Reason Morning Links: Bloomberg Caves to OWS, Former NYPD Cop Says Colleagues Regularly Planted Drugs on Suspects, Another Wrongly Raided Couple Sues Their Local Police Department

Mike Riggs | 10.14.2011 9:00 AM

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided not to evict Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park.
A man who spent 26 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit prepares to make his professional boxing debut.
Occupy Wall Street spreads to Texas State University at San Marcos where the chief concern is…student loans.
Local Arizona police continue raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in the state, even though they're legal now.
Former NYPD cop testifies about planting cocaine on suspects, and how this is a widespread practice in the department for making arrest quotas.
A Niagra Falls couple whose home was mistakenly raided by police are now suing the police department for $2 million.

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Spoonman. 13 years ago

Hey, I was wrong. It's 8AM Central and there's some goddamn Morning Links.

Also, I am from Texas and live in Texas and I had never before heard of TSU-San Marcos.
1. P B 13 years ago
  
  nee Southwest State, they did a name change a few years ago.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    No it was knee Southwest Texas State.
    1. P B 13 years ago
      
      meh, still a junior college
2. Quezalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  "Central" isn't a real timezone. Like "Mountain".
  1. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
    
    EASTERN RULES!
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      I hate living in the eastern time zone. All the ball games start at 8:30 or 9:00 I would love to live out west where they start earlier.
      1. BakedPenguin 13 years ago
        
        I'd like to live in a non ET time zone so I could get an extra hour sleep.
  2. Spoonman. 13 years ago
    
    It's true. Californians and Northeasterners, Texas doesn't actually exist, it's just a mythical place they tell you is outside DFW Airport. Don't try to move here - it's all a lie.
    1. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
      
      That is why they smack that massive rental car fee on you; it serves as a disincentive to leave the airport.
    2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      A sizeable portion of the Midwest is also in EST.
      1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        Typical. It's EDT right now, and they're in EST.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        What are you, some sort of time...ologist?!
        
        FlyoverCountry 13 years ago
        
        If it's in the EST then it isn't in the Midwest. Fuck you, Ohio and Indiana (or parts of Indiana, anyway).
        
        Eastern-ass motherfuckers tryin' to rep like they midwesterners. We know the truth.
      2. robc 13 years ago
        
        None of the midwest is EST.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Haha, alright. "Eastern Time".
        
        Elspeth Flashman 13 years ago
        
        Michigan is, if you consider Michigan the midwest. The state voted on this way back when so that we'd have the same time as the stock market, or something like that.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        I assumed that robc was joking. Michigan and Ohio are both midwestern states, though I've had people try to convince me that both of them aren't.
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        No one knows where the Midwest actually is.
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        My rule is it starts at Pittsburgh and ends in Denver.
        
        Kant feel Pietzsche 13 years ago
        
        A mythological place, inhabited by nice people with bland accents.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Euchre is a fairly good indicator of a Midwestern state.
        
        Abersouth 13 years ago
        
        And pinochle. Denver isn't the Midwest to me.
        
        robc 13 years ago
        
        Both Michigan and Ohio (and now Indiana, which was the point of my comment) are EDT.
        
        Much of Indiana used to be EST year round.
3. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  San Marcos is a nice little town, with a beautiful river running through it, chock full of shapely coeds. Quite the party school.
  
  I suspect the "occupation" is just another pickup/party scene.
  1. PR 13 years ago
    
    I remember the dime beers at Showdown.
  2. John 13 years ago
    
    It is also close to New Braunfels and the famous Schlitterbaun and Gruene and Gruene Hall, the world's greatest beer joint and Lockhart and the Kreitz Market, the world's greatest barbecue joint. If it wasn't for the horrible climate, I would really miss Texas.
    1. Apatheist 13 years ago
      
      I'm getting married in New Braunfels at vineyard with catered BBQ. Mmmm mmm.
      
      Also near San Marcos is Real Ale Brewery in Blanco and a large number of quickly improving vineyards all around.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        Texas makes great wine. I love having my liberal neighbors, who all think Texas is some kind of barbaric place and think they know something about wine, over for dinner and serving them a good Texas wine. The shock on their faces is priceless.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        I don't know if I've ever seen a Texas wine on the shelves... can you recommend a couple of names to look for?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        I like Becker vinyards. They make a great Voignier Twin Sisters is good. Look for anything around Fredericksburg. Just google Fredericksburg and vineyard and pick about any of them. They are all good. Not fabulous but good. They are a good drinkable and affordable table wine.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        I'm not as bullish about Texas wines as John, but Becker is probably the best of the lot. Texas Hills isn't too bad either. There are a lot of new wineries that have started in the last 5 years. I need to take the Bluebonnet wine trail one of these days.
        
        Beautiful scenery around Fredericksburg/Johnson City, a great Pacific War museum, and fantastic Mexican food at Hilda's.
        
        nebby 13 years ago
        
        Llano winery is the oldest modern winery in Texas and has produced some top flight wines that won awards all over. It is in Lubbock, of all places. The local college, Texas Tech, has one of rwo viniculture majors (the other is UC Davis).
  3. phrygian 13 years ago
    
    it tis a beautiful place.
    
    staffed by the amazing coeds at TSU...they usually have just the sort of inferiority complexes (from not matriculating at UT) that some men find useful
    1. phrygian 13 years ago
      
      http://www.bikinissportsbarandgrill.com/
      
      uggg...ate my link
sarcasmic 13 years ago

Kate Beckinsale is still hot.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....ikini.html
1. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  Well done sir! Soup for you!
  
  On a similar (to me anyway) I wonder what happened to Neve Campbell? Is she still hot or....not?
  1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
    
    She never did anything for me.
    1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
      
      Too bad; she's definitely doing something for the dude in the chaise lounge.
    2. NeonCat 13 years ago
      
      Neve? Or Kate?
      1. Restoras 13 years ago
        
        I think he means Neve.
2. John 13 years ago
  
  She is fantastic. And she has to be over 40 by now. She just doesn't seem to age. And she just always looks like she would be so much fun in bed.
  1. Cabeza de Vaca 13 years ago
    
    The article said she is 38. She's aging really well.
3. Troy 13 years ago
  
  Thanks for the morning boner....from her I mean. Not you.
  1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
    
    I do my best to add an "is still hot" link to the morning links.
    1. Libertymike 13 years ago
      
      Thank you for your service.
      1. R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        I think this would justify "commenterer" status. Show of hands?
        
        BakedPenguin 13 years ago
        
        Agreed, but only if she's actually still hot.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        I've gotten flak for posting "is still hot" links for certain skinny blonds.
        Not everyone agrees with my opinion that Kate Moss is improving with age.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        That's because you have no taste in women.
        
        Kate Bekinsale is still smoking hot. As is Courtney Cox.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        I'm the one who posted the Beckinsale link, old man.
        
        English actress Kate Beckinsal 13 years ago
        
        Why aren't there any women in this chat room?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Cox actually benefited from having a kid. She was way too skinny in the late 1990s. She had a kid and got some curves back and is at a more healthy weight and is hot again.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        I'm the one who posted the Beckinsale link, old man.
        
        So you did, punk, so you did.
        
        There's hope for you yet.
        
        R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        Sorry, Courtney has had too much work done. The stretched and injected look really puts me off.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        I must agree on Cox. Any more work and she'll start looking like Joan Rivers.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        (he'll start looking like Joan Rivers) who I'm sure JW thinks is hot.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        *she'll
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        Joan Rivers
        
        I'll be in my bunk.
        
        Troy 13 years ago
        
        I've gotten flak for posting "is still hot" links for certain skinny blonds.
        Not everyone agrees with my opinion that Kate Moss is improving with age.
        
        I think we have the same taste, bro. So keep up the good work. Let them chubby chasers like Epi and Pro L post their own links.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        Roger that.
4. Pantless Deviant 13 years ago
  
  Kate Beckinsale is still hot.
  
  Except she's got no ass.
  1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
    
    Some of us white boys fail to see anything wrong with her ass.
    1. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      +10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
  2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    agreed - I think she needs to do some squats.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

In a Down Economy, Fewer Births
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org.....c-headline

A sharp decline in fertility rates in the United States that started in 2008 is closely linked to the souring of the economy that began about the same time, according to a new analysis of multiple economic and demographic data sources by the Pew Research Center.
1. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  That's right when we started having kids. Take THAT, demographic trends!
2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  Oh, great. Contra Malthusians, our birthrates can't afford to go down much further.
3. alittlesense 13 years ago
  
  speaking of having fun in bed........
  1. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    I wonder what happened in all those other timelines?
4. Jersey Patriot 13 years ago
  
  Interestingly enough, the biggest declines were births to teens and young adults. It's hard to see why a collapsing economy would cause a 16 year-old not to have a baby.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Obama Must Act Like Reagan Against Iran
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideC...../id/414410

Iranian officials must be laughing on the floor that the president plans to respond to this incident by implementing "the toughest sanctions yet" and to prosecute those involved. Iran knows very well that the U.S. has no trade relations with it and we have already twisted diplomats' arms off to pass sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Moreover, Iran has savvy diplomats who will plead innocence or quietly assert that rogue elements were behind the plot. Tougher sanctions in the UN Security Council are out because Russia and China are certain to continue to defend Iran with their vetoes. Besides, the UN did not sanction Iran for sending snipers into Syria to help the Assad regime kill anti-government demonstrators, so why would it take action now?
1. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  Give diplomacy a chance!
  
  I mean, another chance.
2. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  I predict nothing else will happen...at least from DC.
3. Lost_In_Translation 13 years ago
  
  Yay, conclusion reached for more war. Sounds like a capital idea.
  
  ah fuck it, just firebomb everything starting from Lebanon to Tehran. They all hate us anyway.
4. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  Newsmax calling for more war? What a surprise.
  1. Enjoy Every Sandwich 13 years ago
    
    My concern is that if Obama's poll numbers drop any more he'll think it's a good idea too...go for the "rally 'round the flag" play.
    1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
      
      Probably will. It seems to have worked all of the others for the last 30 years.
    2. cynical 13 years ago
      
      Who says he hasn't already? There was speculation about a "chain of attacks". Presumably that was their way of hinting that they have a couple more FBI-hatched plots to unveil later as the scandal investigations step up.
Warty 13 years ago

When Bozella was retried in 1990 after contesting the jury selection of his previous trial, the prosecution offered a plea deal that would set him free in exchange for an admission that he committed the crime.

That's probably bigger balls than I have.
1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
  
  Each prosecutor and each juror should get to be his sparring partner for a week.
  1. Abersouth 13 years ago
    
    Don't forget the informants!
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Boehner confronts Obama on claim that GOP lawmakers have no jobs plan
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-th.....-jobs-plan

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) challenged President Obama in a phone call over the president's assertions that he has not yet seen the Republican jobs plan, the Speaker's office said.

Obama called Boehner to congratulate him on Wednesday's passage of three long-stalled trade agreements, but the Speaker quickly moved the discussion onto more contentious ground.

"I want to make sure you have all the facts," Boehner told the president in the 10-minute call.
1. Obama 13 years ago
  
  Isn't that precious? He has facts.
2. JW 13 years ago
  
  Inconceivable!
3. Jersey Patriot 13 years ago
  
  Did you lose the Free Republic URL?
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

Bozella was charged with the crime but a grand jury refused to indict him when they found no physical evidence to indicate he'd entered the home. In fact, Bozella had been bicycling miles away when Crasper was killed. But six years later, false testimony from two known criminals -- who cooperated with prosecutors in exchange for their freedom -- led to Bozella's conviction on two counts of second-degree murder. What little evidence the police did have was the fingerprint of a man named Donald Wise, who was convicted (with his brother Anthony) of a nearly identical murder of another elderly woman just three blocks away from Crasper's house. No matter. Bozella was handed a life sentence.

It should be a match between Bozella and those incompetent fucks who put him in prison.
1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
  
  Obviously those "incompetent fucks" were not that incompetent if they succeeded in convincing a jury to convict someone that the prosecutors and police knew was innocent.
  1. Barack Obama 13 years ago
    
    Let me be clear.
    
    Well said.
  2. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
    
    Incompetent is giving them the benefit of the doubt.
    1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
      
      No way. They had to know the guy had nothing to do with it.
      But they went ahead and got him convicted anyway.
      Remember that it is better to convict an innocent person than let a crime to unsolved.
      This shows that they were quite competent at getting convictions.
      1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        *go* unsolved
  3. Zombie Jimbo 13 years ago
    
    I believe "wretched amoral fucks" may be appropriate.
2. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  But six years later, false testimony from two known criminals -- who cooperated with prosecutors in exchange for their freedom
  
  That kind of testimony should just be flat inadmissable in a criminal trial.
  1. R C Dean 13 years ago
    
    I assume the two perjurers are back in jail?
    
    And the prosecutor is fighting to save his license?
    
    No? There were no consequences for this? Shocked, shocked I am.
    
    I guess nothing else happened.
    1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
      
      How could prosecutors get sufficient convictions if there were consequences for knowingly putting innocent people in prison?
      Unsolved crimes make the police and courts look incompetent. It's better to convict an innocent (who is surely guilty of something) than to let a crime to unsolved.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

S&P downgrades Spain's debt rating on weak economy
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/.....0.html?x=0

Standard & Poor's on Thursday downgraded its long-term debt rating on Spain, citing the country's weak growth prospects and risks facing its banks.

