Reason Morning Links: Solyndra Employees Say Company Spent Stimubucks Willy-Nilly, Border Patrol Agent Killed by ATF Shenanigans Referred to As "Collateral Damage," Chicago Cop Indicted for Perjury

Mike Riggs | 9.22.2011 8:59 AM

Gun dealer to his ATF handler at the height of the "Fast and Furious" affair: "Unfortunately a consequence occurred from a weapon shall we say that found its way into the wrong area ok and that was not anticipated. Nobody could foresee that that's collateral damage I think the term is. It happened. It's terrible. That's life ok we move on." (ATF agent, according to tapes, murmurs in agreement.)
NATO extends its days-not-weeks bombing campaign in Libya for three more months, at the end of which, the assault by Western forces on Libya will have been going on for nine months.
Former Solyndra employee: "After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right."
A cop who weaved in and out of a funeral procession while running late to work, and then arrested the one mourner who objected to her behavior, has been indicted for perjury after falsely claiming that the mourner threw a bottle at her.
The anti-immigrant group Center for Immigration Studies claims that 81 percent of the jobs created in Texas since 2007 went to legal and illegal immigrants.
The two Democratic senators who agreed to lift their holds on the renewal of the PATRIOT Act are criticitizing the DOJ for lying about how it uses the PATRIOT Act.
ALMOST FORGOT: Troy Davis, who may have been innocent, was murdered by the state of Georgia last night. Lawrence Brewer, a white supremacist who dragged a black man to death and refused to feel bad about it, was murdered by Texas. Commenters: Are we better off for killing our killers? Discuss!

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Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago

Former Solyndra employee: "After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right."

Mostly left.
1. Drake 14 years ago
  
  I like Willy but hate Nilly.
2. Subtle Distinction 14 years ago
  
  "After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right."
  1. $6M RoboTorso 14 years ago
    
    life is an abyss. scream into it and know that you are alone.
    1. o2 14 years ago
      
      what about the other screamerz ?
      1. Clich? Bandit 14 years ago
        
        Hey, it is thursday.
        
        Go away!
  2. Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago
    
    It seems from the subtle distinction as though former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn is upset she didn't get to spend any of that money left and right before the company went tits up.
    
    It's like public housing. Apparently there is little incentive to take care of things given you free by the government, even if it is in your best interest to do so.
3. Tim 14 years ago
  
  How many muffins did they buy?
DJF 14 years ago

"""""'NATO extends Libya mission another 90 days"""''

Impossible, my TV told me that we have already won in Libya.
1. John 14 years ago
  
  Days not weeks.
  1. JW 14 years ago
    
    Days not weeks.
    
    By the book.
2. Muammar Gaddafi 14 years ago
  
  Suck on it, biotches!
  
  Also, nice scare quotes.
3. Qadaffi 14 years ago
  
  may ur mother live 10 lifetimes shoveling camel dung
  1. gaijin97 14 years ago
    
    Dude, how are we supposed to take you seriously as a dictator when you can't even spell your name consistently?
    1. Puddin' Taine 14 years ago
      
      Ask me again. I'll tell you the same.
4. Mumu Goofdaffy 14 years ago
  
  You can't win until you decide how to spell my name. I got the idea from Rumplestiltskin.
  1. The Tick 14 years ago
    
    Susan.
    1. Thrakkozog 14 years ago
      
      Now you're doing it on purpose.
      
      How juvenile.
Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago

Green was convicted, but the Independent Police Review Authority continued a separate investigation that was launched after several of the mourners filed complaints.

The investigators discovered that a Chicago Police blue-light camera had captured the incident. And the video recording from the camera near 79th and Vincennes showed that London's driver-side window was up at the time she said the bottle hit her through an open window, prosecutors said.

Quite the thorough initial investigation.
1. Tonio 14 years ago
  
  According to TFA:
  
  The motorist was convicted of misdeameanor battery, and sentenced to three years probation. This has apparently been undone.
  
  Sylshina London, the LEO, has resigned and moved to NC. London is charged with felony perjury. She's "free in lieu of $30,000 bail."
  
  "And who shall watch these watchmen?"
2. Invisible Finger 14 years ago
  
  On March 19, 2010, London was driving a white Lexus to work at the Gresham District police station when she cut in and out of a funeral procession for Michele Green, prosecutors said...London then allegedly radioed a 10-1 call ? for an officer in need of assistance.
  
  Why are they allowed to take police radios home? Seems to me she was trying to game the system - she was late to work but since she had a police radio and was in uniform she could make it look she was on-duty (a la Barney Fife) if she radioed for backup.
  
  At least the PD didn't destroy the video. But it seems like they didn't even bother looking at it - an independent agency had to do the investigation.
Solanum 14 years ago

For once, an upbeat morning link.

Gordon Ramsay's Porn Dwarf Double Eaten by Badger
1. Barack Obama 14 years ago
  
  He was doing well but he was under pressure, 24/7, like everyone in this goddamned business.
  
  Let me be clear.
  
  My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Percy Foster.
2. SugarFree 14 years ago
  
  Great story, or The Greatest Story?
3. Brett L 14 years ago
  
  How hard did they have to work to find an angle to report this. "Little Person Found Dead in Badger Den" wasn't getting enough play?
  1. BakedPenguin 14 years ago
    
    "Humpy the Horny Dwarf Badgered to Death" was apparently right out.
    1. Brett L 14 years ago
      
      You really need to go work for a Brit tabloid.
4. Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago
  
  That's weird. I read Gordon Ramsay's badger was eaten by a dwarf on that date a year ago.
  1. SugarFree 14 years ago
    
    It's the circle of life: dwarf eats penis, badger eats dwarf, dickhead eats badger after screaming at it histrionically.
    1. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
      
      I should note that Ramsay's exaggerated anger exists as an invention of American television; if you watch Kitchen Nightmares U.K., he is foul-mouthed and tough, but not histrionic.
      1. Rhywun 14 years ago
        
        And he's downright genial on The F Word.
      2. Surly Chef 14 years ago
        
        Actually if you watch Boiling Point, the original documentary that gained him his notoriety, you'll find that the exaggerated anger is an invention of Gordon Ramsay. It's part stirring the pot for the cameras and part actually being an asshole thats under massive amounts of stress from being a first time business owner.
        
        Clich? Bandit 14 years ago
        
        I watched the Bio episode on him. He was talking about the first Kitchen Nightmares and said "I really wanted to go out in Britain and help restaurants succeed. And when the produces brought me the first three I said "Guys, stop selecting the worst ones jsut for effect." That is when they told me these were the BEST out of the pile.
        
        No wonder he is pissed, these people don't give a shit about their work and he is frighteningly pasionate about his.
        
        cynical 14 years ago
        
        Or producers are pathological liars.
      3. Red Rocks Rockin 14 years ago
        
        The UK version of Kitchen Nightmares is awesome. You see a lot more interaction with the staff and more analysis from him on what exactly they're doing wrong. I wish they'd release more seasons on DVD here in the States.
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        They are all on Netflix, if you haven't already cancelled your subscription.
5. Clich? Bandit 14 years ago
  
  Life, the Onion, tough to tell sometimes.
PIRS 14 years ago

No link to a story about Troy Davis?

http://friendsofjustice.wordpr.....ses-mouth/
1. SIV 14 years ago
  
  Were the anti-death penalty protestors picketing the execution of Lawrence Russell Brewer?
  1. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
    
    Ha ha, SIV. Come on now.
    1. SIV 14 years ago
      
      The death penalty is wrong, right? We all have the blood of Lawrence Russell Brewer on our hands. All you Texans anyways.
      1. Willard 14 years ago
        
        Don't be a pussy that fucker got what he
        deserved.
        
        highnumber 14 years ago
        
        Were the anti-death penalty protestors picketing the execution of Lawrence Russell Brewer?
        
        Yes, they were. That was a stupid question.
        
        Enjoy Every Sandwich 14 years ago
        
        But was it all over CNN, et al, the way the other case was? I didn't see it.
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        Those four old people in chairs is definitely the same thing as HRW, NCAAP, Amnesty, et. al. coming out in full force.
        
        Exactly the same.
        
        highnumber 14 years ago
        
        Nobody said it was the same. If you looked at more of the pictures, more than four people were there to protest (including Dick Gregory!), but, no, you are right when you point out that the execution of an unrepentant and unrepentantly racist killer drew fewer protesters and less media attention then the execution of a man proclaiming his innocence whose prosecution was perceived by many to be flawed. But you didn't ask if as many people showed up. You asked "Were the anti-death penalty protestors picketing the execution of Lawrence Russell Brewer?" They were. It was a stupid question.
        
        highnumber 14 years ago
        
        (Actually SIV asked that stupid question. You made a thick-headed statement about it.)
  2. SIV 14 years ago
    
    Were Euro-weenies and other "citizens of the world" professing their solidarity by saying "I am Lawrence Russell Brewer"?
    
    After all, his crime was a bit higher profile. I think they named some laws after his victim.
    1. Bill B. 14 years ago
      
      The only way to guarantee that innocent men (or women) are NEVER murdered by the state, is to let guilty men live.
      
      This isn't a complicated matter. In my view, and the view of many who oppose the death penalty, this is the only choice as the alternative is the definition of unacceptable in a free society.
      
      The debate of whether or not a man could commit a crime so heinous that he deserves to die need not even be broached. The state cannot decide who lives or dies, as they cannot be trusted with that decision.
  3. John 14 years ago
    
    Hold it, you mean someone was executed for that crime? I recall hearing during the 2000 election how then Governor Bush didn't even prosecute anyone for it. How did this happen?
    1. o2 14 years ago
      
      because he hidout w the iraq nukes
    2. SIV 14 years ago
      
      I thought Bush drove the truck?
      1. John 14 years ago
        
        Exactly.
    3. Brett L 14 years ago
      
      Yeah. That stupid guy said hate crimes legislation was unnecessary. Texans backed him up by returning 2 death sentences and life for the minor who participated. SLD: This is only used to demonstrate that no more severe sentence could be handed down.
  4. Doug 14 years ago
    
    Nope, because there was no doubting he was guilty; or remorseful for that matter. From his interview in August:
    
    "I have no regrets. I'd do it all over again to tell you the truth."
    
