Reason Morning Links: Rick Perry Entertains Idea of Deploying U.S. Troops to Mexico, TSA Bot Humiliates Another Cancer Survivor, Elizabeth Warren Catches up to Scott Brown in the Polls

• Rick Perry suggested Saturday that the U.S. may need to send troops to Mexico to stop the cartels. He should have said "more troops than we already have there." 
• Universities and colleges react as you might expect to new state laws allowing students to carry anti-rape/personal protection devices. 
• Colorado's public pensions are so secret that Colorado Treasurer Walker Stapleton "has had to file a lawsuit to find out how much top-tier earners are getting paid." 
• NYPD arrested 700 protesters over the weekend after the marchers trespassed (some say led by NYPD) on Brooklyn Bridge. 
• "Voodoo economist" Elizabeth Warren is in a dead heat with Sen. Scott Brown. 
• Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is tanking in Iowa, the one state where she possessed anything resembling a lead. 
• Woman who recently underwent a bilateral masectomy attempts to explain to a TSA-bot that the irregularities in her body scan image are tissue expanders. TSA-bot gropes her anyway (link fixed). 

New at Reason.tv: "Interview with Reason Cartoonist Peter Bagge"

Comments

[Lord Humungus]

Koch Brothers Flout Law With Secret Iran Sales
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/.....sales.html

Charles, 75, and David, 71, each worth about $20 billion, are prominent financial backers of groups that believe that excessive regulation is sapping the competitiveness of American business. They inherited their anti-government leanings from their father.

[John]

Anti government leanings? Bias much? That makes it sound like they live in a compound in Idaho. Wanting a smaller government is not the same as being anti government. Assholes.

[gaijin97]

They inherited their anti-government leanings from their father.

Was that a genetic inheritance, or part of a trust?

[Art-P.O.G.]

Needs more scare quotes.

[SugarFree]

"Was" "that" "a" "genetic" "inheritance," "or" "part" "of" "a" "trust"?

[Almanian]

"That's" "SCARY" "!"

[tarran]

You need to Lonewackoize it:

Was that part of a GeneticInheritence of part of UntouchableFamilyTrust

[Art-P.O.G.]

tarran for the win.

[Pip]

Suddenly I'm craving a burito.

[Lord Humungus]

A Call Girl Talks Selling Sex During a Recession
http://www.forbes.com/sites/su.....interview/

It seemed like the beginning of this year was looking up. I was doing better than the previous start of last year, and people seemed happier with their quality of life and earnings. Customers seemed more like they were before the recession really hit, and it made me less stressed and enjoy my job even more. However, this summer seems to have taken a complete nosedive.

This makes me more concerned about the overall state of the economy, especially with the rumors and fears of a "double dip" recession. The trend that I saw in my own earnings the past few months seems to coincide with the stock market woes.

[Joe M]

"Double dip." Huh-huh.

[Almanian]

That's what she said

[bosty]

"gotta hit the ATM" has a less joyful meaning

[R C Dean]

I'm sure that's what a lot of wives think as they get down to, err, business.

[Abdul]

Nobel-prize winning project for budding economist: find correlations between Big Mac Index and GFE BJ index.

[Cabeza de Vaca]

or maybe she just added ten pounds

[Libertymike]

That would impact the decision whether to repaet. Most of the time, for most guys, their ability to discern such subtleties as an added ten pounds has been greatly compromised by the time they hear the knock on their hotel room door.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Universities and colleges react as you might expect to new state laws allowing students to carry anti-rape/personal protection devices.

A university administration without victimized students is like school on Saturday: empty inside.

[Fat Albert]

I was hoping you were gonna say "no class."

[Suki]

USC did not have any problem with students carrying guns on campus in the 1960's. As long as the shootouts were between black students everything was cool.

[Lord Humungus]

To Infinity and Beyond at DARPA's 100-Year Starship Symposium
http://www.popularmechanics.co.....=pm_latest

Here in Orlando, just a few miles from Disney World, some serious imagineering is going on. Scientists, engineers, visionaries, hackers, and government officials are here to spearhead the most ambitious project for an agency known for its risk-taking. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which gave us the Internet, satellite positioning, and self-driving cars, is going bigger. The 100-Year Starship project is a one-year, $500,000 endeavor to lay the groundwork for building humankind's first interstellar spaceship, and this conference in Orlando is the beginning.

[DJF]

DARPA thinks we need this spaceship so we can go to Pandora and get the Unobtainium from those blue savages. With Unobtainium all the failed weapon systems that they dream up will now work

[Art-P.O.G.]

I've seen

[Art-P.O.G.]

Pandorum. I know how this ends.

[sarcasmic]

Normally I have no use for parades, but this one...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....ecord.html

[Troy]

Thanks Sarcasmic for that link. Whoever thought of this parade, I would like to nominate him or her for the Nobel Prize.

[sarcasmic]

Nobel Prize for Boo-tay!

[Abdul]

361 is the largest bikini parade? Don't they beat that just about every Sunday in Brazil?

[BakedPenguin]

I think to qualify as a bikini, there has to be a top.

Not that Brazil is wrong for that.

[Zuo]

Or Miami beach?
Or every single day on Waikiki?

And these pasty bitches are gross. Its more like a parade of bikini clad corpses.

[Isaac Bartram]

The suntan is completely out of
style downunder.

It's something to do with them becoming the melanoma capital of the world.

On many beaches people of both sexes wear teeshirts to swim. It's all rather dull, actually.

[hmm]

# Universities and colleges react as you might expect to new state laws allowing students to carry anti-rape/personal protection devices.

Colt 1911, the original anti-rape device.

[Old Mexican]

Re: hmm,

Colt 1911, the original anti-rape device.

Well, that would be the most effective, but the original one was a dagger pointed to the heart: "If you get any closer to me, I will plunge this dagger through my heart! I warn you!"

I mean, don't you read romance novels?

[Stop]

Stop trying to be funny, you suck.

Not trolling you, just giving some advice, you're really not funny at all.

[Quetzalcoatl]

You say you aren't trolling, then you post it anonymously...

[Are you stupid?]

Quetzalcoatl

"You say you aren't trolling, then you post it anonymously..."

1) that makes no sense, trolling has nothing to do with being anonymous or not, that's just stupid

2) you're obviously the REAL Quetzalcoatl...

How fucking dumb are you?

[Jordan]

This is the most meta-post ever.

[Pip]

^^Modesty^^

[steve]

Teaching women how to use their fists, the original original anti-rape device.

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Kick in da nutz...

[sloopyinca]

Teh Herpeez!

[John]

http://hotair.com/archives/201.....e-bankers/

Rosanne Barr goes on Russia today and seriously says that bankers should be beheaded. But remember it is people like Bachmann who are crazy.

[Bee Tagger]

I'm just glad that I finally get why people laugh at her.

[John]

So much for all that need for civility stuff.

[Zeb]

I don't think Roseanne has ever said much about a need for civility.

[John]

I doubt the people who did will have anything to say about this despite their gnashing of teeth over the need to be nice.

[Zeb]

I imagine you are correct.

[Abdul]

I've seen some lefty commite-nostalgia, but she's the first with French Revolution nostalgia.

Sure, the French Revolution gave us an end to feudalism and the metric system, but what I really miss is the guillotine and the Reign of Terror.

[Chatroom Crank]

Another reason to never use the metric system.

[Marshall Gill]

Oh, sure, like Rosanne has ever read A Tale of Two Cities. The French Revolution was just like the American one, only French, right?

[Lord Humungus]

but with knitting!

[H. Reardon]

Her favorite part was 'Let them eat cake!'

[Lord Humungus]

Stocks tank as Greece admits it won't hit targets
http://apnews.myway.com/articl.....PIOG0.html

Stocks took another battering Monday after Greece admitted it won't meet its deficit reduction targets, raising renewed fears that the country will not get crucial bailout loans it needs to avoid a default.

On Sunday, Greece's finance ministry said the deficit this year will likely be 8.5 percent of its gross domestic product, higher than the 7.8 percent previously anticipated, and blamed a deeper-than-expected recession for the failure. The Greek economy is projected to shrink 5.5 percent this year.

[Aqua-Assault Rabbit]

You know there are people - that is people responsible for gazillions of other people's money - who actually believe the Greeks WILL pay off their debts? That the Eurocrats and Benny and the Inkjets will stabilize all this? Top Men.

We are so doomed.

[John]

Greece is doomed.

[Greece]

I brought civilization into this world, I can take it out!

[sloopyinca]

Mosopotamia laughs at you boy-fuckers.

[Filthy backwards shithole]

He said "civilization" not "goat herding"

[sloopyinca]

I guess that rules your blog out then, doesn't it rectal?

[Citizen Nothing]

The British Museum should offer to buy the rest of the Acropolis.

[John]

What is funny is how pathetic they are. Just cut the damned budget now. If they balanced their budget and started running a surplus, no one would be talking about default and their interest charges would go through the floor. If that means cutting off pensioners, so be it. If they don't stop spending they are going to go broke and slip into anarchy anyway.

[mad libertarian guy]

But John, there are people with a RIGHT to have pensions oncce they turn 50. I mean, how could it NOT be sustainable to have the state support a person for longer than he supports himself?

[R C Dean]

Benny and the Inkjets

Stolen, to be gleefully reused without attribution.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Most excellent.

[Lord Humungus]

World markets are down. Dow started down but is now up 35. Don't see any news of why the uptick.

[Smarter than you]

Because the market is not as intimately tied to Greece as your ignorant chicken littleing suggests

[Lord Humungus]

And yet another handle to add to the ignore list.

[JW]

Yep. Maybe it-who-shall-not-be-named is a victim of the drug shortages cited below?

[Lord Humungus]

ah, good ISM data...
http://www.foxbusiness.com/inv.....s-sliding/

[mad libertarian guy]

What I'm wondering is why such an insignificant, economic nobody like Greece affect world markets to begin with.

[John]

Book says Sean Combs and Sug Knight ordered Tupak and Biggie killings.

http://www.laweekly.com/2011-1.....-killings/

[Rich]

The TSA-bot link is incorrect.

[Matrix]

Yup. But it does reference some fun stuff about 100 police officers arrested in Mexico over drug related charges.

[Rich]

Correct one hier.

[John]

http://campaign2012.washington.....=TEMPLATE: Washington Examiner Political Digest - 10/03/2011&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Washington Examiner: Political Digest

Surprise surprise Dodd Frank was at least partially a payoff to retailers.

[Lord Humungus]

The forever recession (and the coming revolution)
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/s.....ssion.html

Why do we believe that jobs where we are paid really good money to do work that can be systemized, written in a manual and/or exported are going to come back ever? The internet has squeezed inefficiencies out of many systems, and the ability to move work around, coordinate activity and digitize data all combine to eliminate a wide swath of the jobs the industrial age created.

Just a manufacturing side-note - if you look at some of our plant employee structures, there are actually more managers, sales, marketing, finance, HR, IT, etc people than there are shop-floor employees.

[Sy]

Yes, but those desk jobs are degrading and require, you know, aptitude and an education.
Why any schmuck would prefer a 20+ year career in a job where they do one repetitive task instead of something a little more engaging and analytical like fixing the fucking machines is something I'll never understand.

[sarcasmic]

Remember that an IQ of 100 is by definition the median, so 50% have an IQ below 100.
They don't mind repetitive tasks, they don't have the capacity to do anything analytical, and they vote.

[John]

I don't think it is the median is it?

[sarcasmic]

From http://iq-test.learninginfo.org/iq04.htm

IQ Description % of Population
130+ Very superior 2.2%
120-129 Superior 6.7%
110-119 High average 16.1%
90-109 Average 50%
80-89 Low average 16.1%
70-79 Borderline 6.7%
Below 70 Extremely low 2.2%

[Zeb]

I think it is supposed to be the mean. But assuming a nice symmetrical bell curve, it should be close either way.

[sarcasmic]

Look it up.

[kinnath]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iq

German psychologist William Stern proposed a method of scoring children's intelligence tests in 1902. He calculated what he called a Intelligenz-Quotient score, or IQ, as the quotient of the mental age (the age group which scored such a result on average) of the test-taker and the chronological age of the test-taker, multiplied by 100. Terman used this system for the first version of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales.[26] This method has several problems such as not working for adults.

Wechsler introduced a different procedure for his test that is now used by almost all IQ tests. When an IQ test is constructed, a standardization sample representative of the general population takes the test. The median result is defined to be equivalent to 100 IQ points. In almost all modern tests, a standard deviation of the results is defined to equivalent to 15 IQ points. When a subject takes an IQ test, the result is ranked compared to the results of normalization sample and the subject is given an IQ score equal to those with the same test result in the normalization sample.

[CrackertyAssCracker]

A standard deviation around the median? That's wierd. Sounds like BS to me.

[kinnath]

IQ is relative (your score compared to a mythical average person). It is not absolute.

So the process is test a bunch of people, document the spread of test results, define "average" to be whatever the median is actually is, assign individual scores based on distance from the median.

[T]

Sweet. So my IQ should be increasing, because it sure seems like everybody else is getting dumber.

[Sy]

I'm not so sure the IQ is the issue. It's underachieving assholes, hoping to land a cushy unionized plant job mopping floors so Debby can stay at home and raise five kids. I've met plenty of "uneducated/unintelligent" individuals that actually apply themselves and work their way up through the corporate ladder.

[Chatroom Crank]

1) Managers = the plant owner's sons and nephews

2) Sales = Hyperactive mirror loving freaks and suck ups.

3) Marketing = See Sales

4) Finance and HR = Sitting at a desk all day repetitively looking at numbers. An ideal job for the souless.

5) IT = Nerds who never get laid.

I doubt any of the above would know which end of a wrench to use to fix the fucking machines.

[Sy]

I doubt that, too, as they're all different and unrelated trades. However, turning a wrench for a living requires actually applying yourself and, most often, years of experience. Working in any maintenance capacity takes a fuckload of troubleshooting skills, at least what I've seen from working in a corporate jet MX facility.

[Lord Humungus]

We have a separate maintenance staff for that - weird bunch of individuals - but most mechanics are!

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Why any schmuck would prefer a 20+ year career in a job where they do one repetitive task instead of something a little more engaging and analytical like fixing the fucking machines is something I'll never understand.

Most of those blue-collar analytical skills have been squeezed out of the market by the managerial class and the university education complex. It used to be that doing a blue-collar job was considered an honest day's work; now society promotes the idea that it's something you don't want your kids doing, because hard work is degrading and similar bullshit justifications.

[J_L_B]

I grew up hearing the justification that decades of blue-collar work would take too high a physical toll on the body to make it worthwhile at any compensation.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

And their big solution is, "It's too hard--let the brown people do it!"