The Spanish economy is burdened by high unemployment, tight credit, heavy private-sector debt loads and prospects that its main trading partners will also stumble, S&P said in a statement.
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  How's that green economy working out for them I wonder?
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    They should try heavily subsidizing solar. That'll pull them right out of this slump!
Quezalcoatl 13 years ago

OT:
I'd like to thank whoever brought up Don Marquis this week. The missus and I have been sending wikisource links back and forth all week.
1. Warty 13 years ago
  
  twas an elderly mother spider
  grown gaunt and fierce and gray
  with her little ones crouched beside her
  who wept as she sang this lay
  
  curses on these here swatters
  what kills off all the flies
  for me and my little daughters
  unless we eats we dies
  
  Glad to edify.
2. Warty 13 years ago
  
  He wrote most of his famous stuff for his daily newspaper column. Just try to imagine any modern columnist writing literature.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Friedman and Krugman make a living writing fiction in the NYT.
    1. mad libertarian guy 13 years ago
      
      No, that's comedy.
  2. Tom Friedman 13 years ago
    
    There once was a great land called China...
Notta Canuck 13 years ago

Thongpapanl and his wife -- who have launched a $2-million civil suit according to court documents -- were completely innocent of any crime and use less hydro than their neighbours.

Is "hydro" Canada-speak for "water"?
1. Greg 13 years ago
  
  What you folks call lextrixity (hydro-electric power)
2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  They pronounce it "Zed".
  1. Joe From Canada 13 years ago
    
    Not zee!
3. Warty 13 years ago
  
  Hydro-Electric Audio Recordinational Device
  1. Troy 13 years ago
    
    The short bald one on the left is Warty, right?
4. Zeb 13 years ago
  
  Confusingly, it is Canadian for "electricity".
5. Drake 13 years ago
  
  When I worked for a power company, we had these sneaky people called "Meter Readers" who can magically tell how much electricity a customer is using.
  
  The biggest scam before computerized meters was people opening the meter, flipping the dial and letting it run backwards for a while. They usually forgot to turn it back over and got caught when they got a read with negative usage or it was still running backwards when the meter reader came through.
6. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
  
  "Well, any human being will cast about in a moment of stress. No, the fact is, they're flooding this valley so they can hydroelectric up the whole durn state. Yes, sir, the South is gonna change. Everything's gonna be put on electricity and run on a paying basis. Out with the old spiritual mumbo jumbo, the superstitions, and the backward ways. We're gonna see a brave new world where they run everybody a wire and hook us all up to a grid. Yes, sir, a veritable age of reason. Like the one they had in France. Not a moment too soon."
  1. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
    
    Again, dumbass acotr politics aside, that has to be one of my favorite movies of all time.
    1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      It's one of the few Clooney movies I can stand, since he's basically just playing himself--a self-centered blowhard who's not nearly as intelligent as he thinks he is.
      
      "Well, ain't this a geographical oddity--two weeks from everywhere!"
      1. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        favorite line
7. JW 13 years ago
  
  Even more remarkable is that some ignat screwed up the reading at the pole, 49 times+ their normal rate, and no one even blinked and worked the brain cells for 2 seconds, and asked them to read it again.
  
  I swear to fucking god, it's like police depts go out of their way to hire full retards.
  1. JMW 13 years ago
    
    I swear to fucking god, it's like police depts go out of their way to hire full retards.
    
    But not White Indian, proving that even law enforcement has standards.
Abdul 13 years ago

Cain's 9-9-9 plan may have come from sim City: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....ostpopular

However, his plan for helping frogs cross busy streets is probably original.
1. gaijin97 13 years ago
  
  So, Herman Cain is Skynet's Manchurian Candidate?
2. cynical 13 years ago
  
  Funny, my political plan involved building a Persaudotron.
Greg 13 years ago

I got pulled over 3 years ago riding in a gypsy cab in Harlem and had a "Oh and I suppose this isn't yours, right? But it could be, couldn't it?" moment, so this doesn't surprise me one bit. I hope it truly doesn't happen all that often, cause once I realized what was happening, "terrifying" doesn't even describe it. No witnesses, the driver had even been separated from me. If I wasn't didn't have a good, consistent squeaky clean story for why I was a 30 year old white guy getting a car in Harlem at night I suspect they would have pursued the frame up to completion.
John 13 years ago

http://www.theatlantic.com/mag....._page=true

The whining of an aging feminist spinster. At an emotional level I can't help but feel more than a bit of schadenfreude at this woman's misery. I knew a ton of women like her when I was single. The were fun to screw but in the end no one was ever quite good enough for them. And they always had whatever personal problems that sucked the life out of you anyway. To see one of them now in her late 30s, no longer as hot as she once thought she was, getting old and alone is mildly satisfying as unChristian as that is.

On an intellectual level, she is a total class snob who apparently missed all the news of the higher education bubble. She assumes that any man that doesn't have a college degree is "a deadbeat" and women, because of their greater numbers in college than men, are destined to economically surpass men. I think as time goes on all those young men out there hacking into the latest play station II or souping up their cars to go street racing are going to better than girls going six figures into debt for gender studies degrees.

College has almost become a finishing school for young women. I have a friend whose daughter went to Wesleyan and came, thanks to her parents connections, to work on the Hill. She lost her job thanks to the 2010 landslide and now teaches yoga. I don't see her probably 200K degree as anything other than an old fashioned finishing school. And absent to possibility of her laying on her back and snagging a rich husband, I can't see how her economic prospects are not much worse than my nephews out in the Midwest going to community colleges and vo-tech schools.
1. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  That article is a lot of tl;dr for "I'm almost 40, probably can't convince Laos to give me any of their orphans, and am looking to blame someone else."
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    One of the more annoying parts of the article is how selfish she is. If there is one area where the science is settled it is that kids generally do better in two parent homes. I am quite sure if you could go forward in time and ask a baby up for adoption do you want to to a two parent or a single parent home all things being equal, the answer would be two parent. But she thinks adoption agencies should pass up two parent homes to give her a child because she wants one and it is all about her by God.
  2. JW 13 years ago
    
    That article is a lot of tl;dr
    
    This. I can't be bothered to waste valuable minutes on the horrid wailing of another "elite" on being sold a false bill of goods by partisan ideologues.
2. Warty 13 years ago
  
  kbalch 2 days ago
  Allan definitely dodged a bullet with this one. She's obviously fully rationalized the results of both her childhood brainwashing and her own torpedoing (at age 28) of her best opportunity to be truly happy.
  
  There's nothing wrong with opting for spinsterhood, if that's what one truly wants, but to arrive in that unfortunate state by default, as a result of a series of ill-considered decisions, is tragic.
  
  Yup.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    That is kind of what I was thinking too. Part of me really feels for the guy she dumped, having been on that end of things a few times when I was single. I can't help but think, serves you right bitch. But part of me also thinks what a shame it is how feminism brainwashed this chick into an old age of loneliness.
    1. JW 13 years ago
      
      Part of me really feels for the guy she dumped, having been on that end of things a few times when I was single.
      
      He dodged a bullet. She would have been cheating on him with an Alpha within a couple years.
  2. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    I had this exact same relationship, and I had the exact same feeling years later: I dodged a bullet.
3. SIV 13 years ago
  
  I hope her future herd of cats all hate her.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    +100
    1. Libertymike 13 years ago
      
      Wow, looks like you took an extra schatenfraude supplement this morning.
      
      Maybe, just maybe, she will have an epiphany and realize what a nasty bitch she has been and then repent.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        I said above my glee over this is decidedly unChristian. Hopefully she will repent and marry some nice auto mechanic whom she used to think was beneath her.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        And then she'll write a painfully smug column about how the NEW New Feminism means that women can marry men who are beneath them, and how empowered she feels now when she helps him with arithmetic.
        
        Brett L 13 years ago
        
        Helps him with his writing maybe. I'll bet most automechanics do better math than many liberal arts degree holders. Seriously, at most state schools you have to pass algebra to get a lib arts degree.
  2. JW 13 years ago
    
    I hope her future herd of cats all hate her.
    
    Win.
4. NoVAHockey 13 years ago
  
  My wife has lost contact with more than a few friends like this. She apparently settled for me instead of holding out for some unattainable ideal. She kind of kept in touch until we had a kid. But that brought out more bitterness than I thought possible. It takes a lot of work to be that angry all the time and these women excel at it. It's a shame, as these women were smart and (at least were) attractive and have had every opportunity to be happy.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    My wife was the fat girl in high school. She later found the weight watchers and gym religion and lost all of the weight. She would never admit it, but she truly enjoys lording her married status over these kinds of women she went to college with.
    1. NoVAHockey 13 years ago
      
      mine too. i couldn't believe the pictures from her school days were of the same girl I met after college. looked like a completely different person. she started working out and playing rec-hall sports in college, lost the weight and never looked back.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        There is a lot of advantages to that. My wife is so scared by her youth she will never let herself go.
    2. robc 13 years ago
      
      She torpedoed at 28 what she had planned to have happen at 30. If she had taken more math and science classes she would have understood error bars and realized "close enough".
5. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
  
  I'd do her.
  1. Libertymike 13 years ago
    
    Yes, but is she conversant with Rothbard?
  2. John 13 years ago
    
    I would do her too. But then you would have to wake up with her and start spending your life with her. Good luck with that.
    1. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
      
      But then you would have to wake up with her and start spending your life with her.
      
      No...I'm rake and a cad. 🙂
  3. Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    I wouldn't.
    
    I'd ask myself, "Would she have dated me when we were both 25 and I had no money yet? Probably not."
    
    And then I'd go looking for someone ten years younger than her instead.
    
    That's the real subtext here: a lot of these women get a lot of male attention in their 20's - attention they don't want - and figure that worse comes to worst they'll just fall back on one of those guys, or someone like them, in their late 30's.
    
    The problem with that is that when their late 30's roll around, those guys are all successful, and want to date someone 5 to 10 years younger than they are.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      Yup or those guys are now married to a woman who actually treated them well and made an effort to catch them. And I might do her, but it would be for the most base reasons and for the shortest time possible. I would never have a relationship with her. If my wife left me or died tomorrow she wouldn't even be on my radar.
      
      Any women who is reasonably attractive and over 35 and never married, is never married for a reason. Generally it is that she is nuts.
    2. JW 13 years ago
      
      I keep saying that I should have married an Asian woman.
      
      College-edumucated middle-class American women have been told that if they lower themselves to domestication in the slightest and not fight her mate every fucking step of the way, then they're some kind of massive failure.
      
      Just once, I'd like the wife to do something selfless, just because it makes *me* happy. I know I do for her, but the lefty-feminsist culture she was steeped in puts that on the FUCK NO list.
      
      I don't want a domestic slave, but an intellectual equal whose ego isn't so frighteningly fragile that the thought of the slightest bit of subservience isn't a death sentence.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        That is why I married my wife. She will actually do such things. I linked an article a while ago talking about the sexual revolution and its effect on marriage. It basically said that because of the sexual revolution and birth control, women can't charge marriage as a price for sex anymore. So how do they get men to marry if men don't need to marry to have sex like they used to? The answer the article gave was subservience.
        
        mad libertarian guy 13 years ago
        
        Me too.
        
        My wife is as highly educated as I am (MA), probably smarter than I am most of the time, is the one who goes out and brings home the bacon while I stay home with the kids (because I wanted to spend time with my boys), and thinks that feminism is a crock of shit which enables us to have meaningful conversations and truly intimate interactions with one another rather than her always being worried about NOT being subservient. I get a non-reciprocated BJ on the odd occasion, and I just came back from a week long hunting trip in Wyoming (with no initial fuss, and explicit ENCOURAGEMENT to go back next year since I enjoyed myself so much). I even returned to some, er, nice pictures. She also does virtually all of the cooking being as she is a furriner and likes her rice and beans a particular way.
        
        I couldn't have picked a better wife if given another million chances to do so.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Good for you. Somewhere feminism lost the idea that there has to be something in marriage for both parties.
      2. Spoonman. 13 years ago
        
        According to posts like these I married the only white woman in the world who likes cooking dinner and wants me to advance my career so she can stay home and raise kids.
        
        That's not to say I don't do the dishes and cook when I get home first, etc - we're both pretty domesticated.
        
        Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        Aren't you like 23?
      3. Atanarjuat 13 years ago
        
        Holy shit, JW, well said. I had a child with a woman just like that, we never married though.
    3. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      That's the real subtext here: a lot of these women get a lot of male attention in their 20's - attention they don't want - and figure that worse comes to worst they'll just fall back on one of those guys, or someone like them, in their late 30's.
      
      Isn't there a new movie with Anna Faris that came out which uses this exact mindset as its theme?
6. cynical 13 years ago
  
  The Autobiography of Madame Bovary
7. Troy 13 years ago
  
  I don't feel sorry for her at all. First of all there is this stupid fucking either stay single or settle for a "good enough" mate concept. Hey stupid bitches. I hate to tell you this but we all have to compromise. I want Natialie Portman. I want her to wake me up with a blow job, swallow, then cook me breakfast. Guess what that ain't gonna happen. So I would settle for someone that I can hae a intelligent conversation with, who somewhat appeals to my physcially, is loyal. Where the fuck do they get this idea that "settling" is somekind of supreme dig at their womanhood. Anyway, fuck her.
  
