Reason Morning Links: The Netflix Nightmare Has Just Begun, Perry Hires a Bush Strategist, Drummers Are Destroying Occupy Wall Street

Mike Riggs | 10.25.2011 8:35 AM

Netflix stock reached $300 a share over the summer. Thanks to a series of widely detested business decisions, it's now down to down to around $94.
Florida judge halts Gov. Rick Scott's welfare drug-testing program.
U.S. law enforcement agencies have infiltrated some of Mexico's largest gangs, though "Mexico is kept in the dark about the United States' contacts with its most secret informants — including Mexican law enforcement officers, elected officials and cartel operatives — partly because of concerns about corruption among the Mexican police, and partly because of laws prohibiting American security forces from operating on Mexican soil."
At the behest of his wife, Rick Perry has hired Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush's 2000 campaign manager. Will he say sorry to W. now?
The OWS drummers will not stop drumming.
Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij survived 13 deployments to Afghanistan. He died during the 14th.
Where were you, 25 years ago today? If you're from Boston, you were probably weeping/gnashing your teeth!

New at Reason.tv: "Guatemalan Drug Gangs & Me: The Human Cost of Prohibition"

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Joe M 13 years ago

Too soon, too soon!
1. Suki 13 years ago
  
  Yes. 8:35AM is like 25 min. too early.
  1. Suki 13 years ago
    
    And well over an hour without correcting the dead soldier link:
    Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij, 29, was killed Saturday in Kandahar province when his unit was attacked by the enemy with an improvised explosive device.
    1. Live Free or Diet 13 years ago
      
      I was just coming on to point out Col. Odom is alive and well.
      1. Suki 13 years ago
        
        The more the better. Seems several of us had the same thought around the same time.
    2. ZombieSoldier 13 years ago
      
      Braaaaaains! Braaaaaaains!
Joe M 13 years ago

Okay, this is a few days old, so it may have already been shared: The Stupidest Lie Ever Told By An Adult
1. Suki 13 years ago
  
  You really think that it is bigger than I am a White Sox fan?
  1. Zeb 13 years ago
    
    You really think you are funny or clever?
    1. Suki 13 years ago
      
      Good Morning Links.
      Happy now?
2. John 13 years ago
  
  I am thinking is some average person got a check from the President, they would call the local news media and be the next human interest story.
  1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
    
    It makes me nauseated to imagine it but one must think that sometime in the future such a check would be worth far more than its face value.
    1. wylie 13 years ago
      
      It's not like it'd have The Messiah's signature on it.
      1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        Autopen?
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        Lacks autograph-value IMO.
  2. Suki 13 years ago
    
    Solyndra and every other company built on a crackpot scheme that Maobama and the Maobamatrons like makes a press release about the checks they get.
3. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  From the comments:
  
  Surely he is referring to the $500 Million check he sent off to Solyndra after he got that heartfelt plea from George Kaiser.
  1. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    Yeah I enjoyed that too.
Joe M 13 years ago

Nice article about Ron Paul at NPR

No. 2, says Pruett, was that the practice would not participate in any federal health programs, which meant, as Paul described it, "that we will see all Medicare and Medicaid patients free of charge, and they will be treated just like all of our other patients, but we're not going to charge them and accept federal funds."

Still in debt from his medical training, Pruett said that was a little harder for him to swallow. "But I liked Ron, so I decided I would agree to that, too. And in all those 20 years, we never accepted one penny of federal money. We saw all those patients for free, delivered their babies for free, did their surgeries free; whatever they needed we did, and we didn't charge them."

This needs to get thrown in the face of ever asshole saying Paul thinks people without insurance should just die.
1. Xenocles 13 years ago
  
  Even the example they gave - his former campaign manager - died with >$400,000 in medical bills, so obviously he got some kind of care.
  1. Zeb 13 years ago
    
    That is a silly thing about so many of the people who think that health care doesn't exist unless someone else pays for it. If you really need it, you can get care now. And hospitals will usually set up a payment plan for you based on what you can afford to pay. Making payments is a lot better than dying.
    1. MNG 13 years ago
      
      I think it is more silly for libertarians to make the argument you are making which is "well, of course you will get cared for (because of a law which mandates it which libertarians oppose), it's just you'll get a hugely prohibitive bill you likely will never pay off!"
      1. Joe M 13 years ago
        
        That ignores the root cause of rising health care costs.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Sure, I buy that government subsidies drive up health care costs. But it's not the only factor doing that. At some point health care becomes more inelastic; like a junkie will pay a lot for a fix he really needs a person in crazy pain will also pay a lot for a treatment for that...
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        The government is also driving up insurance costs, and the correct usage of insurance has been distorted from "saving you in the case of a catastrophe" to "paying to visit the family doctor". We don't have home insurance that pays for upkeep like new windows or getting the A/C checked, or car insurance that pays for gas or tire rotation.
        
        Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Sure, I buy that government subsidies drive up health care costs. But it's not the only factor doing that.
        
        You're right, of course. There is also the research and development of new medical technologies that drive up costs, but I'd be willing to bey people are willing to pay a bit more for what has developed today than they would to have a bunch of leeches sucking out their blood.
        
        And lest we forget, the rather burdensome costs associated with bringing new devices, drugs or procedures to market through the FDA approval processes.
        
        And the overriding costs of compliance with existing federal, state and local government requirements to operating medical facilities. Those legal departments aren't there solely to fight off malpractice suits.
        
        And lastly, there is the added bureaucratic costs when insurance companies are forced to duplicate operations because antiquated laws prevent them from selling insurance across state lines.
        
        Now, all of these added costs are due to government involvement...except the only one that develops advancements in medical technology. Yet you still think government is part of the solution IRT medical care?
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        At some point health care becomes more inelastic
        
        Yeah, when you hit the yearly AMA Cap for new licenses.
      2. Hank 13 years ago
        
        "Prohibitive" contradicts the rest of your point. Or the point your ascribing to libertarians. Or whatever.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        er, the guy did die with the bill unpaid...
        
        Hank 13 years ago
        
        ...for the treatment he got. What was prohibited?
      3. cynical 13 years ago
        
        You're right, they should just care for people in a way that consumes no resources or labor.
      4. Zeb 13 years ago
        
        My only point is that no insurance doesn't mean no access to health care at the moment, which is what lots of people claim.
        And as I pointed out, they will usually give you a payment that you can afford. If you can't ever pay it off, that is good for you and bad for the hospital. I think it's a stupid situation, but its not as if there is no access to care if you don't have insurance.
2. Warty 13 years ago
  
  The misunderstanding award goes to...
  
  D Scully (DScullyDScully) wrote:
  
  On the Sunday morning talk shows this weekend, I saw Ron Paul explain that America needs more "authoritarianism". That's amazing. Really. Rightist REALLY HATE democracy!
  
  He explains that we need to stop creating policies that enrich all of our populace. Instead, he wants to concentrate the wealth in a winner takes all fashion. Then, he thinks a more heavy, authoritarian hand will be needed. His followers hear this and think "Great! I'm going to get to be the rich person with all of the power and freedom, and I'll be able to oppress others"....or...maybe "I love being a slave and serving others, begging for scraps, while being held down by totalitarians"... I guess. Or, maybe they are just so low information that they have no idea how to begin to comprehend these words and concepts.
  
  At least he's honest about wanting to destroy our democracy and replace it with an extremist Right-wing government. It's a shame, however, that his supporters are too ignorant to understand what he's saying. It's also funny that, when I explain that this is what Rightist want, people always think that I'm making it up, although it is something they all have in common. What do they hear, when he speaks?
  
  Tue Oct 25 2011 08:47:54 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
  Recommend (0)
  Report abuse
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    There is just no substance to that Warty.
    1. Warty 13 years ago
      
      But it was more than four sentences!
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        Only one of which is from you...
        
        Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        It makes me laugh how butthurt you are.
        
        Warty 13 years ago
        
        It's like you're in a high school clique, Moon.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Ah, the Stooges routine. Thank God you're not banned so we can have all of this fine debate...
  2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    It's a shame, however, that his supporters are too ignorant to understand what he's saying. It's also funny that, when I explain that this is what Rightist want, people always think that I'm making it up, although it is something they all have in common. What do they hear, when he speaks?
    
    ah, yes - the old ignorance slam.
  3. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
    
    So more freedom means more oppression? Am I reading that correctly? Does anyone here speak Jive?
    1. Joe M 13 years ago
      
      Jus' hang loose, blood.
    2. Warty 13 years ago
      
      I'd guess he heard Ron Paul say that authoritarianism was bad, but thought he said that it was good. I can't imagine how else he would have gotten such a stupid idea.
      1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        What's up with the left, anyway? How did they get so distorted?
    3. JW 13 years ago
      
      Is "Jive" what the kids call mongoloid these days?
    4. Ministry of Truth 13 years ago
      
      Remember, Freedom is Slavery.
  4. Zeb 13 years ago
    
    That is pretty impressive misunderstanding, alright. Any clue as to what statement of Paul's that person was responding to?
    1. MNG 13 years ago
      
      Who needs a clue as to what was said, let's just assume something and run with it!
      1. Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        Knowing anything about Ron Paul is sufficient to know that the comment is a crock of shit.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Because Paul, being a career politician, would never, ever mispeak and say something that sounds at odds with his admittedly consistent philosophy. I mean, like that never happens!
        
        Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        Now who's assuming something and running with it?
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        I'm not assuming anything, you are. You assumed that Paul could not have said that because it is contrary to his oft-stated philosophy. I pointed out that your assumption is tenuous as pols often misspeak. Pointing out how tenous your assumption is indicates no counterassumption of my own.
        
        You're quite terrible at this whole "logic" thing, huh?
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        On the Sunday morning talk shows this weekend, I saw Ron Paul explain that America needs more "authoritarianism".... he thinks a more heavy, authoritarian hand will be needed.
        
        The idea that Paul, who is vociferously anti-authoritarianism, could say those things, is laughable on the face of it.
        
        Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        *yawn*
        
        Saying that Ron Paul is advocate for authoritarianism would be like saying George W. Bush was an advocate for not bringing the 9/11 terrorists to justice. It's so facially ridiculous it's not worth exploring.
        
        mad libertarian guy 13 years ago
        
        MNG must be on his period this week. she's awfully touchy, and in arguments with no fewer than 5 people.
      2. Fatty Bolger 13 years ago
        
        Uh-huh... I'm pretty sure Paul didn't say we need more authoritarianism.
      3. Kant feel Pietzsche 13 years ago
        
        That first step - acknowledging that you have a problem - is a big one. Congrats.
sarcasmic 13 years ago

Russian spies are HOT!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....onths.html
1. Evan from Evansville 13 years ago
  
  Russian is a sexy word. So is spy. And hot is also a hot word.
  
  So I found this there: Hendricks.....http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2052964/Christina-Hendricks-inch-buxom-barmaid-new-smouldering-photo.html
  1. Troy 13 years ago
    
    God damn it, if your gonna sugarfree a fucking link, make sure it ISN'T a christina hendricks link.
    1. SugarFree 13 years ago
      
      Heir
      1. JW 13 years ago
        
        I'll be in my bar.
      2. wylie 13 years ago
        
        and she's married to that druggie-nerd character from Super Troopers.
        
        I'm officially switching my Role Model to him.
        
        Troy 13 years ago
        
        and she's married to that druggie-nerd character from Super Troopers
        
        Well, I'd want to hang out with the dude that ate all those shrooms too.
      3. Troy 13 years ago
        
        OMG... fap, fap, fap,.... Thanks... fap, fap, fap, sugarfree.. fap, fap, fap.
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        Impressive one-handed typing skillz.
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        he's not typing with his hands.
      4. John 13 years ago
        
        Could it be more obvious from that picture of her and her goofy bow tie wearing husband that she married someone that would ensure she was always the star of the room?
      5. Wayne 13 years ago
        
        I'll take the Latvian.
    2. Evan from Evansville 13 years ago
      
      Dude. Fucking copy pasta.
      
      It involves two commands that you should be intimately familiar with.
      
      The intertubes, how the fuck do they work?
      1. wylie 13 years ago
        
        It's not the ctrl-c/v that you messed up, but your reliance on the Hit & Run filter to produce your link, so you got that goin for you at least.
        
        For links longer than "one line*" you really need to use an <a> tag. (* definition of "one line" may vary by State or National Law, restrictions may apply, one per customer, for further details send a stamped, self-addressed evnvelope to Reason.com, 543 Internet St, Callumet IL, 54321-9876)
2. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  If you'd been to Russia, you know that the young women dress provocatively. Even professional women like doctors and scientists.
  
  I met some Russian exchange students and they couldn't understand why American girls dress so frumpily--one should wear heels and a mini-skirt just to pick up milk.
  1. Brett L 13 years ago
    
    Had similar experience with Costa Ricans. God, I loved working in an office that was full of twenty-something Ticas.
    1. Evan from Evansville 13 years ago
      
      How could you concentrate? This is like Costanza picking out his secretary. Working around hot chicks makes arithmetic difficult.
      1. Brett L 13 years ago
        
        "How could you concentrate?"
        
        On work? Poorly.
        
        Evan from Evansville 13 years ago
        
        Touche.
    2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      I work in a department of all white (and mostly old) guys. Such is the life of IT. At least my old job had admin assistants... *sigh*
      
      Heck, in my Computer Science classes in college, there was like 1-2 girls in the higher level courses. Needless to say, they got plenty of attention. The one half-decent looking blond got job offers right out of college.
      1. robc 13 years ago
        
        I knew a hot, black computer science chick. She was bright, but not in CS. Still she was getting amazing offers coming out of school. She actually didnt understand (or pretended not to) how she was getting 70k offers while her classmates werent.
        
        She probably made a good IT manager somewhere, but hopefully she was never allowed to touch anything technical.
  2. Ice Nine 13 years ago
    
    All over eastern Europe women's couture runs toward the unrefined. Even many of those who attempt to dress smartly cannot seem to escape elements of tacky and dated. It's a pity since there are so many beautiful women there.
    1. PS 13 years ago
      
      Ha ha, you've not a fucking clue on this, trust me, not a fucking clue.
      1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        I would just make a wild guess that I've spent more time in more countries in Eastern Europe than you have. At minimum, that gives me a fucking clue or two.
        
        Double D 13 years ago
        
        Ice Nine got it right. PS got it wrong. For all the talk about European style and beauty, they're mostly unfashionable and out of shape.
  3. Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    Russian men make Arab men look like feminists, so I guess that's not surprising.
  4. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
    
    This is the most accurate statement on h&R today.
3. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  You are a candle - or maybe a roadside flare? - in the wilderness, sarcasmic.
  