The turning point was probably when blue-collar work began to be described as "back-breaking," as opposed to "necessary to keep a national economy in a sustainable, robust state."

[Sy]

Yeah, if you're a fat lazy fuck who won't lift or stretch properly.
I don't get why it gets such a bad rap, but hey, I'll take the inflated wages I get.

[Azathoth]

At one point you worked your way up the ladder. Companies took on wet-behind-the-ears college grads rarely. It became an archetype--the know-it-all from college who learns how to do his job right from the men on the floor and the managers who started on the floor.

Today, the ladder is pretty much gone. Management requires a four year degree--ten years doing the job isn't enough.

[Sy]

Varies from company to company, IMHO. The company I worked for previously was all about intra-company promotions. If your HR dept/management willingly overlooks a better qualified candidate for 20-something grad with no experience, you're probably working for a shitty company anyways.

[Maxxx]

Yes, but those desk jobs are degrading and require, you know, aptitude and an education.

And a lot of those jobs only exist because of government interventions. They are literally the modern equivalent of digging ditches and filling them in again. Except that they require computers, forms and desks instead of using shovels and wheelbarrows.

[mad libertarian guy]

This.

Some industries are little more than jobs programs. Health care is a good example. There are at least a dozen people that work in any given doctor's office, most of them there so that fucking regulations and insurance requirements can be met, not because they actually add anything positive towards treating people or advancing medicine.

[Sy]

Yep. I can't think of a more worthless, govt-mandated set of jobs besides being an OSHA-coordinator or an HR rep. They only exist to prevent frivolous lawsuits and regulatory violations.

[Evil White Republican]

Universities and colleges react as you might expect to new state laws allowing students to carry anti-rape/personal protection devices.

All the protection the students need is a university court system that successfully prosecutes the male gaze.

[You've Got Dunbar]

tupq tupq tupq zpvs eph't fmfduspojd cbsljoh

...you gave him

[Fist of Etiquette]

Some protesters said they felt police had lured them into violating the law that would be used to arrest them.

Little did the protesters know that NYPD had filled the East River with chemical irritants and planned to make Guinness by pepper spraying the most commies at one time. Since the chemical irritants that normally inhabit the river counteracted the barrels of pepper spray, they had to settle for arresting them.

Full disclosure: I once took a leak off the Brooklyn Bridge.

[Ice Nine]

Finally, they have a cause!

[Fatty Bolger]

had filled the East River with chemical irritants and planned to make Guinness by pepper spraying the most commies at one time.

Is that how they make Guinness? The addition of commies must be what gives it that characteristic sour "tang." However they do it, I love the stuff.

[Bee Tagger]

NYPD arrested 700 protesters over the weekend

Looks look like both symbiotic groups got what they came for.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Looks like somebody watched last week's Community.

[Au H20]

"Using our Switzerland's Large Haldron Collider"
"They can't do that!"
"...Science works."

Also, when that show is cancelled and inevitably gains cult, Arrested Development status, it will be in large part due to Allison Brie's boobs.

[SugarFree]

I've got the weirdest boner right now...

[Mister Miyagi]

Hah! I am ruvving it!

[Troy]

Oh, I thought you said, "It is wierd, I got a boner."

[Jim Levenstein]

Oh yeaah!

[NYC Beat Cop]

Me too.

[sloopyinca]

So, is Tony Bologna arresting Captain Caveman? And if so, where are the Teen Angels with his fucking bail?

[mad libertarian guy]

The shirtless dude on the left appears to be straight out of the "So easy, even a caveman can do it" ads.

[sloopyinca]

Hive mind.

[Bee Tagger]

irregularities in her body scan image are tissue expanders. TSA-bot gropes her anyway.

He needed a reason to explain his pants expander.

[Au H20]

Woman discovers that her "boyfriend" is actually a lesbian sex offender.

However, something smells off here...

Nicole described her relationship with Brooks who used modified a wooden toilet roll holder in their sexual relationship.

She told the Sunday People she was uncomfortable being naked in front of a partner while Brooks claimed he felt the same way after suffering testicular cancer.

I mean... you thought a toilet paper roll was a dick? Really?

[John]

It is like Yentle

[Art-P.O.G.]

Hey, man. Wood is wood.

[SugarFree]

If you go to the link, kept in mind that the 40-something mother of two pictured is actually only 24.

[Au H20]

Seriously, how much did the attractiveness of Englishwoman contributes to Great Britain's lust for empire?

[Maxxx]

That and their crappy food.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Preyed on by the genderqueer.

[Lord Humungus]

the amount of alcohol consumed must be staggering.

[John]

God I love the Daily Mail. Is there any reason for this story other than to show the chick in her underwear?

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

[JW]

Thank zod underwear models record every moment of their life, so that they can release it to the media, in order to publicly document their occasional humiliating experiences.

[John]

She actually has a bit of T and A for a model.

[General Zod]

KNEEEEEEEEEEEEEL!!!

[BakedPenguin]

If you like the Daily Mail for that, you'll love The Sun.

[Ice Nine]

I mean... you thought a toilet paper roll was a dick? Really?

Well, the blow jobs were a little suspicious but otherwise...

[Fatty Bolger]

Splinters, you know.

[Vizzini]

"Colorado has clear laws on keeping these kinds of records confidential, so my organization has never sought to do any kind of polling or sensing of our statewide membership to see what kinds of concerns they would have about PERA records going public," [said] a spokesman for the Colorado Education Association .... "It's like asking, 'What would Coloradans think about having a green sky tomorrow?'"

Inconceivable!

[gaijin97]

Scott Wasserman, spokesman for Colorado WINS, a group representing state workers, said looking at only the top 20 percent of employees would provide a skewed picture.

"I think he's grasping at any kind of angle that he can find to try to go after the fund," Wasserman said. "He doesn't want all the information ? he wants the top 20 percent. To us, that's a witch hunt."

Would this logic apply to a deficit reduction situation that, say, considered only the top 20% of taxpayers? Would Wasserman consider that to be a 'balanced' approach?

[gaijin97]

crap. last para should not have been italicized Tags...how do they work?

[Almanian]

Where does one go to learn that kind of twisted thinking and be able to refrain from punching oneself in the face till dead?

These spunkfucks are just a special,special kind of arrogant. Fuck! It's frustrating...

[Red Rocks Rockin]

"I think he's grasping at any kind of angle that he can find to try to go after the fund," Wasserman said. "He doesn't want all the information ? he wants the top 20 percent. To us, that's a witch hunt."

Yet this former legislative director of the SEIU no doubt thinks that targeting the top 1% of income earners for higher tax rates will solve the nation's fiscal problems.

[Au H20]

6 places that are shockingly easy to break in to.

The best? Charles Dickens broke in to the fucking White House.

[Ice Nine]

TSA-bot gropes her anyway.

In northern Mexico, no less. That is wild.

[$6M RoboTorso]

Eugenics: Progressivism's Ultimate Social Engineering
...Leonard and Bernstein argue that some of the most prominent of the Progressive reformers were "partisans of human inequality." They supported interventions as ways to forward their eugenic goal of a purer (that is, whiter) human race by eliminating the opportunities for the "unfit" to get meaningful work. The "unfit" here included not just nonwhites (especially African-Americans) but also the "insane," immigrants (especially from central and eastern Europe), and in a somewhat different way, women....

...Eugenics clubs and societies grew rapidly and many of the leading intellectuals of the early twentieth century, including a number of well-known economists (such as John Maynard Keynes and Irving Fisher, perhaps the most famous American economist of the time), were active in these groups and saw their work through the lens of eugenics....

We look back on the eugenics movement with proper horror. Yet the same ideas that led to forced sterilization also led to restrictions in the workplace, because labor markets were one place where eugenics-oriented economists could combine their two interests. They recognized early on that legislation which excluded the "unfit" from labor markets would advance their eugenic goals. Most of these laws were enacted at the state level during this period, but the New Deal era saw many of the same arguments applied at the national level....

[John]

But those were different liberals. Those were the people who became conservatives after the 1960s. Being liberal means never being wrong and never having to say you are sorry.

[WTF]

Just like liberals can't be anti-semitic now because the right used to be anti-semitic in the past, or something.

[Azathoth]

While there may be people who are generally right wing that are anti-semites, it's never been a major focus for the right as it has been with the left. It's like extermination is the only thing that'll really make them happy.

[$6M RoboTorso]

Furiously unraveling
...What do you know? Among the e-mails was a photograph of a powerful Barrett .50-caliber rifle that had been illegally purchased in Tucson and recovered in Sonora, Mexico, raising the possibility of a second "gunwalking" program, this one called "Wide Receiver."

Like Fast and Furious, the ATF-supervised scheme that saw thousands of weapons "walk" across the Mexican border for reasons no one in the Justice Department has yet satisfactorily explained, Wide Receiver was apparently a joint operation that also included the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the IRS and the US Attorney's office.

It's likely there have been others, in such states as Florida and Indiana....

[Warty]

Among the many reasons I love Sons of Anarchy is that the main villain is the ATF.

[R C Dean]

Same here.

SPOILER ALERT: I was not expecting the evil TSA agent with all the plastic surgery to get capped. Pointblank. With an Uzi.

SPOILER COMMAND: I have this season on Tivo and haven't caught up yet. DO NOT DISCUSS.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Bruce Willis has been dead the whole time.

[CaptainSmartass]

It's his sled.

[Ska]

Never trust a garrulous man with a limp.

[Underpants Gnome]

Best movie ending ever. +1

[Cowboy]

Snape kills Dumbledore

[MnG]

There you go again, taking a trip to the Assumption Junction. There is a perfectly valid law enforcement purpose for this sort of operation. For instance, when the DEA gives drug dealers money to purchase extremely pure heroin from suppliers they set up, and then allows that heroin go into the wider drug trafficking community in order to track the overall network by monitoring where the overdose deaths occur. This is done all of the time, so just relax and stop spreading your paranoid fantasies. Also, John sucks.

[mng]

Besides, the deaths cause by gunwalker were worth it.

No amount of death is too great so long as it promotes gun control.

[MiNGe]

And also,

JOOOS!!!11!!

[Fist of Etiquette]

But campus security officers ? none of whom are armed themselves ? will still approach any people spotted with a gun to ensure they possess a permit and are non-threatening.

Phallic symbol envy.

[Bee Tagger]

Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just anxious about me not just being happy to see you?

[Campus Security Officer]

"Um, pardon me, Sir ... Oh, I am so sorry, Ma'am!"

[rather]

A hunting we will go

http://rctlfy.wordpress.com/20.....an-racism/

[Heroic Mulatio]

How the hell did rather get back in here?

[Seriously, kill yourself]

What kind of abortion actually creates a blog for the purposes of espousing one's opinion on the H&R section of reason? People's lives are actually that empty and pathetic that getting booted from commenting here is such a travesty that they create a blog just to make comments?

[Chupacabra]

Stay tuned for my blog about rather's blog about getting kicked out of H&R!

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

I await with breathless antici....pation.

I need material for my blog about your blog about rather's blog about getting kicked out of H&R.

[yesterday]

I'm sorry but I don't write that type of Sci-fi

[Fatty Bolger]

Rather! I thought you were dead!

[yesterday]

Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated; or I could be a zombie.

Rumors I was kicked-off are an untruth, or a Sugarfree/ Warty/ ProLib / Epi/ et al fantasy.

[Au H20]

State won't pay for transgendered prisoner to have sex change.

Yes, it's shocking that the state would treat a person who had murdered someone else over fucking clothes. Also, the whole transgendered shit always gets Jezebel to tear itself apart.

[Marshall Gill]

You just can't make this shit up.

So only life threatening illnesses should be treated while in prison? So people with chronic pain should suffer. And people with depression should be deprived of prozac.

Though even were your argument not ridiculous, I can tell you personally as someone who takes care of transgender people, failure to treat adequately can be deadly.

Seriously! If they don't invert this guys dick, like right now, he is liable to strangle himself with it!

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Dude's probably just trying to get into the women's block so he'll have a fighting chance.

[kilroy]

TSA-bot gropes her anyway.

I don't think that link goes where you think it does.

[John]

The Amanda Knox verdict is due today. Jonah Goldberg made a great point the other day. If Knox had been convicted in Laos or the Northwest territories, we probably wouldn't know about it. Liberal bias is not the only media bias. Location bias exists too. Knox was lucky to be convicted in a really great vacation spot for the media. And of course she is lucky she isn't ugly or black.

[DJF]

From what little I hear about the story they don't even talk about Rudy Guede and only rarely do they mention Raffaele Sollecito who were also convicted. Meredith Kercher who was murdered is also not talked about much. Its all Amanda Knox all the time.

[No]

"Jonah Goldberg made a great point the other day. If Knox had been convicted in Laos or the Northwest territories, we probably wouldn't know about it. "

I wouldn't call that a "great point" so much as "unfounded and generally inaccurate speculation".

[John]

Yeah because the media just rushes to cover cases in remote places that don't involve photogenic young women.

It has become almost an iron clad rule that if the post is done anonymously, it is going to be mind numbly fucking stupid.

[SugarFree]

The Invisible Hand

[T]

But are you quick enough with a knife, SF?

Incidentally, I picked up Directive 51 on your recommendation. If it sucks, I'm gonna start mailing turds to random UK system libraries until one gets to yours.

[SugarFree]

Jokes on you, all the rest of them deserve turds. You'll be doing my job for me.

[Marshall Gill]

Your job is mailing people turds? I thought you were some kind of librarian or something. It explains a lot.

[Art-P.O.G.]

He didn't say what kind of librarian.

[T]

He keeps the library of coproliths?

[db]

He made his chops working for Hughes and with a resume like that, the offers just poured in.

[rac3rx]

What a shitty job.

[Lord Humungus]

Your obligatory Amanda Knox update:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....eedom.html

'I'm not a promiscuous vamp': Amanda Knox breaks down in court as she makes last plea for freedom

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.....Y-KNOX.jpg

[John]

If I had only known. I would have posted my comment as a response to yours.

[Lord Humungus]

no problem - just can't get enough of those crazy (as in fun) eyes. She reminds me of a nude art model I dated in college.

[John]

She is sexy as hell. And that is probably why she is going to get released. If she had been ugly, or a guy or in a place that the media didn't want to travel to, she would be screwed.

[Heroic Mulatio]

She is sexy as hell.

And in Berlusconi's Italy, she'll be Minister of Defense by the time this is all over.

[$6M RoboTorso]

Oh those crazy eyes
You've got such crazy eyes
You're nothing more than trouble
In a crazy quilt disguise

Oh those crazy eyes
Oh those crazy eyes
Seems those eyes have gone and set a trap for me

[JW]

Thank god for her that she's white and cute. Otherwise, no one, other than her family, would have given a shit about her predicament.