  Her problem is her man was probably a beta. And women haven't fucking evolved enough to get rid of that idiotic idea that an Alpha is what is going to make them happy. They want a beta to fold their fucking laundry, But they want an Alpha to give them those narcotic like panty puddles.
  
  This wasn't hubris so much as na?vet?; . Yes, it is hubris. Hubris and stupidity and short sightedness. You were 20 something, hot and so with a high market dating value. What she didn't understand is tat her market dating value starts to depreciate pretty quickly after 30. So, again, fuck her.
  
  Do I want children? My answer is: I don't know. But somewhere along the way, I decided to not let my biology dictate my romantic life. Well dumbass, you better figure it out pretty quickly. Those eggs have an expiration date. Whether that is fair or not, to bad.
  
  As Hanna Rosin laid out in these pages last year ("The End of Men," July/August 2010), men have been rapidly declining?in income, in educational attainment, and in future employment prospects?relative to women.
  
  And this is only going to make relationships even worse. Given the ideal man is apparently Fonzi with a PHD, a 3300 square foot house, and a BMW, there are going to be even less pickings. If womn don't learn to compromise (and I am not talking about say dealing with physical abuse), then they are just going to continue to be unhappy.
  
  Now that we can pursue our own status and security, and are therefore liberated from needing men the way we once did, we are free to like them more, or at least more idiosyncratically, which is how love ought to be, isn't it?
  
  Most guys I know, have no problem with the idea of "marrying down." As long as she is loyal, takes care of herself physcially, and takes care of your man physcially, most of us men could give a shit if she is a waitress at Denny's. Apparently something in women's fucking wiring has toruble getting around this concept. If this stupid bitch, with a graduate degree and a self professed knowledge that she and her fellow western industrialised women have more economic and social freedom ever has to ponder wheth she can "marry down" like it is making a deal with the devil, fuck her.
  
  "We're becoming the men we wanted to marry,"
  
  Good for you. I hope you enjoy masturbating.
  
  For all the changes the institution has undergone, American women as a whole have never been confronted with such a radically shrinking pool of what are traditionally considered to be "marriageable" men?those who are better educated and earn more than they do.
  
  No, you stupid cunt. That isn't my problem. That is your problem. As long as you, with all your fucking wisdom, education, and freedom, insist on holding on to the archaic idea that you have to "marry up" you are never gonna be satisfied. That you can't fucking grow up doesn't mean men have a problem.
  
  Even as women have seen their range of options broaden in recent years?for instance, expanding the kind of men it's culturally acceptable to be with, and making it okay not to marry at all?
  
  Except poor ones with only a GED. Fuck you, cunt.
  
  Will I marry a man who has poor prospects ("marrying down," in sociological parlance)?
  
  Oh, the humanity. B, Bu, But I want a three bedroom house. Serioulsy, women have to be the most narcisitic, self-centered, selfish creatures on the fucking planet
  
  Our own "crisis in gender" isn't a literal imbalance?America as a whole currently enjoys a healthy population ratio of 50.8 percent females and 49.2 percent males
  
  You are right, there isn't. That women think there is is all in their own selfish fucking heads.
  
  Granted, given my taste for brainy, creatively ambitious men?or "scrawny nerds," as a high-school friend describes them?my sample is skewed.)
  
  You're a fucking liar. You had your scrawny nerd, remember? But something was missing, remember? And what was missing was some fo that Alpha dog you think you have to have.
  
  My spotty anecdotal findings have revealed that, yes, in many cases, the more successful a man is (or thinks he is), the less interested he is in commitment. Whoa there Captain Obvious. Look, why would a man want to get married only to lose it all in a divorce because you find "something is missing" with your beta husband? Hell no guys aren't marrying. Why whoudl we when we can get all the sex we want (because something you feminist hate to admit is that there are women who like to fuck) for free.
  
  If dating and mating is in fact a marketplace?and of course it is?today we're contending with a new "dating gap," where marriage-minded women are increasingly confronted with either deadbeats or players.
  
  That is fucking right, you reap what you sow. So shut the fuck up, grow up, and learn to compromise and quit being so fixated on the size of your engagment ring.
  
  Oh fuck, I can't keep reading her article. As long as women continue to think that "marrying down" is something akin to being seen with a pedophile in public, they stupid bitches like this will just have to get themselves a dildo.
  
  http://heartiste.wordpress.com/
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    That is one of the best rants I have ever read on here Troy. Bravo. And yeah she is a cunt. And I don't feel bad for feeling glee over her pain.
    
    +the internets.
  2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    tell us how you really feel.
  3. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    Epic.
  4. Abdul 13 years ago
    
    I am stealing "Fonzi with a PHD"
  5. Troy 13 years ago
    
    Shit. sorry, that was way too long. I could have just said, "This article says," me, me, me, me, I,I,I."
    1. mikey 13 years ago
      
      Great stuff! I got about as far as you did - you've put the words to what I felt
    2. mikey 13 years ago
      
      Great stuff! I got about as far as you did - you've put the words to what I felt
    3. Elspeth Flashman 13 years ago
      
      honestly, the best thing that could happen to a woman like this is that she falls in love with a guy who is "beneath her" and then she realizes the bag of good she was sold is a lie; comes to terms with it; and says what the hell, I'd rather get lucky daily & have someone to talk to than be alone & have lofty goals to keep me company.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        Cast Sandra Bullock in the lead and you have a good late summer release romance going there.
  6. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
    
    I do have to say though that the women I hang around don't like these kind of women at all. They like being women, they like doing women things. And yes they sure as hell hate Betas (only one uses that word though) and they are right to. Betas might as well be children. Men have a role too and it is not to be a giant pussy. I am not saying all men are equal alphas, it is comparative. But, like in poker, if you can't find the fish at the table then you are the fish.
    
    By the way, I think the modern proliferation of betas is due to the feminist movements deemphasis on traditional male qualities. I'll hold you purse as long as I can use it to kill a small animal and then eat it.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      I think you are right about betas and the feminist movement. School just beats these kids down. And the other problem is that we have totally lost touch with any sort of reasonable definition of manhood. The idea of manhood today seems to be a choice of a neutered whining beta or some beer guzzling jackass.
      1. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        nahh, true alphas are easy to spot when you look. Ironically, i find it easier to befirend them than betas. Of course I hang around Russians a lot so there is that.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Some day I want to go and have one of those big multi course Russian meals where you do shots of vodka between courses and get falling down drunk and talk shit.
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        ive done that. I represented the USA well...puked in the wifes car but no one saw that, except well, the wife.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        You are the man CB.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        I am so damned old fashioned I don't fit into the modern definition of males. I dress well but am not a metro sexual. I read all the time but am not some whinny intellectual. I watch sports but don't play fantasy football or any of that nonsense. I am just too weird to fit in.
      2. CrackertyAssCracker 13 years ago
        
        well, at least beer guzzling jackass is still an option. whewww ... close one.
      3. cynical 13 years ago
        
        You realize that in any human society, the vast majority of men will be betas, right? Beta male doesn't mean "effeminate pussy", it refers to males in the broad middle of the social status/power range. In a more traditional society, alphas are the guys who pull massive amounts of tail and can cheat with no consequences -- politicians, athletes, rock stars. Betas are the guys who get a moderate amount of play, settle down, get married, start families. Omegas are social and sexual losers -- homeless schizophrenics, prisoners, junkies, profoundly socially retarded types, etc.
        
        Both alphas and omegas are a minority in any stable society. You're probably a beta, as are most men here, married or not.
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        I disagree, it is situationally comparative. And in theroy in some situation every man should be an alpha but when it is one dude and one chick and the chick is the alpha then you have the truest definition of a beta.
        
        Yes, i am a beta when standing on the 40 yard line facing Junior Seau...I am a yellow panted beta at that.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        It is. You will never meet a bigger alpha male then my grandfather. That man was John Wayne incarnate. But he was anything but alpha with my grand mother, who was a force of nature of her own.
  7. AZ 13 years ago
    
    The "don't settle" meme is particularly funny in the way it is self reinforcing. When she decided "something was missing" at 28, she also raised the bar for everyone thereafter.
  8. JMW 13 years ago
    
    "We're becoming the men we wanted to marry,"
    
    Good for you. I hope you enjoy masturbating.
    
    Oooooh burn!
    
    And I stopped reading because it just got tedious. Someone should've gotten a lesson in brevity along with the Feminista Manifesto.
8. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  ...hacking into the latest play station II...
  
  Jesus, John, how old are you?
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Older than I really am.
9. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
  
  I can't top Troy's evisceration of her below, but what really stands out about that whole pile of self-justifying bullshit is that she seems to realize, at the very heart of things, that her hyper-feminist upbringing hasn't provided her with the emotional fulfillment and security she expected it to.
  
  Because coming out and admitting that, yes, she really does need a man (and not the shrimpy, emasculated betas she's drawn to, but an alpha with self-confidence, self-worth, and emotional stability) would destroy her entire upbringing and invalidate a damn good portion of the decisions she's made. But she's too stubborn to admit it, so the result is this blowhard article.
  
  And as pointed out below, why WOULD any alpha male settle for a woman like this, who would just as likely divorce him and proceed to take his house, his children, and a portion of his income for the rest of his life? Funny how these "liberated" women don't need a man to raise a child or hold a job, but god help them if these same pigeons get a penny less of the child support and alimoney they think they're entitled to.
  
  It's amazing how 20th-century feminism has resulted in so much dysfunction in relationships between men and women, mainly due to the pathological narcissism that its leaders imbued in the movement.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Not as entertaining and fun as Troy's rant. But very true.
    1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      Here's another nugget:
      
      Take the high-powered magazine editor who declared on our first date that he was going to spend his 30s playing the field. Or the prominent academic who announced on our fifth date that he couldn't maintain a committed emotional relationship but was very interested in a physical one. Or the novelist who, after a month of hanging out, said he had to get back out there and tomcat around, but asked if we could keep having sex anyhow, or at least just one last time.
      
      Notice that all these men--betas all, as that's who she typically dates, and likely just as liberal in their politics as she is--take their measure of her right away, and don't give a fig for any other intangibles besides the fact that she's apparently a decent lay. If that's not the saddest indictment of what her upbringing provided her, I don't know what is.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        Yup. I mentioned above an article about the price of sex. It used to be, because of the social stigma and the lack of access to birth control and abortion, it was very difficult to have sex outside of marriage. Sure it happened. But it was really risky and didn't happen near like it does today. For that reason, women could hold out marriage as the price of sex. And they could also demand to be held on a pedestal and kind of be screws to their husbands because it was difficult for their husbands to divorce them and nearly impossible for their husbands to divorce them.
        
        The sexual revolution changed all of that. Women can't hold charge marriage as the price of sex anymore. Men can get sex without marriage. And they can divorce their wives with little social stigma and have no problem getting sex then or just with a mistress while they are married. So women have to offer something besides sex. This chick doesn't get that. Or if she does she doesn't like it. Those guys understood that she couldn't charge commitment as a price for sex and took the measure of her immediately.
  2. JMW 13 years ago
    
    Gosh I missed out on so much as a little girl.
    
    Me I'm not married because it never even crossed the radar, not because I was looking for Mr Unattainable Ideal.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      What? You don't want Fonzi with a PHD and a BMW?
      1. JMW 13 years ago
        
        I might consider Fonzi with a PhD.
        
        Too bad I'm something of a social hermit to make that work out.
        
        Oh well.
Good Cop 13 years ago

the quota pressure causes police officers to do bad things.

"The quota pressure" ... Yeah, that's the ticket!
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  A lack of morals doesn't hurt either...
2. Pip 13 years ago
  
  I wonder where Dunphy, Mall Cop, is these days?
  1. JMW 13 years ago
    
    Singing hymns to the Men in Untarnished Blue.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

What's Occupying Wall Street?
The protestors have a point, if not the right target.
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....on_LEADTop

This probably won't do much to persuade the Occupiers of Wall Street that their cause would be better served in Washington, D.C., where a sister sit-in this week seems to have fizzled. Then again, most of America's jobless also won't recognize their values or interests in the warmed-over anticapitalism being served up in lower Manhattan. Three years into the current Administration, most Americans are getting wise to the source of their economic woes. It's a couple hundred miles south of Wall Street.
John 13 years ago

http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerl.....tical-pro/

Interesting article on the rise of Cain and the end of the "political pros". I think this started with the Sarah Palin phenomena and will just get stronger in the future. The days of running a traditional big money go to Iowa and kiss babies campaign are over.
1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  I'm sure Rudy Giuliani would disagree.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Guiliani ran a typical old style campaign. He just bypassed Iowa. But what he didn't have was a constituency.
2. MNG 13 years ago
  
  The Sarah Palin phemenona was totally a creation of political pros: McCain's campaign staff put her on the map with their affirmative action themed choice of her.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    The McCain people did not keep her on the map. She did that. If anything the McCain people hurt her. She became a force after she got away from them.
    1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      She became a force after she got away from them.Went Rogue(c)(tm) #comingtoatheaternearyou
      
      FTFY
    2. MNG 13 years ago
      
      Palin was chosen by political pros with the very calculating strategy to put a woman on the ticket and cut into the Dems. She performed the usual VP role of attacking the other party's nominee and a star was born. She was totally a result of the careful calculation of political pros.
      1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        I had seen a couple of Palin interviews well before the presidential election, and I had thought she sounded fairly, well, not libertarian, but fond of mostly limited government. She's been a disappointment in that regard, though I think in her own odd way she's more anti-government than most candidates and potential candidates are.
        