  The Rus.
4. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  Camo miniskirt and matching heels? I'll bet she had boys following her around Dallas who weren't Feds.
5. AlmightyJB 13 years ago
  
  I'd like to know where she was hiding those scopes.
6. John 13 years ago
  
  You missed the Monica Bellucci story. You disappoint me sarcasmic.
  
  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....paign.html
  1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
    
    Sorry if I don't get a chubby for women ten years my senior.
    1. Troy 13 years ago
      
      Whoa, whoa, whoa.....
    2. JW 13 years ago
      
      I was right. You have no dick.
      1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        I was right. You fuck your mom.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        Don't be silly. But, your mom makes a mean breakfast.
        
        Seriously dude, if you don't find Monica Bellucci scalding hot, regardless of your age, then you really need to re-evaluate your status in the club. Limiting your ranking of women to "duh, she looks like a teenage girl!" puts you in the minor leagues.
        
        I would be very, very surprised that a night with Monica wouldn't be the most educational night of your life. There were a couple of early-30's women who were into me when I was in my early 20's. They put the girls my age to shame and I am forever grateful for their knowledge.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        Seriously dude, that lady reminds me of my mom.
        Maybe that means my mom is scalding hot. I never thought about her that way and don't plan to start now.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        Born, Gwyneth Kate Paltrow September 27, 1972
        
        Born, Monica Anna Maria Bellucci 30 September 1964
        
        8 years? That's your cut off for "she looks like my mom? Have fun on the farm team, son.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        It's not just her age. She just exudes momness. Doesn't do anything for me. Perhaps if I was in my 50s and had a thing for Betty White I might think differently, but that's not the case.
        Tell you what. I won't judge you for having fantasies about your mom, and you won't judge me for being attracted to coeds.
        Fair enough?
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        Monica Bellucci is actually old enough to be my mom. Monica Bellucci is ridiculously hot nevertheless.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        The fact that she looks that amazing at 47 only raises her scalding hotness to supernova levels.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        47? She looks way older than that. Maybe she spent too much time worshiping the sun.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Monica Bellucci exudes momness? Put down the crack pipe.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        M-O-O-O-O-O-O-MMM!
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        OK, she was plenty hot in her younger years.
        I seriously don't know who she is. Never heard of her.
        My introduction was the link provided by John, and it didn't do much for me.
        
        Not much at all.
        
        Olivia Wilde on the other hand.
        
        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....utfit.html
        
        She can rest those legs on my shoulders any day.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        Olivia Wilde on the other hand.
        
        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....utfit.html
        
        She can rest those legs on my shoulders any day.
        
        On that, we can agree. Ain't nothing wrong with being built for speed.
        
        Oh, and if your mom looks like Monica Bellucci, then you can start calling me "Dad."
  2. Mainer 13 years ago
    
    A bunch of guys on a webblog debating the relative hotness of a woman who, if you were actually in her presense, could pull you in with a crook of her little finger.
7. gaijin97 13 years ago
  
  cankles
Tim 13 years ago

Will Obama bail out Netflix? Can America afford to lose this corporate giant?
1. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
  
  Yeah right, bail out the ATM that screwed over all those video store clerk jobs? I don't think so.
  1. wylie 13 years ago
    
    Yeah right, bail out the ATM that screwed over all those video-bank clerk jobs? I don't think so.
    
    ftfy.
2. Suki 13 years ago
  
  Obama probably is not aware of Netflix. He is still working on the AOL bailout.
Lord Humungus. 13 years ago

Smash Capitalism and You Destroy Civilization
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ar.....ilization/

Perhaps they see this as the beginning of an anti-capitalist, anti-commercial revolution, but to a certain extent we have already had this conversation. The twentieth century was a long (and bloody) debate about alternative modes of social organization. Even in its present corrupted and cronyized form, "modern capitalism"?which Deirdre McCloskey defines loosely as "private property and unfettered exchange"?is a goose that lays golden eggs, and not merely for the super-rich. If you disagree, ask yourself how many of those claiming to speak for "the 99%" have smart phones, which Louis XIV couldn't have bought for all the gold in France. The problems the Occupiers blame on "capitalism" were not caused by "private property and unfettered exchange." They were caused by institutionalized interference with "private property and unfettered exchange."
Lord Humungus. 13 years ago

Juan Williams: Lessons learned
http://thehill.com/opinion/col.....ns-learned

But in the year since I was fired the political pressure on Americans to be politically correct, to never stray from the party line, and avoid saying anything that someone may call offensive continues to polarize the country.

Americans across all political, social and racial lines tell me they resent this political straitjacket. They know that if they speak their mind, admit their fears, hopes, feelings, they risk being told they are not a good Republican or not a good Democrat. They fear being told they are not a good Christian for their views on abortion; not a good Jew for their views on Israel; not a good black man if they question President Obama; not a good Muslim if they condemn Islamic terrorism without any qualification. At every turn, people fear being told they are lacking in principle for simply avoiding political boxes and opening themselves to listen to the other side of an issue and engage in honest debate.
Lord Humungus. 13 years ago

Obama tells supporters it's going to be a tough fight
http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....3211.story

"I've said this before ? this election will not be as sexy as the first one," the president said. "Back then it was still fresh and new. I didn't have any gray hair. Everybody loved the 'Hope' posters and all that. This time it's ? we've got to grind it out a little bit. We've got to grind it out. But the cause is the same. And my passion is the same. And my commitment is the same."
1. Spoonman. 13 years ago
  
  the cause is the same
  
  It's more true than you might think - the cause of voting for a man of limited accomplishments because of his promises and vision is just as present as it was in 2008.
2. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
  
  "I've said this before ? this election will not be as sexy as the first one," the president said.
  
  This is just one big setup for the eventual Justin Timberlake endorsement.
3. Elspeth Flashman 13 years ago
  
  he could always buy some "Just For Men" hair dye.
PIRS 13 years ago

"Florida judge halts Gov. Rick Scott's welfare drug-testing program."

I am conflicted over this. My instinct tells me to oppose this program because of the slippery slope effect and it is an invasion of privacy. But there is another argument to be made here. I support the right of employers to require drug testing of employees. I certainly respect that. Well, if you are receiving welfare benefits are you not in effect in the same position as an employee?
1. Suki 13 years ago
  
  How about getting rid of welfare?
  1. PIRS 13 years ago
    
    I wholeheartedly support getting rid of government-welfare.
    
    Could that happen? Maybe if Ron Paul gets elected.
    1. Suki 13 years ago
      
      We need a congress full of Herman Cains to go with it.
      1. PIRS 13 years ago
        
        I like a lot of things about Herman Cain but two things in particular bother me.
        
        1. His 999 plan includes a national sales tax. Even if Cain is both elected and reelected the most he can serve is 8 years as POTUS. His successor who may not have made any promises about keeping that national sales tax at 9% could easily increase it.
        
        2. He is a Federal Reserve insider. I want someone who wants to repeal the Federal Reserve Act.
        
        Suki 13 years ago
        
        I thought the congress did all the taxes?
        
        PIRS 13 years ago
        
        Suki,
        
        The POTUS needs to sign it (unless the Congress can get a veto-proof coalition together - which is rare.)
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        unless the Congress can get a veto-proof coalition together - which is rare
        
        That kind of cooperation can only be summoned when there's a serious opportunity to assfuck the American Citizenry.
        
        PIRS 13 years ago
        
        "That kind of cooperation can only be summoned when there's a serious opportunity to assfuck the American Citizenry."
        
        True, like the TARP bill or authorizing This Month's Featured War (or Kinetic Military Action).
        
        twenty-something 13 years ago
        
        I have a hard time believing that a national sales tax would ever be increased. That's what is so awesome about it. The poor and middle class might support increased taxes on the wealthy but they rarely support increased taxes on themselves. Especially when it affects the price of everything they buy and sell.
        
        Maxxx 13 years ago
        
        And it's in your face with every purchase.
        
        x,y 13 years ago
        
        Until they have the technology and information to do otherwise. All IDs and credit cards will be loaded with your W-2. You make more, you pay more sales tax. Boom, progressive wet dream done.
2. Coeus 13 years ago
  
  Don't be conflicted. This will eventually transfer onto the "privledge" of using the roads you are forced to pay for. And it won't take too long, either. If this catches on, I give it 10 years till you have to pee into a cup on a regular basis just to keep your license.
  1. Coeus 13 years ago
    
    I mispelled a word I used scare quotes on. Nice.
    1. Troy 13 years ago
      
      This is where you say, "d'oh" Coeus.
  2. PIRS 13 years ago
    
    Good points. The governments is turning what used to be rights into "privileges" and inventing new "rights" out of whole cloth - like the supposed "right to welfare" that modern progressives have been pushing for quite a while.
3. gaijin97 13 years ago
  
  Well, if you are receiving welfare benefits are you not in effect in the same position as an employee?
  
  Except for the work part.
  1. PIRS 13 years ago
    
    Their "job" is to vote for political candidates who support these benefits.
  2. wylie 13 years ago
    
    Standing in line is kinda like work.
4. cynical 13 years ago
  
  What if you're a manager for that employer, and happen to own your own business that provides drug testing as one of its services?
5. rac3rx 13 years ago
  
  I don't have a problem requiring drug testing of anyone who accepts a gov't check (including Congress, bureaucrats, etc.).
  1. Rhywun 13 years ago
    
    Wait til you have to submit a urine sample along with your 1040 to get a refund.
Lord Humungus. 13 years ago

Error: USAJobs.gov
And you thought the stimulus didn't work.
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....oveLEFTTop

But 18 months ago the "smart" Obama Office of Personnel Management decided the federal government could do a better job of running USAJobs.gov. It spent some $6 million developing a new in-house version of the site, promising to improve the job-search experience. It unveiled its creation two weeks ago. It's a monster all right.

The volume of requests instantly crushed government servers, slowed the system and locked out thousands of applicants. Naturally, the site has a Facebook page. Naturally, the comment queue is boiling over.
Ken Shultz 13 years ago

"Netflix stock reached $300 a share over the summer. Thanks to a series of widely detested business decisions, it's now down to down to around $94."

That's unpossible.

Corporations are ruining this country--and they act with impunity.

Corporations are unaccountable to anyone. ...certainly not to their customers. That's why the world needs drum circles. Because if it wasn't for drum circles, corporations wouldn't be accountable to anyone.
1. Suki 13 years ago
  
  +1
  Everybody knows that consumers are just helpless victims of corporations. We have no choice but to pay what they say and buy what they make.
  1. Doctor Whom 13 years ago
    
    I thought the same thing the other day while driving my Imperial to E. J. Korvette to pick up some New Coke.
    1. Suki 13 years ago
      
      +2
      Don't forget picking up groceries at the A&P!
      1. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        I'm detecting strong traces of threadwinner in Doctor Whom's comment.
      2. Elspeth Flashman 13 years ago
        
        +1. I would've gone with Pontiac Aztec.
  2. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    But what if they sell drums?
2. Doctor Whom 13 years ago
  
  Here's the drill.
  
  1. When a corporation does something that goes over well with its customers, that proves that America is a corporatocracy in which corporations rule with an iron fist.
  
  2. When a corporation does something that doesn't go over well with its customers, that proves that free markets cannot work. (The people who use that argument seem never to stop and think about how free markets are supposed to operate in such a situation.)
  1. Suki 13 years ago
    
    ^^This^^
    On that note, economic genius David Duke has thrown his support behind OWS.
3. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  I'm just glad that I'll never have to hear the name "Qwikster" again.
  I didn't want to live in that world...
4. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  I don't really blame Netflix. They have to pay much higher prices to the studios. Like cable/satellite providers... they have to decide on whether they will pass the cost on to their customers or just drop the service.
  1. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    Well, the future of video is in streaming - so the company is positioning itself for that going forward. Was definitely handled in a ham-fisted manner.
  2. Ken Shultz 13 years ago
    
    I don't have any interest in receiving movies through the mail. Give it a few years, and that business is disappearing anyway.
    
    It is interesting, like Suki said, how responsive customers [and shareholders] can be to executive mistakes.
    
    I don't think it was a long term strategic failure--it was a marketing failure. McDonalds spends a fortune trying to drum themselves up some positive press by providing homes for families to live in so they can be near their hospitalized children.
    
    Netflix made themselves look like Darth Vader. There are consequences to making your customers think of you as Darth Vader. Shareholders hold executives responsible for mistakes like that--every trading day.
    
    Customers hold executives responsible for what they do every time they buy or don't buy something.
    
    If only politicians were as accountable as business executives! Politicians are only held accountable once every four years if we're lucky. And bureaucrats can go their whole careers without being held accountable by their customers ever.
    1. Matrix 13 years ago
      
      So you're blaming them for PR mistakes. Fair enough, but I still don't blame Netflix at all. Sure, video by mail is going to wane, but streaming will not necessarily take over. ISPs are going to stand in the way by limiting bandwidth, throttling down content providers, and offering competing services, not that there's anything wrong with the last one.
      1. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
        
        Aren't there miles of cable under most cities the phone companies put in in the late 90s to convince the government to expand their business?
        
        Also, couldn't we ust turn the TV spectrum over to the internet? I know there'd be a bunch of, "BUT POOR PEOPLE USE RABBIT EARS!" but seriously... who the fuck gets their TV from airwaves anymore?
        
        twenty-something 13 years ago
        
        Yeah, I'm sure the "right to have TV" would be suddenly invented if that were happened.
        
        rac3rx 13 years ago
        
        Didn't we already go through that when the gov't paid for people to get converter boxes a while back when they switched off analog TV or whatever?
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        couldn't we ust turn the TV spectrum over to the internet
        
        Fuck airwaves, can Comcast or FIOS do the same thing? Just gimme all the bandwidth as Internet, and I'll find the content I want.
        
        Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Hey! I get my TV from rabbit ears. I got into a pissing contest with Comcast some two years ago and told them to pick up their shit. And I refuse to get a dish because I just don't watch enough TV anyway to drill one into the roof or wall of my house, which also faces south, making the eyesore worse.
        
        Get a super fast ISP with unlimited bandwidth. Hook your computer to your TV via HDMI.
        Watch anything in the world in high-def for free.*
        
        *but still pay for Netflix because there is some cool shit on there I would otherwise not think of watching.
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        Karl Denninger was crowing about this the other day--his main point being, that compound growth over the long run is impossible, especially with the kind of business model Netflix was running.
        