The herd has to agonize over something.

[Warty]

The comments are interesting. It's amazing how convinced Americans are that she's innocent, and how Limeys are that she's guilty.

[John]

Remember the Limey nanny that offed the kid in Boston? It was the same thing there only with the Limeys convinced their cute college girl was innocent and the Americans convinced she was a killer.

[Warty]

Tribalism is an ugly thing. Unlike tribadism, of course.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Agreed on both counts.

[Ska]

Roll mopping is a beautiful thing.

[R C Dean]

Based on the little I know, if she's guilty, she is one world-class psychopath.

I tend to think she's not.

[Fatty Bolger]

There is no real evidence against her, and every single fact in the case points directly to Rudy Guede as the killer. Amazingly, he received only a 16 year sentence.

[rac3rx]

No evidence? Put aside the allegedly corrupted DNA evidence and you'll find a 400 some-odd page judicial report detailing otherwise.

She apparently was caught lying about several alibis, she knowingly falsely accused someone else, then revealed details about the crime scene that had not been released to the public. There was also additional physical evidence that linked her to the break-in, beyond the glass broken from the inside.

Blah blah, she's cute, blah...Stop blindly accepting your opinions from traditional sources.

[Fatty Bolger]

She falsely accused somebody else because the cops were scaring the shit out of her. Wrong, yes, but not surprising for a young woman caught in another country with abusive cops. The rest is crap. Guede left DNA evidence all over (and inside) the victim and the room. He did it. The satanic ritual orgy fantasies were all in the sick prosecutor's head.

[JD the elder]

Her alibis have been a mess, but that doesn't make her a murderer. I'm also not aware that she knowingly falsely accused someone else (although her accusation of Lumumba certainly turned out to be groundless). All of the physical evidence against Knox is extremely shaky and has been challenged by Italian experts as well.

What's the prosecution's theory? Amanda Knox, who had no history of violence and was not known to have any kind of violent disagreement with Kercher, suddenly decided to cooperate with Guede and Sollecito to murder Kercher in a brutal and apparently spontaneous way. That's an unlikely enough scenario that I'd want some pretty damn good evidence for it. What it looks like is that the prosecution decided that the strange foreigners must be guilty, then went fishing for anything to support that. Oh look, Sollecito has erotic manga, so clearly he's a crazed pervert who killed Kercher in some kind of sex game.

On the other hand, as Fatty Bolger points out, we have Guede, who does have a known history of violence, and whose alibi is ridiculous to the point of being laughable: "I was in the bathroom, but I didn't hear anybody breaking in because I had headphones on, and then a mysterious man made a dismissive comment about my race and fled."

[Joe M]

So I'm guessing you're British?

[tarran]

Her prosecutor is Giuliano Mignini who is a complete nut-job.

n October 1985, Dr. Francesco Narducci was found dead near a lake outside of Perugia, Italy. The doctor died of an overdose of Demerol, it appeared to be a suicide. The death was seemingly unrelated to the Monster cases.

Nonetheless, in 2001, Perugia prosecutor Giulano Mignini decided that Narducci's death was part of the Monster of Florence case. Mignini claimed Narducci was a member of a satanic sect that killed women for body parts to be used in black masses, and the wealthy Perugia doctor was the keeper of those body parts. Mignini claimed Narducci was killed to keep him quiet.

Even though all the Monster's victims were shot with the same gun, Mignini told a court that it wasn't the work of a single serial killer. Rather, Mignini described an elaborate conspiracy of 20 people, including government officials and law enforcement officers, who made up a secret society behind the Monster killings.

Mignini indicted the 20 people and charged them with the concealment of Narducci's murder, and laid out a hard-to-follow plot that included body doubles and featured Narducci's body being swapped - not once, but twice!

If all of this sounds hard to believe, it is. Tuesday, in a preliminary hearing, Perugia Judge Paolo Micheli threw out the case against the 20. The judge found there was no solid evidence to back up Mignini's claim that Narducci was murdered, let alone the victim of a satanic sect.

[db]

So this is where Umberto Eco gets his ideas.

[mad libertarian guy]

Nah. Similar, but he gathers them from manuscripts and books of olde.

[No]

I don't really see that bearing out at all, and the polls seem to indicate Warty is full of shit.

[John]

He just imagined those comments I guess. Is that you MNG? You are one of the few on here capable of this kind of stupidity.

[Sir Roderick Glossop]

I think MNG may have finally cracked.

Perhaps a few weeks of rest at my asylum - free of charge!

[Mongo]

Penn Jillette on tha Believers:

http://www.latimes.com/news/op.....rack=icymi

[Chatroom Crank]

So nice to see bigotry and hatred from the atheists as well.

[So, you're a moron?]

What part of being an atheist prevents one from engaging in normal human behavior?

Are you so fucking stupid that you think atheists forward such a position?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

One thing that Jillette said stood out here:

I've used pornographic images, obscenity and poetry to try to make even the most doubtful blush, but I've never come close to Bachmann's insult to the gentle, honest faithful when she said the suffering and casualties of natural disasters were her God's message to wayward politicians. What she said was disgusting and not generally Christian at all.

Every time an atheist (or a progressive Christian) says stuff like this, it's cringe-inducing. The Bible is full of instances of non-believers and the sinful being struck down and condemned, and not just in the Old Testament where Pissed-Off Yahweh takes precedence. Jesus openly admits that his mission is to turn children against their parents and that he came not to bring peace, but a sword.

Quite frankly, anyone who tries to play the "Christians should be tolerant and accepting of everything because Jesus was!" card doesn't have much of a familiarity with the philosophy they're trying to appropriate.

[cynical]

I think he makes a good point. America was founded (in part) by religious people who very familiar with how dickish religious people could be to other religious people. Religious freedom wasn't established to attack Christianity, but to protect all these little different visions of Christianity from each other. But as these separate Christian identities faded, so did the Christian fear of Christian oppression. And while that might not mean much to Christians themselves, anyone who doesn't fit under than label has more to worry about now.

[Here We Go Again]

However, legal questions remain, Foy said. For instance, if a college does post signs prohibiting weapons, does the building owner assume liability when a shooting occurs anyway? Do mobile classrooms count as buildings? What about the temporary structures that are meant to be burned down for firefighter training? What are the rules for staff and students in classes that take place outside? Many college officials are talking to their lawyers to sort out these things before making a final call.

If only there were clear guidance ....

[Warty]

Today's gun news:

Assault weapons kill again

Oh, les nons!

[Citizen Nothing]

That first link is very, very sad, both for the victim, and for what it says about our criminal justice system.

Someone posted his full suicide letter in the comments to the article -- it's worth a read.

[Warty]

It's worth putting here.

From Randy Rusciolelli
Journey Man Plumbing
An open letter to the Mountain Communities
I was a collector of fine firearms both military and commercial. The actual value of the firearms and ammo taken from me was $283,000.00. The terrorist threat charge was made against me by a girl I broke up with over 4 months ago. She had called at all hours of the day and night and the Sheriff's have the evidence in both our phone records. I called for help over 3 different months to no avail. Recently she broke into my house through a dog door and changed my email password and stole several items of mine. I never threatened her life and had only called her 2 times in the last 3-4 months. To her ever increasing attacks on me, all I can say to the Sheriff's is "Total shame on you".
When I was arrested, they had already possessed both our phone records and recordings of my alleged threats and no corroborating witnesses. The explosive charges against me are for possessing more than 1 pound of sporting (Goex) black powder, possessing military tracer rounds illegal in California, but legal in Arizona, Nevada and other states, and for a destructive device that is a $250.00 black powder golf ball commercially manufactured and clearly stamped for "Black Powder Only" with a fuse hole in the base.
I possess only 1 California Assault weapons license that was issued to me in 1990. Notice that the enclosed license is marked temporary as no permanent one was ever issued. I can only fire one rifle at a time but regardless, they discovered an additional 5 banned rifles without permits.
In 47 years, I have absolutely no criminal or civil record. My bail was set at half a million dollars and most likely will be raised to 1.5 million in my next court appearance. I am not a survivalist, paramilitarist, nor a right or left-winger. I am an American citizen who loves to go into the desert to shoot rifles, pistols and shot guns. I wished I could have had a 155mm Howister canon too, but I did not. My guns have never killed any living thing, and in my 31 years of target shooting, no harm has ever been inflicted upon any beings.
I read the articles about my arrest, and I am astounded by the fact that these officers lied about how they even came to arrest me. Please re-read the articles again.
I found out this 47 year old girlfriend has a history of attacking and suing her last 3 boyfriends. This is a fact that I have found out too late. The police have recording of her on tape admitting to have broken into my house. During the breach, she managed to open my computer and proceeded to change my email, passwords and other devious things.
I have owned my house on Firwood drive in Running Springs for 20 years, and in one day I lost my house, closed my business and had every item taken from me of significant value that I had collected over the span of my lifetime. I spent 6 days in jail and after posting bail of $500,000.00, I got out and spent time with my parents, family, and my dog. Within days of this, I had to go back to court and the judge immediately issued a criminal restraining order against me. "Amazing"!
I cannot let my freedom be placed in control by our present justice system. I have consulted with many top lawyers, and all advised me that 10 years ago, this search warrant would have been illegal; not anymore.
We Americans are losing too many of our rights under the guides of terrorism laws. The bottom line is that the above stated violations will result in a 6 year stay in state prison with the lowest end being a 1 year term with felony conviction. I apologize to all that know me, but I cannot handle that I am now penniless, homeless and about to lose my freedom over my zealous collecting. Thank you for all the times we had. It is better to die a free and armed man than a broke, imprisoned and un-armed one.

[Matrix]

I really feel for the guy, and I'm glad the person claiming to be his sister posted the full letter.

But, I whole-heartedly agree with his statement, "It is better to die a free and armed man than a broke, imprisoned and un-armed one." Live free, or die.

[Citizen Nothing]

He intentionally positioned himself so that the bullet, after passing through his own skull, would lodge in the tree instead of possibly endangering others.
Fucking gun nut.

[Sparky]

The Harvard Law School professor and consumer advocate's message of standing up for middle class voters appears to be a major reason why she has pulled even with Brown, according to the poll of 1,005 registered Massachusetts voters conducted Sept. 22-28.

"I really like what (Warren) did with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau," said Democrat Irene Daly of West Roxbury, one of the respondents in the poll. "I like her commitment to not protect the big banks."

See, the Democrats are the only ones who will stand up for the little guy.

Scream into RoboTorso's abyss...

[Almanian]

In Massachusetts, no one can hear you scream

[John]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/o.....z1ZhBbGiFw

Friday document dump points another operation that was also selling guns to criminals for no apparent reason.

[Almanian]

Jobs "created or saved" for the gun manufacturers. Duh! BRILLIANT STIMULUS!

[Almanian]

Colorado's public pensions are so secret that Colorado Treasurer Walker Stapleton "has had to file a lawsuit to find out how much top-tier earners are getting paid."

So they're not very "public" pensions, then. *shocked face*

[Pantless Deviant]

Stapleton is also on the PERA (public employees) board, so it's even worse. They're trying to keep the information away from one of their own board members.

[John]

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

The Wall Street Journal does a really good investigation of the vaunted Chinese Bullet Trains.

However, China's high-speed rail network was in fact built with imported components?including signaling-system parts designed to prevent train collisions?that local engineers couldn't fully understand, according to a review of corporate documents and interviews with more than a dozen rail executives inside and outside China.

During a late July lightning storm, two of China's bullet trains collided in the eastern city of Wenzhou, killing 40 people and injuring nearly 200 in one of the world's worst high-speed passenger-rail accidents. China's government initially blamed flawed signaling and human error. It recently postponed public release of its crash findings.

The precise cause of the disaster remains uncertain, so there is no way to know what role, if any, the signaling assembly may have played.

An examination of China's use of foreign technology in its bullet-train signal systems highlights deep international distrust over China's industrial model, including weak intellectual-property protections, which can complicate efforts to acquire state-of-the-art technology.

Key signaling systems were assembled by Beijing-based Hollysys Automation Technologies Ltd., one of the few companies China's Ministry of Railways tapped to handle such work. In some cases of the signal systems it supplied, technology branded as proprietary to Hollysys contained circuitry tailor-made by Hitachi Ltd. of Japan to Hollysys specifications, according to people familiar with the situation.

The problem, these people say, is that Hitachi?fearful that Chinese technicians might reverse-engineer and steal the technology?sold components with the inner workings concealed from Hollysys. Hitachi executives say this "black box" design makes gear harder to copy, and also harder to understand, for instance during testing.

[Old Mexican]

Re: John,

An examination of China's use of foreign technology in its bullet-train signal systems highlights deep international distrust over China's industrial model, including weak intellectual-property protections, which can complicate efforts to acquire state-of-the-art technology.

Ah... no. That's nothing more than more pro-IP propaganda. It doesn't complicate the adquisition of technological knowledge: You can perfectly adquire copies of anything in this world. I do not believe the accident happened because the Chinese cannot easily get their hands on the White Man's Know-How.

What is questionable is the economic reasoning for the bullet trains.

[John]

Why is that not believable? Why would a company sell things to the Chinese if they think the Chinese are going to reverse engineer and steal the technology? It says right there Hitachi didn't let them see the inner workings of the components for fear the Chinese would steal them.

And just because the trains are a white elephant and are going to lose money says nothing about their safety. There are money losing trains all over America that still are safe.

[Old Mexican]

Re: John,

Why is that not believable? Why would a company sell things to the Chinese if they think the Chinese are going to reverse engineer and steal the technology?

John, we've been through this many times - copying is NOT stealing. If a company does not want to sell technology to the Chinese, Chinese entrepreneurs or the Chinese government will simply buy it from a third party proxy, defeating any intent behind IP. It's that simple. What do you think patents are for - stopping people from copying ideas? Think about who wins, follow the money: Patents are there to fatten up lawyers, not to help inventors.

The accident may have been caused by a ton of things - we're talking about massive chunks of metal zipping on thin steel rails at 120 miles per hour - even the Japanese bullet train has had its share of accidents. That is nothing new. Again, what should be questioned is the economics of bullet trains, not Chinese poo-pooing of IP.

[John]

The article says otherwise. And it makes perfect sense that the makers of the product would refuse to provide proper technical support to someone they think is going to steal their technology. And that that lack of support contributed to the accident.

[TrickyVic]

Is that why when I buy something from China I have to call India for customer support? 😉

[T]

I call bullshit, OM. The problems with Chinese copying are well known in industry. My old company flatly refused to allow Chinese nationals into the plant. Other people I know have done what Hitachi did and black-boxed things that go to China. Yes, they can proxy stuff, but when the whole world knows what you're doing, it gets harder.