    Good riddance, you sick fuck.
    1. SIV 14 years ago
      
      I have no doubt Troy Davis was guilty. The cop he killed was trying to stop Davis from pistol whipping a homeless guy.
      1. MNG 14 years ago
        
        "SIV|9.22.11 @ 10:10AM|#
        I have no doubt Troy Davis was guilty."
        
        Glad we don't let people hold other people's lives in their hands from the cheap seats...
        
        PapayaSF 14 years ago
        
        Ann Coulter makes a brief but persuasive case that he was guilty.
        
        Ann Coulter 14 years ago
        
        Look at him! HE JUST LOOKS FUCKIN' GUILTY!! LOOK!
        
        Brandon 14 years ago
        
        You're a moron if you believe anything Ann Coulter dictates to an intern, who then removes the profanities and transcribes the remainder.
        
        "There is more credible evidence that space aliens have walked among us than that an innocent person has been executed in this country in the past 60 years, much less the past five years."
        
        Yeah, she's a totally credible source.
      2. Doug 14 years ago
        
        I don't have any opinion on whether Davis was guilty or not. I don't know so...I don't know. I defer to the justice system's decision on whether or not he was guilty. And as a knuckle-dragging, non-nanny-statist type of libertarian that doesn't support a federal ban on capital punishment, I don't lose a wink of sleep over his execution.
        
        In Brewer's case, he didn't deny that he was a part of it so I don't doubt for a second he was guilty. In his case I'm glad he got the needle. We're better off--even if only marginally--that we aren't paying to feed, board, and patch the boo-boos of the sick fuck.
  5. Spoonman. 14 years ago
    
    The crime so awful they made our elementary school teachers talk to us about it. My first real understanding of the meaning of "cruelty" came from that.
sarcasmic 14 years ago

Courtney Cox is still hot.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....g-bay.html
1. John 14 years ago
  
  Looks like she gained a little weight. She definitely looks better than she did a couple of years ago when she looked like an escapee from a concentration camp.
  1. Red Rocks Rockin 14 years ago
    
    She's always looked better with a little meat on her bones.
2. Bee Tagger 14 years ago
  
  Somewhat related: Nearly every sitcom in recent memory has tried to have at least one eye-candy-ish woman as a major role in the show.
  
  Do you think the hotness of these women has gotten better over time? I look back at some of the women I lusted after in Junior High and wonder just how low my hormones set the bar. Example: Wings. Crystal Bernard, whatever actress played Alex, and John Ritter's wife. Certainly not ugly or even unattractive, but tv hot?
  1. John 14 years ago
    
    Bernard was always cute and fairly sexy. But not breath taking or anything. I know she was in the over 35 class, but late Mary Fran who played Bob Newhart's wife in the second Bob Newhart show was always quite attractive. I think part of it is that the clothes and hair were so bad in the 1980s. A lot of those women would look a lot better if they were young today. And today's women wouldn't looks so good in big hair and shoulder pads.
    1. Quetzalcoatl 14 years ago
      
      Hahahahaha, and now I'm picturing Megan Fox with 80's hair and a shoulder-padded dress!
      1. Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago
        
        Hey! Pleasure yourself on your own time.
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        I am picturing Megan Fox as the two-dollar whore she really is. God she's gross.
        
        John 14 years ago
        
        She really is. I think she is a skank. I really would kick her out of bed.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 14 years ago
        
        I never really understood all the fuss about her either.
        She was in one terrible movie, and all of a sudden everyone thought she would be the next Angelina Jolie.
        
        DJF 14 years ago
        
        It took years of making terrible movies before Angelina Jolie became Angelina Jolie
        
        sarcasmic 14 years ago
        
        She makes my tongue hard.
    2. Mainer 14 years ago
      
      " And today's women wouldn't looks so good in big hair and shoulder pads."
      
      We're all conditioned by our formative years. That recent pic of young Sarah Palin with 80's hair just made her hotter in my eyes.
      1. sarcasmic 14 years ago
        
        barf
  2. Clich? Bandit 14 years ago
    
    Ohh come on! Elizabeth Montgomery? Barbara Eden? Justine Bateman? Kathy Kinney?
    
    There have been a string of seriously hot women in sitcoms fro some time now.
    
    Monkepotomus. Did he let you ride him?
    1. John 14 years ago
      
      Montgomery and Eden were goddesses. But they were from the 60s, when women were hotter. The 80s were not that great.
      1. sarcasmic 14 years ago
        
        Give those 80s women flat hair and tank tops, and I'm sure they'd look light years better.
        
        Clich? Bandit 14 years ago
        
        DIF sarc...the best part of the 80s was the hair and clothing on women aged 16-26. ELIZABETH SHUE!!!!
        
        Sparky 14 years ago
        
        Jami Gertz
        
        Clich? Bandit 14 years ago
        
        Holy cow...I never realized she was in Twister, solarbabies, Er, Facts of life, and about 100 other shows. She was absolutly hottest as Star however. Also, we should give honorable mention to kirsti alley but only in her Cheers days.
        
        JW 14 years ago
        
        Yes.
  3. FTFA 14 years ago
    
    Nearly every sitcom TV show in recent memory since the 60's has tried to have at least one eye-candy-ish woman.
  4. Red Rocks Rockin 14 years ago
    
    Catherine Bach (Daisy Duke) was my first TV crush, but I haven't watched that many sitcoms in the last 15 years or so.
    
    The only ones who really stand out to me are April Bowlby when she was on Two and a Half Men and Kaley Cuoco, and Kaley's more cute than hot.
3. teh rael o2 14 years ago
  
  diet & exercise - doh !
4. Restoras 14 years ago
  
  Spectacular!
PIRS 14 years ago

"The two Democratic senators who agreed to lift their holds on the renewal of the PATRIOT Act are criticitizing the DOJ for lying about how it uses the PATRIOT Act."

They didn't notice the government lies about the PATRIOT Act beforehand?
SugarFree 14 years ago

Eliot Spitzer is actually trying to out-dumb Klein, Yglesias, and The Krug-Man.

I think he may be winning.
1. John 14 years ago
  
  Well Elliot does do his share to help young poor women by helping to provide them steady work in the sex industry.
  1. SugarFree 14 years ago
    
    Those Jersey skanks aren't going to fuck themselves, John.
    
    Oh, wait... they will. And I was being redundant.
    1. John 14 years ago
      
      What is a teenage runaway going to do for money if a sugar daddy like Elliot isn't there to help?
      1. SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        Hey, don't get me wrong... sex work is a far, far, far more honorable profession that politician.
        
        John 14 years ago
        
        For sure. I have no problem with Jersey skanks.
        
        Tim 14 years ago
        
        Where do whores go?
        
        SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        To Slate, apparently.
2. Warty 14 years ago
  
  I made it through the sub-title before I closed the window. The bromide density was just too high for me to deal with in my bronchial misery right now.
  1. SugarFree 14 years ago
    
    For those so challenged... he proposes a WPA for 20-somethings.
    1. Citizen Nothing 14 years ago
      
      Not a bad idea, really. I propose we send them all to Kaho'olawe to clear landmines. Spitzer can supervise.
      1. Citizen Nothing 14 years ago
        
        Wait, you said WPA, not CCC. I'm still backing my idea, though.
        
        SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        He mentions reviving both.
      2. BakedPenguin 14 years ago
        
        Spitzer can supervise.
        
        From the front.
    2. Maxxx 14 years ago
      
      Because nothing prepares people for the real world like a government make work job.
      1. Red Rocks Rockin 14 years ago
        
        Not to mention that during FDR's time, a lot of the WPA and CCC workers had real, actual blue-collar skills and were already conditioned to hard work. What do the Millenials have to offer besides texting, placing a Starbucks order, smoking weed, and internet porn-surfing?
        
        cynical 14 years ago
        
        Healthy organs.
3. Shirley MacLaine 14 years ago
  
  It is time for the president to channel Franklin Roosevelt .... The economy, our social fabric, and the president's political viability depend upon it.
  
  Well said.
  1. Rich 14 years ago
    
    Serious question: What is this "social fabric" that is invoked in such essays?
    1. SugarFree 14 years ago
      
      Marxism is the Lycra of the masses.
      1. Rich 14 years ago
        
        A bit of a stretch.
        
        SIV 14 years ago
        
        I have a related blog to shill. Updates have been few and far between as of late
    2. T 14 years ago
      
      I'm guessing it's a poly-cotton blend.
      1. Lord Humungus 14 years ago
        
        but a low thread count.
      2. Rich 14 years ago
        
        I'm guessing it's heavier on the synthetic fibers.
    3. Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago
      
      The rich tapestry of assholes and douchebags that comprise your neighborhood.
      1. Rich 14 years ago
        
        I'm sure that's part of it. Does "Old Glory" contribute any fabric to society?
        
        Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago
        
        How dare you scare quote the flag!
        
        Terence 14 years ago
        
        Don't get your "stars and stripes" in a bunch.
  2. R C Dean 14 years ago
    
    The economy, our social fabric, and the president's political viability
    
    Why do I suspect that he listed these in inverse order of their importance to him?
4. PIRS 14 years ago
  
  "It is time for the president to channel Franklin Roosevelt, to create modern versions of the CCC and WPA for those under 25?not an entitlement program, a work program."
  
  Apparently this guy does not know that Americorps and the Peacecorps already exist.
  
  Also, if you want them to be able to get jobs you could always lower the minimum wage.
  1. GroundTruth 14 years ago
    
    Lower the minimum wage???
    
    Never! Better they should go on the dole than have to work for a wage determined by market forces!
Quetzalcoatl 14 years ago

Psh. Like we need Riggsy to give us discussion topics.
WTF 14 years ago

The anti-immigrant group Center for Immigration Studies claims that 81 percent of the jobs created in Texas since 2007 went to legal and illegal immigrants.