        I think one of the primary lessons from the dotcom bubble popping that was never quite understood was the reality that sooner or later the law of diminishing returns always kicks in, and apparently Netflix' business model didn't allow them the flexibility to adapt when that happened.
      2. wylie 13 years ago
        
        I can't wait till I can buy my internet access from Netflix....huh, that's Federally Illegal? Thank god for THAT law, hooray for Congress!!!!
    2. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
      
      Well, Ken, the Netflix change was the worst thing ever to happen to white people.
  3. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
    
    Actually, NetFlix uses CDNs to distribute to eyeballs and those CDNs (Level3 being the one that started this fuckall mess) are now being charged for their out of ballance traffic to those eyeballs. Netfilx also has to deal with the reality that Studios will distribute their own content and say screw you to any third party.
Fluffy 13 years ago

You got the name of the soldier wrong. That colonel was his commander.

Please correct.

And when you hat tip me for the correction, I demand the title "Supreme Generalissimo of All Commenters, Fluffy".

Thanks.
Question 13 years ago

Riggs, I realize you have nothing but contempt for the military, but that doesn't excuse such poor reporting. Col. Odom made the announcement of the death.
1. Suki 13 years ago
  
  Soldiers are interchangeable to Cosmotarians.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    To be fair: I couldn't tell any of the characters in Black Hawk Down apart.
    1. Name Nomad 13 years ago
      
      I've been saying, "White people all look the same," for years. People always laugh thinking that I'm kidding.
      1. Atanarjuat 13 years ago
        
        White people all look the same? What color are you?
        
        I was once told by an Asian chick that all white people smell like baloney.
        
        Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        I have yet to meet an Indian whose car did not smell of curry powder.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        You are what you eat.
        
        Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        You are what you eat.
        
        The enviros will be happy to know fossil fuels are no longer necessary to run the automobiles of over 1 billion people.
        
        Now, if we could just get people to run cars on tri-tip and pulled pork, our freeways would smell magnificent.
        
        /derp
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        Their houses and apartments certainly do, sloopy. Not that I mind, but it is noticeable. From what I've read, Scott filmed Black Hawk Down that way on purpose, so that both sides would look mostly anonymous. I'm white, and I couldn't tell half of the Rangers apart w/o their nametags.
        
        Great movie, if anyone still hasn't seen it.
2. Old Soldier 13 years ago
  
  That was pathetic.
  
  Odom is the the Regimental Commander. Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij was killed after many deployments.
  
  If you can't be bothered to read the details of the military articles, don't comment.
Lord Humungus. 13 years ago

John Bolton: Iran's assassination plot compels a tough response
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm.....ation-plot

We must abandon the mirages, to which Obama still clings, that Iran might negotiate an acceptable "solution" to its nuclear weapons program, or merely that economic sanctions will somehow force Iran to negotiate. No wonder the Iranian regime mocks us for weakness and willful blindness. Even a threatened attack on our soil, which could have killed hundreds of Americans, has not been enough to spur Obama into decisive action.

The unpleasant reality is that the only alternative to a nuclear Iran is to break Tehran's program through the targeted use of military force, either by Israel, the United States or both. This is, to be sure, a risky, unpleasant and unattractive option. It is, nonetheless, far preferable to the only existing ? and rapidly approaching ? alternative, which is Iran with nuclear weapons. Although unwilling to say so publicly, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states have long privately hoped for leveling Iran's nuclear program. With the Iranian assassination plot now public, they might even smile publicly.
1. WTF 13 years ago
  
  Nuke them from orbit, just to be sure.
2. gaijin97 13 years ago
  
  Why does Bolton need to be interviewed? It's not like his answer to any question won;t be ...targeted use of military force....
3. rsi 13 years ago
  
  We an just have our ground force in Iraq move into Iran. It'll be be over in a week.
  1. WTF 13 years ago
    
    We have to keep boots off the ground, so it will be legal and successful, but not a 'war'.
SouthPark 13 years ago

Hippie drum circle out of control? SouthPark did it.
1. Troy 13 years ago
  
  Send in Slayer
Lord Humungus. 13 years ago

Won't grow up? it's not just guys
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/o.....SohOB0Xg1J

Whether it's Kay Hymowitz dubbing them "the child-man" in City Journal, Hanna Rosin proclaiming "the end of men" in The Atlantic or more recently Kate Bolick, also in The Atlantic, calling them "playboys and deadbeats," we're seemingly in the age of the woman.

Men are over. Women rule. More women attend college, men were hit harder by the recession than women and the general consensus is that men have become video-game-playing sloths stuck in a delayed adolescence who refuse to marry these fabulous college-attending, high-earning women who are their betters.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  If women were falling behind it would be a national emergency. Men falling behind seems to be a cause for at least schadenfreude if not outright celebration.
2. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  Yeah, the whole "men won't grow up" thing seriously makes me ask - Don't these fucking people have Bravo?
  
  All I see on Bravo is women who won't grow up, and who wear hair extensions and clothes they bought at The Limited despite the fact that it makes them look like idiots and semi-human orange monsters.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Don't worry fluffy. As soon as the higher education bubble bursts and all these women with their 150K finishing degrees are unable to pay back their debts, we will hear about how the patriarchy took advantage of them.
    1. Joe M 13 years ago
      
      They don't have that coded in their existing structures.
    2. Coeus 13 years ago
      
      That's already started. I saw some jezzebel lamenting the other day about worthless college degrees. "just when we get ahead, the patriarchy moves the goalposts". Because the patriarchy made her get that art history degree, obviously.
      1. Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Link?
        
        Please, please link.
        
        My tear cellar needs restocking.
        
        Coeus 13 years ago
        
        http://jezebel.com/5846567/stu.....lege-women
        
        It's a quote I picked out when aqua rabbit posted it a week or so ago. View all and about halfway down.
        
        Coeus 13 years ago
        
        ... just when women became the majority of students at universities... suddenly degrees aren't worth shit... quelle surprise. Everytime we try, the bastards move the goal posts.
        
        There it is.
        
        Enjoy Every Sandwich 13 years ago
        
        LOL, they really DO think that the world is a giant conspiracy to make them unhappy. Of course we men all had a meeting in our top-secret tree fort and decided that henceforth college degrees will be worthless.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Shhhhh!!
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        ixnay on the tree-fortay!
        
        NoVAHockey 13 years ago
        
        "Gentlemen, to evil!"
        
        Troy 13 years ago
        
        LOL, they really DO think that the world is a giant conspiracy to make them unhappy. Of course we men all had a meeting in our top-secret tree fort and decided that henceforth college degrees will be worthless.
        
        Jesus, I wish women could get their fucking memes straight. Which is it? Are X-Box 360 addled slackers too stupid to pull up our own pants? Or are we smart enough to have world wide secret conspiracy to fuck with just women?
        
        Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
        
        Troy, the Patriarchy is like the Matrix. We're all a part of it, being brainwashed by it, at all times. Thus, those men can get away with playing XBox while the womyn slave away on their degrees because the patriarchy will reward those men with 6 figure salaries. Just for having penises.
        
        RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        Shhhh!! They're on to us!
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        Who's on goal post moving duty this week?
        
        I did it for the last 2 weeks, so it's not me.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        Not me. I have to be out oppressing with my male gaze according to the roster.
        
        Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
        
        I got enforcing existing hetronormative structures. Anyone who's got Silencing Queer Narratives of Alternate Gender Identity wanna swap?
        
        BakedPenguin 13 years ago
        
        I'm on Oppressing Ethnic Minorities. Again. I told them, I don't even own a business with which to manufacture consent and deny rightful opportunities & economic justice. When do I get Male Gaze duty?
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        All that Male Gaze work and I needed to get new glasses. Is that covered under the Patriarchal insurance plan?
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        Is that covered under the Patriarchal insurance plan?
        
        Silly boy, like you have to ask that question.
        
        Now, let's retire to the library to enjoy some port and Cohibas, while we make fun of the poor.
        
        Glass Ceiling Installer 13 years ago
        
        Male gaze isn't on the roster. You're supposed to be doing that all the time anyway in addition to your other duties. Now quit slackin' and get oppressin'.
        
        Troy 13 years ago
        
        My tear cellar needs restocking.
        
        ROFLMAO. What color is your monocle?
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        Goddamn--further proof that for all of the supposed emotional regression of the American male, there's nothing more childish than a feminist with an entitlement complex.
        
        The feminist critiques cited above by the Post are especially LOL, because the supposed regression of men that they discuss is a direct result of the cultural infantilization that this class of woman has been pushing for 40 years. They got EXACTLY what they wanted, and now they can't figure out why they can't find a man capable of changing the oil in the car and fixing the leak in the roof.
      2. cynical 13 years ago
        
        If she's aiming for someone else's goalposts, she's already lost.
    3. anonymous commenter some guy 13 years ago
      
      No, no. All that debt will be forgiven.
  2. WTF 13 years ago
    
    "Men refusing to grow up" means men won't do what they need to do to please women.
    1. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      ^^^THIS, and that's all.
      1. JW 13 years ago
        
        I got that last night. Playing video games is "childish" and "sad."
        
        Let's see now....I have a masters and she has only a bachelors, she makes only 2/3 my salary, I supported us on my paycheck alone for 5 years, while she played stay-at-home mommy. I handle all of the finances for the house (because she paid the fucking mortgage AND my credit card late 2 months in a row) as well as make most of the decisions, since she's usually locked in a mobius loop of wracked indecision. I repair the appliances when they break and do all of the grunt work around the house, as well as all the laundry.
        
        Yep. I'm just a fucking infant.
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        as well as all the laundry
        
        WHOA!!! Your sir need to hand me your monocle and top hat RIGHT NOW!
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        I only do it because she sucks at doing the laundry; I can't stand the way she folds shit. I've been doing my own laundry since I was 10. No need to stop now.
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        Please tell us that you actually said this to her, and didn't just bite your tongue to avoid an argument.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        Nah, she's menstruating and pretty close to the edge as it is. (work sucks, the kids suck, I suck, etc...). I don't even bother when she gets like that. No upside and the risk of murdering me in my sleep goes up.
        
        I didn't even raise my voice. But, this card is tucked away for use as needed.
        
        Trespassers W 13 years ago
        
        But, this card is tucked away for use as needed.
        
        Ironically, that's kind of a chick move.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        Ironically, that's kind of a chick move.
        
        The difference being is that I would use it for defense, not offense....
    2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      In a world without women, there would be no more greeting cards or Fannie May candy. No more holidays... heck, I think most of the urge to work would drop off. Life as we know it would devolve to beer and BBQ.
      1. Restoras 13 years ago
        
        Dude, you misspelled a word...
        
        Life as we know it would devolve to beer and BBQ.
      2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        NTTAWWT
      3. WTF 13 years ago
        
        Life as we know it would devolve to beer and BBQ.
        
        You say that like it's a bad thing.
      4. Zeb 13 years ago
        
        "Fannie May candy"? I don't think I want to know what that is.
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        http://www.fanniemay.com/
        
        Growing up, my brother and I had a theory that Fanny May was really run by the mob. Every time we drove by the local one, there were _no_ customers (except on Valentine's Day), but yet it managed to stay in business. WHY??
        
        Pip 13 years ago
        
        In Minneapolis, we had Fanny Farmer candy stores. Fanny. Farmer.
        
        You do the math.
        
        Elspeth Flashman 13 years ago
        
        +1.
      5. JW 13 years ago
        
        Life as we know it would devolve to beer and BBQ.
        
        When do we start?
    3. Ice Nine 13 years ago
      
      "Men refusing to grow up" means men won't can't possibly do what they need to do to please women.
      
      FIFY
    4. T 13 years ago
      
      More seriously, if you're male, the entire family court system is stacked against you. So why 'grow up' and get married when it'll only screw you over?
      1. Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Bingo. "Refusing to grow up" is actually the logical choice.
        
        Pip 13 years ago
        
        The only way to win is not to play.
  3. Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
    
    From the article:
    
    It's fine to have silly interests (we all do), but somehow the women of "Sex and the City" were bold and beautiful in their cosmo-slurping, shoe-buying ways even while aging and single, but the men of their age are losers for doing the same.
    
    When women are late to marriage and baby-making, they're seen as trying to have it all. When men do it, it's a topic of thoughtful concern across the country.
    1. Devil's Advocate 13 years ago
      
      When women are late to marriage and baby-making, they're seen as trying to have it all. When men do it, it's a topic of thoughtful concern across the country.
      
      This sort of thing is silly, and I think most women who comment in this fashion don't understand what they are talking about. Women have biological realities with procreation that men do not have. Period, the end. Anecdata: Speaking as someone who had a kid when they were 39, I feel I can safely say that there's a reason female human beings' bodies were designed to have children in their teens and 20's and NOT their 30's and 40's.
      1. JW 13 years ago
        
        I fell your pain Devil. Firsty at 36 and the next 2 years later. Premature aging is a blast.
        
        The flip side is that I enjoyed a joyous scorched earth policy in my 20's and early 30's. Wouldn't have traded that for anything, especially knowing what I know now.
  4. Zeb 13 years ago
    
    There do seem to be a lot of men in their 20s who don't seem interested in much besides beer, caffeine and video games. Perhaps I'm the only male under 40 who doesn't like video games, but that just seems like an incredible waste of time to me.
    1. Troy 13 years ago
      
      I am revoking your man card. Go stand with the betas in the corner.
      1. Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Dude, the betas are doing that too. The only difference is that they don't have anyone waiting to blow them when they get to a save point.
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        I'm not much of a gamer, but I play now and then.
      2. cynical 13 years ago
        
        This delusion that posters here have that they are alphas is a little hilarious. Only a small minority of males are alphas, and they usually have substantial wealth, high social status, and power.
        
        PantsFan 13 years ago
        
        and some have to be at the Gym in 26 minutes
        
        PantsFan 13 years ago
        
        and some have to be at the Gym in 26 minutes
      3. Zeb 13 years ago
        
        Really? That's what counts as manly now?
        
        I own guns and multiple chainsaws and I spit a lot. I think that more than makes up for it.
3. PIRS 13 years ago
  
  "It is acceptable for a woman to delay having a baby well into her 30s, 40s and even beyond, ostensibly because she's focusing on her career."
  
  Many who do so deeply regret that later in life. By then it may be too late for them.
  1. Spoonman. 13 years ago
    
    Also, having babies beyond your 40s? Isn't that only possible in extremely rare cases?
    1. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      Most women don't have children in thier 40's because they had them earlier. It is still very possible (see a lot of oops! babies in my area) but the risks of birth defects and other complications rises significantly.
      1. PIRS 13 years ago
        
        I have been curious about the birth defect issue before. I am not a physician but I work in a medical library. I wonder if there have been studies on WHY this is the case. Perhaps it is more lifestyle related? Perhaps women in their 40's are more likely to be taking certain medications that younger women rarely need? Or, perhaps it is simply the human body, frail as it is, becoming even more frail with age ...
        