Talk to the guys who set up a factory in China and then 6 months later, there's another factory right down the road producing the exact same item from the same drawings. It's not just IP, it's the entire structure of contract law. You can't get enforcement of NDAs and other things that prevent widespread copying in the Western world.

[np]

You don't know need to understand the implementation of a black box at all. All components, like just about everything tech related, are designed to be used by its interfaces.

y = f(i, j, k) You pass the Hitachi black box f, inputs i, j, k, it spits out output y. If it's designed correctly that's all you should care about. Now problems can still arise even if it was designed correctly because of certain assumptions or false expectations. You might couple the output of that Hitachi unit with something else that has no idea what to do when y is beyond a certain range for example.

As a side note "reverse engineering" does not mean stealing. It means being able to come up with your own implementation, ala clean room, of function f that would yield the same results given parameters i, j, k. The "insides" of your black box can be very different from Hitachi's.
This is actually not unlike the way scientific modeling works: you observe a phenomenon, start empirically testing, to see if you can come up with a mathematical model to predict the results.

If it weren't for reverse engineering we would not have the modern PC. Compaq created their own BIOS implementation back when IBM was the sole PC maker. They did this without copying or having any access to IBM's code. IBM sued and lost, though this was before software became patentable (fortunately at the time at least)

[MNG]

OM-what's the deal with many libertarians hating on IP? Wouldn't normal thinking on incentives suggest that if you don't allow people to properly profit from their ideas people will not spend the hard work and time coming up with ideas that benefit everyone ultimately?

Or is it the obviously socially constructed nature of property of IP, making people think about the same for 'normal' property, that makes you nervous?

[Old Mexican]

Re: MNG,

OM-what's the deal with many libertarians hating on IP?

Because IP is an undue transfer of title of someone else's property towards someone that claims to be an originator.

Copying is NOT stealing - if I use my own wood, nails, finish and fittings to make a cabinet exactly like one YOU made with your own wood, nails, finish and fittings, then by what principle would you lay claim to the cabinet that I made with MY wood, MY nails, MY finish and MY fittings? I certainly did not steal your cabinet.

Wouldn't normal thinking on incentives suggest that if you don't allow people to properly profit from their ideas people will not spend the hard work and time coming up with ideas that benefit everyone ultimately?

People already profit from their ideas, MNG, IP or not. IP laws are not meant for people to profit, but to keep lawyers fat and happy.

[MNG]

"Copying is NOT stealing"

It's kind of stealing the idea, no?

[Heroic Mulatto]

According to many anti-IP folks, an "idea" cannot be "stolen." Only real, tangible things can be stolen.

[MNG]

Yeah, I know that is the line. I just don't buy it. But I guess I've always had a different idea of what stealing is than many folks around here 😉

[Coeus]

It's pretty simple. Stealing is depriving someone of the utility of something they own. IP enforcment is the government, once again, telling you what you can and can't do with something you own. IP enforcement is actually closer to stealing than IP violation.

I've always had a different idea of what stealing is than many folks around here

I am so using that!

[Joe M]

Yes, in your mind, ideas can be stolen, but real, tangible things cannot.

[MNG]

To me, not being a deontological libertarian, it's not so hard. I just ask "does IP promote the general welfare by inducing more people to invent more things that make everyone better off." If the answer is yes then we should bestow property protections on it for that reason. Remember that I think utilitarian value if all any property, tangible or not, has (when I say "all it has" I am often take to be demeaning it; actually I think property systems set up incredibly important incentive structures for the good of all, albeit to be judged by utilitarian criteria).

[Old Mexican]

Re: MNG,

It's kind of stealing the idea, no?

You have a funny way of describing the act of stealing, MNG. If an idea pops in your head and then the same idea pops into mine, you cannot then say I somehow "stole" your idea. Or could you?

You will have to explain to me how that works, because the concept of stealing means TAKING something that does not belong to you. Unless you can SHOW ME how one can take an idea (that is, snatch it from your mind in a way you cannot have it aymore) then you don't have an argument.

[MNG]

"an idea pops in your head and then the same idea pops into mine, you cannot then say I somehow "stole" your idea."

I was thinking more of how actual IP suits work, where I show that you read my idea or you reverse engineered it or what have you.

Here's how I show you what you ask for: I have an idea. I write it down. You come across it and before I can do anything with it you run out and act on it.

That's how someone can "take" an idea. But I imagine you're going to respond with some question begging about what the word "take" means now.

[Matrix]

Research and Development are very expensive. Companies and individuals invest a lot of capital into trying to develop a product or service. They go through all the headaches and loss from failures. Then they sell the product at a certain price to recoup losses suffered during R&D. People reverse engineer or copy ideas do not invest upfront capital into R&D, and use their savings to undercut the competition. The ones who spent R&D money suffer because someone else came along to do the same thing without that heavy initial investment and get undersold. They will lack the incentive to actually innovate. Why invent and innovate if it is expensive and some jackass can just steal your idea and undercut you?

[np]

See my example above about interfaces, black boxes, Compaq and IBM. The issue about IP is NOT what you're stating it to be.

It is about somebody using the patent (and general IP) system to prevent others from doing R&D own their own that would achieve the same result.

Aside from my example above think about Amazon's infamous one-click patent. Much of so-called idea centered, non-tangible IP is the intellectual equivalent. Let's assume they actually did invested a lot. Doesn't matter because it's not unique. Someone versed in the matter can come up with the same, but using either different or coincidentally similar methods independently.

Look at Newton and Leibniz. Both "invented" something as esoteric as Calculus completely independently! They both used quite different methods (Newton is the most recognized, but we actually use Leibniz's methods and notation much more) but use the same concept/idea.

In fact the restrictions and regulations you imply would cripple something like the automotive aftermarket, where companies do their own independent R&D and reverse engineering factory components is the only way for those companies to create their own components in order to find out the functional interfaces, to in many case, create better or at least different alternatives.

Heck, even all car companies blatantly do this themselves--they buy competitors cars, tear them apart, tinker with them, reverse engineer them to see what they themselves are missing for example.

[Maxxx]

OM
What is your opinion of copyrights, or the restricted usage of trademarks and logos.

Should those be protected by governments?

[R C Dean]

Because IP is an undue transfer of title of someone else's property towards someone that claims to be an originator.

I thought the point of the anti-IP position was that there was no intellectual property, anywhere. So how can the possessor of IP claim to that it is property that is being transferred to the originator?

IP laws are not meant for people to profit,

Millions of inventors, authors, software companies, and others beg to disagree.

[kilroy]

This. I have some US and Canadian patents and I assure you I have profited from them. Oh, and IANAL.

[Old Mexican]

Re: R C Dean,

thought the point of the anti-IP position was that there was no intellectual property, anywhere. So how can the possessor of IP claim to that it is property that is being transferred to the originator?

The physical property, RC. In my cabinet example, MNG would claim to have possession of MY cabinet simply because, he claims, he thought of it first. It does not matter if he takes possession of my cabinet or extorts a rent from it, it is still the taking of someone else's property by virtue of claiming to be the "originator." That is exactly how IP works - I don't understand why would you claim otherwise.

Millions of inventors, authors, software companies, and others beg to disagree.

Oh? You polled them all? Quite an achievement.

BY the way, there are also millions more that do not rely on IP. Maybe they are all idiots, or maybe - just maybe - they don't like the idea of paying for the college tuition of the lawyers' kids.

[Brian E]

In my cabinet example, MNG would claim to have possession of MY cabinet simply because, he claims, he thought of it first. It does not matter if he takes possession of my cabinet or extorts a rent from it, it is still the taking of someone else's property by virtue of claiming to be the "originator." That is exactly how IP works - I don't understand why would you claim otherwise.

That's how patents work. Copyright doesn't work that way. If you come up with a design and I come up with the same design independently, absent any evidence that I copied your design you have no claim to my creation. But we're not even talking about a cabinet or a tune here - we're talking about software systems that are probably several orders of magnitude more complex than anything created by humans prior to the 20th century. The likelihood of you making the exact same implementation decisions even when creating a functionally exact clone is essentially zero.

Even in absence of copyright or patent law, Hitachi could have used contracts to defend their design if they trusted the rule of law in China. They don't. IP in this case is just a legal shorthand for a bunch of entirely voluntary contracts. If you don't believe contracts should be enforced, that's another matter entirely. I don't think you'll get much sympathy here for that position.

[R C Dean]

Oh? You polled them all? Quite an achievement.

No need. Every author, inventor, etc. who has ever gotten a royalty check has profited from IP.

BY the way, there are also millions more that do not rely on IP.

I know. I'm one of them. The fact that I don't rely on IP for my income is utterly irrelevant, of course, to whether IP is a good idea or not.

[So, you're a moron?]

"if I use my own wood, nails, finish and fittings to make a cabinet exactly like one YOU made with your own wood, nails, finish and fittings"

What kind of fucking idiot uses a cabinet as his IP example?

Just admit you have no idea what the nuances of IP law are and leave, you've already done as much,m it just took a dozen posts and you making a fool of yourself.

[Brian E]

Because IP is an undue transfer of title of someone else's property towards someone that claims to be an originator.

Now that's a hell of a statement. Do you really mean that about all forms of IP? Should I be able to open up a hamburger joint with a golden-arches design and call it McDonald's? After all, it's my stuff. I have a hard time believing that most people would see this as anything but a case of fraud, though.

As for copyright goes, you may be able to copy the design of a cabinet easily enough, but most copyrighted materials are substantially more complex than that. You can't copy the design of a software system by observing its operation. You need possession of a medium containing the information in order to perfectly copy it. If not for copyright, the sale of such media would be governed by a contract with much the same effect - and indeed it often is, since many copyrighted works come with agreements that further restrict the way in which the work can be used. Would replacing standard copyright law with an adhesion contract on every sale really make life easier?

As it is, manufacturers concerned about the rampant cloning taking place in China are already heavily obfuscating their systems and inserting countermeasures designed to prevent reverse engineering. Without any trust in the rule of law, effort is spent defending what they see as theirs. How is this different from what happens when governments refuse to protect real property rights?

Your objection applies most clearly to patents, which is precisely why I would favor getting rid of them entirely. As best as I can tell, they're not even achieving their stated purpose.

[Old Mexican]

Re: Brian E,

Now that's a hell of a statement. Do you really mean that about all forms of IP? Should I be able to open up a hamburger joint with a golden-arches design and call it McDonald's? After all, it's my stuff. I have a hard time believing that most people would see this as anything but a case of fraud, though.

If would be fraud if you claimed to be a golden arch purveyor. That would be misleading.

As for copyright goes, you may be able to copy the design of a cabinet easily enough, but most copyrighted materials are substantially more complex than that.

No, they're not. Take a look at some of the patents and tell me with a straight face they're more complicated than a can opener.

Even if the design was more complex, it reminds a fallacy to say that just because you thought of the idea first that you can claim onwership of anything built afterwards under the same design.

As it is, manufacturers concerned about the rampant cloning taking place in China are already heavily obfuscating their systems and inserting countermeasures designed to prevent reverse engineering.

Good for them!! That is infinitely LESS EXPENSIVE than going through the trouble of "defending" a patent, with the result of wasted energy and capital, as it only serves to send the lawywers' kids to college and fatten their wallets.

[Brian E]

Good grief, man. Are you being disingenuous or just thick? I already said that I'm against patents. In the Hitachi case, their designs would ordinarily be protected by non-disclosure agreement and by copyright law. Patents can't prevent anyone from cloning something - in fact, the filing is supposed to provide enough information to allow someone to clone it. Cloning in China is not about patent violation. Companies with zero patents (or zero issued patents - most goods are on the market years before a patent is issued) still have problems with this. It's about copyright and NDA violation.

[CrackertyAssCracker]

We are pro-TP. Tangible property. IP isn't compatible with TP, so you can't be pro-TP and pro-IP.

[cynical]

A) Property is typically socially constructed (in some sort of informal fashion), IP is usually government-constructed (certainly in the U.S., where it is provided for in the Constitution). Without government intervention, secrecy is the main means of protecting information.

B) Protecting physical property usually takes place at the location that the owner keeps the property, and a lot of it can be done by the owner himself through locks, alarms, and so on. (Technically IP owners can use DRM to protect their works, but DRM is fairly easily cracked, and one crack provides unlimited copies of the work, making such technology much less effective than physical security). Securing public information requires a strong central government, as otherwise any locality that ignores IP will become a haven for pirates and undermine the whole system. If you are concerned about the dangers of a strong central government, IP is more problematic than physical property.

C) Property is naturally scarce. Every society will have rules regarding who can use it, or else succumb to the tragedy of the commons in short order. Even socialist societies have rules regarding how property is used, they just assign that authority to offices held the elites rather than the broad base of ordinary citizens. Ideas, in contrast, are not scarce in terms of instances -- only the effort required to create the original is scarce. Property rights can in theory do more harm than good -- certainly in the case of electronics and software patents, litigation seems to be draining huge amounts of money that would otherwise be used for innovation, and there are many artistically worthwhile derivative works can could be created without IP (League of Extraordinary Gentleman was such a work, though its characters were all out of copyright).

D) Whether or not copyright and patents enshrined in the Constitution were worthwhile and beneficial, the system has mutated into simple crapitalism, with the content industries buying infinite retroactive extensions to their rights, and the public domain getting shit in return.

[Brian E]

You can perfectly adquire copies of anything in this world.

What? Have you never heard of obfuscation?

Hitachi complicated their design in order to make it much more difficult to reverse-engineer. They did this because they didn't have any trust in the IP laws of China. If there weren't any IP laws elsewhere, they'd obfuscate all of their designs for the same reason.

There is a booming business in microcontrollers designed to prevent the code in the embedded flash memory from being copied out and cloned. Clearly somebody didn't get the message about the triviality of copying anything, right?

[Lord Humungus]

vaguely related - I dabble with audio electronics. Via Ebay, there are tons of Chinese kits available that are pretty much knock-offs of popular circuits designed in Europe and the USA.

Out of curiosity, I bought one to check out - it was a phono (turntable) preamplifier. The circuit board was of good quality, but the layout itself was pretty junky. The worst part was the final result - the equalization (RIAA curve) was waaaay off - no bass and the most irritating treble. Plus, even inside an aluminum chassis, I was chasing down RFI issues due to the poor PCB layout. It was a mess.

I was able to correct some of the issues (the RIAA curve) with some hacking, but the end results weren't worth the trouble.

[Ellipsis Vandal]

"Voodoo economist" Elizabeth Warren is in ... heat ....

[WTF]

Thanks for putting that image in my head, you bastard.

[The Other Kevin]

Woman who recently underwent a bilateral masectomy attempts to explain to a TSA-bot that the irregularities in her body scan image are tissue expanders. TSA-bot gropes her anyway.