DEY TOOK ER JERBS!!!11!!!
1. Brett L 14 years ago
  
  This is because all Texans who want jobs more or less have one. Also, I don't think its nice to call Yankees "illegal immigrants".
  1. o2 14 years ago
    
    yankees is soo 2 centuries ago...like those [JOBZ]
    1. PIRS 14 years ago
      
      o2, may I ask what your first language is and how long you have been learning English? I know learning a second language is hard, I am learning Spanish.
      1. teh rael o2 14 years ago
        
        afrikaans
  2. Quetzalcoatl 14 years ago
    
    The real question is why it's relevant to lump legal immigrants in with illegal ones. The 81% tells us nothing because we don't know the actual percent that went to illegal immigrants, even if that mattered to us!
2. teh rael o2 14 years ago
  
  so the wealthy [JOBZ] creators create low-wage service sector [JOBZ] w their boosch tax cutz ?
  1. shorter teh rael o2 14 years ago
    
    "SCREECH!"
    *flings poo*
    1. Quetzalcoatl 14 years ago
      
      Troll-free Thursday, pass it on!
    2. Clich? Bandit 14 years ago
      
      ok...I almost pissedmyself reading that.
  2. PIRS 14 years ago
    
    Having no job at all is so much better.
  3. 2O 14 years ago
    
    texas & mumbai babiee are the 21st century [JOBZ] frontiers ! oh booy, get that dirt outta my hole
  4. PIRS 14 years ago
    
    By the way, did you ever decide how you would like to define Ponzi scheme?
    1. o2 14 years ago
      
      criminal fraud
      1. PIRS 14 years ago
        
        And more specifically? How is a Ponzi scheme different from other types of criminal fraud like claiming that sugar pills are aspirin?
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        TROLL-FREE THURSDAY!
        
        PIRS 14 years ago
        
        "TROLL-FREE THURSDAY!"
        
        Gun-Free school zone!
        
        JW 14 years ago
        
        Everyday is troll-free for me.
        
        o2 14 years ago
        
        im not a prosecutor. go ask them
3. Lost_In_Translation 14 years ago
  
  Does it count if they were the ones opening businesses and creating jobs also?
  
  I don't think the medical center or all the oil companies were hiring immigrants, but I sure see a hell of lot more lawn service companies, roofing companies and small businesses in the area.
  
  I think the Center for Immigration Studies doesn't understand who created the jobs.
  1. o2 14 years ago
    
    lets watrebarod them lol fome the wigusts
    1. John 14 years ago
      
      Can you speak English at all? Or do you only communicate in this kind of molespeak or whatever it is?
      1. Quetzalcoatl 14 years ago
        
        Fun fact: his literacy rate is pretty typical in much of Ohio.
        
        John 14 years ago
        
        Our education system at work.
        
        Timon19 14 years ago
        
        Hey! That's only partly true!
      2. PIRS 14 years ago
        
        At least in this one he pluralized using an s instead of his usual z.
        
        teh rael o2 14 years ago
        
        cause its old mex spoofing moi
      3. teh rael o2 14 years ago
        
        old mex's spoofarrhea john
  2. Old Mexican 14 years ago
    
    Re: Lost_In_Translation,
    
    I think the Center for Immigration Studies doesn't understand who created the jobs.
    
    I don't think they care that it doesn't matter. The end-all-be-all of an economy is not to "create jobs" (as a job is just another cost;) it is Production. If those jobs went to immigrants and so-called "illegal" immigrants, that would only mean that the Texas economy is ratching up to produce more stuff than the economies of other states where job "creation" is down or flat, all other things remaining equal (like the poductivity rate.)
  3. R C Dean 14 years ago
    
    I don't think the medical center or all the oil companies were hiring immigrants,
    
    There's a ton of immigrants in the hospital biz. Doctors, nurses, and maintenance staff. The first two are squeaky clean legal. The last, meh, who knows?
    1. SIV 14 years ago
      
      They have quite a bit of oil (and oil workers) down in Mexico.
$6M RoboTorso 14 years ago

life is an abyss. scream into it and know that you are alone.

How the eBook proves that Capitalism will destroy society

Report: At least 200 murders in Mexico now linked to Fast & Furious weapons
John 14 years ago

What Solyandra and Social Security tell you about liberals.

But looking beyond Obama's distortions, his comments have fresh meaning in the wake of the Solyndra scandal and provide insight into what he and his fellow liberals consider appropriate risk.

Obama thinks it's OK for government to risk taxpayer money on business ventures that he deems worthy of investment. But he's outraged at the suggestion that younger Americans be allowed to have more control over the allocation of their own tax dollars.

This derives from the liberal belief that a central authority run by experts will spend money intelligently (in the case of Solyndra, by jump-starting alternative energy), whereas individuals will act irresponsibly if left to their own devices (in the case of Social Security reform, by blowing their retirement on personal accounts).

http://campaign2012.washington.....liberalism
1. o2 14 years ago
  
  is that the official FBI report then ?
2. Draco 14 years ago
  
  You know John, I've long held that liberal politicians don't really believe this stuff. It's just convenient cover to funnel money to their friends. To them, it's just a big game where the prize for winning a seat at the table is that you get to spread the loot in your own preferred precincts. A greener world is just today's popular cover. Tomorrow it will be something else.
$6M RoboTorso 14 years ago

Report: At least 200 murders in Mexico now linked to Fast & Furious weapons
1. John 14 years ago
  
  Wow. That is really an amazing number. And that isn't on the front page of every newspaper and the subject of nightly special reports on the networks why? Oh yeah, because 90% of our media is a propaganda arm of the Obama administration.
  1. Special Report 14 years ago
    
    At least 200 murders in Mexico now linked to Fast & Furious weapons
    
    Overwhelming evidence that guns do indeed kill people.
    1. WTF 14 years ago
      
      Yeah, they just jump up and shoot all by themselves. That's why I keep mine locked up at night, and only let them out with a muzzle.
      1. John 14 years ago
        
        Yeah. You really need to take them to a training class and get them out and let them exercise once in a while. Without that, you never know when a gun is going to go berserk and just start shooting people.
        
        It is amazing how double asshole will defend anything the black Jesus does. It really is a cult for some people.
2. WTF 14 years ago
  
  At least 200 murders in Mexico now linked to Fast & Furious weapons
  
  "Let me be clear: you have to break some eggs if you want to make an omelette."
  1. Bee Tagger 14 years ago
    
    Chorizo is people?!
    1. WTF 14 years ago
      
      Only the green chorizo.
      1. Restoras 14 years ago
        
        I thought that was jalapeno?
      2. JD the elder 14 years ago
        
        "CHORIZO VERDE ES GENTE!"
        
        (I think. Please excuse my pidgin Spanish if I got something wrong.)
    2. Neu Mejican 14 years ago
      
      Chorizo is people?!
      
      Only the offal - the choice cuts go into carne seca.
  2. Neu Mejican 14 years ago
    
    At least 200 murders in Mexico now linked to Fast & Furious weapons
    
    Not to downplay how bad an idea fast and furious was (as bad as the movie even), but methinks that the bad guys would have killed all those people anyway.
3. creech 14 years ago
  
  Time for a special prosecutor. No one died from dress stains or Scooter's alleged revelations, but each got a special prosecutor.
4. Lost_In_Translation 14 years ago
  
  still underestimated...externalities and all that.
5. Proprietrist 14 years ago
  
  Implication being that most of those same murders wouldn't have occurred because the mafias were otherwise out of weapons? F&F was a misguided mission, but blaming the government for the murders is only slightly more logical than blaming a bartender for a customer's DWI fatality accident.
  
  What I blame the government for is not acting on the information against the murderers, making the whole operation completely pointless. If it had contributed to bringing down mafia bosses and brutal killers, the operation might have been somewhat justified.
  1. T 14 years ago
    
    Let's try a hypothetical, Prop. If I illegally sell a gun to a guy I know good and goddamned well is going to use it to kill somebody, am I guilty of accessory to murder?
    
    Since we all know I would be charged, why isn't the government? Did they think the narcos were just going to wave them around and not shoot people with them?
    1. Proprietrist 14 years ago
      
      If I sell you a beer and I know damn well you're likely to drive home, am I an accessory to your DWI?
      
      If I sell you a pack of cigarettes and your kid gets lung cancer from second hand smoke, am I responsible for his death? Did I think you were just going to pretend to smoke them?
      
      Guns are tools and the manufacturer or distributor of the tools should not be responsible for their misuse. The consequences were probably obvious in this case, but the murders probably would have happened whether there were American-gov't distributed guns or not. Had the government quickly used the information to catch the murderers, they could have prevented further murders. It was a misguided failure, but they still could have gotten something worthwhile out of it.
      1. cynical 14 years ago
        
        "Guns are tools and the manufacturer or distributor of the tools should not be responsible for their misuse."
        
        What, even when the distribution is proscribed by law?
        
        The government knew these guys were dirty, and in some cases couldn't legally make the purchases (due to prior convictions or whatever) and intervened to make it happen, because they wanted the guns in the hands of the drug cartels. Even their defenders aren't denying this, they're claiming that the purpose was to watch where the guns turned up in order to map out the flow of arms in through the cartel ecosystem, as though they were radioisotopes or something.
$6M RoboTorso 14 years ago

How the eBook proves that Capitalism will destroy society
$6M RoboTorso 14 years ago

How new technology proves that Capitalism will destroy society
$6M RoboTorso 14 years ago

The fucking squirrels think an article from MIT is spam.
$6M RoboTorso 14 years ago

random gibberish to get this link past the server squirrels
$6M RoboTorso 14 years ago

fuck you, server squirrels
$6M RoboTorso 14 years ago

http://www.technologyreview.co.....2011-09-22
Lord Humungus 14 years ago

Bickering over rescue of Post Office escalates
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-th.....ntensifies

With the USPS perhaps just days away from insolvency, lawmakers sparred at a House Oversight subcommittee markup over what is needed to clean up the agency's finances. Republicans on the panel said their bill, which is expected to clear the subcommittee, would help control USPS labor costs, which account for around 80 percent of the agency's expenses.
1. Russ 2000 14 years ago
  
  Where's Warren Buffet to rescue this insolvent entity?
modnar 14 years ago

Family Hires Attorney After Police Scuffle With Special Needs Man
$6M RoboTorso 14 years ago

Fuck you, server squirrels. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you,fuck you.
1. Toronto Tonto 14 years ago
  
  Frustrated, eh?
2. Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago
  
  Who let you in?
3. GroundTruth 14 years ago
  
  Ah, just saw "The King's Speech" did you?
Bee Tagger 14 years ago

81 percent of the jobs created in Texas since 2007 went to legal and illegal immigrants.