        Apple 13 years ago
        
        I always thought it was because their eggs were degenerating over time.
        
        PIRS 13 years ago
        
        Perhaps, but if so - that begs yet another question - Why? If we know the reason it could lead to new infertility treatments.
        
        xenia onatopp 13 years ago
        
        You have to figure that for most of human history-- by which I technically mean pre-history, I suppose-- people were extremely lucky to even live to be forty, never mind have babies til they were forty. Our bodies do not seem well-adapted to life after 50 or so-- we develop cancer, our joints wear out, our hair falls out-- so it's not really surprising that our eggs have a due-date too, and it's based on tens of thousands of years of women giving birth in their late teens through mid-twenties. The magic age, at least for Downs syndrome, is 35-- any older and the risk of your child carrying the mutation begins to climb exponentially. Ok, not literally exponentially, but you get my point.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        Our bodies do not seem well-adapted to life after 50 or so-- we develop cancer, our joints wear out, our hair falls out--
        
        And no tree-of-life to be found anywhere. Though Usain Bolt might disagree.
        
        Any bets on when the next major breakthrough in anti-aging will be? I'm thinking within the next 10-15 years, outside of the country (S. Korea?) and something to do with maintaining telomere lengths.
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        I just read that aged male sperm is actually worse than aged female eggs. So if one of you is over 40 make it the woman.
        
        Question 13 years ago
        
        Our eggs start deteriorating as soon as we're born. Despite the wonderful medical progress that's been made, if a woman wants a biological child, she needs to get busy before 35.
        
        Neu Mejican 13 years ago
        
        Apple gets it. It is the old eggs. Old man sperm may play a role as well.
        
        Atanarjuat 13 years ago
        
        Re: old man sperm vs. old lady eggs. I believe the difference lies in the fact that eggs are present in the woman's body at birth, whereas new sperm is constantly made. Therefore the DNA in the eggs can break down over the decades, which will be passed on to the child.
        
        Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Yes, but there has been a few recent studies linking old man sperm in young women to some birth defects.
        
        Azathoth 13 years ago
        
        cite?
        
        Neu Mejican 13 years ago
        
        Azathoth|10.25.11 @ 3:20PM|#
        
        cite?
        
        Try google scholar. It ain't that hard.
        
        Mark 13 years ago
        
        millions and millions of replications also damage cells
4. Enjoy Every Sandwich 13 years ago
  
  the general consensus is that men have become video-game-playing sloths stuck in a delayed adolescence who refuse to marry these fabulous college-attending, high-earning women who are their betters
  
  If these women truly are "their betters" then why the heck would they marry such men? It sounds like a half-assed excuse to me.
  
  If these women want to "rule", I say fine, have at it. Of course, they'll have to learn that "ruling" involves a bit more than just whinging about how evil men are and how wrong it is that they won't pay a woman a six-figure salary for her PhD in Womyn's Studies and her vast expertise in the 15th-century Transgender Poetry of Siam.
  1. gaijin97 13 years ago
    
    the general consensus...
    
    I am curious. Who is this 'general' that always seems to have such a clear and simple consensus about the world?
    1. Enjoy Every Sandwich 13 years ago
      
      As near as I can tell, General Consensus lives in the heads of journalists. I've never seen him anywhere else.
      1. PIRS 13 years ago
        
        "As near as I can tell, General Consensus lives in the heads of journalists. I've never seen him anywhere else."
        
        Brilliant!
        
        +9999999999999999999999999999999999
    2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      He lives with Corporal Punishment and Major Issues.
      1. Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        I wonder if there has ever been a Lieutenant Lou Tennant in the military.
        
        If so, it was probably in limey-land and he was Leftenant Lou Tennant.
        
        Or a Private Parts?
      2. CrackertyAssCracker 13 years ago
        
        How can you forget Major Johnson?
      3. Pope Jimbo 13 years ago
        
        F-ing illiterate!
        
        It is Major Major Major Major.
5. MNG 13 years ago
  
  "Men are over. Women rule."
  
  Yeah, corporate boardrooms and federal, state and local governments are so women dominated...Why I hear there may even be 17 of them in the Senate!
  1. Zeb 13 years ago
    
    I think that they are talking about the next generation. I would bet that in 30-40 years, there will be a lot more parity in places like that.
    1. MNG 13 years ago
      
      A lot more parity than now, but parity, no.
      1. Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Until they're judged for mate potential on their life accomplishments (which probably won't happen ever) you won't ever see parity. There's no incentive like there is for men.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        That's silly. While its not as bad as GOPers like John likes to rave about, look at Obama's relative lack of accomplishment compared to, say, Condi. There's plenty of women as or more qualified than plenty of our recent Presidents.
        
        Coeus 13 years ago
        
        There's plenty of women as or more qualified than plenty of our recent Presidents.
        
        That's not much of an accomplishment.
        
        Atanarjuat 13 years ago
        
        Coeus, great point, I would add though that women do receive a mate-potential boost for accomplishments, for example, if there were two equally pretty girls, one having no accomplishments, the other being a concert violinist or Olympic athlete. The latter will be preferable to many men.
        
        Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Yes but the difference is that we would see that the women are equally attractive yet one has other benefits. Most women see their physical attraction to a man increase with addition of his accomplishments.
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        especially a gymnast
    2. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
      
      Heck, at the next meeting of the Patriarchy, I hear an item on the agenda is that we may even let one of them become President!
      
      Crazy times, I tells ya!
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        You don't think it is a little odd that women make up 50% of the population but we've never had a woman President?
        
        I'd say that shows some pretty messed up gender situation right there, much more so than some goofy NY Post article.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        The presidency is the last bastion of the patriarchy. Everything else is pretty equalized at this point.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        That's not true either. 50% of the gen pop but only 17 out of 100 in the Senate would be quite statistically significant too.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Okay, but here's something to consider. How many Senators have been in office for decades, and are just riding on the incumbency advantage? Longer-serving Senators would have a greater tendency to be men, since they were elected in the decades before sexual equality became more prominent. The longest serving female Senator is Barbara Mikulski, who was elected in 1987. There are sixteen men who have been in longer than her.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Anyway, public office isn't the most important aspect of society. Women are doing better in the workplace. The real workplace.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        And we've had a ton of female candidates for both Prez and VP, just not many from the two major parties. I voted for a female VP in 1996.
        
        dumber MNG 13 years ago
        
        You know what else is amazing? Men represent soemthing like 50% of the population and not one of them has ever managed to give birth. This is genderization of the worst kind.
6. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
  
  Well, one of the real problems is our culture. Men were raised in a culture where "marrying down" was acceptable. A CEO would marry a secretary, even though he was often much better educated and made much more than her.
  
  Woman have always looked for an equal or better. Oh, sure, I meet some type-A chicks who realize that if they want a family, they'll need a man who is less career focused to look after the family. But most women seem to expect a man who is just as if not more educated than them and makes as much if not more than them.
  
  So, we really need to start this idea in our culture that there is nothing wrong with a female CEO marrying a male car mechanic. Until that happens, you are going to get a couple of generations of bitter spinsters who blame men, when really they should be blaming themselves.
  1. WTF 13 years ago
    
    I don't think it's culture. I think women are programmed by evolution to want the highest status male they can get to produce their offspring.
    1. Coeus 13 years ago
      
      I tend to agree.
    2. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
      
      I see your point, but men are programmed by evolution to want to fuck anything with tits that moves. Then we created monogamous marriage as a cultural institution to reign that in.
      
      There are a lot of cultural conventions that are attempts to reign in evolution where it would do us all a disservice. So, I think that the blame ultimately has to lie at the feet of both culture AND these individual women, because if these women want a man so badly, they can have one- but they may have to, horror of horrors, settle for a less than ideal match.
      1. Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Then we created monogamous marriage as a cultural institution to reign that in.
        
        I thought that was created in order to keep women from fucking everything with tatoos and a criminal record, thus rewarding behaviors which aren't conducive to Western civilization.
    3. cynical 13 years ago
      
      Women are also programmed by evolution to want offspring...
  2. Troy 13 years ago
    
    Woman have always looked for an equal or better. Oh, sure, I meet some type-A chicks who realize that if they want a family, they'll need a man who is less career focused to look after the family. But most women seem to expect a man who is just as if not more educated than them and makes as much if not more than them.
    
    It is like some women are totally incapable of deductive reasoning (hell, reasoning period). Apparently the demographics are that women are out pacing men in getting undergraduate and graduate degrees. If that curve continues, there are less and less men that are "higher" on the food chain than them. If they insist on "marrying up," there are simply fewer choices.
    
    Why is it that women have more education than ever before but are too fucking stupid to see this?
    1. Azathoth 13 years ago
      
      But what education are they getting? Are they becoming educating in things that help the world go 'round--or are they becoming 'educated' in areas that get them degrees?
      
      I think it is the latter.
7. H man 13 years ago
  
  Best takedown of the Hymowitz article.
  
  Society has changed. Women have more power over their own life, and there is less pressure to conform to expectations from family, religion, society at large, etc. So now with more choice on how to life their lives, many women are deciding to do something with their lives other than be the traditional housewife of 50 years ago. It sucks to be a guy today who wants the housewife of 50 years ago, since there are less of them, but people have more choice on how to live their lives now, and that's a good thing.
  
  Many women fought hard for this. Some would even call it "feminism".
  
  But guess what? Men also have more power over their own life, and there is less pressure to conform to expectations from family, religion, society at large, etc. So now with more choice on how to life their lives, many men are deciding to do something with their lives other than be the traditional husband of 50 years ago. It sucks to be a women today who wants the husband of 50 years ago, since there are less of them, but people have more choice on how to live their lives now, and that's a good thing.
  
  And many women hate this.
  1. Coeus 13 years ago
    
    Nice.
  2. Troy 13 years ago
    
    I am copying this....
Matrix 13 years ago

Col. Mark W. Odom survived 13 deployments to Afghanistan. He died during the 14th.

Col. Odom is quoted in the article, but it doesn't say he died. This is who died: Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij.
1. Suki 13 years ago
  
  The rush to post competition passed down from print media. Seems that old newspaper guy running this online edition cracks a smart whip.
Lord Humungus. 13 years ago

Student expelled for Facebook post returns to class
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/9542

The trouble started in June when Bechtol, a student at Catawba Valley Community College, began receiving e-mails advertising the CVCC Onecard. The card, which is provided by a financial services company called HigherOne, doubles as a student ID card, library pass, YMCA gym membership pass, and is the principal method by which students receive financial aid payments from the school.

Bechtol was greatly concerned about the fact that the Onecard was essentially a requirement for CVCC students, to say nothing of the college's aggressive marketing techniques.

"The way the school was marketing the card was completely unacceptable," Bechtol said. "I have a problem with a government agency, such as a public college, getting in bed with a financial services company. It's a bad mix."
1. DJF 13 years ago
  
  There goes any chance he will get to work for the Treasury or the FED. Getting in bed with financial service companies is their reason for existing.
Suki 13 years ago

Col. Mark W. Odom survived 13 deployments to Afghanistan. He died during the 14th.

Total RTFA failure in the rush to beat the 9:00 AM deadline. FTFA:
Col. Mark W. Odom, commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment, said Domeij was a "veteran of a decade of deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan and hundreds of combat missions ... an operator who in real terms had the value of an entire strike force on the battlefield."
And
Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij, 29, was killed Saturday in Kandahar province when his unit was attacked by the enemy with an improvised explosive device.
Bee Tagger 13 years ago

Netflix stock reached $300 a share over the summer. Thanks to a series of widely detested business decisions, it's now down to down to around $94.

Phew, if I would have done this google search yesterday: http://www.google.com/search?g.....x+monopoly, I probably would have hyperventilated in fear.
Ice Nine 13 years ago

Netflix stock reached $300 a share over the summer. Thanks to a series of widely detested business decisions, it's now down to around $94.

Don't fuck with Classic Coke.
1. DJF 13 years ago
  
  Don't almost double the price of coke and then try to repair the damage by changing the name of old coke into something that you can't even pronounce and think that customers will keep on buying.
  1. Suki 13 years ago
    
    I hear that Mexican Coke has real sugar.
    1. PIRS 13 years ago
      
      I think so. I can verify that it tastes much better than the U.S. variety. But if you want an even better taste I recommend the Jarritos Mexican Cola.
      
      http://www.thesodajerks.net/so.....-cola.html
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        IN Europe you get "Cola Light" which contains saccharin and tastes significantly better than our Diet Coke.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        The liquor store I go to still sells Tab, which I find bizarre.
        
        Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
        
        I think Tab must be used in some horrid mixed drink, because I too have seen it in liquor stores.
        
        rac3rx 13 years ago
        
        Tab rules!
      2. Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Their pineapple flavor soda is fucking awsome.
        
        PIRS 13 years ago
        
        Everything Jarritos does is awesome. I honestly think it is physically impossible for Jarritos to make a bad product.
        
        Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        Dude, tamarindo is the way to go.
        
        Coeus 13 years ago
        
        I'll have to try that one.
    2. Wayne 13 years ago
      
      I hear American Coke used to have real Coke!
      1. Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Yep, it did. And thanks to Reason, my morning tea now does, too.
2. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  I really don't get it. Hate if you will, but Netflix was going to dump about 80% of its depreciable assets from a shrinking part of its business. I'm sure the MBAs are still trying to figure out what went wrong with their textbook plan.
  1. DJF 13 years ago
    
    The problem was that the customers were already pissed at the much higher rates they were being charged and NetFlix sends out an e-mail to the customers acting like changing the name and splitting the company was going to be of benefit to the customers when it was not. It may have benefited the management and the stockowers but they were not the target of the e-mail.
    
    Netflix forgot that their customers have different interests and priorities then their management and stockowners. Sending that e-mail to the stockowners would make sense, sending it to the customers just made them more angry and dissatisfied.
Evan from Evansville 13 years ago

God dammit. First of all, a very, very sincere RIP. Second, I loathe when pols who call for defense cuts are derided as wanting soldiers to die. Bring the soldiers home so they can't get shot at; don't fucking spend more money so the troops spend MORE time getting shot at. This is truly sickening.
1. Spoonman. 13 years ago
  
  Apparently they think that the best way to honor dead soldiers is to send more to die for the same vague, unattainable goal.
  1. Suki 13 years ago
    
    The way reason honors them is by getting their names wrong.
    1. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
      
      Shut up already, Suki. Give Riggs a chance to fix a, probably, honest mistake.
      1. Suki 13 years ago
        
        Sucking up for a cute honorific in the hat tip competition BT? I quote again from the article:
        Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij, 29, was killed Saturday in Kandahar province when his unit was attacked by the enemy with an improvised explosive device.
      2. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        A better activity than hammering Riggs for screwing up the casualty's name, is considering whether the U.S. military is overextended when a 29 year old SFC has already been deployed to Afghanistan 13 times. (How long are deployments for guys in the Ranger Regiment anyway?)
        