Just in time for breast cancer awareness month. Hope the agent was wearing his/her pink gloves. Stay classy, TSA!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Rick Perry suggested Saturday that the U.S. may need to send troops to Mexico to stop the cartels.

Rick Santorum suggested none of them be gay.

[Barack Obama]

Let me be clear.

Governor Perry, stop stealing my thunder!

[Au H20]

I'm sure this won't cause any sort of shit storm:

Jerry Brown signs bill banning local governments from enacting circumcision bans.

But what if Obama signs a bill banning the ban of bans?

Think of it: It would be a clever ploy to unite Jews and Muslims over something. Peace through mutual hatred!

Though it's kinda a moot point because a local judge already ruled that the law would have violated freedom of religion.

[Sparky]

It's bans all the way down.

[Rich]

Well said.

[mad libertarian guy]

Can we ban the guys who issue bans?

Until that happens, we're fucked.

[Fist of Etiquette]

A setback for H.O.O.P.

[MNG]

Wait a minute, I thought libertarians were against top down centralized mandates on localities and states?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Drill down deeper. If individual babies want to have circumcisions, communities cannot be allowed to infringe on that right! (Also, the Bill of Rights is centralized planning.)

[MNG]

"Also, the Bill of Rights is centralized planning"

That's my point. I've always said states and locality rights is largely bunk. So I embrace the BoR and incorporation and the central planning that you rightly recognize it as. It's all these folks running around going "States and locality rights, great except when it isn't" that I'm tweaking.

[Fatty Bolger]

Aren't rights really the opposite of planning? "You have the right to say whatever you want" seems to be the opposite of "You can only say what we allow."

[Jeffrey]

Not really, seeing as how most libertarians I know enjoy the protections of the 14th amendment.

[Strawman]

Wrong.

[Zeb]

No, that's constitutionalists. Libertarians want the government (at all levels) to leave people alone as much as possible.

[John]

Apparently Amanda Heard of the new Playboy Club show is a lesbian. So much for all lesbians looking like Rosanne Barr.

[Heroic Mulatio]

Her girlfriend isn't too shabby herself.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Her girlfriend, Tasya van Ree, isn't too shabby herself.

[Au H20]

Other hot celebrity lesbians: Portia de Rossi

[Lord Humungus]

giving hope to men's pornographic fantasies about lesbians.

[Apple]

I don't buy it. She's into it now but she'll be another Anne Heche in a few years. Not that there aren't plenty of hot lesbians, like Portia de Rossi, but this one's not fully committed. You can see it in her eyes.

[PantsFan]

Here she is getting hit on by Jeremy Clarkson
http://www.joblo.com/video/pla.....d-top-gear

[Fatty Bolger]

HOLLYWOOD SHOCKER! Kristin Stewart's latest co-star stuns film crew, gives his opinion of her acting in the Twilight films.

[sloopyinca]

Hahahahahha.
[catches breath]
Hahahahahahaha.

Thanks, Fatty. You just made my day.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Her girlfriend isn't too shabby herself.

[P Brooks]

Madison's campus police will need to be trained on what the law allows, but that's a standard annual procedure, Riesling said. Her main concern at this point is getting the word out about the law to staff and students, and making sure they don't underreact if and when they see a weapon.

Don't underreact. If people are allowed to become habituated to the notion that NOT EVERYONE with a gun (except the noble triggermen of the State) intends to kill them, the carefully crafted fabric of sustained low-level terror might rip.

And, God forbid, what if those precious little children should somehow get the crazy idea they are responsible for their own safety?

WHAT IF THEY BEGIN TO BELIEVE THEY ARE CAPABLE OF THINKING FOR THEMSELVES?

It's best not to risk it. Don't underreact.

[sloopyinca]

I have always considered Riesling to be lacking in any complexity or quality. Perhaps good after dinner for a few minutes, but on the whole only a simpleton appreciates it.

Obviously, she is doing her damnedest to live up to the name.

[Warty]

Did anyone see Pauly Krugnuts calling for a trade war?

[MNG]

Shortages Lead Doctors To Ration Critical Drugs

Fifteen-year-old Kevin Zakhar of Bethel, Conn., is one among thousands of patients affected by a months-long shortage of electrolytes ? minerals such as calcium, phosphorus and magnesium necessary for normal metabolism.

Zakhar can't eat at all. A year ago, his small intestine suddenly kinked, cutting off its blood supply. Surgeons had to remove the entire small bowel, which is where nutrients in food get absorbed. So he must depend on daily intravenous feeding.

One reason that Kevin Zakhar hasn't been able to get the calcium solution he needs is that hospitals have been reserving it for patients who need it even more desperately than he does.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/healt.....ical-drugs

So the critical drugs are rationed given to those most in need of them. Distribution based on need rather than ability to pay...Normal moral intuition of most people, meet libertarians. Libertarians, meet normal moral intuition of most people.

[MNG]

Suggested wingnutz comments to this post should include snide Marxist quotes about each according to his own needs, each from his own abilities...

[John]

So does your devolution continue? Do you know plan to stop posting in English? I guess if you start using made up words, it will be easier to ignore you.

[MNG]

Again, when John attacks anyone's use of English it is like Jack the Ripper suggesting you are coming on too strong to women...

[BakedPenguin]

How about this, MNG - maybe if the FDA didn't force companies to go through a process that takes seven years and costs over $100 million, there might be more drugs available.

Also, from your link:

But actually, officials at the Food and Drug Administration say only 11 percent of shortages happen because a company decides to stop making an unprofitable drug. Most shortages, they say, occur because something goes wrong in the manufacturing process that halts production.

The problem today is there are fewer companies making essential drugs. So when one manufacturer stops producing, there may be only one other supplier ? and it can't keep up with demand.

If it was profitable, why would there only be one or two company(ies) making it?

[BakedPenguin]

s/b "If it was so profitable..."

[So, you're a moron?]

Apart from also being true you mean?

[Citizen Nothing]

I'll skip the snide quotes, and just say straight out that you're an annoying tool.

[Citizen Nothing]

But now my work is done, and John can have at you. He seems to enjoy it so much.

[John]

Sure lets not base it on the ability to pay. No problem. Then do you plan to draft the producers of the drug to make more even though they are getting less money for it? If only it were so simple as to just demand justice.

[MNG]

No, I suggest society should pay for it, shared costs, with those able to pay the most chipping in the most.

Single payer for example is not free health care, the doctors are simply paid via taxpayers.

[John]

So you think that it should be rationed by government bureaucrat. Just because that has failed miserably every other place it has been tried and has produced a downright nightmare in Britain doesn't mean it won't work here. This time will be different.

And of course the government bureaucrats would never fuck up. Nope they would do it perfectly and never not give it to the most needed and would always ensure that there was a proper supply.

Have any more unicorns to sell us?

[MNG]

"Just because that has failed miserably every other place it has been tried"

And our system has...succeeded?

Not by many a metric John.

Besides, I'm not endorsing single payer, I'm simply listing an example where the usual moral intuition of society easily accepts distribution based on need rather than ability to pay, something seemingly unthinkable for many here.

[John]

Our system has produced most of the great medical breakthroughs in the last fifty years and given us higher survival rates for many diseases. We have a lifespan of nearly 80 years and it increases every year. I would say it has succeeded.

You just think it has failed because it is not perfect and you don't understand life is not perfect and you can't stand the idea of something not being under the control of the collective.

[MNG]

As you can imagine, critics of the system can point to other criteria that paint our system in much less flattering light John.

But of course you dismiss what they value out of hand, being an extremist and all.

[Au H20]

Boys, before this shit starts again: FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP!

[mad libertarian guy]

So you're suggesting that if I might need some drug that I can pay for, but someone else might need it more and cannot pay for it, that I should pay for HIM to have it via my taxes and not myself?

Fuck. You.

[Troy]

I don't want to pay for your viagra limp dick.

[Old Mexican]

Re: MNG,

No, I suggest society should pay for it, shared costs, with those able to pay the most chipping in the most.

You don't seem to get it, MNG: You haven't even asked why the drugs are scarce in the first place.

The model you propose - all society paying for goods used by a few - will simply lead to ever increased scarcity as there is no cap on cost. This is regardless if government pretends to place a cap on the cost of drugs or not - the TRUE price of ANYTHING manifests itself one way or the other.

The issue with socialized costs, as you propose, is that the demand schedule for the good cannot be known, as distribution is not realized through a market and a price system but through a non-market, planned distribution scheme. This creates a knowledge problem, as demand for drugs would only be known through a requisition process which is always a posteriori, when the people requiring the drug already have symptoms that makes the need more evident and production is only made by order, thus creating a time dislocation between need and consumption. It also leads to oversupply in certain places and undersupply in others, when orders are fulfilled according to requisitions instead of price demand. For instance, the producer may decide to place a warehouse for the drugs closest to the hospitals that write the most requisitions, but what if these wearehouses happen to be the furthest from hospitals that write jsut enough requisitions for just the drugs they need? They would have to then write even MORE requisitions just to have enough supply to cover the COST of the delay in delivery, thus creating another problem for other hospitals that write only enough requisitions to cover their needs. This, again, is because the true cost of the drug is not known by the hospitals except in terms of delay and number of requisitions.

Instead, a price system will convey the availability of the drug immediately and accurately, making the hospitals be more careful as to how much drugs they buy for the number of patients. The places where the drug conveys the higher price will be supplied the fastest as the producer can profit more from the transaction, thus assuring supply for the hospital. The places that buy less drugs - where the price is lower - will receive an expected lower attention from the producer, thus assuring that only as many drugs as needed are produced, making it available for everybody.

Anything that interferes with this process will create artificial scarcity. This means that something is impeding the proper flow of price information when it comes to the drug mentioned in the article. You neglect to wonder why, instead going to the easy - and lazy - conclusion that producers are greedy and selfish bastards and that socializers are all good and cuddly, when in fact it is the other way around.

[MNG]

I don't assume the producers are greedy or evil, that's some left winger in your head. They are trying to live by their fiduciary duty to their shareholders by trying to maximize profit by producing a quality product at prices that will be competitive and yet still profitable.

I just don't think they care who pays that competitive yet profitable price, whether it be a government agency or a private insurer. And while I actually do think the latter will do generally a better job at keeping costs down I think it is not as absolutely or completely true as you argue and that there are other moral problems going on.

[MNG]

I mean, think about what you've just said: under government purchasing the prices go higher so the producers make less of it. But if the prices go higher the incentive will be to make more of it, not less. Government control of this has many problems I'll concede, but it should not be scarcity as you describe it.

[Old Mexican]

Re: MNG,

I mean, think about what you've just said: under government purchasing the prices go higher so the producers make less of it. But if the prices go higher the incentive will be to make more of it, not less.

You see why some wonder why you, being here for so long, seem not to have learned anything?

If you have only ONE buyer - ONE, which is the government - why would you make MORE than what the government normally BUYS?

Please, use your head for once, MNG. Just for once. Pretty please?

[Libertymike]

"usual moral intuition of society easily accepts distribution based on need and not on ability to pay"

??????????????????????????????????????

Before I take a stab at that, care to explain?

[CrackertyAssCracker]

Holy Effin crap. You really don't get how price ceilings/floors cause shortages/gluts? Are you that stupid?

[MNG]

Holy Effin crap. You really don't get how price ceilings/floors cause shortages/gluts? Are you that stupid?

PRESENT!

[MNG]

I never learned economics. Basic math also escapes me. The ability to reason in a coherent fashion is not one of my strong suits.

Hell, guys, I'll level with you: I was pooping into a diaper up until 3 months ago.

[Old Mexican]

Re: MNG,

So the critical drugs are rationed given to those most in need of them. Distribution based on need rather than ability to pay...Normal moral intuition of most people, meet libertarians. Libertarians, meet normal moral intuition of most people.

The Stoopid is strong with this one. He hasn't questioned WHY the drugs are scarce, he just accepts as a moral imperative that rationing by pity is the best distribution process possible.

[Citizen Nothing]

The real "Stoopid," as you put it, OM, is that he's been coming here for so long, and apparently has yet to grasp the need to ask the (simple and basic) question you propose.

[MNG]

The real stoopid is the failure for you guys to see that you don't have such self-evident truths to others. You'd think a group that polls around 1% would get hip to that faster...

Not everyone shares your assumptions, reasoning and conclusions. Great minds are out there debating the things you guys smugly feel you learned in "one easy lesson."

[Citizen Nothing]

And yet you've still to learn it, MNG?
No. I think that you, unlike the public at large, do understand the basic truths (or "truths" if you'd prefer) that libertarians accept. But instead of arguing on a libertarian web site with basic libertarian axioms in mind, you (pretend?) to be an idiot.
But I suppose you just like coming here to be a dick. And that's cool, and all.
It certainly keeps John occupied.

[MNG]

"But instead of arguing on a libertarian web site with basic libertarian axioms in mind"

It really is unthinkable to you that someone might find your axioms to be wrong, isn't it? I guess the fact that you point them out as "truths" says all one needs to say.

You're like muslims who say that if you just read the Koran the beauty and truth of it will be so obvious you will be converted on the spot. And if you read it and tell them you were unconvinced, they say "you didn't read it close enough then!"

[Citizen Nothing]

"It really is unthinkable to you that someone might find your axioms to be wrong, isn't it?'

(Speaking of "Stoopid.")

Of course not. But I expect you, by this time, to at least understand what those axioms are. Apparently that's expecting too much. Maybe John is right in his assessment of you, after all.

[Citizen Nothing]

I guess I should have put "axioms" in scare quotes in that last graf above. I wouldn't have thought it necessary, but apparently it is.

[MNG]

How am I misunderstanding the axiom (versus just not accepting it)?

[Marshall Gill]

Moral intuition? Allowing people to keep the benefits of their efforts creates more for everyone. How is your plan of producing less, "moral"?

[MNG]

As you can see it is plainly the normal moral intuition to ration the drugs for those who are seen to be in most need of it.

You're making a separate, empirical argument that this is not what will motivate people properly to ultimately make more people better off. Maybe that is true, maybe not, but I'd suggest the current prevalance of the kind of rationing I'm talking about demonstrates your argument is certainly not self-evidently true.

[Marshall Gill]

You're making a separate, empirical argument that this is not what will motivate people properly to ultimately make more people better off. Maybe that is true, maybe not

Separate? You are bemoaning the cost and scarcity as if they happen in a vacuum. Let's ignore "why" they are expensive and then insist that giving them away has nothing to do with it?

Centrally planned economies produce less. Part of central planning is deciding who gets what. You really don't understand The Wealth of Nations do you?

[Night Elf Mohawk]

It's pretty easy to be in favor of rationing someone else's drugs. I wonder how many people have the same "moral intuition" when it comes to their own paychecks and wealth.