So this is what a theocracy will look like? Since when did Rick Perry start reading Sojourners?
1. o2 14 years ago
  
  those are those gee-whiz NAFTA [JOBZ] everyone wants
  1. shorter o2 14 years ago
    
    im not just stupid im fucking tedious
2. Metazoan 14 years ago
  
  I just looked at the website of the CIS. It contains gems such as this:
  
  "Because of the inextricable link between legal and illegal immigration, there is no way to continue massive legal immigration and reduce illegal immigration. To cut illegal immigration, legal immigration must be curtailed?"
  
  - James R. Edwards, Jr., CIS Fellow
  
  Huh? Isn't it the reverse? That greater legal immigration = less illegal immigration?
  1. Brett L 14 years ago
    
    This is just one of the arms of the "we got ours, fuck you" branch of politics. Another arm is the zoning/"sustainable" development crowd.
Lord Humungus 14 years ago

Soros turns up in Obama's LightSquared imbroglio
http://campaign2012.washington.....-imbroglio

As Republican lawmakers begin to dig into the White House's cozy relationship with a startup wireless company and the wealthy Democratic donor who owns it, a new character has appeared on the story's edges: liberal superdonor, conservative bete noire and controversial investor George Soros. Soros reportedly invested in the telecom company LightSquared through a hedge fund, and many of the nonprofits he finances have backed LightSquared in regulatory and policy disputes.
Old Mexican 14 years ago

Troy Davis, who may have been innocent, was murdered by the state of Georgia last night. Lawrence Brewer, a white supremacist who dragged a black man to death and refused to feel bad about it, was murdered by Texas. Commenters: Are we better off for killing our killers? Discuss!

Short answer: No. We're not better off. We're simply 2 murderers less.

Another short answer: Davis wasn't innocent. There were 34 witnesses who identified him as the murderer.
1. o2 14 years ago
  
  the prob w davis is 2 fold for me; 1) his mother said on CNN that the same gun killed another person earlier and 2) davis maintained his innocence in his last words.
2. creech 14 years ago
  
  Brewer, as far as I know, never claimed innocence. So I'm down with seeing him off. Davis certainly looks guilty but there is some small chance he wasn't. So life in prison for him (which may be a sentence worse than death). And get his supporters from around the globe to pony up for his incarceration (same for the Mumia turd)
  if they wish to keep him alive.
  1. Old Mexican 14 years ago
    
    Re: creech,
    
    Davis certainly looks guilty but there is some small chance he wasn't.
    
    Very small chance, like: unlikely. He had been seen shooting a passerby earlier before the "incident," which placed a gun in his hand. He had the good sense of pistol-whipping an indigent and then shooting an off-duty cop at a fucking BURGER KING that was think with people. All of this means this is not a case that required soothsayers or mentalists to crack.
  2. Quetzalcoatl 14 years ago
    
    As we learned yesterday, saying "Life sentences are worse than death" three times summons Radley Balko.
    1. Draco 14 years ago
      
      Ah, didn't realize this was already discussed. See my post below.
    2. Proprietrist 14 years ago
      
      I heard if you say it three times in the dark over your toilet, his glowing, ghostly visage rises out of it.
Old Mexican 14 years ago

NATO extends its days-not-weeks bombing campaign in Libya for three more months, at the end of which, the assault by Western forces on Libya will have been going on for nine months.

But it's not a war, m'kay?
1. o2 14 years ago
  
  its war for the NTC
2. Eduard van Haalen 14 years ago
  
  It's an environmentally-friendly way to dispose of surplus ordnance. The fact that some of the bombs landed on military targets is just a coincidence.
Lord Humungus 14 years ago

David Ignatius: The price of becoming addicted to drones
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html

These weapons, which project power without risking "boots on the ground," can become addictive. According to a report last year by a U.N. special rapporteur, more than 40 countries now have drone technology, and nations seeking to arm drones with missiles include Israel, Russia, Turkey, China, India, Iran, Britain and France.
1. America, Fuck Yeah! 14 years ago
  
  Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
John 14 years ago

I hate cruises and refuse to take them. Looks like a smart choice.

The vanishing passengers: It's a mystery as bizarre as it is disturbing - why have 165 people gone missing from cruise ships in recent years?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....years.html
1. Lord Humungus 14 years ago
  
  you know, that chili isn't free.
2. SugarFree 14 years ago
  
  And say at least 60% were suicides. That's a soft option once you find yourself on a cruise.
  1. Lost_In_Translation 14 years ago
    
    WTF, who goes on a cruise to commit suicide?!
    
    People have no shame anymore.
    1. SugarFree 14 years ago
      
      No, I'm suggest that they decide to kill themselves after they realize they are trapped on a cruise ship.
      1. Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago
        
        The Love Boat and its unattainably high expectations.
      2. Note Left in Cabin 14 years ago
        
        Sorry, my Love, this was the only way I could escape the Cruise Director's constant cheerful haranguing.
    2. Hate Boat 14 years ago
      
      Al qaeda?
3. Lost_In_Translation 14 years ago
  
  dude, people get drunk and fall overboard. Its stupid, but that's what happens...and its a fucking long drop.
  
  I'm not a fan of cruises too. Give me a nice week on the beach for 1/4 the price.
  1. John 14 years ago
    
    You fall off a ship at sea, unless someone sees you go over, you will never be found.
    1. Tim 14 years ago
      
      No, the sharks find you.
    2. Art-P.O.G. 14 years ago
      
      Plus, dude. Shuffleboard. I can't picture playing any other game shortly before my death.
    3. Ice Nine 14 years ago
      
      A guy with a wife and kids goes on a cruise by himself. That's pretty weird. If I had to pick someone who was going to disappear, he'd certainly be in the running.
      1. Citizen Nothing 14 years ago
        
        The problem is, it's no easier to fall over a cruise ship rail than it is to fall over a hotel balcony rail. Why hasn't there been a rash of people falling to their deaths from hotel balconies?
        
        Ice Nine 14 years ago
        
        Nowhere near as elegant as just slipping off into oblivion.
        
        Lord Humungus 14 years ago
        
        It's better to burn out than fade away.
        
        or so I've heard.
        
        James Ard 14 years ago
        
        Hotels don't offer all you can drink packages?
        
        kilroy 14 years ago
        
        Because you might live through it and wind up in a bed eating through a straw for the next 30 years?
        
        Mo 14 years ago
        
        They do. However, unlike hotel balconies, there's no body to find on a cruise ship so the death is seemingly more mysterious. Dude falls off hotel balcony to their death isn't mysterious or newsworthy (to a paper with a circulation >1000).
        
        Citizen Nothing 14 years ago
        
        Isn't newsworthy? WTF? A dude falls off a local hotel balcony to his death and I guarantee my newspaper (with a circulation hundreds of times bigger than your threshold) writes about it.
        
        Atanarjuat 14 years ago
        
        Citizen Nothing, I grew up in Panama City, and every year it seemed a drunk springbreaker would fall out of a condo balcony. Some of 'em were trying to climb to a different balcony though. Also yeah, maybe the rolling sea aids the wobbly footing?
        
        CrackertyAssCracker 14 years ago
        
        Hotels don't move?
  2. o2 14 years ago
    
    well that and tossing the [FATZ] old lady overboard as in "honey - looks like death just parted us yeaaa !"
4. Solanum 14 years ago
  
  Aquaquatches?
  1. Brett L 14 years ago
    
    Sealsquatch?
    1. Proprietrist 14 years ago
      
      Steve Smith can explain everything about the disappearances.
5. R C Dean 14 years ago
  
  why have 165 people gone missing from cruise ships in recent years?
  
  I suspect the ready availability of (a)alcohol and (b) the ocean.
6. kilroy 14 years ago
  
  It's been a dozen years or more since I took a cruise but at that time all you needed was a state issued ID (drivers license, etc.) to gain entry to any number of foreign countries in the Caribbean. Just get off the ship and never get back on.
Old Mexican 14 years ago

The anti-immigrant group Center for Immigration Studies claims that 81 percent of the jobs created in Texas since 2007 went to legal and illegal immigrants.

It is true; this man has no dick.
Spoonman. 14 years ago

No fate was too cruel for Lawrence Brewer, but the state cannot be trusted to execute people because it can't be trusted not to screw up and execute innocent men.
1. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
  
  Then that applies to all criminal sentences. Anarchy now!
  1. Citizen Nothing 14 years ago
    
    Once again, the right Rev. B.M. is unable to differentiate between living and dying.
    Strange cult you got goin' there, BM.
John 14 years ago

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....paign.html

Gisele Bundchen absolutely has the killer body. But God, the face is just not that great.
1. Lord Humungus 14 years ago
  
  As we used to say back in the day - "she costs a fortune in paper bags, but it's worth it."
  1. BakedPenguin 14 years ago
    
    What was the old Monks song? "Nice Legs, Shame About the Face?"
2. creech 14 years ago
  
  And what would you do if she happened to stroll into your office right now and said, "John, lock the door!"???
  1. John 14 years ago
    
    I didn't say I would kick her out of bed. I just said she really isn't that pretty. Thanks to her body, I am not sure anyone notices.
3. Mike M. 14 years ago
  
  A few years ago she said she would run around New York City completely naked if her busband lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl. To the best of my knowledge she hasn't done it yet.
4. Pip 14 years ago
  
  This is just weird. Not the video, but the fact that I can see it. YouTube has been blocked at work nearly since its inception, but since Mody, it hasn't been. Odd.
5. Meh 14 years ago
  
  Her legs are OK, but her torso looks like a slightly used bar of soap. The woman has no waist.
  