        As with Obama, Edwards, Clinton, GWB, and others, the problem with her is that she has no business being anywhere near the White House. At least, not until she's done more to demonstrate her qualifications.
        
        We used to expect, as a general rule, a VP who at least on paper was qualified to be president. That trend got screwed up when Quayle was selected by Old Man Bush, and it seemed to set in motion a greater willingness to consider cypher candidates.
        
        onionboss 13 years ago
        
        she lacked experience for the position..sadly imho she was the most qualified and had the most relevant experience of all the other candidates
        
        Spiro Agnew 13 years ago
        
        We used to expect, as a general rule, a VP who at least on paper was qualified to be president.
        
        Hell yeah I couldda been president.
        
        SIV 13 years ago
        
        Sarah Palin was touted in some circles as the "great libertarian-Republican hope" well before McCain picked her as VEEP. He made her rich and famous but possibly destroyed her future as President. Imagine Palin, with her political talents, running this cycle w/o the baggage of the 2008 campaign. She'd likely be the GOP nominee.
      2. John 13 years ago
        
        Her selection was sure. But her performance since the election has been anything but the product of political pros. She has broken every rule and got away with it. Despite a concerted effort to defame and destroy her, the women still commands a large audience and dedicated followers. This despite leaving the governorship of Alaska and doing none of the things the pros said she should do.
        
        Put your blue team religion away for a moment. It is not about whether you agree with her or like her. It is about looking objectively at her as a different kind of politician. Whether she ever runs for election again, her outsider approach is the wave of the future.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        She has broken every rule and got away with it.
        
        How, precisely, has she "gotten away with it"? She hasn't run for office since she left office in Alaska. It's not like she's faced a real public vetting. Anyone can spout off and be a commentator; it's part of the job description, in fact.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        More to life than being in office. She has made millions and has a huge following and big influence over the Republican Party. I would rather be her than pretty much any office holder in the country.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        I guess my point is what rules is she breaking? It seemed like she was breaking the rules of campaigning for president before she finally admitted she wasn't going to run, but outside of that, she's just doing her thing, like millions of people every day.
        
        mad libertarian guy 13 years ago
        
        So you're both a man and a woman: you simultaneously want to be her and fuck her.
        
        That's quite the feat, John.
      3. Libertymike 13 years ago
        
        What about her acceptance speech? Did the pros deliver that?
        
        BTW, on another subject, I do not understand why you asserted last week that Michael Vick was playing the race card.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "What about her acceptance speech? Did the pros deliver that?"
        
        I dunno, did they (I honestly don't know). It's the typical strategy for the VP to attack the other party's nominee, there was nothing remarkable there.
        
        As for Vick, after the game in which he left for his "broken hand turned hand contussion" he was at a press conference in which he said "I don't know why I'm always getting knocked down and not getting a flag like other qbs" which was certainly a thinly veiled playing of the race card.
        
        Libertymike 13 years ago
        
        I just can't make that leap, MNG. You are speculating that he used the race card. He may have meant to do just that but the words he chose do not permit such an inference.
        
        Besides, its not like he is James Harris, circa 1974-1976, when there were no other black QBs. Today, you have Vick, McNabb, Freeman, Jackson, Newton, Charlie Batch, Byron Leftowich, Jason Campbell, david Girard, Vince Young, etc.
        
        Sure, I think most people are of the opinion that the NFL wants to protect its qbs but especially Brady, Brees, Manning and Rodgers.
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        I think Vick is full of crap for even going there, but if there's no flag, it's probably because he's not standing in the pocket. Running around makes you something other than a QB in the eyes of referees. The protections were put in place--wrongly, I might add--to protect QBs who focus so much on the rest of the field that they get blindsided when sacked or pressured.
        
        For the record, Vick isn't a great QB. He never does well against good defenses. Why? He can't throw very well. Most Super Bowl QBs are pocket QBs.
        
        Gimlet 13 years ago
        
        I think he was attributing to his criminal record. A lot of people hate the man and always will.
        
        Michael Vick 13 years ago
        
        But I have Wayne Pacelle and the HSUS to rehabilitate my image and everything!
        
        Maybe I'll get a new dog!
        
        I'm fucked aren't I?
  2. John 13 years ago
    
    She was an affirmative action choice, even though she was no less qualified than other VP choices like Edwards or Quayle. But our community organizer in chief with his two years in the Senate was not.
    1. kilroy 13 years ago
      
      The blue team had a black guy. The red team either needed a black, a Latino or a woman. Result: Palin
      1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        By that logic, he should have chosen Condi.
        
        Cabeza de Vaca 13 years ago
        
        Probably a better choice, but tainted by Bush. In 2008 being close to Bush was a liability.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Not only that, but there was little love lost between McCain and Bush's camp.
        
        Chupacabra 13 years ago
        
        Or Beyonce.
  3. Urkobold? 13 years ago
    
    FOOL! GREAT MINDS PREDICTED THAT PALIN WOULD BE THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE WELL BEFORE MCCAIN SELECTED HER. IT'S BECAUSE AMERICA COLLECTIVELY WANTS TO SCREW HOT LIBRARIANS.
Groovus Maximus 13 years ago

Former NYPD cop testifies about planting cocaine on suspects, and how this is a widespread practice in the department for making arrest quotas.

Wait just one cotton picking minute! I have been assured by cops, sheriffs, HiPos, constables, gendarmes and bobbies that there is no such thing as quotas!
1. TrickyVic 13 years ago
  
  The NYPD doesn't call them quotas either. They are goals. 😉
  1. JMW 13 years ago
    
    And we're the football.
2. TrickyVic 13 years ago
  
  And there's an update.
  
  They cops figured out how to make money from these set-ups.
  
  http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....arges.html
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

The Arizona Republic said Phoenix police detectives believe Club 2811 twisted Arizona's medical-marijuana law for profit.

No one likes it when businesses skirt laws designed to keep them from making money.
John 13 years ago

Looks like the drug war is going on swimmingly.

We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies

http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....uotas.html
1. Tim 13 years ago
  
  Nobody is "innocent", that's why we need self starters in law enforcement.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    "Well, you know, in Mexico, law enforcement is an entrepreneurial activity. Not so much in the states, anyway..."
    
    -Traffic (2000)
    
    Oh the times, they are a-changin'...
2. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
  
  A link in direct competition with one of Riggs'. I like it.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Is it bad I just skim the Reason links because I find the ones by the comenters to nearly always be more interesting?
    1. Groovus Maximus 13 years ago
      
      No. Perhaps this is a good time for "My balls hurt more when Balko did the MLs"
      
      Too soon?
      1. Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Added to the drinking game.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

OT: from the Walkabouts first (1988) album
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXChyB1Dfls

On a side note: In 1991, when I was out of town, my apartment started on fire thanks to the downstairs neighbor storing gasoline next to a heater. Of the few things that survived, my copy of The Walkabouts - See Beautiful Rattlesnake Gardens somehow made it through the blaze.
Joe M 13 years ago

Why Ron Paul is Dominating

Yes, I know the source, but still, it's a fun article.
1. Rich 13 years ago
  
  RP Money Bomb Oct. 19
  1. JMW 13 years ago
    
    This noble struggle is one we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained.
    
    Even if we have to cryogenically preserve Paul, or clone him, or invent an immortality pill, we will have the man as our leader!
Tim 13 years ago

Friday Funnies has drawn all of the enthusiasm right out of me.
1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  turn that frown upside down!
  
  or something like that...
  1. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    That's a smile, not an upside down frown!
2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  Cheer up: we're winning in Libya!
3. Gimlet 13 years ago
  
  I no longer bother to look. Haven't in a couple of months.
MNG 13 years ago

The "9-9-9" plan that has helped propel businessman Herman Cain to the front of the GOP presidential field would stick many poor and middle-class people with a hefty tax increase while cutting taxes for those at the top, tax analysts say.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ml?hpid=z1

So is Cain engaging in "class warfare?"
1. John 13 years ago
  
  That is the dirty secret. The reality is that the "rich" pay nearly all of the federal income taxes while the middle class pays very little outside FICA and Medicare. Despite claims to the contrary, we have an extremely progressive tax system in this country. And thus virtually any tax reform is likely to make it less so and cause the middle class to pay more taxes.
  1. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
    
    Forcing everyone to pay at least some federal income tax - to have some "skin in the game" - would not exactly be class warfare. It would just be fair.
    1. Rich 13 years ago
      
      I'm still waiting for someone to explain why forcing everyone to pay a prix fixe annual citizenship-benefit maintenance fee is not fair.
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        For the same reason that most people would think it goofy to make everyone in your family, including a 5 month old, carry a fixed amount of groceries in from the car when you go shopping.
        
        We tend to factor in the ability to shoulder burdens into our ideas of fairness.
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        Geez what a dumb analogy.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        What could be dumber though than taking the time to post "that is dumb!" with no reasoning behind it. It's like what a kid at the playground retorts.
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        I don't think an infantile attempt at rational discourse deserves anything more than I just gave it.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        We are at the other extreme. The oldest son is carrying it all while the sister, who is perfectly healthy just not as strong as her brother is carrying nothing.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        I'll agree John that it is absolutely appalling how many people seem not to pay federal income tax. It's nuts, that was one of the more startling facts to become common knowledge in the previous campaign. I'd prefer the government operate like the YMCA does, help for all but everyone has to pay something. Having said that it would be sort of like a game where people pay in a little but then get back more in benefits.
        
        Having said that, progressive taxation as a whole makes good sense to me.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        I am not saying we should reverse it. But I have a hard time believing that 49% of the country is unable to pay any income tax.
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        Got to ante if you want to play the game.
        
        It's tempting to suggest that you shouldn't be able to vote yourself largess, but the system has so much cash flowing in so many different ways that I don't know how you'd do that. If we limited the franchise to people who paid taxes, for instance, we might just end up with a permanent underclass. That seems to be the goal of some politicians, but they want the "disenfranchised" to be able to vote for them.
        
        kilroy 13 years ago
        
        What proportion of those groceries are consumed by the 5 month old, by weight?
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        What a dumb idea you are nursing here (though I'm sure you've got some high hopes for it), as I can show by easily answering: more than any sane, normal parent would require the kid to bring in.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        restoras-take note, this is how you call someone's idea dumb, say that but add, I dunno, some reasoning behind your bare assertion.
        
        That's todays lesson, tomorrow, tying shoes!
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        Thanks for your generous edification.
        
        kilroy 13 years ago
        
        You gave birth to the idea, idiot. The fact that someone else carries the kids weight is called charity and it's done voluntarily.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        No, a blind man could see where you were going to try to clumsily go with that, you wanted to say "the kid doesn't eat much by weight that's why he carries little" but most people don't make the infant carry ANYTHING so it's a pretty dumb move on your part.
        
        kilroy 13 years ago
        
        You can read my mind now? While you may be blind and stupid I don't think most blind people are. Don't project that stupidity on me. My mistake was that I assumed even the trolls here would be able to see all the holes in your analogy.
        
        You're really making me regret removing you from the ignore list.
        
        Rich 13 years ago
        
        Why do people not complain about having to pay the same amount (modulo child/student/senior discounts) to eat a meal, see a movie, etc. Is it "simply" the private/public sector dichotomy?
        
        Crickets 13 years ago
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        Of course, a family is largely a dictatorship, so that's an interesting analogy.
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        Nevermind that small bit of inconvenience.
        
        13 years ago
        
        Nevermind that small bit of inconvenience.
        
        A dollar here, a dollar there, soon you're talking real money. People must choose between junk food and video games.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        There's two ideas going on here for you PL: what would be a fair distrubution of burdens and the process whereby a group tries to institute that fairness.
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        Define "fair".
        
        Sam Ting 13 years ago
        
        Define "fair".
        
        No tickee, no washee.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Again, Mr. Magoo could see where this old tired line is going.
        
        You know how to use google? Search "fair definition" and stop being stupidly coy.
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        So, you can't, or don't want to, define fair. Noted.
        
        Groovus Maximus 13 years ago
        
        stop being stupidly coy.
        
        You could try and stop being so insufferably obstinate and answer the question, MNG.
        
        The reason you don't is you don't want specific limits placed on your voracious appetite for other people's property, utilitarian scum.
        
        Who the hell do you think you are, Kenneth Feinberg?
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        I didn't answer because it is a stupid old libertarian line to act like fairness doesn't matter or exist because it arguably doesn't have a mathematically precise definition. Of course that never stops them from saying that progressive taxation is unfair (they usually say "wrong" or "unjust").
        
        I mean it, you know how to work google. Google "fair definition" and let us know.
        
        Groovus Maximus 13 years ago
        
        because it arguably doesn't have a mathematically precise definition.
        
        Fair: The sum of the odds in any game equal to 1.
        
        Didn't even have to google.
        