[Gilbert Martin]

"As you can see it is plainly the normal moral intuition to ration the drugs for those who are seen to be in most need of it."

And your evidence for something being a "normal moral intution" is what, exactly?

[R C Dean]

Perhaps we might inquire as to why there is a shortage?

And whether more government control of medicine would prevent such shortages, or perhaps increase them?

No? Too hard?

[TrickyVic]

""affected by a months-long shortage of electrolytes ? minerals such as calcium, phosphorus and magnesium necessary for normal metabolism.""

Is 7-11 out of Gatorade?

[Zeb]

Gatorade comes in IV form now?

[Groovus Maximus]

Not quite. Nutritional fluids are administered via TPN (total parenteral nutrition). Most noted side-effects of moderate to long term use of TPN are kidney and gallstones. It's this off-white, milky looking fluid (yes, yes, I know that seems kinda "ewww"; I know whereth I post.)

Other methods are NG (nasogastric) and PEG tubes (percutaenous endoscopic gastrostromy).

[P Brooks]

"The whole safety issue is a concern of everybody across campus," Hornett said. "I personally feel that if a weapon is available, there's too good a chance that somebody might use it in the heat of the moment and kill somebody, where if the weapon hadn't been available, it might have been a slugfest or something, but people would still be alive."

"They're a bunch of unruly savages!
It's really nice to see the high regard in which the members of our noble Degreed Educators' Guild hold their charges.

[MNG]

Certainly an ideology so steeped in economic thinking can wrap their head around the idea that making something more available may make it more likely to be used in certain cases on the margin.

But for paleos, when the con side of their personality clashes with the libertarian side, interesting mental gymnastics often result.

[John]

So I guess you are against drug legalization then MNG. Wouldn't legalizing drugs make drugs more available and thus greatly increase drug use?

No, since guns are always available to criminals, the best thing to do is let them be available to the law abiding so that having a gun is less of an advantage. It is odd you can't understand that.

You really have gone off the left deep end lately. Is the Obama crackup affecting you that much?

[MNG]

I have always said here that legalizing drugs will mean more people will use them.

I just think that is better than the results of the WOD.

"You really have gone off the left deep end lately."

By embracing normal economic theory on incentives?

Yeah, pretty deep.

[MNG]

"You really have gone off the left deep end lately"

Wasn't it just days ago that John's meme was the concern troll "oh, MNG, you always do personal invective!!!"

John, you are the king of quickly moving to personal invective, you're just so massively dishonest in your partisan hackery to not notice your own ways.

[Citizen Nothing]

John brings up a good (and what should be obvious to the non-Stoopid) point -- that the use of weapons "on the margin" by the law-abiding is likely to be a net positive, not negative.

[MNG]

If the "number of people saved from harm" by gun weilding do-gooders outweights the number of angry shootings and suicides, perhaps. But often the former involve preventing a robbery at worst while the latter, well, we see the results of that regularly in the news...

[R C Dean]

If only we had some experience with whether violence is increased or decreased when more law-abiding citizens carry weapons . . . .

[MNG]

You mean like the much higher murder and suicide rates by handgun in the US to nations in which those weapons are much less hard to get?

Naw, even if we had such a thing people like you would ignore it.

[BakedPenguin]

Orly?

[R C Dean]

I was thinking more about a longitudinal study showing whether violence increases or decreases in a particular locality after law-abiding citizens start carrying weapons.

That way, your results aren't hopelessly invalidated by cultural factors.

[Isaac Bartram]

Considering the generally higher overall suicide rates in other countries, I think you're making a huge foundationless assumption that None of those Americans who killed themselves with guns would not have found another way to do it.

If banning guns will lower the incidence of suicide in America, then maybe the city fathers of Toronto should consider shutting down the subway system to lower the Canadian rate.

[Abdul]

Rick Perry's father once leased land and failed to dynamite offensively named rock:

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

Media hardly overreacts.

[John]

Well since they never looked into the current President's past or did any vetting, they plan to make up for it by really vetting the next President thoroughly.

[yesterday]

Mike Laursen|10.2.11 @ 12:48PM|#Speaking of Perry, this will no doubt be in tomorrow's Morning Links:Washington Post: "At Rick Perry's Texas hunting spot, camp's old racially charged name lingered"

[FlyoverCountry]

I was talking to a neighbor yesterday who had been out combining his corn. He was in a bad mood, said his machine had been fucked up most of the morning. I asked what happened and he said he "ran straight over a damned niggerhead"

That was the first I had ever this phrase, and now I hear it again not 24 hrs later.

[I'm reading this now]

It gives the flavor of those words

Out of the Ditch.
A True Story of an Ex-Slave:
Electronic Edition.
Lewis, J. Vance

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/lewisj/lewisj.html#tp

[Heroic Mulatto]

There is no fucking excuse. He signed on the lease in 1983. It's not like it was during Jim Crow. The fact that the sign has remained all this time is evidence that the Perrys didn't consider its removal all that important.

Based on this, do I think Perry is a hooded Klansman? No. Was he amazingly unaware and insensitive? Yes.

[MNG]

"There is no fucking excuse."

Agreed, but hey, that's what John is here for, to make excuses for GOPers, so let him do his job.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Well, I agree that any Presidential candidate should be vetted thoroughly. I mean, this will be the person who is the face of our diplomacy. Can you imagine President Perry saying to Hu Jintao, "I'm sure you'll love our resort here on Buck-Toothed Chinaman Mountain.... What? Where are you going? Was it something I said??"

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Imagine the outrage if the rock had "God damn America!" on it.

[MNG]

I seem to recall that was reported last time around, so what is your point?

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Perry could have just said he never saw the rock if, after a year of their ignoring it, it had made it into the media.

[Abdul]

Apparently, the rock was painted over in '83, and only a few letters remained visible. The WAPO article had no photos of the Michael Richards Memorial Boulder, but did have several sources who kinda-sorta remember seeing it sometime ago.

Seriously, that's a scandal? Wake me up if he re-names it Maccaca-ville

[Heroic Mulatto]

Well that's a completely mendacious summary of the article. Then again, coming from someone whose handle (real name?) is basically the Arabic equivalent of "nigger", the irony is amusing.

[Abdul]

I was going to use "Articulate and Clean," but we know what that's a euphemism for.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I was going to use "Articulate and Clean," but we know what that's a euphemism for.

*chortle* Ok, you win!

[R C Dean]

The fact that the sign has remained all this time

Would the fact that it was painted over almost immediately change your mind?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Would the fact that it was painted over almost immediately change your mind?

Yes. However, several people dispute that it was. Secondly, all descriptions of the rock state that the paint-job seems to have been done hastily.

It would have been better if Perry took the time to rename the place.

[Abdul]

His father only leased it. But the owners did re-name it (North Pasture--which is old french for "Darkie").

Still, maybe Perry will wise up and vacation in Squaw Valley from now on.

[R C Dean]

Its a pasture that's leased for hunting.
Its not his property. He can't rename it. They were probably pushing their lease rights to paint over the graffiti, unless the landowner gave permission.

And, in any event, this appears to be a localism. How is Perry supposed to stop the locals from referring to it however they want?

However, several people dispute that it was.

Anonymously? I haven't read the article, but I understand there was a fair amount of anonymous sourcing.

Shame they ran a story like this without a picture of the damned rock, isn't it?

[MNG]

You don't think you might want to look into a hunt club that doesn't have racial epithets on landmarks?

[R C Dean]

I'm no racist, MNG, but I've leased some hunting land here in Texas.

If I found a good lease, and somebody had graffitied a rock, I wouldn't go storming off in a huff. I'd probably ask the owner what the dealio was. Depending on the circs, I might ask if he minded if I painted over it.

Next time you're visiting your crack dealer over by the projects, I invite you to stomp into the first store you see that has a racial epither graffitied on it, call the proprietor a goddam racist, and demand that he paint over it.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

You don't think you might want to look into a church that doesn't have racial epithets from the pulpit?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Its a pasture that's leased for hunting.
Its not his property. He can't rename it.

Really? If I lease storefront property, I can't name my business what I want?

They were probably pushing their lease rights to paint over the graffiti, unless the landowner gave permission.

I'll grant you that.

And, in any event, this appears to be a localism. How is Perry supposed to stop the locals from referring to it however they want?

That's just fucked up on a whole other level. But that's a different discussion.

Shame they ran a story like this without a picture of the damned rock, isn't it?

I agree.

[Citizen Nothing]

Chief Wahoo is why no Cleveland Indians fan can ever be president.

[R C Dean]

Really? If I lease storefront property, I can't name my business what I want?

Hunting leases are a little different. And, I understand the owner actually did rename the property.

So what's your beef, again?

That's just fucked up on a whole other level.

Probably. A level that has nothing to do with Perry, though.

[mad libertarian guy]

A hunting lease is completely different. You're not leasing the land for whatever purpose you please; you're leasing the land specifically so that you can have access to the game on said land. Nothing else.

And if it's a hunt club that he doesn't run himself, he's subletting use of the land, and likely has no direct access to the landowner himself.

He has absolutely no recourse to do anything at all to the property accept hunt on it.

[yesterday]

I don't think you know what a hunting lease is like; otherwise you'd know that it is a huge track of land, often with several entrances, and not your own private property (no maintenance, nor property rights)

I don't know if he used the main entrance, or even if the sign was visible during his agreement for limited hunting use.

Further, the rock would not be lit up like a Taco Tacky sign. I am not defending racism but its study, and Texas history involves a lot of signs including hanging trees. Ergo, If you pay property taxes in Texas, you're a bigot.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I don't think you know what a hunting lease is like; otherwise you'd know that it is a huge track of land, often with several entrances, and not your own private property (no maintenance, nor property rights)

Fair enough.

[Mike Laursen]

From what I can piece together from all the stories, what happened is that his parents did paint over the letters not that long after they starting leasing the property, but they didn't do that great a job of it. Several anonymous sources told the Post reporter that it was still possible to make out the letters. Not that long ago, they went back and tipped the rock over, so the letters can't be seen at all.

So, Perry did so something about it. Perhaps he was too racist to be concerned about the paint job not being done very well. Left news sources will no doubt play it up and leave out mitigating details. Right news sources will no doubt claim its blown out of proportion.

Bottom line: For those of us not in the partisan camps, we already knew Perry is a douchebag for other reasons, so we'd never vote for him, anyway.

[P Brooks]

Distribution based on need rather than ability to pay

In a classic model of liberal economics, allowing people to bid up the price gives producers a huge incentive to produce more; "excess" profits will also bring new participants into the supply chain.

In MNG World, stealing those drugs and redistributing them based on "need" is not a problem, because the government will merely go to the producers and force them to ramp up production at gunpoint.

YAY!

[MNG]

"In a classic model of liberal economics, allowing people to bid up the price"

Yeah, nice of you ignore the "bid up price" part of that.

You know, as when poor people (often kids) who need the drug can't meet the "bid up price?"

[sarcasmic]

Bidding up the price encourages new people to produce the product (if the government lets them that is), which raises supply which then causes the price to go down.
The problem we have today is that prices go up, but the government protects current producers from competition.
This means the market is unable to work its magic by increasing supply and lowering price.
As a result of this government interference in the market, poor people can't afford the products.

[MNG]

"Bidding up the price encourages new people to produce the product (if the government lets them that is), which raises supply which then causes the price to go down."

If you stick some "eventually" and "in theory" in there, then I agree.

[sarcasmic]

The only time that doesn't happen is when the government distorts prices through subsidies, tax breaks, mandates, or some other action.

[Kreel Sarloo]

I love how you simplify the process down to "poor people (often kids) who need the drug" as if the wicked old drug manufacturers were just keeping the drugs away from poor people because they hate them.

In fact, mostly the problem still exists that for every ten doses of the drug (or even medical procedures) that are available the are twelve people who need it.

Someone's going to be turned away under any system you devise.

Somehow, you've decided that not getting it because you can't afford it is worse than not getting it because you lost a raffle conducted by a bureaucracy.

[MNG]

"Somehow, you've decided that not getting it because you can't afford it is worse than not getting it because you lost a raffle conducted by a bureaucracy."

Yeah, deciding the raffle based on who has the most money is so much better!

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yeah, deciding the raffle based on who has the most money is so much better!

Well, it's certainly the most moral way.

[MNG]

"Well, it's certainly the most moral way."

Let me answer that unsupported assertion with another: that's crazy.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Ok. I'll give you a thought experiment that is common when introducing topics in bio-ethics.

You have one organ to transplant. Prioritize the following list to decide who gets it. Explain your reasoning.

1. 20-year-old Humanities student
2. 50-year-old electrical engineer
3. 35-year-old with Down's syndrome
4. 25-year-old mother of one child
5. 60-year-old Nobel-prize winning chemist
6. 45-year-old surgeon
7. 17-year-old prostitute
8. 5-year-old child

[MNG]

Look, one way NOT to prioritize it would be to ask "which one fell out of a rich ladies vagina?"

[Heroic Mulatto]

Why?

That's a serious inquiry. I want to know your reasoning as to why you so emphatically dismiss trading the services of a physician for legal tender.

[MNG]

I don't see any reason why it is more moral to distribute it according to ability to pay as opposed to need. Need takes into account actual human welfare, wealth takes into account, what?

Again, I don't dismiss paying the doctor, what I have dismissed is that argumen, up above. See me at 10:07.

[R C Dean]

wealth takes into account, what?

Economic reality? You know, the economics that creates the damned drug in the first place.

[MNG]

Wealth takes into account who has the most wealth, an empirical fact which should not govern our normative views on the subject, just as the fact that some people have more physical strength and could take the drug as an empirical fact should not govern our normative view about how it SHOULD be distributed.

[R C Dean]

Perhaps, MNG, drugs for which there is a shortage should be distributed in a way that makes future shortages less likely?

[sarcasmic]

Who makes the decision as to who needs something more than someone else?

What makes them immune from nepotism, bribery, or outright stupidity?

As I said in a previous comment, what is moral about giving medicine to someone with connections while denying it to someone who worked hard for it?

[MNG]

So on the one hand you've got the injustice of the real possibility of nepotism and unfairness of the government rationer, on the other hand the injustice of making the decisions based on who fell out of a rich woman's vagina or not and divorced from actual human welfare.

You either see one or the other as being further from the moral ideal or not.

[Citizen Nothing]

I think the fact that I've worked hard for my money for 30 years, apparently providing a product that other people desire and are willing to pay for(as difficult as that is for many to believe,), and thereby, in theory, adding to the sum total of human well-being, should pay a role in determining if my kids get medicine.
And, when I'm gone, my great-grandkids, if there's anything left.
There. I said it.