  Oh, and any woman who squeezes her chest close enough together with her upper arms can create the illusion of tits.
  
  BLEAGH.
SugarFree 14 years ago

"If the parties revolve around unattractive women, then this is something anachronistic and will repel voters."
1. John 14 years ago
  
  It is the reverse in the US. Any attractive woman in politics immediately causes huge numbers of angry, jealous hags to hate her guts.
  1. Mike M. 14 years ago
    
    Indeed; American women are some of the most jealous and insecure women in the world. Our first female president is going to have to be a hag.
    1. Eduard van Haalen 14 years ago
      
      Margaret Thatcher did more good stuff than that porn star in the Italian Parliament.
      
      Grover Cleveland was uglier than JFK and John Edwards, but who would you rather vote for?
    2. Art-P.O.G. 14 years ago
      
      That is an hilarious use of the word 'anachronistic'. Plus, c'mon aren't you guys being a little harsh on female American voters?
      1. Art-P.O.G. 14 years ago
        
        Grover Cleveland was uglier than JFK and John Edwards, but who would you rather vote for?
        
        Cleveland. Maybe JFK could grow a mustache that awesome, but I really doubt John Edwards could.
        
        Lucy Steigerwald 14 years ago
        
        If we're keeping it shallow, give me ugly over dripping with the sleaze of the falsely handsome.
        
        T 14 years ago
        
        Does that refer to JFK, Edwards or both?
        
        Matrix 14 years ago
        
        speaking of Cleveland (I think I'm related to him)... presidents should bring back the facial hair. We haven't had a president with facial hair since Taft.
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 14 years ago
        
        We haven't had a president with facial hair since Taft.
        
        Yet another reason to hate Woodrow Wilson, on a long list of offenses.
      2. John 14 years ago
        
        Compare female voters' feelings towards a hag like Hillary Clinton or Madeline Albright to say Sarah Palin. Palin is nothing but a mainline conservative figure. If she were a man she would be considered a more moderate version of Rick Santorum. Why did women start eating the furniture over her?
        
        R C Dean 14 years ago
        
        Apparently, nice hooters drive men and women crazy. They're just driving in opposite directions.
        
        WTF 14 years ago
        
        Although to be fair, it is really the harpies of the left who are doing the screeching, we are just more aware of them because they get a lot of play in the media.
        
        Art-P.O.G. 14 years ago
        
        This is kind of off-topic (maybe on), but does facial hair make men less 'trustworthy'? Bob Barr is the only (serious?) presidential candidate in the last few decades to run for the office while sportin' some facial hair.
        
        Moustache Twirl 14 years ago
        
        Yes.
    3. BakedPenguin 14 years ago
      
      Hillary '12!
      1. BakedPenguin 14 years ago
        
        Crap. Refresh prior to post.
2. Apple 14 years ago
  
  That's horrible. No one would ever think of judging a man by his looks. Just look at all the fat, bald, shorter than 6' presidents we've had in the last 50 years.
  1. WTF 14 years ago
    
    I give you Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie. Who polling shows could win the Presidency rather handily in 2012.
Old Mexican 14 years ago

Former Solyndra employee: "After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right."

Government money burns pockets.
John 14 years ago

I was flipping channels this morning and Fox News had Jennifer Granholm on. And she proceeded to explain how when she was governor she tried cutting taxes and spending and it just didn't help the economy. I would imagine there are at least a few thousand broken televisions in Michigan right now.
1. Lord Humungus 14 years ago
  
  As a Michigander, I must have missed that part.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 14 years ago
    
    Me too.
    Also: why is anyone asking Granholm anything? She is probably one of the least notable former governors.
    1. John 14 years ago
      
      The needed a Democrat. And Fox News loves blonds in short skirts.
2. o2 14 years ago
  
  flipping channels?...u mean fm faux to faux HD? too ez...
  1. John 14 years ago
    
    Again, can you speak English? What are babbling about?
    1. SugarFree 14 years ago
      
      Who cares what Mush Mouth has to say? It would just be retarded nonsense.
      1. John 14 years ago
        
        True. Perhaps the molespeak is appropriate to the ideas being conveyed.
      2. teh rael o2 14 years ago
        
        that's no way for a wingnutz to describe faux knewZ
        
        teh rael o2 14 years ago
        
        im a stupid bag of retarded fuck
        
        o2 14 years ago
        
        ^moarz spoofarrhea^
Joe M 14 years ago

Has anyone seen this? It's been making the rounds on Facebook, and it makes me want to puke. It's by some group called "The Other 98%". I just find it depressing when people are focused on entirely the wrong thing. The class warfare angle is getting hyped like mad now.
1. John 14 years ago
  
  What is it? The link crashed my browser.
  1. The Hamilton 14 years ago
    
    And with good reason.
  2. Joe M 14 years ago
    
    I hate to do this, but here is another link to the image.
2. Lord Humungus 14 years ago
  
  someone has to pay for the muffins!
3. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
  
  I am fine with all that, Elizabeth Warren, but is it really too much to ask that you ask whether I wanted to be a part of your social contract? I don't just walk into your house and help myself to your food, even though my taxes paid for your police which protect your property blah blah blah...I ask first. And I don't point a gun at you when you say "no".
  1. o2 14 years ago
    
    so emigrate somewhere else like say...
    1. o^2 14 years ago
      
      lol love it or leeve it derp
4. SugarFree 14 years ago
  
  Yes, because the "rich" pay no taxes whatsoever at this point. Lying commie twat.
  1. o2 14 years ago
    
    warren musta had that eye surgery cause she doesnt look chinese or n korean ?
5. Solanum 14 years ago
  
  You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory...
  
  Define "marauding bands".
  1. Joe M 14 years ago
    
    Exactly. The ones in congress are precisely the ones we have to worry about.
  2. JD the elder 14 years ago
    
    You don't have to worry that marauding bands will come and seize everything at your factory, unless you're Gibson Guitars and the marauding band is the FBI.
6. kilroy 14 years ago
  
  Goddamnit! Reasonable in-lines that shit!
  1. Joe M 14 years ago
    
    I know. That's why I apologized for doing it twice. 🙁
7. Right of Center Guy 14 years ago
  
  An old hs classmate posted that pic. It took all I could not to make some nasty comments. Social contract my ass.
8. Fluffy 14 years ago
  
  Elizabeth Warren is the person Atlas Shrugged was written for.
  
  If the factory is a social product and my input was not relevant, why don't mongoloids and brain dead people start factories every day?
  
  The roads are there. The schools are there. And they're protected from marauding bands, too.
  
  Why can't I get a factory going while sleeping in til noon and playing X Box 9 hours a day? The roads are still out there. And the schools. And those marauding bands don't show up while I'm playing video games, either, unless they're in the video game.
  
  Hmmmmmm...it's a mystery.
  1. Joe M 14 years ago
    
    This is the woman running against Scott Brown. I don't normally have a preference, but go Brown.
Lord Humungus 14 years ago

So what do you think, monetary stimulus or monetary tightening? The only thing that's "twisted" is the Fed's logic. They are so obsessed with the Keynesian low interest rate approach to stimulus that they've completely lost their bearings and ended up tightening monetary policy.
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=10923
Randy 14 years ago

So if exections by the state are murders, does that make everyone behind bars victims of kidnapping by the state?

Just asking. BTW, I'm not pro capital punishment.

IOW, Mr. Riggs, step up your game.
1. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
  
  THANK YOU.
2. The Hamilton 14 years ago
  
  Of course not. But, seeing as how government derives its powers from we the people, and we the people are not allowed to commit premeditated murder, well, you figger it out.
  1. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
    
    Seeing as how "we the people" are not allowed to lock people up in cages...
    
    You figure out why your argument is stupid.
3. SugarFree 14 years ago
  
  Whatever your position on capital punishment... the state executing an innocent person is closer to murder than anything else you can describe.
  
  And if someone wants to say that killing the occasional innocent person is just the price of doing business, then I consider that person a moral idiot.
  1. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
    
    Dude, Riggs said:
    
    Lawrence Brewer, a white supremacist who dragged a black man to death and refused to feel bad about it, was murdered by Texas.
    
    Do you agree that is the proper way to classify that act? Why or why not?
    1. SugarFree 14 years ago
      
      If you feel, as I do, that the state has no right to deliberately kill its citizens, then we are talking about the premediated morally illegitimate taking of a human life not in self-defense. Calling it murder is not unreasonable.
      1. Concerned Citizen 14 years ago
        
        The State could puncture the base of their skull an suction out their brain. That is Consitutional.
        
        teh rael o2 14 years ago
        
        im pretty sure the top of the skull has to be inside a vagina for it to be legal
        
        o2 14 years ago
        
        ^spoofarrhea
        
        Wayne 14 years ago
        
        True. We just need the appropriate hat, then everything is kosher!
        
        MiNGe 14 years ago
        
        Joooooos!
      2. Draco 14 years ago
        
        The state has the delegated power (not right) to punish citizens duly convicted of crimes, according to the law of the land. Whether that's incarceration or death (or beating, or what have you) makes no fundamental difference. If it's morally illegitimate, than so is the idea of government as purveyor of justice, and so is the democratic process that establishes such laws and governments.
        
        SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        I don't think the power to punish should include the power to end a citizen's life. And a don't think a citizen's life should be at the whim of the majority.
        
        And many other functions of government are morally illegitimate, as well.
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        I don't think the power to punish should include the power to end a citizen's life.
        
        Why? And please explain how, in principle, that is any different from the State "kidnapping" and "holding people against their will until they die".
        
        SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        Irreparable harm. The prisoner can be set free and compensated for a mistake or miscarriage. The dead can only be shrugged at.
        
        kilroy 14 years ago
        
        So if I lock you in my basement for a year but give you twice the salary you would have made while locked up when I free you, we're cool then? You've been compensated. No harm, no foul.
        