        This doesn't excuse Riggs, mind, but his larger point is an interesting one. But keep on with the meme that he must hate the troops if he points stuff like this out.
        
        Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        I am fairly sure that, by law, there is no way that guy had 13 deployments without volunteering for more than half of them.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Yeah. It is amazing and depressing. I can remember when two deployments was a big deal. Now it means you are a shirker.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        But who ya gonna invade Iran with John? Girl scouts?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Stop it MNG.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        If you think we should fight wars and put troops on the ground then don't bitch when the troops have to go fight on the ground a lot.
        
        Suki 13 years ago
        
        Stop it MNG.
        The bot cannot stop until a human stops it.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        I haven't looked in awhile at the re-up stats for officers, but is it still the case that a significant percentage of West Pointers (40, IIRC) are getting out after their contracted 5 years of service? Whereas in the 80s, it was more like 10-15%?
        
        If that's true I can't say I'm surprised. It has to be hard to keep going back when there doesn't seem to be any end in sight to the deployments, and private contractors are offering 3-5X the $$$ to do exactly the same thing. The benefits for staying in 20 years are significant, true, but jeez, 20 years overseas is a hell of a lot more onerous than 20 years used to be in the military.
        
        My understanding of units like the Ranger Regiment, and the rest of the JSOC panoply, is that one must volunteer to remain in the unit. Of course, there's no guarantee that the unit you would be transferring to, wouldn't also be deployed overseas...
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        West Pointers have always gotten out after five years at a pretty high percentage. It is a different Army than it was back in the 1960s where West Pointers and VMI graduates ruled the place. Now a large percentage of the top people are OCS or ROTC graduates, something that would never have been the case in say the 50s.
        
        Yeah people volunteer. If you don't have a family to leave behind and you love your job, deployments are fun. If you offered me the right one, I would go in a minute to this day. That is the dirty secret of war, if you are lucky enough to survive, it can be quite addictive. These are great Americans don't get me wrong. But they keep volunteering for deployments because they love it.
        
        Suki 13 years ago
        
        Where are the corporationz and da jewzzz in all of this?
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Not making war on the Iranians, much to you and your host body's lament...
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        You have never produced a single post where I have ever argued for war with Iran much less invading and occupying them. Get some help MNG> Really. Get some help. You are taking this stuff way too seriously and starting to lose it.
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

I refuse to participate in today's Morning Links. Think of the poor west coasters. It's not even 6AM there or something. Solidarity with other time zones.
1. Spoonman. 13 years ago
  
  I'm a Central Timer who gets up early, and I very much approve of this schedule.
  1. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
    
    Paris/Rome/Havana fell because of people like you. Solidarity!
  2. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
    
    fuck off slaver?
    
    Mountain BABY!
2. Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  Who cares? If the Californians aren't on the roads by now, they won't get up until 10AM or later anyway.
3. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
  
  I am the Mountain West Time Zone. But I stand with the Pacific Time Zone!
  
  Occupy Space Time!
$6M RoboTorso 13 years ago

Love the divine capitalization of "Authority".

WHOOPS! Vatican Lets Slip Plans For One World Government
...A supranational Authority of this kind should have a realistic structure and be set up gradually. It should be favourable to the existence of efficient and effective monetary and financial systems; that is, free and stable markets overseen by a suitable legal framework, well-functioning in support of sustainable development and social progress of all, and inspired by the values of charity and truth. It is a matter of an Authority with a global reach that cannot be imposed by force, coercion or violence, but should be the outcome of a free and shared agreement and a reflection of the permanent and historic needs of the world common good....
1. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  Breaking news from 1031 AD: the Vatican was built on the site of original one world government and hasn't stopped trying.
  1. MJ 13 years ago
    
    Was not just built on the site. The Vatican is the last vestige of that government and has tried on several occasions to recreate it, e.g. the Holy Roman Empire.
2. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  Did they finally find the cruciforms, then?
  1. SugarFree 13 years ago
    
    Don't summon the creature.
    1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
      
      Martin Silenus? Yeah, he's kind of a jerk. And an overrated hack, if you ask me.
3. T 13 years ago
  
  I think I saw this movie. Twice. It was called Equilibrium the first time and Ultraviolet the second.
4. cynical 13 years ago
  
  Don't worry, it's just some decrepit bastard in a stasis crystal thingie.
John 13 years ago

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10.....-yglesias/

Matt Yglesias is still stupid.
1. $6M RoboTorso 13 years ago
  
  This is news?
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Well not really. But it is a slow news day.
Bee Tagger 13 years ago

At the behest of his wife, Rick Perry has hired Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush's 2000 campaign manager. Will he say sorry to W. now?

Homer: Well, I really should discuss this with my wife.
Salesman: Your wife? (cracks an imaginary whip)
Homer: What, you think I'm going to hire Bush's campaign manager just because you make that noise?
Salesman: (cracks his whip again)
Homer: Okay, I'll take it.
Xenocles 13 years ago

Thankfully I was only four 25 years ago, so I don't actually remember that event.
John 13 years ago

142 legal secretaries surveyed and not a single one preferred working for a woman partner. Anyone who has ever had to work with a women lawyer is not surprised by this.

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2.....d-not.html
1. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  I think one factor here is that most men know at least one guy who is "blue collar" but still cooler than they are, so they don't look on all subordinates as failures.
  
  But successful women sometimes see women who go into "traditionally female" fields as somehow deficient and "letting the gender down".
  
  It's funny that we've reached a point where it's now feminism, and not patriarchy, that is the enemy of the female secretary.
  1. Suki 13 years ago
    
    Simpler: liberals are arrogant self centered bigots.
  2. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    Name the movie:
    
    "I think of a man, and I remove reason, and accountability."
    1. Fluffy 13 years ago
      
      As Good As It Gets
    2. John 13 years ago
      
      Where do they teach you to talk like this? In some Panama City "Sailor wanna hump-hump" bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here.
      
      One of the best lines ever.
      1. T 13 years ago
        
        No, Jack Nicholson's finest moment may be this exchange:
        
        "You need a lot of drinks."
        
        "To break the ice?"
        
        "To kill the bug that you have up your ass."
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        That really is a good movie for no other reason than the lines they gave Nicholson.
  3. SugarFree 13 years ago
    
    You also have to add in the fact that nothing a female secretary can do or how she can look distracts from the job she is doing. There is virtually no reputation economy bonus to a female lawyer (or any other female executive) having an attractive secretary/assistant. So they, all other things being equal, will get either the secretary that no one else wants or the one that every ne used to want and has either grown less attractive or screwed up in some strictly work sense. So female executives are scraping the bottom of the barrel to begin with, expecting more of someone who is inferior to begin with. And when they fail at the task they probably aren't suited to in the first place, their boss pushes them even harder. It's a vicious cycle whose logical conclusion is eating in the bathroom, mascara running down their face, screaming "cunt" over and over again.
    1. Suki 13 years ago
      
      Your lipstick lesbian bigotry is showing.
    2. Wayne 13 years ago
      
      And when they fail at the task they probably aren't suited to in the first place, their boss pushes them even harder. It's a vicious cycle whose logical conclusion is eating in the bathroom, mascara running down their face, screaming "cunt" over and over again.
      
      SF, quit your fucking job right now and start working on a screenplay! That is an awesome bit of writing.
  4. John 13 years ago
    
    I never thought of that. I think there is some truth to that. I think also a lot of female lawyers are trained to think that the way to get ahead in law is to be a bitch. Some of the best male lawyers I have ever known were good old boy types who could charm anyone. These types are masters at going to a deposition and getting friendly with the witness such that before they know it they are giving away the case and feeling great about doing it. I have never known a female lawyer who had that ability and I have known plenty of them. And my God have I dealt with some awful ones in my life.
    1. JW 13 years ago
      
      I can attest to this. The law firm I worked at was one of DC's largest and they recruited only from the 1st tier schools.
      
      Everyone was worked to the bone. 2000 hour billables for associates, minimum. With the junior associates, the men were usually calm and calculating, while the women were usually tense and bitchy and occasionally crying in the hallway.
      
      I can recall 2 female partners in particular, who were a study in contrast. One, calm and elegant, the other shrill and butch. 10 bucks to guess which one no one wanted to work for. Sadly, calm and elegant was the exception.
      1. Suki 13 years ago
        
        Did you know Megyn Kelly?
  5. Abdul 13 years ago
    
    When a man says "You should put a semi-colon in that sentence," what he means is that the sentence has two independent clauses that should be divided by a semi-colon.
    
    What a woman hears is "You're a stupid twat with no worth as a human being, and if you don't begin an sneaky campaign to destroy my reputation behind my back, I sure as hell will destroy yours!"
    1. SFC B 13 years ago
      
      OMFG! I had this conversation with a woman who works at my duty station. Our commander returned a memo to her with some corrections. She was convinced that "make this large paragraph smaller by using sub paragrahphs" was some sort of code for "you're a worthless human being and I think you should be taken out back and shot."
      
      It was fascinating.
2. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  There's a great comment there mentioning the possibility of the McClintock Effect having something to do with it.
3. Pedantic Pete 13 years ago
  
  After having listened to the lady friend every day for years tell me about "what that bitch at work" did today, I think I can understand why.
  1. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
    
    Yeah, this article could be easily summed up with the thing every man knows but none of us is stupid enough to tell women in person: Women hate other women.
    1. SFC B 13 years ago
      
      I am friends, occasionally with benefits, with a very attractive woman. As a joke one time I'd asked her "So, tell me about that woman at your work who you hate," thinking she was going to laugh at my obvious joke; previously we'd talked about the "unfair" perception that women cannot stand one another professionally. An hour later she finally stopped venting about that "stupid bitchy cunt".
      
      Of course, the lesson I took from this is whenever I want to look like a good listener who cares about her day I just ask her about the women in her office. She is so grateful for a friend who cares that awesome make-out is imminent and sex is more often than not.
      1. Wayne 13 years ago
        
        Yeah, but you have to sit through an hour of, "that bitch... that cunt...". I am not sure the sex is worth it.
        
        Ska 13 years ago
        
        That's why you smoke a bowl first.
        
        SFC B 13 years ago
        
        The flash-to-banging time has decreased. The first time unleashed every bit of pent up "bitchy cunt" built over years. Second and subsequent times only had months worth of complaints.
Lord Humungus. 13 years ago

Gov't Regulations at Top of Small-Business Owners' Problem List
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150.....-List.aspx

Small-business owners in the United States are most likely to say complying with government regulations (22%) is the most important problem facing them today, followed by consumer confidence in the economy (15%) and lack of consumer demand (12%).
Ken Shultz 13 years ago

"The OWS drummers will not stop drumming."

Just for the record, drum circle dynamics, politics, the people who make up drum circles, etc.?

Are the funniest dynamics, politics and people in the whole wide world.

There should be a drum circle reality show, sort of like Jersey Shore, but just focusing on a drum circle.

I know that would cause a lot of controversy within the drum circle community--but, once again, there's nothing funnier than controversy within the drum circle community.

Nothing.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Can you imagine living in that neighborhood with these clowns drumming all night? I am surprised someone hasn't fire bombed them.
  1. Ken Shultz 13 years ago
    
    They're gonna hold Wall Street accountable--with their drumming.
    
    They're makin' the world a better place! ...with their drumming.
    
    I'm picturing Tony, White Indian and a few other people standing around in a circle with a drum--and what the hell could be funnier than that?
    
    Meanwhile, the proletariat can't get any freakin' sleep at night!
    
    LOLs
    1. Brett L 13 years ago
      
      Why don't they just do like rednecks and sit around fires getting high and playing their music because they like to? Why does it have to change the world?
      1. Zeb 13 years ago
        
        Yeah, that's the problem with hippies. Everything has to be for a cause (and usually a silly and naive one). And I say this as someone who used to enjoy going to hippie-ish sorts of gatherings and has been known to enjoy a good drum circle from time to time.
  2. Suki 13 years ago
    
    They are in solidarity with the fire bombers. When the fire bombs fly, they will be aimed at anybody who complains about the drum circle.
  3. Coeus 13 years ago
    
    I am surprised someone hasn't fire bombed them.
    
    Someone stabbed the drums to death at one of them, Boston, I think.
    1. cynical 13 years ago
      
      Drums aren't actually alive.
      1. Coeus 13 years ago
        
        No, but I'm reasonably certain that the person who stabbed them was visualising them that way, else we'd have a bunch of stabbed hippies instead.
2. Yuno Hoo 13 years ago
  
  there's nothing funnier than controversy within the drum circle community.
  
  Two tits and a clown.
  1. Ken Shultz 13 years ago
    
    Okay, so you're tellin' me that two tits and a clown standing around a drum circle isn't funnier than two tits and a clown all alone?
    
    Put 'em around a drum circle--and it's even funnier!
John 13 years ago

Shockingly his FBI files reveal John Murtha to be the crook he always appeared to be.

http://www.rollcall.com/issues.....il&pos=eam
1. Suki 13 years ago
  
  SNL did a tribute of sorts to Murtha during the AbScam investigation: The Bel-Airabs.
2. Warty 13 years ago
  
  My first job out of college was for one of his fake companies. After two weeks on the job, I realized what was up and started job-hunting fulltime on the company dime, because my job was literally to collect a paycheck and live in his district.
  
  The most humiliating part was when Murtha came to give a speech, and I attended, and didn't even throw rotten tomatoes at him. Never again.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    It is just appalling he never went to jail.
    1. Warty 13 years ago
      
      If someone as stupidly brazen as him got away with it, I wonder what someone smart like Schumer manages to steal.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        He was smart enough to take the side the media likes. I think he was so crazy anti-war because the heat was on and he knew doing that would make him untouchable.
    2. Suki 13 years ago
      
      Read Charlie Wilson's War for more reasons to dance on his grave.
  2. MNG 13 years ago
    
    "My first job out of college was for one of his fake companies."
    
    They let grade school drop outs go to college now?
    1. JW 13 years ago
      
      PWN'ED
    2. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
      
      Could you write a post with less substance?
      1. WTF 13 years ago
        
        substance PWN'D!
        
        SugarFree 13 years ago
        
        PWN PWN'D!
        
        Warty 13 years ago
        
        Look, some of us have serious points and serious PhDs and and want to have serious discussions about our serious bank accounts. It's OK if you cut-ups want to have fun, but try not to ruin it for the grownups.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        sigh, K-5
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Maybe everyone should hate you MNG.
        