        Now, as you were saying?
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        Fair is what I say is fair. Interestingly, the parental dictatorship is largely based on the fact that my wife and I acquire, control, and distribute the resources.
        
        As for economics, I don't agree at any level that taking my wealth by majority vote is anything more than theft. The consent of the governed applies as much to everyone else as it does to the poor. I don't consent. And, incidentally, given the clear corruption and political motives behind most wealth distribution schemes, I also don't think socialism can work, no matter how many times we try.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        You've got a new twist on this idea of the "consent of the governed." (fluffy likes to be the word and phrase police lately, swooping in to decry any word or phrase not being used in its exactly historical context, so I'm sure he will swoop in here). Consent of the governed was NEVER supposed to refer to the idea that noone would be coerced to anything without their consent, it applied collectively: consent of the governed AS A WHOLE. Otherwise you could take no action against the brigand and cutthroat (they obviously wouldnt consent to the police thwarting them).
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Yup, this is true.
        
        You can't stretch "consent of the governed" to universal consent.
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        Not in our system, where very strong checks against majority actions against minorities were instituted. Losing those checks is one important reason why we have a much more oppressive and invasive system in most respects than we once did.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "where very strong checks against majority actions against minorities were instituted." By, er, supermajorities. And they are susceptible to being amended by supermajorities at any time.
        
        Look, I agree with the idea of protecting minorities from majorities, but for all the faults of majoritarianism it beats all hell out of the alternatives.
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        Ancient Athens is instructive about what happens with too much mob rule. Ditto Rome, for that matter. The Founders were well aware of danger of majoritarian tyranny.
        
        mad libertarian guy 13 years ago
        
        The major problem however, is that we're now at a point where minorities are exacting their will on majorities.
        
        That is unless Obamacare has reached approval that is above 50% (hint: it hasn't).
        
        Forget tyranny of the majority; we have tyranny of a few fucksticks in congress and a few of their supporters.
        
        Bamm-Bamm Rubble 13 years ago
        
        BAM! BAM, BAM!
        
        Kant feel Pietzsche 13 years ago
        
        FAIR: n. Where pigs go to win blue ribbons.
        
        Kant feel Pietzsche 13 years ago
        
        And then get converted to tasty BBQ....
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        Or pale-skinned. Meaning that all of this talk of fairness is. . .RACIST!
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        So, you want to use the family as an example to redistribute income fairly, but when others point to the inability of a family to spend beyond its means as a logical reason why the government shoudn't, lefties like you cry foul?
        
        Geez what a dumb analogy.
  2. MNG 13 years ago
    
    It just occurs to me that if changing tax policy to benefit one class over another is "class warfare" when it targets the rich for more burdens it should also be the case when its done to benefit them...
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      Any change to the federal tax structure will benefit some people and hurt others. So, by that definition any change is some kind of class warfare.
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        I'm glad to hear you admit that, I hope Limbaugh and Hannity start to describe plans such as Cain's as such with the same emphasis they label Democratic plans...
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        That is why I said it is a dirty secret. The truth is the rich pay more than their fair share in this country. But I doubt I will hear Pauli Krugnuts or the MSNBC crew admit that anytime soon.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "The truth is the rich pay more than their fair share in this country."
        
        Well, not if your ideas of fairness are informed by who can best bear burdens, then they probably are not paying enough even though they are paying the most.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        In 2009 the top 10% of earners paid 73% of all income taxes. Meanwhile, 49% of the country paid no income taxes. If that is not "paying their fair share" nothing short of outright socialism is.
        
        http://finance.yahoo.com/news/.....l?x=0&.v=1
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Rates, how do they work?
        
        The top earners paid higher rates than they currently did at one time and we were not socialist dystopias (and the rich weren't exactly suffering).
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        What were the economic conditions that allowed that to exist, I wonder?
        
        Rich 13 years ago
        
        I'll try again.
        
        Why are "rates" *the* way to go for (income) taxes?
        
        # 13 years ago
        
        the highest tax brackets didnt kick in until you made the equivelant of about 5 million per year in todays money. Plus you could avoid that by just taking compensation via in kind benifits like a new car or a condo share. Virtually no one paid those high rates.
        
        Today the top rate kicks in at 330k and you cant avoid it as easily.
        
        gaijin97 13 years ago
        
        and the feds spent at lower rates than they currently do at one time and it wasn't somalia
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        The top earners paid higher rates than they currently did at one time and we were not socialist dystopias (and the rich weren't exactly suffering).
        
        Yes, but the amount of spending on government programs was also a lot smaller, even on an inflation-adjusted basis.
        
        I'd be willing to go back to 1960 taxation rates if we could also go back to 1960 levels of government spending. Hell, even the Clinton spending levels were lower on an inflation-adjusted basis than they are now, but for some reason a lot of the same Democrats that were in office during that time are now arguing that cutting spending to those levels is akin to genocide. If they're not willing to argue in good faith, why should the right cave on taxation levels?
        
        Neu Mejican 13 years ago
        
        That 10% earned half of all the income earned in the US.
        
        Gimlet 13 years ago
        
        "That 10% earned half of all the income earned in the US."
        
        And paied 73% of the taxes. Math isn't your strong point, is it?
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        Here's something to think about: Who gets to decide which burdens to shoulder? Shouldn't it be the people creating the wealth and not those who want to use it to advance their own ends?
        
        Neu Mejican 13 years ago
        
        Who gets to decide which burdens to shoulder?
        
        Well, if they are burdens and it is all volunteer, some won't get shouldered. If we empower one group and not the other, it will always be the less powerful group that shoulders the unwanted burden. If we make the decision based on who is capable of carrying the burden, then the most capable carry more, etc...
        
        The "wealth creators decide" has been tried through much of history.
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        No, it hasn't. That's a total misreading of history. People running the government have been deciding for most of history, almost entirely based on their military strength, not their wealth. The idea of wealth disconnected from land is a recent phenomenon.
        
        On top of that, the most successful period in human history is clearly the last few centuries, where we've had much freer markets and more individual freedoms than ever before. That's what's different, novel, and special. Not government taking from some by force to give to others, which is as old as humanity.
        
        We have example, after example, after example of how a freer, less regulated populace can make things better. Most recently, note that China, long just a big third world nation, finally found some wealth by allowing freer markets. Just lifting the boot a little made a big difference. What they don't see and what many on the American left don't see is that it keeps getting better the more the boot isn't there at all.
        
        We have the wealth to freely decide to help people in need. This idea that compulsion is necessary and that special people can better decide as a matter of central planning how to reallocate stolen money is insane and doesn't work.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "On top of that, the most successful period in human history is clearly the last few centuries, where we've had much freer markets and more individual freedoms than ever before."
        
        But wait a minute, we're also regularly told 'round these parts that recent times have seen an unprecedented growth in nationalism and government size and scope....
        
        "People running the government have been deciding for most of history, almost entirely based on their military strength, not their wealth."
        
        The two usually go together, and even when they formally don't something much like it exists (think of cattle ranchers and such with their private army of thugs in the 'lawless' west). It doesn't take long for the power of money to translate into the power of force, with or without the latter being labeled "government."
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        Yes, when government became too intrusive, what happened? U.S., Japan, Europe, anyone?
        
        Our market could withstand a great deal of bloodsucking by the government parasite. But the host only has so much blood to give.
        
        Space Plant 13 years ago
        
        Feed me Seymour!
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Well, not if your ideas of fairness are informed by who can best bear burdens
        
        Your family analogy is inapt for a pretty simple reason:
        
        I'm volunteering to carry the groceries for my 5 month old.
        
        The state is not a family.
        
        That really needs to be said twice:
        
        The state is not a family.
        
        It's not even a collection of friends.
        
        If you really want to make an analogy, it's more like I show up at the grocery store expecting to buy groceries like anybody else, and the store owner points a gun at me and tells me that if I don't carry home the groceries for every old lady there, he's going to put a cap in my ass.
        
        Once that event transpires, I don't really care about the ability of the old ladies to bear burdens. That might have been relevant to me if I was making my own decision about maybe kinda sorta helping one of them. Once you bring compulsion into it, the "Fuck you!" factor overrides any such considerations.
        
        Neu Mejican 13 years ago
        
        Lots of analogy fails going on this morning.
        
        Question 13 years ago
        
        Actually, i thought Fluffy's analogy was spot on. For every one dollar 'spent' on children in the US there are six dollars 'spent' on the oldsters.
        We aren't headed toward class warfare; we're headed toward generational warfare.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Oh please, the gun in the face analogy is such a tiresome one.
        
        First you are making the same mistake PL is: the family analogy was not meant to offer the desired PROCESS for arriving or instituting a fair distribution of burdens it was simply to illustrate what that fair distrubtion would be.
        
        Second government does NOT work like some bandit coming and mugging you. Bandits don't take everyone's input and consent equally in guiding their actions, so let's drop that silliness.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        I can't see how the gun in the face analogy can be tiresome.
        
        It's not actually even an analogy. It's an actual state of affairs. There's nothing to analogize.
        
        I obey the laws concerning income transfer because if I didn't, I would be compelled to do so by armed men.
        
        the family analogy was not meant to offer the desired PROCESS for arriving or instituting a fair distribution of burdens it was simply to illustrate what that fair distrubtion would be.
        
        But that's not possible.
        
        This suffers from the same error Rawls makes:
        
        The idea that you can determine what "fair" is without knowing the specifics of the parties involved and what their interaction is.
        
        Basically you're saying, "Let's decide what's fair without any of the information you'd actually use to decide who's right and who's wrong in a given situation."
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "This suffers from the same error Rawls makes:
        
        The idea that you can determine what "fair" is without knowing the specifics of the parties involved and what their interaction is."
        
        I'd say this may be the ONLY way to decide what's fair.
        
        "Basically you're saying, "Let's decide what's fair without any of the information you'd actually use to decide who's right and who's wrong in a given situation.""
        
        That's a clumsy reading of Rawls. The actual idea is that all of that stuff can't be the basis of fairness because resorting to it just pushes one to an idea of fairness based on self-interest. If I'm strong I'd say what's fair is what I can take, if I'm smart I'd say what's fair is what I can get people to give me, etc.
        
        "because if I didn't, I would be compelled to do so by armed men"
        
        Yes, armed men who are guided by the decisions of you and all your peers weighted equally. Again, pretty different than your usual banditry.
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        I'd say this may be the ONLY way to decide what's fair.
        
        Completely suspending all information about you, your relationships, and the whole of your human knowledge is how to make things "fair"? Then I guess fairness is not attainable.
        
        The actual idea is that all of that stuff can't be the basis of fairness because resorting to it just pushes one to an idea of fairness based on self-interest. If I'm strong I'd say what's fair is what I can take, if I'm smart I'd say what's fair is what I can get people to give me, etc.
        
        Then how do you decide it, MNG? Mystical intervention? Your analogy was to illustrate the principle "if you are weak, you should not have to carry as much". How did you decide that, if you did not take into consideration your relationship vis-a-vis the weak?
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        I suggest you read A Theory of Justice by Rawls for some answers on that.
        
        Though he doesn't seem to acknowledge it you would decide it by an abstract individualized account of human welfare. The result is that ability to shoulder burdens becomes a major criteria for the distribution of burdens, otherwise people are subjected to some horrendous situations (like making 5 months old carry groceries proportionate to their weight).
        
        Some people think of fairness as "treating everybody exactly alike" but a more common view is "treating like cases alike." You get the same result as all the Rawls stuff.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        No, it's an accurate reading of Rawls.
        
        The entirety of A Theory of Justice is actually a giant con. His method - his process since that's the word you used - for determining what is fair is inherently deceptive.
        
        He uses game theory to try to do it. And here's what's wrong with that:
        
        You know how most people learn how game theory works? The most common example supplied in most textbooks is the Prisoner's Dilemma.
        
        In the Prisoner's Dilemma, you have two men arrested for a crime being held in separate cells where they can't communicate. Each man is offered a deal for a lenient sentence if they confess and implicate the other man. Game theory tells us that for both arrested men, the most sensible course of action is to try to be the first one to take the deal.
        
        We're supposed to take away from this the idea that the most "rational" choice to make in any given situation is the one with the least worst outcome.
        
        Rawls heavily relies on this max/min game theory trick. His entire argument boils down to the idea that the "rational" choice for everyone when deciding what sort of society to have is to choose the society with the least worst outcome for the worst-off person. It's the same exact process of rationalization that goes on in the Prisoner's Dilemma.
        
        But here's the problem with the Prisoner's Dilemma - it works equally well on the innocent as well as the guilty. If you're in the situation of one of the arrested men in the example, you are incented to confess even if you're completely innocent of the crime. Not only that, but you know that the other arrested guy is equally incented to lie and accuse you of the crime.
        
        So to me, the lesson of the Prisoner's Dilemma isn't "Always choose the least worst alternative". It's "If you allow yourself to be forced to make a choice where information is deliberately withheld, you are fucked and the outcome you'll get is the outcome desired by the person designing the game."
        
        The Prisoner's Dilemma doesn't produce a just outcome. It produces the outcome desired by the prosecutor, who abusively manipulates his subjects and withholds the information they'd need to make a truly rational and informed choice.
        