        Fluffy 14 years ago
        
        I'd be a lot less harmed than I would be if you killed me, and then a year later you propped up my corpse and tried to hand it a check.
        
        Joe M 14 years ago
        
        Seriously, how is this hard to distinguish? You might not get full compensation for wrongful imprisonment, but you get more than zero, which is what you get after wrongful execution.
        
        kilroy 14 years ago
        
        @Fluffy
        I'd be a lot less harmed
        
        @Joe M
        You might not get full compensation
        
        I was specifically replying to SF's implication that incarceration was not "Irreparable harm". It is.
        
        Less harm than death? Certainly. but also irreparable.
        
        SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        kilroy,
        
        So no theory of compensation is possible? Being put to death and getting out of prison after 20 years is the same moral outcome?
        
        Irreparable harm doesn't mean "restores to a factory finish," it means unable able to reverse a state. A few hundred thousand may not fully repair a wrongfully accused prisoner, but imprisonment is a reversible state. Death, AFAIK, is not reversible.
        
        Lazarus 14 years ago
        
        You knoweth not.
        
        kilroy 14 years ago
        
        Irreparable harm doesn't mean "restores to a factory finish," it means unable able to reverse a state.
        
        No, it means can't be repaired. Until you can give me the lost time back you haven't repaired the harm. You may compensate me for the loss, like a totaled automobile by an insurance company, but you can't repair it.
        
        SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        OK, we'll just gas you to death instead. Happy, now, dead guy?
        
        kilroy 14 years ago
        
        OK, we'll just gas you to death instead. Happy, now, dead guy?
        
        As I commented below, if the sentence is long enough, yes.
        
        Metazoan 14 years ago
        
        so Rev. BM, do you think that torture is also morally legitimate?
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        What the hell?
        
        No, to answer your question. And note that I have never said that the Death Penalty is morally permissible. What I have said, and will continue to say, is that attacking the Death Penalty with the standard tropes is an attack on any state-imposed punishment, and that is why DP attacks in particular are unconvincing. Libertarians need to deeply re-examine how a criminal justice system should operate.
        
        For example: is it "anti-libertarian" to advocate for lashings and the stocks instead of prison?
  2. SIV 14 years ago
    
    This is why I support lynching. There is no "collective responsibility" outside of the participants and teh justice is much swifter.
    1. MNG 14 years ago
      
      "This is why I support lynching."
      
      I wish all conservatives were this open about their positions...
4. Matt 14 years ago
  
  Even if we accept your premise, Randy, Kidnapping < murder
5. Randy 14 years ago
  
  There's nothing controversial in my post.
  
  I didn't realize that pointing out Riggs' intellectual dishonesty could bring out the same in so many others here.
  
  To clarify, it's silly to bandy about the word murder when referring to executions unless you are willing to apply the same "logic" by referring to imprisonment as kidnapping. That's the counterpoint your opponent will make and you will look stupid. Get it?
  
  There's really nothing complicated or hidden here. I was just trying to save Riggs some embarrassment the next time he debates this issue in public. It can't be fun to be laughed off the stage.
  
  Sheesh.
  1. anonymous 14 years ago
    
    It's important not to see punishment as an end in itself, and not to see incarceration as an end in itself. Incarceration accomplishes two things: it takes violent offenders off the streets, and it punishes offenders with the aim of correcting their behavior. In the case of an execution there is no hope of rehabilitating the offender. Punishment is not morally justified in such a case. Nor is it morally justified to punish one offender as a means of deterring others. Kill one, warn a thousand, is not a maxim for a just society. To kill somebody solely to send a message to others would violate the second formulation of Kant's categorical imperative. It is inherently unethical.
    
    Incarceration by the state is not at all like kidnapping so long as it serves the purpose of protecting the public by (a) immediately taking a threat off the street, and (b) deterring violent offenders from committing crimes in the future.
    
    In conclusion, your case against Rigg's usage is not as strong as you believe.
Au H20 14 years ago

When I think informed political discourse, I think Rosanne Barr

OF FUCKING COURSE Feministing hates the capitalist system that has helped women's equality the most.
1. John 14 years ago
  
  Is Rosanne Barr still alive?
  1. Citizen Nothing 14 years ago
    
    Was she ever?
    1. MNG 14 years ago
      
      +1
Tim 14 years ago

" Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. "
1. MNG 14 years ago
  
  "Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. "
  
  Dude, don't take one of the main sentiments the GOP currently rests upon...And these people call the Dems the "party of death," sheesh.
  1. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
    
    TROLL-FREE THURSDAYS!
    1. Citizen Nothing 14 years ago
      
      Why would you want us to ignore you, BM?
      1. MNG 14 years ago
        
        Self hate?
      2. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        Well I am thoroughly zinged.
  2. Joe M 14 years ago
    
    At least it's an ethos Dude.
2. cynical 14 years ago
  
  That pretty much sealed my view on capital punishment back in the day. Kudos, Gandalf.
Draco 14 years ago

My perspective on the American justice system: it's worse to spend your life in prison than to be executed. Therefore, I would argue that if we cannot trust the state with execution then we cannot trust the state with administering the far worse fate of decades of violence, rape and torture inflicted in our prison system.

I believe it was Dostoevsky who said that we are all living under a death sentence from the day we are born. The question is what do we want to do with our lives in the mean time.

I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life in a maximum security prison with hard core felons. I'd rather be executed.

So the "we can't trust the state to inflict the death penalty" meme fails for me.

I accept that more people than not would disagree with me: they'd rather live at any cost. And that is why we still have the death penalty as the "ultimate punishment" for the ultimate crime of murder. If more people agreed with me, then maybe the ultimate punishment would be spending the rest of your life in the torture chamber that is the American prison system.
1. Zeb 14 years ago
  
  I would rather spend my life in prison. And I think a lot of prisoners agree. Otherwise, I would expect the suicide rate in prison to be a lot higher (and the suicide rate in general, lots of people have shitty lives without going to prison). I think a lot of people underestimate the power of the will to live, even under horrible conditions.
2. kilroy 14 years ago
  
  I'm with Draco on this. I'd off myself if sentenced to a long prison term.
Lord Humungus 14 years ago

Shutdown? House votes to reject short-term spending measure
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor.....ma-funding

The House stunned Republican leaders Wednesday by rejecting a temporary spending bill that would have funded the government through Nov. 18. The vote failed, 195-230, after Democrats pulled their support for the bill and Republican leaders were forced to scramble for enough votes entirely within their own ranks. Four dozen conservatives voted against the bill because it left spending levels for 2012 higher than the cap set in the House GOP budget.
1. John 14 years ago
  
  Good for them. Fuck the Republican leadership.
  1. MNG 14 years ago
    
    Shame on the Dems seeing as how their excuse for opposing the bill was because it dared to try to pay for disaster relief by cutting loans to automakers to produce more efficient cars. WTF?
    1. Democrat Congressmen 14 years ago
      
      What do you expect, man? Those corporate donation checks aren't going to write themselves! You gotta spend money to make money!
2. R C Dean 14 years ago
  
  Yup. Didn't take long for "leadership" to underbus the spending limits their caucus voted for just a few months ago.
3. EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy 14 years ago
  
  I'm sitting here trying to convince myself that this will clue in the Republican leadership that 2010 was not a wave of support for their policies, but something new.
  
  It isn't working.
  1. Brett L 14 years ago
    
    Heh. So glad I got off the TEAM RED train after 2006 for just this reason. Having either party's leadership come around to reality is more of a distant hope, like having my wastrel cousin show up with the $500 bucks he borrowed from me 3 years ago. I used to try fiercely to convince myself that 'this time they've learned their lesson'.
John 14 years ago

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....nvite.html

Susan Sarandon's daughter apparently inherited her mom's body. Sarandon had quite a figure back in the Rocky Horror Picture Show and Pretty Baby days.
1. SugarFree 14 years ago
  
  Watch the 3rd season of Californication. She has four or five extensive nude scenes.
  1. John 14 years ago
    
    Watch The Hunger sometime. A young Sarandon and Catherine DeNeuve in the greatest lesbian scene ever put to film.
    1. Au H20 14 years ago
      
      You forgot the "excluding porn" disclaimer.
      1. Draco 14 years ago
        
        John is so innocent sometimes.
        
        John 14 years ago
        
        Porn is generally the most boring unsexy thing on film. I don't get hard core porn.
        
        shorter John 14 years ago
        
        I don't get hard core porn.
        
        Joe M 14 years ago
        
        There are many subtle levels.
      2. Neu Mejican 14 years ago
        
        You forgot the "excluding porn" disclaimer.
        
        It doesn't apply here.
        John and I rarely agree, but....
    2. SugarFree 14 years ago
      
      I'm talking about Sarandon's daughter, John.
      1. John 14 years ago
        
        I will have to look that up.
        
        Au H20 14 years ago
        
        John, sometimes I wonder how you even exist.
        
        Au H20 14 years ago
        
        Okay, the squirrels are officially fucking with me.
    3. Ice Nine 14 years ago
      
      Catherine DeNeuve as a lesbian?? Dude, you have totally fucked up my day!
      1. John 14 years ago
        
        Watch the movie.
    4. Solanum 14 years ago
      
      Fast forward to that scene otherwise you'll be sound asleep long before reaching it.
2. sarcasmic 14 years ago
  
  Good enough to eat.
3. Concerned Citizen 14 years ago
  
  No ass.
  1. Lord Humungus 14 years ago
    
    there is a considerable 'big butt brigade' (say that 10x fast) here in H&R.
    1. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
      
      And they say there are no black libertarians.
    2. H&R Mixalot 14 years ago
      
      We like bug butts and we cannot lie...
    3. BakedPenguin 14 years ago
      
      Even the white boys got to shout...
      1. BakedPenguin 14 years ago
        
        Refresh before posting...refresh before posting...refresh before posting...
        