[Citizen Nothing]

And, though this should have no bearing at all on the issue, I'd be willing to bet that I donate a far higher percentage of my wealth to charitable causes than most Americans. (It is, in fact, one reason why I currently pay negative income taxes. Weird fucking world ain't it?)

[WTF]

No, no, CN, you can only be wealthy if you fall out of a rich woman's vagina. People don't earn their wealth, it just 'happens'.

[sarcasmic]

making the decisions based on who fell out of a rich woman's vagina

Do you think you could be a little more crude? Probably not.

Wealth is not a roll of the dice. It is earned.

I do not see there being an injustice when one person works harder and smarter than another, and as a result gets to purchase medicine for their kids while the layabout does not.

I'd say it is an injustice when the layabout gets dibs over the guy who worked hard.

[Tony]

How do the kids factor into your moral formula? Neither the offspring of the wealthy hard worker or the layabout got a choice in the matter. If it's all about rewarding hard work and punishing laziness, why should those rewards and punishments be intergenerational?

[sarcasmic]

TEH CHILDRENZ! WAT ABUT TEH CHILDRENZ!

No it's not a matter of punishing laziness. A lack of reward is not a punishment.

Not that you would understand that concept, since you're the one who thinks not taking equals giving and not giving equals taking.

[Tony]

You're the one who thinks access to healthcare should reflect whether people worked hard or were lazy ("It is earned.") So tell me how children factor in. Mocking concern about children doesn't answer the question.

[sarcasmic]

So tell me how children factor in.

If I were to forcibly take money from one neighbor to purchase health care for my the other neighbor's children, then that first neighbor would have every right to go to the government and seek justice.
Right?
Doesn't matter how good intentioned I am. What I did was wrong was it not?

When it is government that takes from one neighbor to purchase health care for the other neighbor's children, where does that first neighbor go for justice?

How can government be where you go to seek justice while also being the source of injustice?

[Tony]

All you're doing is saying that taxation (and hence redistribution) is wrong, which is to say only anarchy is right.

Perhaps it's wrong to take from someone and give to another, but it's also wrong to let a child go without healthcare because his parents were lazy. That is your moral requirement, after all. Now you're saying not only should people be judged and punished for their own laziness, their children should as well. And you want to talk about right and wrong?

[sarcasmic]

All you're doing is saying that taxation (and hence redistribution) is wrong, which is to say only anarchy is right.

False dichotomy.
Taxation to pay for legitimate government services, like courts and military (common defense, not world cop), are not redistribution.

Perhaps it's wrong to take from someone and give to another

No perhaps about it.

but it's also wrong to let a child go without healthcare because his parents were lazy

What do you mean "let"?
Who is doing the "letting"?
You? Society? Government? The parents?
Who is responsible for the child?
I sure am not. I've got my own to be responsible for.

Now you're saying not only should people be judged and punished for their own laziness, their children should as well.

Going without health care (which would have to be deliberate considering the multitude of charities and government programs out there) is not punishment.
Again, a lack of reward is not a punishment.
Not giving does not equal taking.
Not taking does not equal giving.

Health care is not a basic right. It is an expensive service provided by professionals.

And you want to talk about right and wrong?

Is it fair that some kids have crappy parents? No. But neither is life.

Government cannot be both justice and injustice. It just can't.

I happen to value justice over fairness you'll never have fairness, and any attempt comes at the expense of justice.

[Tony]

Taxation to pay for legitimate government services, like courts and military (common defense, not world cop), are not redistribution.

Way to beg the question with "legitimate government services." And it is every bit as much redistribution as anything else. Money taken from people's paychecks to pay for a common service. The military protects lazy Americans too.

Is it fair that some kids have crappy parents? No. But neither is life.

"Life isn't fair" is a copout. I could say life isn't fair, therefore you don't get police to protect your claim to your stuff.

You are saying evil government theft is OK to pay for certain things, but not others.

[sarcasmic]

You are saying evil government theft is OK to pay for certain things, but not others.

I am saying that there is a conflict when the government you go to to seek justice commits injustices that would be criminal if committed by citizens.
Policing is not criminal.
Fighting invasions is not criminal.
Protecting property is not criminal.
Robbing someone to pay for a child's medical care is.

[Tony]

It takes tax dollars to police, fight invasions, and protect property. Now why isn't that "robbing someone" in those instances?

[Tony]

Health care is not a basic right. It is an expensive service provided by professionals.

Unlike national defense, which is cheap and done by amateurs?

[sarcasmic]

What we commonly refer to as "national defense" is empire building.

I support national defense in the sense of protecting the borders.

Being that Canada and Mexico don't pose an immediate threat, I think we could do with maybe a tenth of the military we have now. Maybe less.

[Destrudo]

It's not all about that. But the reality is that life is not fair, and all the socialist fantasies you can imagine won't change that. The government doesn't exist to raise children, or even keep them alive. As hard as this is to believe for you.

[Tony]

Destrudo there's absolutely no reason to accept that blind darwinian chance is the best society can do. If you're going to require that distributive policy be based on whether people are lazy or hardworking, then you've already injected the moral component, and you have to deal with the fact that children are innocents in the matter. If "life isn't fair" and there are no moral considerations, then why am I not justified in taking your stuff again? Seems like you want government to protect your property, but not the healthcare of children. Explain why that makes sense.

[sarcasmic]

Seems like you want government to protect your property, but not the healthcare of children. Explain why that makes sense.

Ah yes, the socialist fallacy: If you don't want something done by government then you don't want it to be done at all.

I don't want the government to run the farms.
Does that mean I don't want anyone to eat?

[Tony]

So government taking your stuff and giving it to your neighbor is OK as long as it's paying to enforce property rights.

And that's somehow totally distinct and morally different from doing the same to enforce a right to healthcare.

[sarcasmic]

And that's somehow totally distinct and morally different from doing the same to enforce a right to healthcare.

There is no right to health care.

[Tony]

There is no right to ownership.

See how easy this is?

[sarcasmic]

There is no right to ownership.

Tell me where you live. I will gladly relieve you of your worldly possessions.

[sarcasmic]

C'mon Tony.
Put up or shut up.
No right to ownership? Prove it.
Put your address out here for all to see and announce that there is no right to ownership.
Put a sign in your lawn.
Man-up.

[Tony]

There is clearly a right to ownership. Why shouldn't there be a right to healthcare as well? Because you say so? Both require taxpayer funding to secure.

[sarcasmic]

Both require taxpayer funding to secure.

Not really. I could sit at home all day with a shotgun and do a fair job of protecting my property. Until someone better armed comes along and takes my property.

How do you secure your own right to health care without being the better armed guy who violates the property rights of the health care provider?

You can't have a right to health care (someone else's property) without violating the right to property.

They are mutually exclusive.

[Tony]

But according to your own formulation, you cannot have property rights (right to police force to protect your property) without "violating the right to property." You have to see that you're stuck here--either taxes are OK or they're not.

For some reason you can't just say you're for police and national defense but against healthcare. Presumably because you don't have a good reason. You have to pretend that your government functions are good and pure and everything else is paid for by evil theft. It makes NO SENSE.

You being able to defend your property with a gun is not property rights. It's might makes right.

[sarcasmic]

For some reason you can't just say you're for police and national defense but against healthcare.

I'm not against health care. Go buy all the health care you want. I won't stand in your way. Buy health care for children. I won't stop you.

You have to pretend that your government functions are good and pure and everything else is paid for by evil theft. It makes NO SENSE.

It's all paid for by theft. Some government is unavoidable. Death and taxes. Can't be avoided.

The basic duty of government is justice, is it not?

I'm against using the instrument of justice as a tool of injustice.

You really see no difference between using government to enforce justice when someone takes property to give to someone else, and using government to take property to give to someone else?

It's not a matter of want. There's a principle involved here.

[Tony]

That principle seems to require that a child's life is less important than your bobblehead collection, with respect to government providing a service to protect things. I think the fact that this doesn't quite add up is the reason you have to pretend that there is some magical legitimacy for certain functions that doesn't exist for others. Clearly it's not a moral wrong for government to tax in the instances you favor, since a greater good comes out of it. Otherwise you'd refuse to allow for taxation even to protect your property. Why can't the same be said about healthcare?

Justice is a fuzzy idea anyway. I can claim that it's unjust for a child, through no fault of its own, to suffer and die due to lack of healthcare when wealthy societies all over the world have proved that it can be done. You're clearly capable of measuring wrongs against each other, i.e., we must tolerate taxation to gain the benefit of property rights. So it's not unreasonable to extend the logic elsewhere.

[sarcasmic]

Otherwise you'd refuse to allow for taxation even to protect your property. Why can't the same be said about healthcare?

You can protect your property. You let government do that for you so you can go be productive. You can't provide your own health care. That's a service that you must pay for.

I can claim that it's unjust for a child, through no fault of its own, to suffer and die due to lack of healthcare when wealthy societies all over the world have proved that it can be done.

Wealthy societies all over the world are going broke as they prove it cannot be done. This country is going broke because (among other things) we're giving the elderly a blank check for health care. What happens when everyone gets a blank check?

So it's not unreasonable to extend the logic elsewhere.

It is unreasonable because once taxation is used for the explicit purpose of violating property rights, then government ceases to protect property rights.
It can't do both.

[Tony]

You can protect your property. You let government do that for you so you can go be productive. You can't provide your own health care. That's a service that you must pay for.

First, that distinction isn't there. You can provide for your own healthcare, you just would probably do as good a job at it as providing for your own property defense (which is to say you'd suck at it given what you'd be up against). And you can in theory buy your own private security, same as private healthcare. Even if there was a difference, you haven't explained why it's relevant. It's just something you pulled out of thin air.

Wealthy societies all over the world are going broke as they prove it cannot be done.

Um, no. Countries with universal healthcare pay half per capita what the US does, which only has universal healthcare for old people. Countries' balance sheets are suffering not because of government healthcare, but because of a weak global economy. Adding to the expenses of households by making them go on their own for healthcare will only make that problem worse.

It is unreasonable because once taxation is used for the explicit purpose of violating property rights, then government ceases to protect property rights.
It can't do both.

But you're begging the question again. Whose property rights are being violated when government provides healthcare? Not via taxation, since you've already established that taxation is OK to pay for certain government services.

[sarcasmic]

Countries' balance sheets are suffering not because of government healthcare, but because of a weak global economy.

Balance sheets are suffering because everyone has been promised that they can live at the expense of everyone else, and there is no everyone else. There's just everyone.

Not via taxation, since you've already established that taxation is OK to pay for certain government services.

Perhaps you missed the word explicit.
Taxation for the protection of property right is a violation of property rights. Yes I see the contradiction. However such taxation is not for the explicit purpose of violating property rights.
Taxation to fund health care is an explicit violation of property rights.

It's government saying "We're gonna tax you a little to protect your property. Now we're going to use this mechanism intended to protect your property to strip you of your property because we think someone else deserves it more than you do."

[Tony]

So it's okay to violate property rights to protect your Pez dispenser collection, but not the life of a sick child. The question is why?

[sarcasmic]

explicit

look it up

[Tony]

Taxation is taxation. It's either illegitimate force or it's not. What taxes pay for is another matter entirely, a question of policy preference. You have failed to make a meaningful enough distinction between healthcare and police protection to say why one is absolutely OK and the other absolutely not. Medical and police are just two services like any other. I don't see why it's automatically legitimate to fund one but not the other.

[sarcasmic]

BTW if you called the police to report a stolen Pez dispenser collection they'd laugh at you and tell me to screw.
At least that's my guess because that's what happened last time I was burglarized. They didn't even file a report.

[Destrudo]

Seems like you want government to protect your property, but not the healthcare of children. Explain why that makes sense.
I want the government to protect my property from aggression through rule of law. I want them to do the same for children. I don't want the government to put a pool in my backyard at someone else's expense, and I don't think, with the exception of a small safety net, that the government should be giving kids free stuff at other people's expense. No matter how tear-jerking the scenario might be. Non aggression. Simple, right?

why am I not justified in taking your stuff again?
You can try. I accept responsibility for defending myself and my modest property. Something tells me I am better equipped for this than you are.

[Tony]

Not simple at all, as you're saying it's OK to use government aggression, just for certain purposes.

The type of society you're advocating is one in which people with property have all the rights that are available to have. There are other rights besides property rights, and property rights don't magically exempt any evil you claim on the part of taxation or government force.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I don't see any reason why it is more moral to distribute it according to ability to pay as opposed to need. Need takes into account actual human welfare, wealth takes into account, what?

I just gave you a chance to show us how you would distribute according to need, but you ignored me. At least wealth can be measured in objective terms, i.e. numbers. Either you have enough for the operation or not.

Again, who gets the organ: the 60-year-old surgeon or the 17-year-old prostitute...and why?

[JW]

Prioritize the following list to decide who gets it. Explain your reasoning.

You give it to the person with the biggest tits.

What do I win?

[Heroic Mulatto]

You give it to the person with the biggest tits.

What do I win?

My respect.

[Groovus Maximus]

You give it to the person with the biggest tits.

I didn't see Chris Christie, The Corpulent Jesus (tm), on that list.

[JW]

But, it does explain David Crosby.

[T]

The condemnation of society if the result is determined by gynecomastia.

[Groovus Maximus]

You have one organ to transplant. Prioritize the following list to decide who gets it. Explain your reasoning.

1. 20-year-old Humanities student
2. 50-year-old electrical engineer
3. 35-year-old with Down's syndrome
4. 25-year-old mother of one child
5. 60-year-old Nobel-prize winning chemist
6. 45-year-old surgeon
7. 17-year-old prostitute
8. 5-year-old child

Since the gutless wonders Tony and MNG will not answer the question, I'll take a stab (heh) at this medical eqivalent of the Kobeyashi-Maru.

In order of greatest priority to least: 6. 3. 2. 4. 5. 8. 7. 1.

Factors considered: Patients most likely to survive the procedure and most likely to be compliant with follow up therapy and massive lifestyle regimen change. Ability to pay for procedure as well, as per the current system of reimbursement options. Since I don't have individual HX's of each patient, which would for me be the driving motivator of who receives the transplant modified by ability to pay, I work with the question as presented.

Guiding ethos: By Occam's razor, the ever popular Iron Law, namely:

If everything(one) is a priority, then nothing(no one) is a priority

MNG's and Tony's logic: Carve up the liver in eight sections and ensure the death of all the patients, guaranteeing the orphaning of at least one child, and being smugly consistent with the waste of resources, money and time. But hey, everyone died equally!

I hated questions like these in school as they were designed to coax out utilitarian thinking to be lampooned and ridiculed (or championed depending on the confirmation bias of the questioner) by professors and other colleagues.