        And that's exactly what Rawls does, too. He deliberately withholds information in his "game" in order to produce the outcome he wants. People who play the game he sets up are being purposefully and deliberately fucked. Rawls isn't a noble theoretician of justice, he's a two-bit hack prosecutor trying to fuck over the innocent in order to be able to pat himself on the back about how everyone "confesses" once he 'splains the sit-choo-ation to them.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        dude, the entire point of Rawl's withholding of "certain information" is this wacky idea that whatever fairness is it cannot be motivated by self interest.
        
        This is your confusion; the point of the prisoners dilemma is not to produce a fair outcome it is to predict the outcome that occurs when each actor bases their choices on their own self-interest under those circumstances.
        
        Rawls has an abstract idea of self-interest, what 'rational contractors would agree to' but he disallows the personal charcteristics upon which non-abstract self-interest can rest. Otherwise you get strong people saying "hey, screw a society where you can't physically take what you want" and wealthy inheritors saying "well I prefer a society in which private property is protected." They agree to it not because it would maximize fairness, be the "best bet" of fairness for all involved (this is really the heart of his theory), but because it favors them.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        the point of the prisoners dilemma is not to produce a fair outcome it is to predict the outcome that occurs when each actor bases their choices on their own self-interest under those circumstances.
        
        Since the "circumstances" are engineered by the prosecutor, this is just another way of conceding my point that when you submit to participate in game exercises based on limited information you end up with the outcome desired by the game designer.
        
        Rawls has an abstract idea of self-interest, what 'rational contractors would agree to' but he disallows the personal charcteristics upon which non-abstract self-interest can rest.
        
        To me, "rational" means "in accord with and cognizant of reality". It is a measure of how "rational" Rawls really wants his game subjects to be that he has to hide literally all of reality from them before he can get his desired outcome.
        
        He doesn't even let his prisoners know if they are innocent or guilty. He doubles down on the corruption and manipulation that's built in to the Prisoner's Dilemma by saying, "Hey, not only do you have the standard dilemma - but on top of that I'm not even going to let you know if you're actually guilty or not."
        
        If Rawls' method produces justice, then it should also produce justice to have all criminal suspects hypnotized so they don't know if they're innocent or guilty, and then presented with the standard Prisoner's dilemma.
        
        Do you think that would produce common-sense just outcomes?
        
        Or do you think it would produce absolute injustice, since all innocent people would almost certainly confess?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        That is brilliant fluffy. I have been subjected to Rawls for 20 years and never thought of it that way.
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        it was simply to illustrate what that fair distrubtion would be.
        
        Backpedal faster, MNG. Fluffy shredded your analogy. Suck it up and deal.
        
        Second government does NOT work like some bandit coming and mugging you. Bandits don't take everyone's input and consent equally in guiding their actions, so let's drop that silliness.
        
        Uh...no. How does government "take everyone's input and consent [into account] equally?" You are just stealing arguments left and right.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        I see you don't get the distinction between the distribution and the process for achieving it either. Let me help you. We all know generally what a libertopia would look like. But there might be many ways of getting there. Perhaps someone like a Cesar could storm in with an army and instill Libertopia. A person could find libertopia great but the way it was put in place wrong. Likewise I was pointing to the distribution of burdens in the family example as a commonly accepted ideal (hell, even John seemed to agree with that). How the family makes or is motivated in those decisions is a separate matter.
        
        It's all pretty pointless because, well, families are not voluntary in the way fluffy points too, hence PL's comment at 10:04. Ask my teen-age son if he "voluntarily" takes in groceries while my toddler daughter is not asked to at all.
        
        See?
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        I see you don't get the distinction between the distribution and the process for achieving it either.
        
        You are right - I do not. Justice is justice; "fair" is "fair", etc. There is no "ends justify the means" to me.
        
        A person could find libertopia great but the way it was put in place wrong.
        
        Yes, a person could. I fail to see how, morally, if Liberaltopia came about the same way, YOU would have any objections. After all, being a utilitarian and all, you don't have to worry about moral processes, do you?
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        I didn't say that families were voluntary.
        
        I said that if I'm in a family and I'm carrying the groceries so my 5 month old doesn't have to, that's a voluntary act. I'm assuming that burden by direct choice.
        
        And trying to leap from that to "OK now that means you should also think it's fair for you to forced by armed men to carry groceries for all 5 months old everywhere" is missing a logic step.
        
        Groovus Maximus 13 years ago
        
        Bandits don't take everyone's input and consent equally in guiding their actions
        
        And your mask slips evermore, pilfering knave.
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        My mistake is that your analogy is neither correct nor apt?
        
        # 13 years ago
        
        "Politians don't take everyone's input and consent equally in guiding their actions, so let's drop that silliness."
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        MiNGe, did you just basically say, "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs"?
        
        It sure read like that.
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        He's been saying that all along, of course. Morally indefensible and practically a disaster. But let's keep trying until we fuck things up permanently.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Like I said, the ease with which most people would accept the fairness of my family distribution example suggests that according burdens based on ability to bear them is hardly some morally indefensible idea to most people in the world.
        
        Does it work practically? Now here is where I, like Rawls, do see a twist. We both essentially buy a lot of what economics tells us about the value of incentive structures. For the good of the whole inequality must be allowed, and a corollary of that is that we cannot strictly follow the former principle.
        
        Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        Even if you like the idea of central planning to decide what to do with the resources, the fact is that it doesn't work. Even physicists can see that:
        
        The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity--and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.
        
        cynical 13 years ago
        
        "Like I said, the ease with which most people would accept the fairness of my family distribution"
        
        I have a daughter who isn't quite 2. She likes to help, and we encourage it to the extent she is able, even if we could usually do things ourselves more easily without her "help".
        
        Just because someone can't carry an equal burden doesn't mean that they shouldn't carry one at all. Just because the rich can pay for everything doesn't mean that they should. Taking the burden entirely from some people degrades the bonds of community that form from combining efforts toward a shared goal.
        
        Aside from those entirely dependent on the efforts of others (children, the disabled, etc.), everyone should be paying a tax of some sort. While it should never go regressive in nominal dollar terms, the "progressive" side of things should mainly involve lifting a portion of the burden from the poor, not adding one to the rich or lifting one from the middle class.
        
        cynical 13 years ago
        
        Except that a dollar is more likely to be invested (productively, not politically) as it gets higher and higher into marginal income, just due to the hierarchy of needs. While it might "fair", it also has a negative impact on society as whole.
        
        A consumption tax with progressive aspects would probably be the best of both worlds, since it would hit the yacht and mansion budget without penalizing the wealthy for putting part of their income back into society to provide more resources for others to use to employ their labor gainfully.
        
        Kant feel Pietzsche 13 years ago
        
        Socialism at its most basic is nothing more than the dog, the cat, and the duck voting on what portion of the the bread she produced the little red hen may keep. They can put whatever lipstick they want on it; it's theft by committee because they're too fucking cowardly to come individually for a slice by force.
        
        As reprehensible as a mugger is, at least he risks his wn life and/or freedom when he robs you. He's on a higher moral plane than the Socialist.
        
        If that sounds childish, it's because even a child can understand it, if their heads are not first filled with rubbish by people with their own agenda.
  3. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    Everyone should pay, if only to prevent one segemtn of society from voting themselves other peoples money.
  4. Mike M. 13 years ago
    
    This is where Krugman usually jumps in and goes "but, but... payroll tax!"
    1. # 13 years ago
      
      i do love how the same people who have been telling us for decades that the payroll tax really wasnt a tax are now scrambling to tell us it is.
  5. Maxxx 13 years ago
    
    The 9-9-9 plan eliminates payroll taxes so the effect on the poor will most likely be lower total taxes.
    
    The real reason the left hates it is because it kills the fiction that Social Security and Medicare are anything other than welfare.
    1. Matrix 13 years ago
      
      If it's a flat tax with no deductions, my overall taxes would go UP under his deal. After adding my federal taxes, medicare, and SS, and subtracted my tax refund. Then I divide that by my gross income, my taxes are right around 9%. So then I would have to add 9% sales tax on everything that I buy on top of the sales taxes levied by the state/county/city.
      
      I'm not poor, either. I make shy of $60k/year. So yeah, I would be paying more... a lot more.
      1. Matrix 13 years ago
        
        Oh, and I only do the standard deductions (plus deductions from non-taxed income, like paying into retirement and insurance).
        
        Now, if payments towards insurance premiums and retirement remained non-taxed, then tax liability would go down. But, on the other hand, I'd still have a huge sales tax bill.
2. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  Herman Cain to the front of the GOP presidential field would stick many poor and middle-class people with a hefty tax increase
  
  Will it? There's a lot of dishonest math floating around out there on this. The biggest cheat is to ignore the fact that Cain's plan does away with SocSec and MA taxes, which (if you include the employer portion) is a 15% tax savings for the middle class, right there.
  1. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    I did a rough calculation on my rates, and I think I end up paying about 8% even including payroll taxes (employee half only) with all the deductions and credits. So my rate would go up a percent, since there are no deductions in this plan, and then I'd still have to pay the sales tax on top of that.
    1. Maxxx 13 years ago
      
      You need to add in your employers portion of the payroll taxes into your total. So it's more like 16%.
      
      The people that will wind up paying more in total taxes under 9-9-9 are upper middle class taxpayers with lots of deductions and people with income that is not currently subject to the payroll taxes.
      1. Joe M 13 years ago
        
        You can only count that if you can be 100% guaranteed that your employer would give you the difference.
  2. cynical 13 years ago
    
    Don't forget that they're temporarily lowered right now for the employee portion.
The Other Kevin 13 years ago

Has the Occupation ended yet?
1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
  
  Afghanistan? Iraq? Wall Street? Libyan waters? Puerto Rico?
  
  You're gonna have to be more specific.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

"I Had a Threesome and Now I'm Pregnant"
http://dearwendy.com/columns/i.....#more-1884

A few of weeks ago I had a threesome with a couple I'm friends with. We are all 20 years old and for the guy's birthday we gave him a threesome. I took the morning after pill when I woke up but I guess it didn't work because I just found out that I'm pregnant. I know that I'm going to get an abortion but should I tell the father? I don't want this to ruin his relationship or make things bad between any of us. What do I do? I am very scared of what this will do to all of our friendships. ? Terrified and Pregnant
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Sad, just fucking sad.
2. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  Dear Penthouse Forum,
  
  A few weeks ago, my girlfriend gave me the best birthday present ever....
3. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  If your abortionist can't also touch up the celtic knot/butterfly wings tattoo on your lower back, you're probably wasting your time.
4. Condoms 13 years ago
  
  Now for stupid bitches!
  1. Diaphragm 13 years ago
    
    Hey! No love for me?
    1. IUD 13 years ago
      
      Fuck you both.
      1. Rhythm method 13 years ago
        
        I have worked as intended for nearly two millennia.
        
        Elspeth Flashman 13 years ago
        
        +1
5. NeonCat 13 years ago
  
  If she doesn't take birth control pills every day, and she took a morning after pill after the threesome, does it not seem like a good possibility that some other dude knocked her up?
  1. Terrified and Pregnant 13 years ago
    
    Hey, what kind of girl do you think I am?
  2. Gimlet 13 years ago
    
    That was my first thought, though I don't know the morning after pill's efficacy.
6. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  Have the baby then sell it to the couple. Nice way to make some money.
  1. Gimlet 13 years ago
    
    They can use it to carry their groceries.
    1. Kant feel Pietzsche 13 years ago
      
      + X internetz
7. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
  
  If she's agonizing about whether to tell "the father," I'll bet she's having second thoughts about having that abortion, too.
MNG 13 years ago

Since ML is up I'll repost this:

Some teams in the NBA are really bad, and many of those have low salaries. Meanwhile, other teams are really good, and many of them have high salaries. It's not perfectly true -- the Knicks famously had massive payrolls and few wins. This last season the Bulls and Thunder were among the league's elite in all but salaries.

But by and large, the playoff teams spend a lot, and the lottery teams spend little.

Economists differ on this. Some find that the current NBA salary is a meaningful predictor of wins. Others say it is only a weak predictor, and point to the likes of the Bulls and Thunder who won a ton with small salaries.
http://espn.go.com/blog/trueho.....ve-balance

I posted this in light of our previous discussions of the more egalitarian structure of the NFL vs. the more libertarian structure of the NBA and MLB. If you want every team to start the season with equal hope of success the NFL is the way to go, if you like watching wealthy powers dominate the crap out of everyone else, go with the latter approach.

I would also like to point out that contrary to the common libertarian line about egalitarianism stifling excellence it is the two leagues with the more libertarian approach that are accused of having the players and teams "phone it in" during the early season (or rather most of the entire season). It is in the NFL where excellent coaching and disciplined teamwork are most exemplified (given equal resources the only way to stand out is to be excellent).

Lessons abound.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  But the NFL doesn't have guaranteed contracts. That means players play hard and teams can over come their free agent mistakes. That is a product of the NFL having a less powerful union. The NBA and MLB essentially have a form of tenure. The Red Sox can't cut John Lackey and get out of his contract no matter how much beer and chicken he eats on off days or how much his ERA balloons as a result. In the NFL he would be gone.
  