        BakedPenguin 14 years ago
        
        Actually, I guess it still worked with Blue Moon's comment.
Au H20 14 years ago

Okay, so, I never did a follow up when this ended, so here it is. Gawker decided to rank the 50 "worst" states, from good to awful. They decided this by the very scientific metric of polling editors and each ed. giving a scores from 1 to 10. Then, they gave the write up to Richard Lawson, who is gay. Therefore, every write up is basically, "Does this state vote for Democrats? Even if it does, is it gay friendly?"

The best parts came when people pointed out that there is more to life than how many gay bars are in a state, and every effing time Lawson would come in to the comments to flip a shit at that person.

Anyway, from worst to first (because the whole idea of least worst, the way Gawker did it, is retarded) here are the best states to live in:

50. Arizona
49. Alabama
48. Utah
47. New Jersey
46.Mississippi
45. Delaware
44. West Virginia
43. Oklahoma
42. Nevada
41. South Carolina
40. Alaska
39. Florida
38. Texas
37. Arkansas
36. Ohio
35. South Dakota
34. Nebraska
33. Montana
32. Wyoming
31. North Dakota
30. Idaho
29. Kentucky
28. Tennessee
27. New Hampshire
26. Indiana
25. Kansas
24. Iowa
23. Rhode Island
22. Missouri
21. North Carolina
20. Connecticut
19. Wisconsin
18. Maryland
17. Georgia
16. Michigan
15. Illinois
14. Pennsylvania
13. New Mexico
12. Virginia
11. Maine
10. Colorado
9. Louisiana
8. Oregon
7. Washington
6. Minnesota
5. California
4, Vermont
3. Hawaii
2. Massachusetts
1. New York

First part here, with links to the series:

http://gawker.com/5831724/the-.....in-america
1. SIV 14 years ago
  
  Georgia at #17. We might be right wing Redneckistan but the ATL is full of gay bars.
  1. kilroy 14 years ago
    
    In Atlanta at least, especially the midtown area. Not so much OTP.
  2. Apple 14 years ago
    
    Wonder what's so different about Texas and Georgia in thier minds. Lots of rednecks and gay bars in both places.
2. John 14 years ago
  
  New York outside of the city and the vacation spots in the mountains is backwater hicksville. We are talking the State not the City. But the stupid provential fucks at Gawker probably don't know there is such a thing as New York State. Massachusetts is the same way. And Boston is in the top five of corrupt inefficient governments. How can a state that has seen its last three House speakers go to prison be considered second best in the country?
  
  Hawaii is dirt poor outside of the few super rich who live there, totally riven with racial strife between Japanese, Americans and native Hawaiians and oh by the way has the worst education system in the country.
  
  In contrast, Arizona is generally low tax, outside of Phoenix has a great climate and beautiful scenery. Tuscon and Flagstaff have to be two of the better small cities in America to live.
  
  Is everyone at Gawker retarded?
  1. sarcasmic 14 years ago
    
    Yes.
  2. Bee Tagger 14 years ago
    
    Is everyone at Gawker retarded?
    
    C'mon John. Did you really need this list to realize that?
  3. tarran 14 years ago
    
    In defense of Arizona's low ranking, the sheriffs of various counties are pretty awful:
    
    Maricopa of sheriff Joe fame (with its legion stories of abuse and insanity), Yapavai, Pima County counties having their own dangerous forms of crazy.
    
    But this is hardly a great defense: the cops in the big cities they praise Philly, New York, Boston, Washington DC, Baltimore don't keep the peace but rather behave like very dangerous street gangs.
    1. John 14 years ago
      
      Cops everywhere suck. I don't see how dealing with Sheriff Joe is any different than dealing with your typical east coast flatfoot. Try dealing with a New Jersey state trooper sometime. And those are two counties out of how many in the state?
      1. sarcasmic 14 years ago
        
        A job that allows a person to commit acts of violence upon people who do not show proper respect will attract people who enjoy committing acts of violence upon people who do not show them proper respect.
      2. tarran 14 years ago
        
        Oh, I agree, I think that if you remove the outlier of Sheriff Joe, Pima and Yapavai are pretty run of the mill. Hell, if we had powerful sheriffs here in MA, I know that they would be just as abusive. I've talked with cops in Medford and Boston (actually one Boston cop threw something at me when I was riding my bike lawfully with my kid on a child seat above the rear wheel - as best I can tell for kicks - I didn't stick around to argue with the guy since I wasn't feeling suicidal)
        
        It's just that Arizona is not a paradise. It's a nice place where the police endanger the populace.
        
        BTW I think that Maricopa and Pima have most of the population of Arizona living within them. So the depravity of the local county police is a problem. The counterfactual: the bulk of the population of Maricopa is in Phoenix which has its own police force which means that the Maricopa coppers are not particularly welcome within the city limits.
3. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
  
  Why the hell would I care what some histrionic queen has to say about *anything*, let alone a superficial analysis of states?
  
  Lawson gives gays a bad name.
4. WTF 14 years ago
  
  New Jersy at #47? NJ is a pretty solidly democrat state, but I guess we lose big time for electing Chris Christie.
  1. Nipplemancer 14 years ago
    
    We lose just for being here.
5. MNG 14 years ago
  
  I don't know if your metric was the one used, because considering how GOP they are Louisiana and Georgia would have to be reeeeaaaally gay to get them rated that high.
  1. kbolino 14 years ago
    
    Atlanta
    New Orleans
    
    Really, that was hard?
6. Joe M 14 years ago
  
  Texas should be ranked much higher, purely on the basis of Montrose in Houston.
  1. Brett L 14 years ago
    
    Well all those homophobes in Austin just ruin it for us... or something.
7. Matrix 14 years ago
  
  lol, I live in Alabama. They are number 49 on the list? haha! Ro' Tahd Ro'!
  
  Originally from Oklahoma, which is #43... Booooooooomerrrrrrr
8. Red Rocks Rockin 14 years ago
  
  The best parts came when people pointed out that there is more to life than how many gay bars are in a state, and every effing time Lawson would come in to the comments to flip a shit at that person.
  
  In other words, it's a ranking of states that bring the most hits on Lawson's Grindr account.
John 14 years ago

One last daily mail link. And I must do some work. There is one woman over 60 I would sleep with.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....-life.html
1. EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy 14 years ago
  
  She was never a sexual bombshell, but she aged nearly as well as Audrey Hepburn.
  
  Even if that photo flatters her outrageously it is impressive.
  1. Red Rocks Rockin 14 years ago
    
    She was never a sexual bombshell
    
    I've seen some of her early work, and I'd have to disagree. She might not have been dolled up like Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield, but she always gave an impression of seething sensuality.
2. Wayne 14 years ago
  
  She was scrumptuous in Caligula!
3. Lord Humungus 14 years ago
  
  check her out in "The Long Good Friday" - my favorite British gangster movie.
  
  No nudies or anything like that, but she's damn sexy in that movie.
Au H20 14 years ago

I mean... you had to ask?
Fluffy 14 years ago

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/21/.....index.html

Santorum starting to crack under the Google Bomb pressure.

Faster, pussycat! Kill! Kill!
1. John 14 years ago
  
  I don't like Santorum. But I dislike google more. If there was an issue like that with Obama, they would stop in a heart beat. That is their choice of course. Their company. But it still makes them leftist twits.
  1. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
    
    Google is leftist. Now I've heard everything. Are you ever "off", John? Like, do you just kick back at the end of the day and say "I'm not going to be a Kulturkampf Chucklehead for 30 seconds today?"
    
    I think you need CWA - Culture Warriors Anonymous. One day at a time, John.
    1. John 14 years ago
      
      Google is totally in bed with the Obama administration. You wonder why they never seem to have any anti-trust problems? Do you ever actually read the news or do you just make it up?
      
      Tell you what, why don't you get out of bed tomorrow and vow to yourself that you will read a newspaper or two and not be a half wit who assumes everything they don't understand is about the culture war whatever the fuck that is. Ok?
      1. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        So the answer to my question is "No, I am never 'off' and will never stop being a Kulturkampf Chucklehead."
        
        From The Fucking Article:
        
        n December 2009, when racist images of first lady Michelle Obama popped to the top of Google search results, the company took a similar free-speech stance.
        "We have a bias toward free expression," Google spokesman Scott Rubin said at the time. "That means that some ugly things will show up."
        
        and
        
        Way back in 2004, an anti-Jewish web site started ranking in Google's top results for 'Jew.'
        "Despite Google co-founder Sergey Brin being Jewish and himself disgusted with the result, it stood. Intervention, when Google's ranking algorithms had spoken, was seen as harmful to user trust,"
        
        You're like that old adage about parenting: ten "good job son"s get wiped out with one "aw shit".
        
        John 14 years ago
        
        BFD. Apparently the Obama administration didn't care about he images. If they did, google would have jumped. They are huge donors to Obama. And make not secret about their politics. It is about politics not culture. Why do you scream culture? Are you really that fucking stupid?
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        Apparently the Obama administration didn't care about he images. If they did, google would have jumped.
        
        Do you have any evidence for that supposition, counselor, or are you just posturing? /rhetorical question
        
        . They are huge donors to Obama. And make not secret about their politics.
        
        So what?
        
        Why do you scream culture?
        
        Because you are acting like a Culture Warrior twat, that's why.
        
        Lord Humungus 14 years ago
        
        Don't really care about their politics - I have no problems using their suite of packages - Blogger, Gmail, etc.
        
        o2 14 years ago
        
        john's a socon not libtoid & spews rusharrhea & becktardism constantly.
      2. MNG 14 years ago
        
        Oh, yesterday it was David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, fluffy, epi, the Reason staff, the Indepenent Institute, etc., that called liberals, today we can add Google.
        
        Liberal defined as "people or orgs which do or say things John disagrees with"
        
        John 14 years ago
        
        Shut the fuck up MNG. You literally have nothing to add. Nothing whatsoever.
        
        MNG 14 years ago
        
        Yeah, I wish I could add sloppy overgeneralized comments like "well, Google is for Obama" or "France hates Jews"
        
        Boy, that would raise the level of debate.
        
        o2 14 years ago
        
        mng - lub-rahls is wingnutz for "not like me"...see?
        
