increase once demand picks up.
No Tony. We have tried this before. Consumers won’t spend it. They will save it or pay down their debts with it. That is what happened when Bush tried it. And the economy is even more uncertain now than it was then.
The point is to target those taxpayers who don’t have the luxury to save.
lets sell the debt to the chinese so TEH RAEL [‘MERCUNS] can spend all their tax cuts on stuff…u betcha!
Why bother to invest when you can buy government debt bonds?
They have a guaranteed return, which you don’t have in this uncertain economy.
Especially with all these new rules and regulations coming down the pike. Who can make money in this environment without friends in Washington?
Government debt, combined with government regulation, crowds out investment in productive enterprise.
As far as spending goes, you need production first.
Say’s law: supply creates its own demand.
Demand does not magically create supply. Especially when there are all these government barriers to doing anything productive.
You need to produce something before there can be a demand for it.
Well, the supply is there, so where’s the demand? Your bastardization of Say’s Law is even more nonsensical than Say’s Law itself. If no one has any money to spend, or if no one is willing to spend, what does the supply matter?
We’ve been doing the supply-sider thing for a while, and it hasn’t worked, as you should expect since it doesn’t make any sense.
Where do people get money to spend?
By creating something of value.
What do people spend money on?
Something of value created by someone else.
Step one – you create something of value.
Step two – someone else creates something of value.
Step three – exchange.
Supply comes first.
For example I recently built a rack for my wife’s snakes. It’s all wired up with heat tape and a thermostat. It came out really nice.
I am going to take a risk and build another one in the hope that someone else will pay me money for it. I’m guessing by the fact that the local pet shop sells hundreds of feeder mice a week that there may be a demand. If I manage to sell a few I can use the profits to get a table saw and other wood shop items.
This is just a hobby mind you. There’s no way I could make this a business since I’d need to get some licenses, I’d have to do it in a separate building instead of my home (which I’d have to rent since I don’t have enough land for the town to allow me to build), and so on and so forth.
Government barriers.
My wife is running a small eBay business. She’s incorporated, hired an accountant, etc., but she’s still scared about doing something “wrong”, and she’s just livid at the regulatory burden and the money she has to hand over for what is, at the end, a very, very small operation. Just imagine the costs and red tape involved in operating a business with employees and a physical storefront!
It’s worth noting that the damage to our economy doesn’t just come from federal overspending and over-regulation. The state and local governments do their fair share of damage, too.
Government barriers to competition in the insurance market have a hell of a lot to do with the cost of medical insurance (and medical services, indirectly) being so danged high. That’s a state problem more than a federal one, though the federal government’s socialism has done its own share of damage.
Much more important was the Saints/Packers game. Had the Saints not had that early fumble, or had one more yard been gotten on that last play the Saints would have won. I still think they are the best in the NFC, but we will see.
Special teams. That was the worst kick off coverage on that return for a touch down I have ever seen at a pro level. It was absolutely sorry. Take away that touch down and New Orleans kicks a field goal at the end and wins.
With the new rules, how is a kickoff return for a TD even possible?
You have ten guys standing around and watching the game and one clown who goes for the big hit rather than a solid tackle and you get a 100 plus yard return. Just sorry.
Some of the worst ST play I have seen. 2 returns for TDs and 2 others that were a shoe string away from being TDs? That’s just fucking poor.
Neither team seemed interested in playing any defense last night. Unless you like to watch games that look like they belong in Madden, last night’s game had to suck.
Play some fucking defense for fuck’s sake!
Screw that, I want to see a game that ends with a 91-77 score. Might make me interested in watching football regularly again.
Which is the problem with football today. Fans.
You clearly didn’t watch a lot of Chargers games last season.
As a Buccaneers fan, I am pleased by the result.
As a Bengals fan, I spend most of my days weeping bitter tears and fantasizing about the painful dismemberment of Mike Brown.
Just do the Ickey Shuffle.
As a Lions fan… well, fan is too strong of a word. As someone who suffers through the Lions every year, I’m used to taste of tears.
The opener with the Bucs is a big game for both teams. Will the Lions actually not suck? Are the Bucs going to improve on their 10-6 nonplayoff season?
As a defense first guy, that game made me sad. It’s pretty obvious now that there is no way for any defense to stop a great QB in today’s NFL with all the rules to protect QBs and receivers. Those were both top 6 pass defense last year, but you wouldn’t have known that from watching last night.
Me too. I can’t watch the NFL anymore. The teams all run the same offense. You can’t hit the quarterback. You can’t cover the receivers. They games are all bland.
I partially agree, but I think it’s also due to offense being more in vogue than defense these days. Average fans like lots of scoring and don’t fully appreciate a great defense.
The problem is less acute in the playoffs, where teams with weak defenses get exposed–like the Patriots, for instance. That’s also why Vick–who has always been stymied by strong defenses that can force him to pass–has trouble in the playoffs.
I’m not against good defenses, but I can’t stand sitting through a game that ends with a 3-0 score. That’s just boring shit right there.
Why you doggin’ me?
I don’t think the Saint’s defense is a good judge of things. They are a blitz happy defense that gets burned easily for big plays. The reason they looked good a couple years ago is they forced so many turnovers which made up for things. You’ll also notice that GB was running the ball all over the field on them as well. So it wasn’t just great QBs and receivers that were giving them problems.
Teams that blitz a lot have a weak defensive line, generally speaking. If you watch tape on teams with a good front, they usually get pressure without blitzing and only blitz on third-and-long situations (which, if you’re a decent blitzing team, can collapse the pocket well before the QB can get the pass off past the first down marker).
The problem with that is, of course, that a decent offensive line and QB can eat a team that lives on the blitz alive.
I’m a defense first guy too.
The plan is estimated to bring down unemployment by a percent or so. I’d love to hear for which much more important causes that’s worth sacrificing. But Obama is probably better off if it doesn’t pass since it will be more useful as something that could have been (but that evil Republicans blocked for petty partisan reasons) than as the thing that didn’t make everything better in time for 2012.
The real shithead was certainly an ignoramus, but was capable of constructing an English sentence which included its stupidities:
“I’d love to hear for which much more important causes that’s worth sacrificing.”
it will be more useful as something that could have been
Still meh.
And the 797b stimulus, we were told, was needed b/c it was estimated that unemployment would go above 8% if it didn’t pass.
How’d that work out?
How’d the estimates of the cost of medicare turn out?
How’d the estimates of our current debts and deficits work out?
Etc. etc.
If you’re hanging your hat on an estimate for a government plan, you’re a bigger idiot than you have appeared.
I’d love to hear for which much more important causes that’s worth sacrificing. But Obama is probably better off if it doesn’t pass
Apparently Obama getting re-elected is a more important cause.
You are very likely correct on this, Tony. If the Repubs are smart they’ll fight it, but let it squeek through and pass with a few token Republican votes. Basically, let it pass in the most partisan fashion possible. When it fails to do anything positive, which is certain, they will be able to lay (nearly) all at the feet of the democrats. Note: I don’t personally advocate this, as I don’t want to see money wasted for any reason and dislike the Republicans as well.
Will THIS help bring down unemployment, Tony?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..r_embedded
Closing up the bear trifecta.
Enviro-bear resorts to theft in order to satisfy guilty conscience
http://www.caradvice.com.au/13…..ota-prius/
How the hell did “Authorities are trying to determine if such suspects might already be in the U.S.” turn into “Three terrorists entered the U.S. last month …”?
Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, for a magazine called Reason, etc., etc.
Looks like another do nothing way to spend taxpayer money. The last stimulus bill did so well to create jobs.