  What gives you the most competitive league is a hard salary cap so every team has equal resources and no guaranteed contracts so players have to pay hard to earn their money.
  1. MNG 13 years ago
    
    I'm not sure you're right about the NFL having less guaranteed contracts than the others, though I'll admit I don't know for sure. I also don't think I'd say the NFL's union is weaker than the MLB's.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      There are no guaranteed contracts in the NFL. Now they get around that to some degree by giving signing bonuses. The players get to keep those even if they are later cut. But year to year, any player can be cut and the remaining money on their contract is gone.
      1. mad libertarian guy 13 years ago
        
        That's not entirely true.
        
        There are definitely portions of a contract that are absolutely guaranteed. When referring to one's contract in the NFL, one always refers to two separate numbers. For instance, Vick's new contract is something in the neighborhood or $100M, $60M guaranteed which means that even if they cut him tomorrow for sucking, they still owe him whatever hasn't been paid of the $60M, even if he signs with a team the very next day for an equally bloated contract.
  2. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    I suppose, by way of 'lessons abound' and since the NFL doesn't guranteee contracts, that our society would be better off if we could do crazy things like fire underperforming employees? Or dismantle entire enterprises (say, B of A, or the Department of Education?) that have, um, failed to prove thier sustainability?
    
    Are those of couple of lessons?
    1. MNG 13 years ago
      
      Again, I'd have to see some kind of citation that such contracts don't exist in the NFL. But let's say they do, people do indeed get fired for underperforming all the time Restoras. Even in government jobs.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        But they don't in the NBA or MLB and that is the point.
      2. Restoras 13 years ago
        
        So you say, yet our government continues to grow, the Department of Education continues to lord over falling or, at best, stagnant test scores.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "yet our government continues to grow, the Department of Education continues to lord over falling or, at best, stagnant test scores."
        
        Er, don't look now restoras but the feds under NCLB are the ones applying the most pressure to underperforming teaches and schoold dudes (this is why it is their chief bitch for the past decade), it is the states that want waivers from that pressure.
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        I am pretty confident at this point that we will not see the wholesale firing of underperforming teachers that your are predicting under NCLB.
      3. MNG 13 years ago
        
        Just the other day on ESPN they were talking about how while the Colts could get out of Manning's salary they could only do so only after paying him a certain, well, guaranteed amount of it.
        
        They won't of course because he's an icon, but you see my point.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Manning may have a guaranteed contract. There is nothing to say the can't be. But Manning is also the biggest star in the league and the exception to every rule.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        But you just said such contracts don't exist in the NFL!
        
        John|10.14.11 @ 9:47AM|#
        There are no guaranteed contracts in the NFL.
        
        John|10.14.11 @ 10:14AM|#
        Manning may have a guaranteed contract.
        
        WTF John?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        As a general rule the NFL does not have guaranteed salaries the way MLB and the NBA does. There are some guarantees out there. People get signing bonuses. Occasionally they will have a few guaranteed years. It depend on the player and the contract. But those are the exception not the rule. In baseball or basketball, if someone is owed X million over the next five years, they are getting that no matter what. In football they are almost never guaranteed that and chances are very high that they will be cut or the contract renegotiated before the end of the deal.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Dude, how about taking two seconds and googling the question?
        
        John is completely right here.
        
        Anyone who doesn't know that there's no way out of an MLB, NBA or NHL contract unless the player retires or goes to jail, but that many players in the NFL routinely lose the balance of their contract if they're cut for poor play or injury, doesn't follow sports the bare minimum they'd need to in order to comment intelligently.
        
        You're just embarrassing yourself now.
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        Yeah but WTF and all that.
        
        Libertymike 13 years ago
        
        Since 1970, the great year of demarcation, guess which sport has crowned more franchises as champion, baseball or football?
        
        MLB has crowned 20 different franchises as champion. The NFL, with its vaunted socialism, 16.
        
        How's that work for ya, MNG?
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        John|10.14.11 @ 9:47AM|#
        There are no guaranteed contracts in the NFL.
        
        John|10.14.11 @ 10:14AM|#
        Manning may have a guaranteed contract.
        
        John is completely right here.
        
        Next fluffy will prove A does not equal A!
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Apparently according to MNG, since the CEO of GE has a guaranteed contract, that means that everyone who works for GE has a guaranteed contract.
        
        This is kind of scraping below your usual level of douchiness.
        
        John is pretty careless with grammar, but if you think the fact that franchise players can sometimes negotiate good contracts for themselves means that special teams guys can't have their contracts flushed down the toilet as soon as they're cut, you're a dope.
        
        Just put your pink Red Sox hat back on and don't try to talk about sports any more, please.
        
        SFC B 13 years ago
        
        The NFL structures its contracts differently from the MLB. The entirety of a MLB contract is guaranteed to the player (less various performance incentives). Contracts in the NFL have their total value, and then a guaranteed value. For example, Michael Vick recently resigned with the Eagles for (pulling from memory here) like 5 years at 80 million, however he is only guaranteed 3 years and 40 million. The Eagles can cut him after year 3 and not have to pay one penny more on the contract.
        
        John was over-simplyfying by saying there are no guaranteed NFL contracts, but the ability of NFL teams to rid themselves of odious contracts (Looking at you Albert Haynesworth) is an order of magnitude easier than for the MLB (looking at you Carlos Lee).
      4. Britt 13 years ago
        
        MNG said:
        
        But let's say they do, people do indeed get fired for underperforming all the time Restoras. Even in government jobs.
        ______________
        http://www.usatoday.com/news/w.....rity_n.htm
        
        Most telling statistic there: "Only 27 of 35,000 federal attorneys were fired last year. None was laid off. Death claimed 33."
        
        Fed food service workers have it worst at 2.5% termination rate, which is still better then the private sector's total average.
        
        MNG continues to not know what the fuck he's talking about.
2. # 13 years ago
  
  a sports league is a zero sum game - for one team to win another must lose.
  
  The economy is not - steve jobs making a ton of money does make other people poorer.
3. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  I posted this in light of our previous discussions of the more egalitarian structure of the NFL vs. the more libertarian structure of the NBA and MLB.
  
  God, you are retarded.
  
  is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty to be the basic moral principle of society.
  
  That includes things like "freedom of association." And to concretize it for you further, it is perfectly "libertarian" if one business model works better than another.
  1. Libertymike 13 years ago
    
    See my post at 11:16 just a couple of posts upthread.
    
    The facts do get in the way of MNG's narrative as major league baseball has proven to be far more competitive than the NFL if the barometer is the number of different teams which have won the world series compared with the number of franchises which have won Mr. Lombardi's trophy.
    
    What say you, MNG?
4. Jersey Patriot 13 years ago
  
  The NBA should abolish 6 teams, cutting to 24 (Kings, Wolves, Sixers, Pacers, Bobcats...pick another). Each team should play home-and-away against every other team, for a 46-game schedule. The top 8 teams should go into a Finals system similar to Aussie Rules, where 5-8 seeds play elimination games and 1-4 play semifinal qualifiers. The 1-4 losers play the 5-8 winners, and those winners play the 1-4 winners in the semifinals. They would also be home-and-away series, most points wins. The bottom 16 would go into a single-elimination tournament, winner gets the best lottery draw. That's an NBA I would watch.
  
  Four rounds of best of 7 after an 80-game season is ridiculous and exhausting, especially given the "only the last 5 minutes counts" nature of many games. Too many teams have no shot and nothing to play for. Every team has something to play for all season long, and everyone gets a shot at knock-out competition.
  
  As for the bad salary structure, I blame the owners for being morons, not the players for taking big money. If I were a mediocre #2 I'd take a 6-year $70 million deal, and so would you. If the NBA has to break the guaranteed contract to get better basketball, though, the players should get something in return. Since a lot of players go broke shortly after their hoops days are over, here's the deal: you can break a guaranteed contract, but the player you cut gets a pension based on the amount remaining in the contract at your expense after he retires.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    I agree with that except that you can't get rid of the Sixers. They are a flagship franchise and Philadelphia is one of the great basketball towns in America.
    
    And you have to get rid of the Clippers for no other reason to get Donald Sterling, the worst owner in all of sports, out of the league. Then move a team to Anaheim where the LA market can properly support it.
    
    And you left off the sick man of the league, the Hornets, from your list of teams to kill.
    1. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      There is a worse owner than Fred Wilpon? Wow.
  2. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
    
    They'll never get the owners to agree on either the contraction or the loss of games. Contraction scares the shit out of too many owners who bought their franchise expecting to run it at a nominal loss, but still able to sell at a profit. Further, going to 46 games gets rid of 18 home games' gate, concessions, and t.v. money. Not going to happen, even though I agree with you that the basketball was much better during the last strike-shortened year. It is galling to me, as a casual NBA fan, that the players out and out admit they don't try hard in each game, and that the fans are just supposed to accept that. A shorter schedule would help with the fatigue that's behind the lack of effort, but it won't happen for the economic reasons I've already mentioned.
    
    Cut the length of the guaranteed deals to no more than 3 years, and, paradoxically, get rid of the salary cap, and you'd go quite a ways to improving competitiveness. Dr. David Berri has argued at his blog, that players like LeBron are considerably underpaid in the current system and could command salaries in a freer market that would prohibit things like last year's Heat's team. As far as the merits of fully-guaranteed contracts, reading memoirs like Ball Four from days when contracts weren't guaranteed or multi-year, told me that the players have a point. Ultimately, no one forced the GMs to give these kind of idiot deals to, e.g., Carlos Lee. (I was telling everyone I knew who cared, that it was an idiot deal when it was inked, and that the Astros would hate years 4-6. I didn't realize that he'd suck his third year too... Also, that Carlos Lee was Panamanian for "Bobby Bonilla", but I digress.)
    
    As far as the NFL, guaranteed contracts used to be very, very rare. The player got the signing bonus paid in advance, but otherwise wasn't guaranteed any additional money if cut. (And, as Ricky Williams found out, the team could sometimes claw back the signing bonus too.) For salary cap purposes, that prepaid money was then prorated over each year of the player's deal, so long as the player was under contract. Cut the player, and you took an immediate, accelerated cap hit for the remainder of the prorated money. This hit could be fearsome, resulting in the player being kept on in some cases. IIRC, the new CBA has changed a lot of the salary cap rules. And, as already noted, guaranteed contracts are more and more frequent for players besides the Peyton Mannings and Mike Vicks of the NFL. (Funny tidbit about NFL contracts and player evaluation: there have been ~10 or so $100 million contracts in NFL history, and Mike Vick has had 2 of them.)
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Tomorrow is a *shudder* trip to Ikea with the family.

At least I can get my humor by watching someone trying to load a dining room table inside of a compact car. It happens every time. "Sure honey, it will fit!" Wait, now this sounds like a Penthouse letter.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  The food is surprisingly good and they sell great coffee.
2. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  Take your GPS, compass, and a survival kit.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Iran failed with space monkey launch: report
http://www.space-travel.com/re.....t_999.html

Iran acknowledged as a failure Wednesday its attempt to send a live monkey into space last month -- touted as its first step towards launching a man into space.

Won't someone think of the monkeys?
1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  Will there be a state funeral? If not, why not?
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Oooooooo... I would watch a monkey-funeral!
    We must honor the memory of Space Emir Nanners!
2. Tim 13 years ago
  
  Correction : he went up live, he came down otherwise.
3. NeonCat 13 years ago
  
  I can only hope he gets 72 bananas in monkey heaven?
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

ok - last one from me - gotta do some work, fixing some crapola software

How Barack Obama went from cool to cold
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl.....ol-to-cold

"You heard me," Obama said. "And if you come back here by the telephones where the press can't see it, I will kick your ass right now."

The two men vacated the senate floor and, depending on whom you believe, either traded blows or came close to it.

This is a rare tale of Obama both directly facing down an opponent and losing his cool. But during the past year many of his supporters have wished he would show such flashes of anger, urgency and passion more often (if perhaps a bit more focused and less macho and juvenile). He campaigned on the promise to transcend the bipartisan divide; many of his supporters would like to see him stand his ground against his Republican opponents. Having praised his calm-headed eloquence, some would now like to see more passion.
1. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
  
  Obama is a vain, egotistical bully???
  
  Who would have thought?
  1. Elspeth Flashman 13 years ago
    
    +1
2. Ice Nine 13 years ago
  
  Obama? Kicking someone's ass? Yeah, I'm sure that has happened a lot.
  1. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    I think it would look something like this.
    1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
      
      Would it be politically incorrect to say that was very gratifying? Good - that was very gratifying. Classic line: "Bring a ambulance" (for a nosebleed).
3. Mike M. 13 years ago
  
  Listening to liberals attempt to rationalize what a failure Obama turned out to be is rather sad.
  
  Face it dudes, you got caught up in a bunch of hype over nothing and made a bad choice. End of story.
You're a Statist too 13 years ago

Admitted Statists:

"WE NEED GOVERNENT to protect [fill in the blank.]" ~Libertarian Statist

"WE NEED GOVERNENT to protect [fill in the blank.]" ~Objectivist Statist

"WE NEED GOVERNENT to protect [fill in the blank.]" ~Socialist Statist

"WE NEED GOVERNENT to protect [fill in the blank.]" ~Conservative Statist

Confused Statists:

"Anarcho-Capitalists" who hold two contradictory propositions simultaneously:

(1) The agricultural city-STATE (civilization) is BAD.
(2) The AGRICULTURAL CITY-state (CIVILIZATION) is GOOD.