        MNG 14 years ago
        
        For all his talk about "adding substance" to the debate most of John's comments follow the movement conservative playbook of simply chucking people (and huge swaths of people at that) into some simplistic category and hoping all kinds of negative associations about that category will do the rest of the work. There's no actual discussion or debate, just divvying up sides, and of course we all know which side is good (the one we are on!).
        
        Joe M 14 years ago
        
        I don't disagree, but you've been plenty guilty of that yourself. Don't give into hate. That leads to the dark side.
      3. MNG 14 years ago
        
        When the right Reverend notices your KultureWar obsession that indicates a severe problem John.
      4. Proprietrist 14 years ago
        
        Is that why they're being called before the Senate to give hearings on antitrust practices, pretty much as we speak?
        
        http://www.latimes.com/busines.....7425.story
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        That's all just a show to demonstrate how wedded to the Administration Google really is!
        
        I really should have my own radio show.
        
        o2 14 years ago
        
        john just regurgitates rush/beck- tardisms...like most of their audience who confuse entertainment w political analysis...FEAR the coming islamic[UNIONZ] calipHATE...plus send ur patriotic $$$ now !11!!1!!!
  2. Fluffy 14 years ago
    
    If there was an issue like that with Obama, they would stop in a heart beat.
    
    I don't agree.
    
    The thing is that Obama is too big to Google Bomb.
    
    Santorum is just famous enough to attract the attention of people who would Google Bomb him for vengeance, but not famous enough that his name generates enough organic traffic to defeat the Bomb.
    
    If someone decided to do this to, say, Robert Reich, I doubt Google would give a shit.
    
    The thing is that Santorum fundamentally misunderstands what Google is there to do.
    
    Google is there to measure the web activity associated with a certain term or concept.
    
    If there are thousands of people posting hideous shit about Rick Santorum, Google should return that. The web activity surrounding people who hate Santorum is more significant than the web activity surrounding people who like him. If Google were to edit that out, they would be defeating a search engine's reason to exist.
    1. John 14 years ago
      
      It is about what comes out on top. Google totally controls that. You could have tons of bad shit, but the bad shit wouldn't come to the top if google didn't want it to. They control the algorithm. I am sorry but I don't believe for a moment if the White House called them and said "we don't like this result" they wouldn't jump. That is just how the world works.
      1. Fluffy 14 years ago
        
        It is about what comes out on top. Google totally controls that.
        
        Whatever Google may say about their super-complex "algorithm", it boils down to: "Whatever our spiders find the most frequently and whatever people link to the most will come up on the first page."
        
        There's an entire industry devoted to gaming that system, John.
        
        The Santorum incident is just an example of an activist applying SEO 101 to a political figure who annoyed him.
        
        Google's anti-content-farm tweaks mainly consist of dumping on certain domains. They can't really apply that tool to something like the Santorum bomb, which is distributed among thousands if not tens of thousands of domains.
        
        The thing you have to understand is that the Santorum bomb isn't really a "trick". If someone set up a server farm and one individual mass-produced anti-Santorum domains, it might make sense for Google to try to intervene to counteract what that individual was doing - because he would be "faking" the type of results Google is trying to find. But when thousands of individuals band together and start posting anti-Santorum stuff, that's not fake. That's exactly the type of web activity Google is trying to find and rank.
        
        To use a political metaphor - once you get thousands of people to do something, it's not astroturf any more. It's real grass. Google is just showing us the real grass.
        
        rac3rx 14 years ago
        
        "Whatever our spiders find the most frequently and whatever people link to the most will come up on the first page."
        
        Actually no, Google uses your search and browsing history to show you what it thinks you want to see.
        http://bit.ly/fdUkKt
        
        Search for something then clear your history or log out of your Google account and search for the same thing again. You will get 2 different sets of results.
      2. Art-P.O.G. 14 years ago
        
        Oh, c'mon, John. You sound like a leftist talking about Fox News.
        
        You're still one of my favorite commenters.
      3. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
        
        I don't believe for a moment if the White House called them and said "we don't like this result" they wouldn't jump
        
        I guess I have to repeat myself: do you have any evidence for this supposition?
        
        MNG 14 years ago
        
        Asking John for evidence for his suppositions is like asking a vagrant for a loan dude. Suppositions is what he's got.
        
        Wayne 14 years ago
        
        MNG, you, of all people, hating on vagrants? That is your constituency. Go and say five hail mary's.
        
        sarcasmic 14 years ago
        
        Go and say five hail mary's mmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmm's.
        
        ftfy
        
        Pip 14 years ago
        
        Fuck you, asshole. You add nothing to any discussion. Nothing.
2. Joe M 14 years ago
  
  Fuck Santorum. He's getting what he deserves, and I for one relish his misery.
  1. Draco 14 years ago
    
    In a libertarian society, he'd be able to sue for (and collect) damages from the "activists" who have smeared his good name by redefining it in the way they have. No libertarian society would make an exception to libel laws for "public personalities."
    
    As far as getting what he deserves, can you detail the precise initiation of force or fraud on the part of Senator Santorum that entitles him to any punishment, let alone "misery?"
    
    Or are you one of those "libertarians" who believes that merely having held a position in government deserves retaliatory punishment?
    1. Fatty Bolger 14 years ago
      
      They would be saying much worse about him if he ever became President. What would President Santorum do then? Still tell Google what to do, but this time with the weight of his office behind the "request?" The man just proved beyond any shadow of a doubt (if there was any left) that he shouldn't be anywhere near the Presidency.
    2. Rev. Blue Moon 14 years ago
      
      No libertarian society would make an exception to libel laws for "public personalities."
      
      Woah, how is the santorum thing libelous? Libel means saying untrue things about a person - what is the "truth value" of redefining a word?
      
      Is "gerrymander" libelous? Reagonomics? McCarthyism?
      1. Draco 14 years ago
        
        OK, I didn't use the correct term. I don't know what you'd call it, but it harms someone to take their (distinctive) name and associate it with something that most people would find pretty foul, and further to "Google bomb" it so that anyone searching for that name would be led to that foul thing, rather than the person.
        
        I once worked with a woman whose father was a notorious criminal, and she had to change her last name because of it. Her own father, in this case, had done harm to her via destroying her good name, and what's more she would have continued to be punished by the association of her name with his deeds, such that she was motivated to change her name to avoid that harm.
        
        Reaganomics and McCarthyism are based on the actual policies/actions of those men, and since truth is defense against all libel claims, I don't think these fit the category we're discussing here. There is nothing in reality to associate the activist term "santorum" with Santorum's (otherwise) good name, so they've done harm to his good name, and him. That's how I'd argue his case in court. But then, I am not a lawyer (and maybe that shows!)
    3. Isaac Bartram 14 years ago
      
      No libertarian society would make an exception to libel laws for "public personalities."
      
      There are people who don't think a libertarian society would even have libel laws.
      
      I'm one of them and as near as I can tell so are a number of other Hit&Runners;.
      1. Citizen Nothing 14 years ago
        
        Present.
    4. Joe M 14 years ago
      
      As far as getting what he deserves, can you detail the precise initiation of force or fraud on the part of Senator Santorum that entitles him to any punishment, let alone "misery?"
      
      He "libeled" gays by comparing their behavior to pedophilia and bestiality:
      
      "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality," [Santorum] said. "That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be."
      
      So they "retaliated".
Mike M. 14 years ago

Looks like the market's coniption fit that began after Bernanke's performance yesterday is continuing right on into today.
Cytotoxic 14 years ago

Uh Riggs it's not murder if it's justified. That is uncertain for the Davis fellow but it is certain for the white supremacist killer. The latters death is to be celebrated.
Warty 14 years ago

Santorum asks Google to clean up search results for his name

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
1. Joe M 14 years ago
  
  Son I am disappoint.
2. Rick Santoum 14 years ago
  
  He Google! You still got a little bit of santorum just to the left of your upper lip.
3. 0x90 14 years ago
  
  "If you're a responsible business, you don't let things like that happen in your business that have an impact on the country."
  
  Ohhhh-kay.
smz 14 years ago

having toured the death chambers before - gas chambers (now not used because considered too cruel) and the injection chamber, I can say it certainly changed my opinion. Personally, I think we should be putting these people to extreme/hard labor and get some use out of them. Letting them die is letting them off the hook.
1. Josef Stalin 14 years ago
  
  I like what you say and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
2. o2 14 years ago
  
  agreed like at fukushima
Joe M 14 years ago

Ron Paul gaining momentum in N.H. primary

He's in second place with 14%, and is going to run a new ad touting his Air Force service during tonight's debate.
1. kilroy 14 years ago
  
  The video:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
o2 14 years ago

look mommy i maked poopy on teh comments
1. teh rael o2 14 years ago
  
  quit thinkin bout my deuces
  1. cynical 14 years ago
    
    Is that what the 2 stands for?
P Brooks 14 years ago

The senators also criticized a recent statement by a department spokesman that "Section 215 is not a secret law, nor has it been implemented under secret legal opinions by the Justice Department." This was "extremely misleading," they said, because there are secret legal opinions controlling how Patriot Act is being interpreted ? it's just that they were issued by the national security court.

"In our judgment, when the legal interpretations of public statutes that are kept secret from the American public, the government is effectively relying on secret law," they wrote.

That part of the dispute appeared to turn on semantics. The department said that while the national security court's opinions interpreting the Patriot Act are classified, the law itself is public.

The old tried-and-true "Trust Us!" defense.
1. Enjoy Every Sandwich 14 years ago
  
  How could the interpretation of the "Patriot" Act be so sensitive as to pose a risk to national security?
R C Dean 14 years ago

Section 215 is not a secret law, nor has it been implemented under secret legal opinions by the Justice Department.

The department said that while the national security court's opinions interpreting the Patriot Act are classified,

They're not even trying any more, are they.
Joshua Corning 14 years ago

Commenters: Are we better off for killing our killers? Discuss!

Yes.

but that is neither here nor there. The problem with any system of killing killers is that it will always be flawed and therefor opens the possibility of the state killing an innocent person by mistake.

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