        WTF 13 years ago
        
        You're wrong, Warty, because MNG probably makes more than you.
    3. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      They let grade school drop outs go to college now?
      
      At least he can say his degree actually resulted in a job, unlike most of the OWSers.
hmm 13 years ago

# Col. Mark W. Odom survived 13 deployments to Afghanistan. He died during the 14th.

Sgt. Kristoffer Domeij of the 75th Ranger survived 13 deployments and died on his 14 deployment, not the Col.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

I'm sure this will cheer my wife up.
1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  argh - reply to John's 142 legal secretaries surveyed and not a... post
Ice Nine 13 years ago

tonight at the General Assembly, the working group of drummers, Pulse, in a spirit of conciliation and generosity, brought forward a proposal to limit their drumming from 12 to 2 and 4 to 6 PM only.

There, see? Now, will you damn naysayers stop claiming that OWS has accomplished nothing!
1. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  If you RTFA you will see that after this General Assembly "decision", some of the drummers said "Fuck you I'm still drumming". So they didn't even accomplish even this.
  
  Too funny.
2. Rich 13 years ago
  
  There are a small handful of drummers who have been violent, agro, and committed to playing as loud as they can, for as long as they can (until 11 PM this weekend).
  
  Actually, it's 31%.
  1. JW 13 years ago
    
    That's what we call a target rich environment. Sniping from 28 floors up has got to be a scream.
    1. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
      
      50 DKP!
      
      You agrod the drummers.
Abdul 13 years ago

So, has anyone heard anything about this colonel who served seomthing like thirteen deployments only to die in action dring his 14th? What a shame.
1. romulus augustus 13 years ago
  
  I heard a radio caller use the flip:
  "He gave all his tomorrows so we could have our today." I thank them all for their service but wish to hell the CinC and his advisors would stop sending troops into harm's way in conflicts that have nothing to do with securing American liberty.
  1. Abdul 13 years ago
    
    Quoting Kris Kristofferson? there is no higher honor!
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      Kristofferson is an annoying liberal. But he flew helicopters in Vietnam, was a Rhodes scholar, then gave it up to become a musician and have women throwing themselves off of buildings to sleep with him (people forget that he was the sex symbol of the early 70s). Liberal or no, who wouldn't want to be that guy?
      1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        He didn't serve in Vietnam.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        You are right. But he was a Ranger. Still, who wouldn't want to be that guy?
        
        Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        Also a Golden Gloves boxer.
        
        This is what is known as the examined life. And I agree, if I couldn't be me, I'd definitely consider being him.
        
        Wayne 13 years ago
        
        Kristofferson didn't serve in Vietnam? I thought he flew medivac helos, something like 2000 flights?
        
        Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        He was never near the place. I think you've read some embellishments of a career which needs no embellishing.
        
        Wayne 13 years ago
        
        wow, learned something i thought i knew.
      2. MNG 13 years ago
        
        John|10.25.11 @ 9:48AM|#
        Kristofferson is an annoying liberal. But he flew helicopters in Vietnam
        Ice Nine|10.25.11 @ 10:05AM|#
        He didn't serve in Vietnam.
        
        reply to this
        John|10.25.11 @ 10:08AM|#
        You are right.
        
        He can't go a day without it...
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        I did it just to make your day MNG. You are such a sad person and never right about anything big, someone has to throw you a bone. I feel kind of bad doing it because you make yourself look like such a tool. But it seems to make you happy.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        John, John, stepped in it again...
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Let's add it to the pile, shall we?
        
        John|7.21.10 @ 11:20AM|#
        The USDA should have never fired her. But she was never the point of his story. The audience was.
        
        reply to this
        MNG|7.21.10 @ 11:22AM|#
        John, you didn't call for her firing?
        
        reply to this
        John|7.21.10 @ 11:26AM|#
        Of course I did.
        
        John|9.2.11 @ 9:48AM|#
        There is no self defense except to the ESA.
        
        John|9.2.11 @ 10:33AM|#
        Yes there is a self defense exception.
        
        John|10.7.11 @ 10:22AM|#
        the guns did not have trackers on them
        
        John|9.29.11 @ 10:54AM|#
        The guns had GPS trackers on them
        
        John|10.23.11 @ 10:29AM|#
        Except that everyone doesn't' depend on government for a living. I would say the 86% of economic activity that is not big government
        
        John|10.23.11 @ 10:34AM|#
        I think 26% is way too large. And that doesn't count state and local.
        
        John|10.25.11 @ 9:48AM|#
        Kristofferson is an annoying liberal. But he flew helicopters in Vietnam
        Ice Nine|10.25.11 @ 10:05AM|#
        He didn't serve in Vietnam.
        
        reply to this
        John|10.25.11 @ 10:08AM|#
        You are right.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        John, GOP Warrior, Keyboard Kommando, Unreliable Narrator.
        
        Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        Obsession...you're my obsession...who do you want me to be...to make you sleep with me?
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        It hardly takes an obsession to keep up with John's incessant sloppiness. It's a hallmark of his rage filled movement conservatism. It's just recently I started to keep better track on it because he always backpedaled from his past comments. So just recently I started to keep track of the more egregious ones to throw back at him. But hey, he plows ahead, making new ones daily... You might say he gives 111%!
        
        Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        Every breath you take...
        Every move you make...
        Every bond you break...
        Every step you take...
        I'll be watching you.
        
        Sir Roderick Glossop 13 years ago
        
        Many times, I have suggested a sleep cure. But this patient never listens!
        
        Troy 13 years ago
        
        God Damn, John. I think some one is in love with you. The only person I keep track of like that is Warty.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Lol Troy. It is actually starting to creepy.
        
        WTF 13 years ago
        
        Seriously, if it gets any worse you should think about a restraining order.
        
        Suki 13 years ago
        
        You boys can buy restraints almost anywhere without paying a lawyer.
        
        CrackertyAssCracker 13 years ago
        
        He's got newpaper clippings of you pinned up to the wall all over his candle shrine. And the Eyes are X'd out in all the pictures.
        
        Spoonman. 13 years ago
        
        I knew a girl in college who kept the names of everyone she'd had sex with in a text file on her desktop. (I was not on the list, and it was quite long.)
        
        This may be the only text file weirder than that.
        
        Pip 13 years ago
        
        You are one sociopathic cunt, MNG.
2. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  This whole comment was meant to be a joke about Riggs' fucking up the soldier's name and how 3 or 4 commenters independently called him out on it.
  
  Joke posting fail or joke comprehension fail?
  
  I'm thinking it's a little of both.
  1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
    
    Neither. It was a good joke. Indeed, one of the most annoying things here is to have one of those unacknowledged, ie., "wasted".
    1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      *sniff sniff*
      Nobody liked my Ted Kennedy joke either...
      1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        Suki is wounded.
        
        Suki 13 years ago
        
        I will redirect my +mod points in the future.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Bank executives plead case to administration officials over Volcker rule
http://reporting.sunlightfound.....cker-rule/

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler were among the agency leaders who met with CEOs from companies including Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase since June 2010. Big banks are strongly critical of a provision in the Dodd-Frank financial law that calls for restricting banks from trading for their own accounts ? a practice known as propreitary trading ? limiting speculative investments, and capping banks' investment in hedge funds and derivatives.

In the years leading to the crash, banks made huge profits on proprietary trading. But, according to experts, such risky trading was one of the reasons for the financial crisis.

However, the meetings between bank executives and top officials may have succeeded in watering down the provisions. The draft of the Volcker rule released by the four agencies last week runs close to 300 pages and includes the word "exemption" more than 400 times.
1. Metazoan 13 years ago
  
  Great. Now only unconnected investors are prohibited from speculating.
Spoonman. 13 years ago

I'm hoping for a Cavanaugh post today on Obama's plan to help underwater homeowners.

I'm going to guess that it will drive down the price of houses even more becuase people who haven't been able to sell will refinance and then be able to, causing a big flood onto the market.

Otherwise, why would on the news?
1. Spoonman. 13 years ago
  
  That is, why would homebuilder shares rise on the news?
2. Suki 13 years ago
  
  He needs to write a book. Maybe The Jacket can help?
3. Terry Fiedman 13 years ago
  
  Hey, I'm underwater with my car. Who's gonna help me?
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Certainly not Ted Kennedy.
    1. Suki 13 years ago
      
      +69
4. WTF 13 years ago
  
  I don't understand the logic on why underwater homeowners need government help. I mean, they buy a house for $300K and their monthly mortgage payment is, say, $2K. Then the housing market crashes and their house is now worth only $200K, and their monthly mortgage payment is...$2K! So why is there a problem unless they couldn't afford the mortgage to begin with, in which case, fuck them.
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    Makes it hard to sell if you get a new job somewhere else, but them's the breaks.
    1. Trespassers W 13 years ago
      
      True, but making it easier to refi doesn't solve that problem at all.
      1. gozwa 13 years ago
        
        It makes it easier to rent it out since you know you can't sell it.
  2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Either that, or they were counting on a certain return rate on investments to cover their mortgage. Which, obviously, is a risk.
  3. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
    
    The problem becomes when those homeowners decide that it's easier to send jingle mail than to stay in the house. Homeowners that are severely underwater are more likely to default, because they did the math and figured out that a 30 year payment on a $200K home is less than a 30 year payment on a $300K home.
    
    It doesn't make me feel bad that they spent too much on a house so they could "live the American Dream," but this is really nothing more than a weak attempt by Obama to keep the banks and the government from taking a severe bath on the bad housing market.
  4. cynical 13 years ago
    
    Because regulations require that homeowners carry a certain amount of equity, under mark-to-market rules. If market prices fall, they violate those regulations... no, I was thinking of banks, never mind. Nope, there's no reason, unless you're looking to move or flip houses for a living.
  5. Zeb 13 years ago
    
    Agreed. If you bought a house because you assumed that the value can only go up and you are unhappy now that the value has gone down, you brought this upon yourself. Take your losses and suck it up.
Squirrels 13 years ago

What clobbered code?
Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago

Still waiting for the correction and my hat tip, Riggs.
1. Marshall Gill 13 years ago
  
  Dude, I am worried about you. First you start calling yourself Supreme Generalissimo. The next thing we know, you will be cross dressing while keeping a group of Amazon bodyguards. From there you are only moments away from having a Predator Drone shoot a Hellfire up your ass.
  
  How about Executive Associate Professor of Commenting Studies? It might even get you some of those easy OWS women.
CoyoteBlue 13 years ago

In Euro Death March news:
The Big Euro Summit XVII to ratify Rescue Plan 44 (I think) will be delayed cuz they're out of fucking money.
http://blogs.ft.com/brusselsbl.....z1bnRruyks

The reason isn't important. What is important is that we kick the can down the road again. They are all now just praying that TIMMEH! will bail them out via the IMF.
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....17082.html

I'm buying silver on the assumption that both the euros and Benny will open the faucets - at least until the election in November 12.
1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  sometimes I look at my paycheck, savings account, 401k, etc and think "this is nothing but funny money. It only has value because we (as a group) agreed it does."
  
  Then I have the urge to rush out and buy as much high-end 'stuff' as possible (ala the Russian way) since it will at least retain some type of value.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Buy one of those personal checks that Obama sends out. I bet there are hundreds on eBay.
2. Question 13 years ago
  
  Do you know any Germans? It is a nation of 83 million Ron Pauls. They'll leave rather than monetize the debt.
  I just wish the EU would get it over with and start the round of defaults - sick of the whole thing.
  1. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    I have to agree - there is NO EFFING WAY the voting public in Germany will tolerate bailing out the PIIGS.
    1. BakedPenguin 13 years ago
      
      Hopefully, Estonia will leave with them.
  2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    A nation of 83 million Ron Pauls??
    Why have I never heard of this libertarian paradise!
  3. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    You know who else was a German? (well, technically an Austrian)
    1. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
      
      Hayek?
Joe M 13 years ago

Here's a question. Based on the latest poll results, will Rick Perry get moved out to the edges of the debate like a "lower-tier" candidate is supposed to? Or will he get a pass because of intangibles that only the media properly understands?
1. John 13 years ago
  
  I am not sure how a 25 to 21 lead is Cain "barely ahead of Romney". And Gingrich seems to be on the way up. I think that will continue.
  1. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    It's within the margin of error (5%), that's how.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      Then it was a pretty worthless poll. 5% is a huge margin of error. They should be able to get it down to +/- 3 at least.
      1. Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Haha, that's a pretty typical amount, I think. They usually range from 3-5%
    2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      If it's a 5% margin, then Cain could well be behind Romney.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        Or just as likely ahead by nine.
  2. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    Oh, why do you think Gingrich is moving up? Just good debate performances?
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      Because people don't want Romney but are really nervous about Cain. Since Perry and Bachmann have crashed and burned and they think Paul will surrender to the Muslims, Gingrich is the only choice left. He is getting the bounce that Pawlenty would have gotten if he hadn't given up so soon.
      1. Joe M 13 years ago
        
        The more I look at this race, the more I think it's not possible for any of the candidates to win, although someone obviously must. They all just have crippling problems that will limit their appeal. Romney has the largest chunk of consistent support, but is far too liberal to win. I think the chances for a brokered convention are the best they've been in a generation.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        I hadn't thought of a brokered convention. But yeah, I could see that. I think it is going to be a long bloody fight, which is good.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        It will at the very least be more entertaining that usual.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Keep dreaming. Start working on your "I hate Romney, but" stuff John because he is going to be your nominee. If you could do me a favor though and not start using it until March so I can win my bet with Tony I'd appreciate it.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        He is not going to be the nominee and I am not voting for him. You have made your point. We get it. You think I will vote for him anyway. Good for you. Glad to know you can figure me out so well. In mean time stop wasting everyone's time by making the same tiresome point. I really starting to think you are White Indian.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        So you will hold off til March?
        
        Thanks man, 'ppreciate it.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        You are pathetic. You have become a troll. It has gotten to the point you can no longer defend your beliefs. So you just jump to insulting people.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Wow, now who's all butthurt?
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Why do you think Romney can get the nomination? I could see him having the most delegates in a widely divided field, but at the convention, the conservatives would rally around ABR.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Romney is the only one with the money and organization and backing who also has a sizable part of the electorate. Many primaries are open. He will start rolling up wins and delegates and the conservatives are not going to torpedo the guy who won so many state primaries at the convention. Those days are over. As he wins more and more establishment types will endorse him as will big time conservatives (remember NR and such loved Romney in 08). Limbaugh and the rest will start giving the Johns of this world their talking points and marching orders, some kind of "anything but Obama" stuff, and the deal will be sealed.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Do they give you medicine to deal with these kinds of hallucinations MNG or do you just self treat with booze or meth?
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        John is terrified Romney is going to win, almost as terrified that Obama might.
        