[Tony]

I'd have to go with the 5-year-old child since you've maximized the use of the organ that way. Then we'd go up in age. Even though this represents a Terrible Choice, I think we'd only add to the terror by playing morality police in deciding who gets the organ. Maximizing the utility of the organ seems like the way to go.

[Groovus Maximus]

I'd have to go with the 5-year-old child since you've maximized the use of the organ that way. Then we'd go up in age. Even though this represents a Terrible Choice, I think we'd only add to the terror by playing morality police in deciding who gets the organ. Maximizing the utility of the organ seems like the way to go.

At least you had the guts to answer the question, Tony.

Well done.

The fallacy here is "Assuming the conclusion."

I disagree with your rationale, but then you aren't a physician and have not had make these kinds of choices. The reason I did not select the 5-year old is, from an actuarial and medical POV has the lesser chance than the others ranked higher of surviving the surgery. Open transplant surgeries are notoriously brutal, and the follow up monitoring of post secondary infection is precarious given the child's lack immunological maturity, especially since immunosuppressants are ordered to prevent organ/tissue rejection. On the plus side, the 5-year old will be probably the fastest to heal from the procedure, but will be the most expensive since a lifetime of follow up monitoring of interferon levels to address organ/tissue rejection is required.

And you are correct, any way you slice it (heh) it is a "Terrible Choice."

[sarcasmic]

You work hard so you can have money to buy medicine for your kids, but the deadbeat next door gets it instead because his cousin is friends with the bureaucrat in charge of the "lottery".

That's how things work in a socialist economy. You are rewarded based upon who you know, not what you do.

Ask anyone who lived in the Soviet Union.

[MNG]

Well, if you go for the worst example of that, then yes it looks bad. Try Sweden or something and it gets closer.

[Abdul]

Yeah, like Canada, where people who are waiting too long for rationed health care have the ability to come to the US and buy it.

Best of both worlds.

[MNG]

Abdul
I don't buy the horror narratives about Canada's system. They've had that system for a long time, they have competitive elections, and they've overwhelmingly chosen to keep it. I don't see that as congruent with it being the horror the right wing press sell it as here. Either the Canadians are massively stupid dupes or our right wing media is misinformed on this. I guess you know which I think more likely...

[Tony]

What's always missing in the scare stories about waiting in lines is the fact that if we don't have to wait as long in the US it's because millions of people can't afford to get healthcare at all. Even if the stories were true, it's still a pretty awful reason to say our system is better.

[Old Mexican]

Re: Stoopid In America,

What's always missing in the scare stories about waiting in lines is the fact that if we don't have to wait as long in the US it's because millions of people can't afford to get healthcare at all.

You're an idiot, sockpuppet. Oh, sorry, I was being redundant!

[NotSure]

No you idiot, when people wait in long lines it shows there are shortages, people in the USSR did wait in long lines for their right to free food, that however does not imply that those long lines were a sign of success.

[T]

Either the Canadians are massively stupid dupes

Dude, they live in freaking Canada. How smart can they be?

[sarcasmic]

Closer to what?

[MNG]

Something closer to our system.

I agree the potential with any government is for massive and horrible abuse like you got with the USSR. But is the problem government itself or the type of government they had in the USSR-for example one without electoral competititon, institutional transparency, free press institutions, etc.

The socialist systems throughout Western Europe suggest the horrors of the USSR had more to do with the latter issues than the former.

[sarcasmic]

But is the problem government itself or the type of government they had in the USSR

Both.

The socialist systems throughout Western Europe are bankrupt. They have made promises they can't keep. They've promised that everyone can live at the expense of everyone else, but there is no everyone else.

[BakedPenguin]

The problem is the government itself. If you think the incentives of a free market are morally dubious, wait until you see the incentives in a government 'market'.

Also, medicine is not something that most people deal with every day. As such, the fact that people will accept 'less-than-optimal' to 'pretty bad' outcomes isn't surprising. A few people with horror stories isn't going to change their minds, b/c they don't think it will happen to them.

[MNG]

"The problem is the government itself."

The problem with this statement is that there are nations with much higher levels of government involvement who seem, by certain metrics I grant, to have better health care systems.

"The socialist systems throughout Western Europe are bankrupt."

Don't look now but so are we, and we don't have nationalized health care. So I'm not sure that is the culprit.

[sarcasmic]

and we don't have nationalized health care.

Except for that entitlement program for the elderly and disabled that is the major factor driving our government into bankruptcy.
What's it called?

[NotSure]

You have just as much a socialist welfare system with added cost of a huge military. Places like California are more socialist than Sweden, which kind of explains why California has problems paying for all these things.

[NotSure]

In case you have not seen the news recently those countries that are offering all those free things have got big money problems, who would have thought such things can happen !

[Kreel Sarloo]

They all ran out of bombs and ammo while they were bombing Libya, too.

Seems the good old USA had to bail their asses out and give them enough so they could get going again.

And the USA is still flying the lion's share of sorties as well as firing ove 90 percent of the ship based missiles.

Yeah, the Euros just do it all so fucking well, don't they. When they're not bitching about the USA bombing some country, they're bitching about the USA *not* bombing some country.

Maybe if they spent enough money on the own militaries, they wouldn't have to borrow ours so often.

[Matrix]

That's the thing. If all these other countries had to fight their own wars and pay for a military they would actually need sans USA, they could not afford any of the programs they have. American overspending on military is helping all these socialist countries maintain their bloated entitlements.

[H. Reardon]

You know, as when poor people (often kids) who need the drug can't meet the "bid up price?"

An 'it's for the children' argument? Really?

[MNG]

Well, Obama may have Perry over for a beer summit, but I would suggest Perry not invite Obama over to his hunt club...

[sarcasmic]

Very true. Big O has likely never touched a firearm in his life and would probably hurt himself badly.

[MNG]

I was thinking more of Perry's Texas graffiti...

John's talking about the Obama crackup while his party is scurrying for a nominee. This week the messiah is going to be Christ Christie. Perry is so last week.

[R C Dean]

You mean the graffiti that was painted over 23 years ago?

[sarcasmic]

Or worse pull a Cheney.

[Professional Critic]

Arrested Development to come back first with 9-10 episodes and then a movie in 2013. Taste the happy, Michael!

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcvYx7puZB8&feature=youtu.be[/url]

[Proprietrist]

Beavis and Butt-head are back too. The smartest and the stupidest funniest shows of all time, revived from the dead!

[P Brooks]

society should pay for it, shared costs, with those able to pay the most chipping in the most.

You just couldn't wait for somebody else to play the "From each according to his ability" card, I see.

[P Brooks]

One reason that Kevin Zakhar hasn't been able to get the calcium solution he needs is that hospitals have been reserving it for patients who need it even more desperately than he does.

You should have no problem with this.

After he dies, the hospital can distribute his organs to other patients, based on need and worthiness.

[Auric Demonocles]

Just asked my coworker why he's all dressed up today. Turns out he's going to see Ron Paul tonight in NH.

[BakedPenguin]

A friend told me he'd vote for Ron Paul (but he's not registered R). I told him if he needed a ride to the voting bureau (he has a bad back), I'd be happy to give him one.

[Zeb]

A nice thing about primaries in NH is that you can change your party at the poll before you vote and change back to unaffiliated on your way out.

[sevo]

FYI, asking to pay more taxes is "Patriotic" (at least according to the headline writer):
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/......DTL&tsp=1
I didn't see anyone bragging about sending in a big check.

[AHEM]

New service offers to act as fake girlfriend.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....le2188685/

[BakedPenguin]

That's not a new service, by any stretch of the imagination.

[Matrix]

queue the "Forever Alone" face meme

[MNG]

I just wish that you libertarians would admit that these so-called "economic truths" (which have never been proven) are just cover for greed.

If you don't like the poor and minorities, that's fine. But just be honest.

[GILMORE]

MNG|10.3.11 @ 11:42AM|#
I just wish that you libertarians would admit that these so-called "economic truths" (which have never been proven) are just cover for greed.

Anyone using the term 'so-called' is a fucking idiot who doesn't know what they're saying. but then we aldready knew that.

What you so dismissively call "greed" is possibly better described as self-interest.

You want to pretend you only bleed for the pains of others, go ahead and crucify yourself. Just don't pretend it does anyone a fucking lick of good other than satisfy your desperate need to feel morally superior to others.

If you need help, I'll get the nails.

[John]

And the ability to act in one's self interest is also known as "freedom". What a dirty word that is.

[John]

You have really lost your mind. You sound like Tony. You have always been dishonest and annoying. But you were never straight up nuts. You did hold some reasonable views. But now you have reduced your self to this? The "libertarians hate the poor" canard? Really?

The Obama crackup and the ongoing complete discrediting of both Keynesian economics and third way socialism seems to have really affected you. And not in a good way.

[Rick Perry]

I love the poor and minorities. Everyone should have a hunting camp named after them.

Also, thanks for paying for their tutition!

[Obama]

I really love the poor and hope they stay that way so I can continue to "help" them..

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yet, you refuse to answer my question:
who gets the organ: the 60-year-old surgeon or the 17-year-old prostitute...and why?

If your morality is consistent, then you should have a well-reasoned answer. However, you constantly refuse any opportunity to show how your need-based system would make a choice in this tough moral dilemma.

[AHEM]

I hate the poor because they smell funny and have a bad fashion sense.

[Ska]

You should smell the 280 pound woman in the cube 25 feet away from me. The combination of rose petals and armpit is an overwhelming odor.

[cynical]

I wish you socialists would admit that this so-called "social justice" is just a cover for greed. Other people have shit that you want, and you'll make any excuse you can to justify why you should just get to take what belongs to other people, rather than earning for yourself.

If you don't like working and would rather leech off of the efforts of people better than you, that's fine. But just be honest.

[Zeb]

This has to be a spoof.

[WTF]

This must be a spoof - it's almost oo-level stoopid, and MNG isn't usually that blatant.

[Fatty Bolger]

MNG's house must be an interesting place, what with the dozens of poor minority families he allows to live there and supports, and all the poor kids he's put through college, the convalescing dude who is sporting the kidney he freely donated, and all that. Amazing man, our MNG. No hypocrisy for him, he's living the life he says he wants for all of us.

[GILMORE]

Here's one I didn't expect (someone sent to me)

"Even Alex Jones Thinks 'Occupy Wall St' Kids Are Idiots"

http://www.infowars.com/occupy.....-of-obama/

"The ignorance displayed in these interviews knows no bounds. The protesters just don't get it. They are calling for the government to use force to impose their ideas, all in the name of bringing down corporations who they don't realize have completely bought off government regulators. Corporations and government enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship ? getting one to regulate the other is asinine and only hurts smaller businesses who are legitimately trying to compete in a free market economy that barely exists.

The zeal for totalitarian government amongst some of the "protesters" is shocking. One sign being carried around read, "A government is an entity which holds the monopolistic right to initiate force," which seems a little ironic when protesters complain about being physically assaulted by police in the same breath

Is it me or is Glenn Greenwald the only douchehat impressed by the twerps?

[John]

Obama apparently marched with the New Black Panthers in 2007

http://admin.biggovernment.bre.....ba7afad252

[John]

And I will save you the trouble MNG.

SHIRLEY SHEROD!!!!!!!!!

[Apostate Jew]

What's your point?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Some have posted lists of demands online, but they all basically amount to GIMME DATS.

It's probably ironic that for all the Baby Boomers' malfeseance towards this country, the biggest "Fuck You" they could have produced was raising the Gen-Yers to be the most spoiled, functionally worthless little shits in human history.

[JW]

What's worse is that they don't even have any coherence in their protest, something the UK's lil' oppressed waifs can at least claim to have.

They do, however, share the same cognitive dissonance and unmitigated greed, so there's that.

[Libertymike]

Why the swipe at Alex Jones?

[John]

Because he is a communist idiot.

[GILMORE]

That was a swipe? How again?

Alex Jones is a truther, and a fuckwad for a variety of other reasons, but at least he calls out the protestin' Gen-Y twerps for what they are.

[Abdul]

Cause we drank so much floridated water that we're too dum to appreciate hiz geenius.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Is it gauche to comment in the morning links after noon?

[R C Dean]

Not at all, old chap. Just make sure you have changed out of your morning outfit and into suitable afternoon clothes. Don't forget the monocle!

[Art-P.O.G.]

Quite, rather.

[GILMORE]

It is gauche to type comments exclusively with your left hand.

[P Brooks]

It's probably a spoof, but-

these so-called "economic truths" (which have never been proven)

Pick up a history book some time, and compare the photos of East and West Berlin, and get back to us.

[John]

I am starting to wonder if maybe it is. MNG has never been outright nuts before this.

[Warty]

Incif, dude. Spoof or real, there's no need to subject yourself to that shit.

[Libertymike]

Nothing like a vigorous, spirited uninhibited intellectual exchange!

Screw incif. Its for adolescents.

[Warty]

Okay, you fucking weirdo.

[T]

You're just mad because some people incif'd you.

[P Brooks]

It's probably ironic that for all the Baby Boomers' malfeseance towards this country, the biggest "Fuck You" they could have produced was raising the Gen-Yers to be the most spoiled, functionally worthless little shits in human history.

Kruschev was right. He was just a little off on the timeline.

[NotSure]

I have to correct you, Kruschov said "we will bury you", Americans are more than capable of burying themselves. And yes, they are spoiled brats, I hope they never get a job in their lives, it is probably better for the economy anyway.

[FlyoverCountry]

Oh, they'll all find jobs as not-for-profit community reinvigorators or some such thing. It seemed that 95% of the people from my college classes wanted to find work in the non-profit sector. And I'm 26, so these jackholes at the protest appear to be primarily in my age cohort.

I had a professor say that the richest person of my generation is going to be the guy who figures out how to make a profit from the desire to work at a non-profit.

[GILMORE]

Too awesome

http://online.wsj.com/article/.....d69c7.html

Wall Street protesters dress as zombies in NYC

Group spokesman Patrick Bruner urged protesters to dress up as zombies and eat Monopoly money to let financial workers "see us reflecting the metaphor of their actions."

[...]
Wiljago Cook, 33, of Oakland, Calif., who joined the protest on the first day, said "exposing police brutality wasn't even really on my agenda, but my eyes have been opened."

She and her boyfriend and two neighbors all quit their jobs to come and planned "to stay as long as it seems useful," said Cook, who had worked for a nonprofit theater group...

She was wearing zombie makeup that included a red streak down her forehead. "It's a cheeky and fun way to make the same point that we've been making," Cook said of her painted face.

Dude. I couldn't do a better parody myself. The 'nonprofit theatre group' career-loss detail was so perfect.

The 'making the same point we've been making' line was also genius. (the point....which was..?)

I almost suspect the WSJ may have a Jayson Blair dude just making this shit up for laughs... If so, kudos my friend, kudos.

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