Their magic tool is the blank-out. ~Ayn Rand
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/evasion.html

LOL

And then there are the real "libert"arians....

NON-STATISTS

NON-STATE AND STATE SOCIETIES?
?faculty.smu.edu/rkemper/cf_3333/Non_State_and_State_Societies.pdf
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  Obvious troll is obvious
  1. Libertarian Statist Slayer 13 years ago
    
    Stupid libertarian who can't defend his core position is obvious.
2. White Zinfandel 13 years ago
  
  I'm back, bitchez!!!
  
  Go ahead, read my stupid! I double-dogz dairz ya!!
3. J.B. Say what? 13 years ago
  
  I for one welcome the inevitable agricultural civilization...at least we wont have to read this gamboling idiot anymore.
4. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  We definitely need a government (however small or large) to protect us from You're a Statist too, aka White Injun.
5. Kant feel Pietzsche 13 years ago
  
  Is it the partially digested twigs you shit out, or the bark you wipe your ass with that makes you so cranky?
6. Shorter White Indian 13 years ago
  
  "Mo-o-om. Can I come inside now? I don't want to camp in the backyard any more - it's too cold and the bugs are bitin' me."
alexdroog 13 years ago

From the "Bloomberg caves" article:

Mayor Bloomberg made his weekly radio show appearance Friday morning, saying Brookfield Properties informed him the company "got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying, 'If you don't stop this [the planned cleanup], we'll make your life more difficult'."

Mighty nice park you have here. Shame if something happened to it.
1. Howard Roark 13 years ago
  
  I can think of another approach to the "cleanup".
2. Kant feel Pietzsche 13 years ago
  
  But...but...it's the corporashuns that control the gub'mint!!!
3. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  But people still tell me we don't live under corrupt tyrants.
  
  You can't even pick up the phone to make that call unless the system is totally corrupt and unless elected officials routinely abuse their power SO MUCH that it's just the ordinary way of doing business.
4. kilroy 13 years ago
  
  Following the announcement by Brookfield, there was a sense of elation and euphoria. Many protesters wearing various union T-shirts returned to work while others moved from the park to the nearby Sprint(S_) store in order to queue for the new Apple(AAPL_) iPhone 4S.
  
  NYPD Makes Arrests in Protests
John 13 years ago

Imagine the kittens that the media would be having if the Tea Party had done this.

Since 'Occupy Boston' has forced the cancellation of the Greenway Mobile Food Fest, The Right Sphere is trying to raise $1,000 for the Greater Boston Food Bank, which was supposed to benefit from that event. Please consider donating as little as $1, $5 or $10 to the Greater Boston Food Bank to help defray the Occupy movement's damage to Boston's nonprofits and to to show that we can put our money where our mouth is and support the needy in Boston. You can do so using the button below. We understand that times are tough, so if you are unable to donate at this time, you can still help by sending this to others and posting this on any social media platforms you may use.

The media are beginning to report on the effect of the protests:

'On top of it all, and on a serious note, the Food Fest was going to be a collection point for a Greater Boston Food Bank canned food drive. It might have been a nice opportunity for the Occupy people to curry some favor with the general public: show up in large numbers and flood the donation barrels with cans of food. Instead, the food bank is left without a high-traffic event to gather much-needed goods.'

http://www.therightsphere.com/.....rt-by-the-'occupy'-protests/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
1. Warty 13 years ago
  
  So John, did you read any of Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers yet? It's awesome to hear OWS being made fun of 90 years before it existed.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Yes I did. And it is good to be reminded things never change.
  2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    It was hilarious! As access to information has become easier and cheaper, we've only seen more of these vapid pseudo-intellectuals. It used to be the privilege of the rich, like Hermione.
Tim 13 years ago

The protestors I've seen would steal the food from the barrels.
John 13 years ago

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2.....treet.html

A post on the OWS and anti-Semetism of mild interest. But what is really interesting is that Michael Moore is apparently a big Christian. I had no idea.
1. Groovus Maximus 13 years ago
  
  Micheal Moore is big regardless of his religion.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Well that too.
Warty 13 years ago

Typical libertarian cat
1. John 13 years ago
  
  That is great. and yes cats are the most libertarian and libertine of all house animals.
  1. cynical 13 years ago
    
    I think they're more like the state, really. They expect you to provide for them, don't give a shit about you otherwise, and don't know how to do anything useful for you except kill things.
    
    I guess that makes you a statist.
    1. Tim 13 years ago
      
      NO. Tweety was statist, Sylvester was just trying to restore the balance of nature.
      1. Sylvester 13 years ago
        
        I gamboled about the house.
    2. John 13 years ago
      
      They are totally self sufficient and could go feral in a heartbeat if they had to. But they understand that they can use their cuteness to get you to provide for them. Nothing statist about that.
      1. Warty 13 years ago
        
        I have one who gets so happy when she's petted that she rolls off the bed. She most certainly could not go feral.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        My brother has a mancoon that is afraid of bugs. Laziest animal on earth.
        
        Troy 13 years ago
        
        You have a cat Warty? OMG. You can't be my Alpha dog and own a can. No fucking way.
        
        Warty 13 years ago
        
        I have three. I snuggle with them and say embarrassing things in a falsetto voice, and I'M NOT SORRY.
    3. Groovus Maximus 13 years ago
      
      Bull cookies, cats are the perfect pet, if there is such a thing.
      
      They are pretty independent creatures and have a variety of "kitty personalities". Mine calls when beckoned, sits on my shoulder upon command and has never once eaten its own stool and was a snap to house train. Heck of a cuddly foot warmer, too.
      
      Why would one procure a pet without wanting to care for it? Seems like a pretty fair trade to me.
      
      Kitties rule.
      1. Sparky 13 years ago
        
        Agreed. Any other pet is just a replacement for children.
      2. cynical 13 years ago
        
        Fine, I admit it. I hate cats because I'm allergic.
2. Tim 13 years ago
  
  Those Iranian monkeys are pretty ballsy too.
3. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
  
  I can't tell; is everyone here into cats ironically?
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Warty is most assuredly not an ironic cat lover. Neither am I. I love all animals.
  2. Tim 13 years ago
    
    Joachim: They're posting cat links!
    Khan: Then block them!
    Joachim: [pounds fists on console] I can't!
    Khan: The override. Where's the override?
  3. Warty 13 years ago
    
    I have way too many kitties to claim that my love for them is only ironic.
  4. Sparky 13 years ago
    
    Cats are the only animals that are suited to be human pets.
  5. Spoonman. 13 years ago
    
    I have two rabbits. We may be putting the old girl to sleep today.
    1. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
      
      Poor bunny. You monster.
    2. mad libertarian guy 13 years ago
      
      There's a much cheaper way than the vet. It's called a 410.
      1. Another Phil 13 years ago
        
        What a dick. I get that you think you're being funny, but why laugh at the awful decision the poor guy has to make today?
        
        Spoonman, my condolences. It's a terrible decision to have to make.
  6. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    I've got three of the buggers. Of course one is practically feral and is just a ghost most of the time.
  7. R C Dean 13 years ago
    
    Not me. Never had any use for cats, which have always struck me as being basically furry lizards.
    
    I'm partial to cat-killing dogs, myself.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      I refuse to own any dog that will kill a cat. If it will kill a cat, you can't trust it with anything else. I am partial to putting a bullet in the head of cat killing dogs. And I am a dog lover.
    2. John 13 years ago
      
      And your cat killing dogs probably are not rat killing dogs. Good luck living in the country with rats and mice.
      1. kilroy 13 years ago
        
        Ferrets are much better mousers than cats.
        
        Nipplemancer 13 years ago
        
        except my ferret. He'd just want to play with it. He's the most docile ferret I've ever known. In 6 years he's never bitten anyone. He's only ferocious when confronted with crinkly shopping bags.
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        YUP! Ferrets are the true libertarian pet. Not for their intrinsic qualities but because most libertarians i know have either had or still have ferrets. Too bad they are a shitload (and yes i mean literally) of work.
        
        Nipplemancer 13 years ago
        
        yea, there is way too much work involved in being a ferret owner. Taking a dog for a walk is fun for both owner & dog (except in shitty weather). Cats use their litter boxes and keep it clean (if you don't count the litter that winds up all over the floor outside the box). Ferrets will shit in any corner they can back their asses into. They will also steal whatever they can get and hide it on you.
        
        Nipplemancer 13 years ago
        
        And their wardance is way cuter than anything a kitten or a puppy will ever do.
        
        Nipplemancer 13 years ago
        
        And their wardance is way cuter than anything a kitten or a puppy will ever do.
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        I miss my ferrets...and my keys.
        
        Coeus 13 years ago
        
        I miss my ferrets...and my keys.
        
        Yeah, I got to the point where I would just throw my keys anywhere and then look in one or two stash places the next day for them. It was easier than trying to hide them.
      2. R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        They've never encountered a rat, but seeing as they are terriers, I'm betting they would do just fine.
        
        For that matter, the current crop has never gotten their teeth on a cat. But not for want of wanting to.
      3. mad libertarian guy 13 years ago
        
        No rats out here. Mice yes, but the dog takes care of those while doing his best "orca with seal pup" impersonation.
    3. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      "Furry lizards"... very apt!
      I have no use for a pet who just wants to eat, bask and ignore me.
      1. Gimlet 13 years ago
        
        But enough about Tony.
    4. Neu Mejican 13 years ago
      
      I'm partial to cat-killing dogs, myself.
      
      I remember when a couple of 90 lb cat-killin' dogs cornered my old tom cat. Lots and lots of blood. All dog blood. That was one bad-ass cat. Couldn't beat the cat killing cancer though.
  8. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    I'm a dog person, myself.
  9. Ska 13 years ago
    
    I have a lizard, but it's a pretty lazy bastard that just wants my crickets and vegetables.
  10. Banjos 13 years ago
    
    Nope, I genuinely love my 4 kitties. I had 5, but he went missing 🙁
4. Troy 13 years ago
  
  My favorite combination is an English Mastiff Percy, and a cat (Puss). I had this awesome mastiff would play with his kitten. Puss would come out of nowhere and swipe Percy's tail and run off. After 30 minute of cat/dog antics, the Puss wold be sleeping on top of Percy.
  
  Just like this cartoon.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pccO1RBJZL8
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    I love mastiffs. One of my neighbors has this magnificent bull mastiff. But she is like Herman Munster. She is enormous but never has there been a more timid or sweet dog. That dog is afraid of her own shadow.
    1. Troy 13 years ago
      
      The best dogs in the world. If I ever had kids, fuck baby sitters, I'd get a mastiff.
      1. CPS 13 years ago
        
        Ahem...
BILL3 13 years ago

When everyone wants something for nothing the result is nothing for everyone.
1. Tim 13 years ago
  
  +0
Gimlet 13 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
J.B. Say what? 13 years ago

Gary Johnson IAMA on reddit
Matrix 13 years ago

Jezebel is mad that the House passed a bill that won't make you pay for other people's abortions.
1. Tony 13 years ago
  
  Oh so it's about taxpayer liberty, not an obvious brazen backdoor attempt to further erode abortion rights for Jesus.
  1. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    Is concerned troll concerned?
mad libertarian guy 13 years ago

The students at Texas State University at San Marcos who protested in Thursday's second nationally coordinated campus event in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street dispute the oft-repeated charges that the movement's participants are lazy, unfocused and un-American. And they have the ideas to prove it.

When the time comes to carry out their plans ? which address such pervasive student issues as loan repayment and the poor job market ? they plan to actually do most of the legwork themselves. They want to attend city council meetings and lobby for bills in the Legislature. They're going to work with local businesses to establish more scholarships for students. And they plan to get more students registered to vote and active in local and state politics, so they can have a say in where the money goes.

We're NOT lazy!! We're planning to do the REALLY hard work of putting the "right" people in office who'll give us more say in where your money goes!!
Proprietrist 13 years ago

WTF? 100 US troops sent to Central Africa to fight the Lord's Resistance Army

I can think of many things that will likely go wrong.

First, the LRA is largely footed by child soldiers. The optics of US troops killing child soldiers in gun battles will not be endearing.

Second, if the US should engage against any genocidal regime or organizaton, does that not invalidate all Obama's claims to be against Iraq and essentially whittle his opposition to that war down to Team Blue partisanship? Return the Peace Prize, murderer.

Finally, the Ugandan military (led by a dictator the LRA are fighting against) has been trying to stop this organization for decades. Will 100 U.S. troops all of a sudden get the job done?

What's next? Iran? Syria? Sri Lanka? Ivory Coast?
Gavin R. Putland 13 years ago

We are under a "government of laws", not a "government of men". But if someone can plant drugs among your belongings, and if you are then required to prove that the drugs are not yours (which you can't), then you are under a government of men, namely of those who are willing to plant evidence. Therefore the reverse onus of proof cannot be valid in any jurisdiction. So, if you are on the jury in a drug case, and if you are told that the defendant must prove that his/her possession was unwitting, it is your civic duty to put the onus of proof back where it belongs (on the prosecution), raise it to the proper standard (beyond reasonable doubt), and hand down a verdict accordingly.

More: http://is.gd/noreverse.

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