        For Halloween this year I'm thinking of going as Obama ordering the troops home from Iraq. Scares the hell out of the GOPers (look at their post numbers that day).
        
        Boo John!
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        MNG,
        
        If you ever come anywhere near me or my family, I will call the police. Don't even joke about that. You are clearly a little bit too unbalanced to ever come anywhere close to me in real life.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        But John, I though you said you would beat me up? Now you're going to call the cops? My, my Tuf Gai.
        
        Don't worry, I never said I'd go anywhere near you, as usual you sloppily read the post!
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        John|10.21.11 @ 10:39AM|#
        MNG, if I ever meet you in person, I would advise you to go the other way. I am not kidding.
        
        Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
        
        "John is terrified Romney is going to win, almost as terrified that Obama might."
        
        That's logical.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Don't get too far ahead of yourself. I think the polls have shown that as soon as any other candidate shows a whiff of promise, voters rush to that candidate, albeit temporarily. It just proves that they are hungry for someone besides Romney.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        I hate Romney more than any other candidate, but he's rolling in dough, endorsements and poll numbers right now. I also don't see anyone bumping him this late in the game. I hope so, but I don't.
        
        The only fun that will come from that douche being the nominee is the mental gymnastics from John and our other GOPers around here.
        
        Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        Team Red! Team Blue! Fight! Fight! Fight!
        
        CrackertyAssCracker 13 years ago
        
        How about a bet? If Romney wins, MNG and John have to stop their little bitchfests for a whole year. And if Romney loses, John and MNG have to stop their little bitchfests for a year.
        
        I keed. I keed.
        
        Sanity 13 years ago
        
        HELP! I'm trapped in MNG's ass and I can't get out!
      2. Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        You know, I agree that had Pawlenty stuck around he'd probably be the frontrunner. He's the harmless vanilla candidate Romney wants to be but can't get there without coming off as a liar.
        
        Frankly, from the standpoint of "theoretical Republican voter that wants Obama out of power and doesn't care which Team Red candidate replaces him" there's too much political risk with just about anyone but Romney (or maybe Huntsman). Pawlenty would've been the non-Romney safe pick had he stuck around.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Pawlenty really gave up quick, which was stupid, but on the other hand, I think he bought into the Ames hype too much and figured he would have zero fundraising after that, especially with Perry looking to be the not-Romney candidate. What a chump.
John 13 years ago

http://www.nationalenquirer.co.....ma-vs-dean

Paula Dean call your tax lawyer. Queen Michelle is apparently furious with you.
1. Warty 13 years ago
  
  The unfair picture of Michelle is great.
  1. Rich 13 years ago
    
    "A moment on the lips; a lifetime on the hips."
2. WTF 13 years ago
  
  Paula added: "She probably ate more than any other guest I ever had on the show! She kept eating even dur?ing commercials. Know what (the Obamas') favorite foods are? Hot wings. Y'know ? those kinds of foods that aren't necessarily top-of-the-list healthy foods."
  
  This is a surprise? Every time Barack has a photo op at a food joint he's scarfing down a big ole cheeseburger and fries.
  1. Devil's Advocate 13 years ago
    
    Well. Hot wings ARE delicious. I can't fault her taste in that.
    1. WTF 13 years ago
      
      Yeah, they are delicious - I can't fault her taste, either. I just don't need her to turn around and lecture me on how bad that stuff is.
      1. Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        I dunno. I'm mixed on the whole thing, because so far she hasn't tried to force us to do anything. Nothing wrong with using a bully pulpit to encourage good habits, as long as force isn't involved.
        
        It's not inherently hypocritical to encourage healthier eating even if one enjoys junk food. Note also that Michelle isn't obese so obviously she either isn't going totally hogwild, or she's doing enough exercise to offset the calories. I mean, she was on a cooking show, eating good food. Can't blame her for splurging once in a while...
        
        rac3rx 13 years ago
        
        "...because so far she hasn't tried to force us to do anything..."
        
        Really?
        http://dailycaller.com/2011/02.....nutrition/
        
        Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        Um, and how is encouraging a private trade group to voluntarily adopt healthier menu items, lower prices on fruits and vegetables and better labeling the same thing as legislation coercing them to? Revising the food pyramid? Why soon they'll be kicking in your door and force-feeding you brussel sprouts!
        
        The one "government lever" she is pressing is encouraging healthier school menus. Sorry, I hardly find that to be authoritarian, as kids are not forced to eat school lunches nor do they have the right to government-provided junk food. If we give them the privilege to eat meals at taxpayer expense, I'd rather not pay for mystery meats and Frito-Lay monopolies that make kids into tubs of chub.
        
        I fail to see the argument how anything Michelle has done leads to government-dictated diets without delving into slippery-slope fallacies.
        
        rac3rx 13 years ago
        
        "...because so far she hasn't tried to force us to do anything..."
        
        Really?
        http://dailycaller.com/2011/02.....nutrition/
P Brooks 13 years ago

"Dude, look- it's 3:12 AM, and we're drumming a totally whack rhythm line. We are soooo stickin' it to The Man!"

"Hey, look. It's kind of early for those garbage dudes to show up, isn't it? And why do they have snowplows on the front of the trucks?"
1. Truck Driver 13 years ago
  
  Pulse, meet Stomp!
P Brooks 13 years ago

QE3 in coming.

Thought you'd like to know.
1. Rich 13 years ago
  
  Details? Linky?
2. John 13 years ago
  
  Oh God help us. Tony actually put up both a lucid and a scary post yesterday. It was lucid because he actually made a point and explained how the fact that we have printed all of this money and haven't yet got inflation proves it was a liquidity caused recession. Scary because the thought that it was a debt caused recession and all that money is at some point going to burst through the dam once people start spending again went right over his head. These people really believe that since we haven't had inflation yet, they can print money forever.
  1. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    The utter cluelessness of the left regarding all matters financial and economic is appalling. But when you realize it is all driven by thier agenda, and not anything based on fact, experience, or history, and only by fulfilling thier agenda of a) concentration of power in the hands of the few, and b) equality of outcomes, then it all makes sense. In a twisted and delusional, manner, of course, but it makes sense to them.
3. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  Third time lucky!
4. Mike M. 13 years ago
  
  Personally, I don't believe that QE ever truly ended. Even though federal receipts are up recently, we're still running up debt at an enormous rate, a rate far more than ordinary bond buyers alone can possibly support.
  
  That money has to be coming from somewhere. My guess is that it's still coming from the Fed through various straw purchasers.
  1. Coeus 13 years ago
    
    I agree.
    
    http://www.conquerchange.com/2.....-debt.html
SugarFree 13 years ago

Five years after anyone cares, Lindsay Lohan agrees to pose for Playboy.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Yeah. Should have done it when she was 18.
  1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    don't worry - with all the airbrushing, who could tell the difference?
  2. T 13 years ago
    
    Yeah, Mean Girls era Lindsay was smoking hot.
    1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      I still wonder about that "illness" she had back in 2004 when she was doing the Herbie movie and dating Fez. Girl was on top of the fucking world at that time--good-looking boyfriend, cover of Rolling Stone, being touted as The Next Big Thing in acting (and in fairness, she was a good actress when she wasn't strung out), healthy-looking and attractive as hell with an hourglass figure to die for--and less than a decade later, she's become an industry punchline. And the catalyst for the downturn seemed to be that hospital stay.
      
      I'd love to know what the deal was with that, if it was partying that caught up with and was just a foreshadowing of things to come, or if the illness actually fried something in her brain that she never really recovered from. And it doesn't help that both her parents are contemptible scum.
  3. JW 13 years ago
    
    Can we pay her not to?
2. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  Ick.
3. Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  Hardcore porn is a two or three years away for her.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Nah. She will do softcore straight to video stuff. Think of her as a much much less attractive Joan Severance.
    1. Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
      
      Nobody watches softcore, John.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        They still make a lot of it.
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        just for you? j/k
        
        Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
        
        They do? God, I remember my Skinemax days with fondness, but no way I go back.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        Cinemax's late night programming is still much the same.
  2. SugarFree 13 years ago
    
    Assuming she doesn't OD first.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      I don't think she will OD. I think she is just a fuck up who lacks the ability to connect her actions to consequences. I really don't think she is a junkie. Talk to any criminal defense attorney and they will tell you that half or more of their clients are not violent or dangerous but just lack the ability to understand cause and effect. For example, she was late to her appointment for community service the other day even though the judge told her this was her last chance to stay out of jail. That tells me that she is just unable to understand the connection between her actions and consequences. If you think about it, all she has ever done is get caught for DUI, something that could happen to virtually anyone. Her real problems have arisen because she is so unable to understand cause and effect she keeps fucking up her probation and can't get out of the system. There are millions of people out there just like her only less famous.
      1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        Yes, they're called sociopaths.
        
        Though in this particular case I think "daughter of Michael Lohan" probably best describes it.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        No they are not sociopaths. Sociopaths fully understand cause and effect. They lack empathy and can see no one's view but their own. This is different. These people have plenty of empathy. But they cannot understand that if they X, Y will happen.
        
        Devil's Advocate 13 years ago
        
        Yeah, she seems to have some sort of mental disconnect. I suspect her drug and alcohol abuse issues have something to do with that, as well as her fucked-up upbringing.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        And, agreeing with John, probation requirements seem to be made as difficult as possible for the probationer to follow. It certainly results in more money for the system if you screw up.
        
        They're not sociopaths, for the most part; (at least that's what my criminal defense friends tell me) they're just the same type of people who blow off work from time to time, or would rather have a couple more beers than go home and get ready for the next day. You can't do that with the criminal justice system; their requirements aren't optional. As Ms. Lohan is finding out.
        
        The best way to stay out of trouble with the law is to stay off LE's radar to begin with. God help you once you get sucked into the system. As an aside, but do trial lawyers intentionally pick the dumbest motherfuckers they can find for jury duty? I got to do my public service yesterday, and thankfully got dismissed without being empanelled, but most of the 12 or so that they picked, from their voir dire answers, had to be the some of the stupidest people of the 60 of us in the room. It's like they sought out the people who couldn't speak English. Not that I minded missing a 4 day kiddie rape trial...
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Ghost,
        
        You have to remember if you are a defense attorney 99% of the time your client is guilty as hell. You are going to trial for one of two reasons usually; most likely your client is a moron who won't face reality and take a deal to get less than he deserves or marginally less likely but possible the DA is an asshole who won't offer you a deal to make it worth it to plead. In either case the facts and the law are against you. So your only hope is to play on emotion and bullshit. And when doing that, it helps to have a stupid jury.
        
        And yes, probation is a total racket. Get a single DUI and then spend 1000s going to alcohol rehab classes as if everyone who ever had a drink or two and drove is a an alcoholic. But like everything it is about money. And the people who run those courses are always connected local cronies using their connections to get rich off the government.
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        You have to remember if you are a defense attorney 99% of the time your client is guilty as hell.
        
        That is a bullshit statistic.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        NO it is not. They are Lmost always guilty.
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        note to self, if charged with a crime, don't get John as my lawyer.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        FWIW, the crim defense lawyers I know well enough (n = 5) pretty much say the same thing. Over a couple of drinks, they won't admit 99% (maybe only 90%), or not in court or in front of a camera, but the sentiment seems universal among the profession. Your job as a defense attorney is to get them a better deal than they can get on their own. And at that, your clients will still much rather spend money on a bondsman, than on hiring a better attorney. The extra money spent on you vs a court appointed attorney might get them a better deal---6 months in county vs. three years in prison---because you actually will go to trial, and at trial, who knows what can happen? But all your client cares about is getting out now.
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        I think a better distinction is 99% (i have heard 95%) of Convictions for DAs is about right since they shouldnt be bringing things to trial they cant win. it is called discretion.
  3. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
    
    No "inadvertent" sex tape release? Seemed to work for Ms. Kardashian, etc... A tape with her and the dude who played Fez would've been notable for the squick factor, if nothing else. Though, like the Playboy stuff, it would have played a lot better 5 years ago, before she got so broke-down and busted. Look at her: she already looks like she's been doing porn for the last five years.
4. Wayne 13 years ago
  
  she ought to do a spread for Hustler sucking Larry Flint's shrivelled dick.
5. Troy 13 years ago
  
  She has the sideboob of a 45 year old.
6. MNG 13 years ago
  
  I care.
  
  As if we needed any more evidence that SF and his crew are more into running down feminists than getting laid by actual women, that comment seals it.
  1. WTF 13 years ago
    
    Fail due to lack of substance and less than four sentences.
    1. MNG 13 years ago
      
      It's fun to see all the GOP cretins (the WTF/cynical/DJF/MWG clones, John and BM) that have hated me for daring to criticize their sloppy posts here over the years run out to join the 3 stooges in their routine. I guess for you guys it's like you're finally friends now...
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        No one hates you MNG. Get over yourself. Just stop it.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        John, would you like to see some of the fight-challenging, curse-spewed, grammar challenged, unhinged repsonse you've had to me in just the last week alone?
        
        Sorry I rile ya bud, you always make me laugh.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        You are the one who thinks everyone hates you. You really are having some kind of a break down. Can't you just cut to the chase and go Joe and call us all racists and vow never to return? Your slow descent to that is starting to get painful to watch.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        John|10.21.11 @ 10:30AM|#
        I am the last person to love war you piece of shit fuck. You really are the most loathsome person ever to comment on here MNG. Few things really make me angry on here. But your shit has finally crossed the line. Fuck you. You have never so much as heard a shot fired in anger. And you are perfectly willing to cheer lead wars that don't affect you and that you will never serve in. And then call someone who says "hey maybe we shouldn't be killing people when we aren't willing to risk our own lives for the case" a lover of war.
        
        You disgust me. I just feel sorry for you. What a sad, small person you are.
        
        The Gobbler 13 years ago
        
        The opposite of love isn't hate, MNG, it's indifference.
        
        Have a nice day.
        
        WTF 13 years ago
        
        By the way, I don't hate you, I'm just having fun at your butthurtness.
      2. Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        Ha ha. These are some tasty tears. Keeps me fresh. Fourth sentence.
      3. WTF 13 years ago
        
        GOP PWN'D! 'Cause libertarians are all about Team Red! Derp!
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Libertarians are not, but I didn't say they were. I said you were.
        
        WTF 13 years ago
        
        Then you are a dishonest fool.
        
        SugarFree 13 years ago
        
        WTF... stating the obvious is a substance-free way to post.
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        MNG seems to have misplaced his sense of humor. Pity, that.
7. Devil's Advocate 13 years ago
  
  She's in her twenties and due to her lifestyle looks like she's in her 40's. She's brought all her problems on herself, but I still feel sorry for her. Some people just aren't strong enough to pull themselves up out of their messes, and she doesn't seem to have anyone around her that is capable of being a real help to her.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    It is dangerous to live a life where money is no object and no one tells you no. Takes a lot of discipline not to let that go to your head, especially if you are 16 when it happens.
  2. MNG 13 years ago
    
    Lohan may be a silly person, but she's hot. There may be some mug shots of her or such that are less than flattering, but those Playboy pics are going to be smoking.
    1. Devil's Advocate 13 years ago
      
      Meh. She makes all my mom-ish Spidey Senses tingle, which, come to think of it, I guess is why I feel sorry for her. It bugs me to see someone her age squander themselves. Yes, I know it was her choice, etc.
    2. rac3rx 13 years ago
      
      Photoshop is a powerful tool. MNG is just a retarded tool.
      1. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        I'd still hit it and relish it. I'd wear a prophylactic fa' sho, though.
Wayne 13 years ago

Col. Mark W. Odom survived 13 deployments to Afghanistan. He died during the 14th

Riggs, it wasn't Col Odom who died, it was SFC Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij. Odom was just the spokesman for the Army.
1. Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  Hey, did you guys hear about this? I feel like it hasn't been commented on 15 fucking times prior to this comment.
  
  Thanks Wayne!
  1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
    
    Yeah, but what is most important is whether or not Riggs has been tarred and feathered yet.
  2. Wayne 13 years ago
    
    Guys, sorry if this mistake has already been pointed out to Riggs, and my apologies to Riggs as well. It's early here on the west coast and I have not read through the comments.
    1. Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
      
      Alright wayne because you are a gentleman I retract my angry words.
      
      This time.
      1. Wayne 13 years ago
        
        benevolent Rev, thank you for your forebearance.
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        GET A ROOM!
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        GET A ROOM!
P Brooks 13 years ago

Details? Linky?

Bloomberg, this morning; reporting on various statements by Fed honchos.

My favorite was Janet Yellin's statement that the Fed should be hoovering up mortgage backed securities. Because that will save us, in some yet-to-be-determined manner.
P Brooks 13 years ago

we have printed all of this money and haven't yet got inflation

If you believe that, I have a slightly used drum to sell you.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Touche. My wife and I looked at a grocery receipt from a couple of years ago. It came from the same store we still shop at. The prices were generally 25% higher now than they were then.
  1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
    
    Food doesn't count! Stop counting it!
    1. JW 13 years ago
      
      What about my energy bill. Can I count that?
      1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        No. Fuel doesn't count, either. Generally, things that go up in inflationary times are excluded.
      2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        no, only iPhones!
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        Holy shit, we're in a deflationary spiral!
P Brooks 13 years ago

-Talk to any criminal defense attorney political consultant and they will tell you that half or more of their clients are not violent or dangerous but just lack the ability to understand cause and effect. -
1. John 13 years ago
  
  No, that would be all of their clients lack the ability to understand cause and effect.
Joe M 13 years ago

Breaking news: Col. Mark W. Odom says, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  If the government had announced his death erroneously, they'd move quickly to correct that error. With a drone.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    "We can't risk undermining the President's credibility in an election year time of war!"
P Brooks 13 years ago

"This way to the Memory Hole, Sir. Watch your step."
Troy 13 years ago

Hey, Riggs, it wasn't Col Odom who died, it was SFC Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij. Odom was just the spokesman for the Army.
1. Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  Herp da col odom derp
MNG 13 years ago

Why doesn't Gary Johnson just declare that the GOP is not into his ideas and go ahead and get the LP nomination. Obama's been pretty terrible, I can't vote for a GOPer at the national level without vomitting, Johnson should do it.
1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  Wait, I though you were of the "lesser-of-electable-evils" school?
  Not trolling, I just remember reading MILES of text between you and John about it...
  1. MNG 13 years ago
    
    Why wouldn't Johnson be the least of the evils for me? He'd be better on military spending, WOT, WOD and no worse than Obama on gay rights, abortion and other issue I care aboout.
    1. MNG 13 years ago
      
      Trust me, MD's electoral votes are not going to be lost because I vote for the LP candidate this year...
    2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      Oh, I agree that he is one of the most appealing candidates. I just seemed to remember you putting more of a premium on electability.
      
      But, like I said, I only skimmed it.
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        I don't think you're recalling that right. I've argued that it is not wrong to base one's vote on the lesser of two evils. I did that in defending some of the Reason writers who lived in DC where Barr was not on the ballot that said they based their vote on that. But if you live in a state where it has not and is not going to be close then the only way you are not "throwing your vote away" is to vote for someone who is not going to win.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Fair enough.
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        Gary Johnson just might then be the most credible LP presidential candidate in my lifetime. Which probably wouldn't be saying much, but still.
  2. rac3rx 13 years ago
    
    You actually read that shit?
2. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  He really really should. He could hardly be ignored any more than he already is, and he could maybe (ha!) get into a general election debate.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    I'm not sure... It would just cause a chorus of "See? These guys weren't real Republicans after all!"
    
    The libertarian trend in the GOP could just become remarginalized.
    1. Joe M 13 years ago
      
      Hm, good point. I suppose Johnson has basically said stuff like that already when media people ask him why he doesn't just run LP.
3. Proprietist 13 years ago
  
  I think Paul/Johnson or Johnson/Paul should do a coalition run trying to get the nominations for the Reform Party, the LP and the Constitution Party. Run as the Reform Party to avoid the buzzkilling LP stigma. Get in all the debates and be the kingmaker. This should especially happen if Romney's the GOP nominee (or Perry, or Cain, or...), as a big middle finger to the GOP for their lack of true limited government principles.
4. cynical 13 years ago
  
  If nothing else, he would following the trail laid out by Paul, which might be helpful in getting Paulista votes later.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

hey, where did uh, certain posters who-shall-not-be named go?

This has been a troll-free AM (so far).
1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  And it's not even a Thursday!
2. Warty 13 years ago
  
  Depressive phase, dude. Epi is onto something.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Maybe so.
    1. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
      
      Nah, probably just out gamboling and frolicking.
Wayne 13 years ago

Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij was killed on hus 14th deployment to Afghanistan. Fourteen deployments in less than ten years!!! That is just astonishing, and shows just how stretched the Army is in these wars.
1. Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  Son, I am disappoint.
  
  No one gets to thirteen full rotation deployments without volunteering.
P Brooks 13 years ago

Last night, as I was morosely lurching from channel to channel (if I actually thought there would be an episode of American Guns(?) in which somebody pistol-whipped that fucking obnoxious moron for low-balling their collection by about sixty per cent... or if his nasty little tramp daughter announced her new job at Shotgun Willy's- with plenty of unpixilated footage- I would probably watch faithfully....

Where was I?

Oh, right: I saw a few minuted of some show about lottery winners. This guy had won a whopping 1.75 million or so (after taxes). It's a decent chunk of change, but when he said, "I knew I could retire," it was WTF time. Particularly when they began to catalog the results of his frantic toy-shopping binge. He'll be working at Walmart in another year (for garnished wages).

How do you retire on that? You'd be lucky to earn forty grand on that money if you put it in the bank; do you "retire" to a life as a day trader? Do you buy a McDonalds' franchise and expect there to be money left over for you, the absentee owner? Do you hand it over to one of the vultures hovering in the background at the "payoff" ceremony to manage it?
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Depends on how old you are. If you are say 70 and figure you are only going to live another 20 years and if you live more, WTF do you care if have money when you in your 90s, you could live on 70K a year and spend it down. But even that isn't exactly living large.
  
  People think a million dollars is a lot of money, which it is in some ways. But it is not if you are thinking of retiring.
2. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  In better economic times, you could live okay on the income generated by 1.75 million. Not too hard to get a 6 - 8% return, even if you're very risk averse.
  
  Unfortunately, it's not so easy right now. And it you blow capital buying houses and Ferraris, you don't get to play.
  1. Proprietist 13 years ago
    
    Actually now would be a great time to spend $1.75 million to buy a bunch of houses to rent out for income, considering how far the market has fallen and how many people abandoned their underwater homes and are looking to rent.
    1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
      
      Maybe. Maybe we're not at the bottom.
3. Warty 13 years ago
  
  In Cryptonomicon, one of the characters has a goal to acquire "fuck-you" money. Fuck-you money is defined as the amount of money it takes for you to be unconcerned about the consequences of saying "fuck you" to absolutely anyone. $1.75M is maybe an order of magnitude off from being fuck-you money.
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    The wife and I refer to that as 'going home' money. As in "Screw you guys, I'm going home."
    
    1.75M ain't there, but 17.5M would do it, so yeah, order of magnitude.
    1. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
      
      There's always another shelf to the toy store. That said, ~20M would do it for me, though I'd prefer more in case my business cratered. 1.75M isn't even close, especially with inflation coming.
      1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Apparently the consensus is at least $7.5M.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Wait, wait:
        
        But here's the interesting twist. The 58% of millionaires who did feel wealthy were also asked how much money they had when the began to feel "wealthy." Their answer: $1.75 million.
        
        So millionaires who don't feel wealthy say they would need $7.5 million to feel wealthy, while those who do feel wealthy need only $1.75 million.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        How about this as a way to explain the discrepancy, Q? Those that are wealthy, know how to get wealthy and know what being wealthy is like. They know that with $2M, they can get as rich as they need. Someone rich and successful knows they can grow $2M into something more, if they have to. Those that have never been wealthy---I'm one---don't have much of a clue about building wealth, nor what wealth really is. So we tend to overstate what we'd need in order to feel wealthy.
        
        Perspective is important. Despite just saying that I'm not wealthy, I currently have more resources than 95% of people, if you were to go back 75 years. Central air conditioning, personal automobile, Internet; Hell, allergy medicine. It's just compared to everyone else in my self-identified social strata that I don't feel wealthy.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        I think you're right about it being a matter of perspective. Since "wealth" in this context/economy means a feeling of financial security, it probably depends on the lifestyle that you're trying to secure.
        
        Though it's worth noting that the average worth of the survey respondents was $3.5M, so these weren't people who don't know how to make money. Unless they just inherited the money, which would explain why they have no idea how to build it.
    2. Proprietist 13 years ago
      
      Just went to an annuity site and got a quote as a 57 year old with a 56 year old wife for $10,000 a month at $1.9 million. I could live off that.
      1. Zeb 13 years ago
        
        I'd be fine on half of that.
        
        Dammit, why do idiots always win the lottery? I guess its because that's who buys lottery tickets.
  2. CrackertyAssCracker 13 years ago
    
    I guess I'm a cheap ass SOB. I don't think 1.75 is enough, but I think 2.5 million would get the job done.
4. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  hmm... I would buy a modest farmhouse + acreage in the country with low taxes. Buy a new Honda Civic, and then invest the rest in mix of 'tax-free' Municipal stocks (like NXZ), plus some other dividend stocks. Keep a reserve of 100-200k for unexpected events.
  
  It wouldn't be a life of glamor and vacations, but it would be relaxing.
  1. Suki 13 years ago
    
    Farm needs truck not car.
    1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      I wouldn't be farming... but if I did, it would be a cheap Chevy truck that I could fix with my own hands.
  2. Troy 13 years ago
    
    You can get a 2000+ square foot house in Vegas for $150,000.00 And I would splurge and get the 4-door Honda Civic SI.
5. T 13 years ago
  
  Off the top of my head? Pay off all my debts and dump the rest into tax-free munis. 1.75 mil isn't going home money for me and the wife, but one of could definitely quit and we'd still have the same lifestyle. Pulling 50K a year tax free is probably pretty damn close to what one of us earns after taxes and bullshit is taken out.
6. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
  
  ProL, drop me a line when you want to get into Shotgun's for free.
7. Hazel Meade 13 years ago
  
  I could do it.
  It's not a life of absolute luxury, but $1.75 mil (assuming no taxes) will get you a house (not a nice one, but a house), buy you a reliable car, maybe an RV, and leave you with enough to eat for many years. If you don't give a fuck about ferarris or new houses, it can be a perfectly decent living.
8. Zeb 13 years ago
  
  I think I could retire on that much money (I'm 33). Even now, I think that I could easily make my current income investing it fairly safely. I don't like fast cars or tech toys and I am very good at not spending money. I also couldn't stop working entirely, so I'd always have some additional income.
  
  Now who wants to give me a million dollars?
P Brooks 13 years ago

As I recall, the guy was probably 56-7.

Do you live on 110k of principal? That gives you 17 years, plus whatever it earns (or minus whatever it loses). Then you go on welfare social security, I guess. Or play kissy-face with one of your Holland and Hollands?

But I don't think he was even that smart.
Beloved Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago

Occupy reason! Give Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy the hat tip!

WE ARE THE COMMENTARIAT.
P Brooks 13 years ago

No one gets to thirteen full rotation deployments without volunteering.

No kidding.

I'm reasonably certain the guy wasn't snatched off the basketball court at Fort Carson and dumped out of a helicopter over Afghanistan (repeatedly).

It sucks that he got killed, but I'm going to go ahead and assume he went knowing exactly what he was doing.
1. Suki 13 years ago
  
  He was a Ranger Sgt! Of course he knew what he was doing!
xenia onatopp 13 years ago

Where were you, 25 years ago today? If you're from Boston, you were probably weeping/gnashing your teeth!

Yes, pathetically enough I remember exactly where I was during both the sixth and seventh games of the 1986 World Series. Was there ever a lamer excuse for a relief pitcher than Bob Stanley?

I admit to not clicking on the link, so I don't know if it was Buckner booting that ground ball or not, but I've seen that play enough times not to want to chance seeing it again.
1. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
  
  25 years ago was also the last time being a New York Mets fan wasn't a continuous kick in the groin.
  
  Yeah, Red Sox fans, I am sorry about '86, but we beat you fair and square. In the past decade, you've won 2 World Series titles. The Mets, meanwhile, have not just sucked for the past 25 years, but we've done it in a variety of heartbreaking ways, going from "Bad" to "Just good enough to break your heart". So...yeah, that.
  1. xenia onatopp 13 years ago
    
    Yeah, being a Mets fan, historically speaking, is a whole other level of pointless, a fact I hope adds some value to my 1964 signed photos of Ed Kranepool and Ron Swoboda.
    
    Yes, really. Jealous much?
2. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  What was great about that year wasn't Boston being pathetic. What was great that year was the quality of the entire playoffs. I actually watched everything, even though I didn't like the Mets particularly and was indifferent to Boston.
  1. xenia onatopp 13 years ago
    
    I've got to vote for 1975 as Best Post-Season Ever, and not just because I'm a Red Sox fan.
    1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
      
      The best series I ever watched was the Braves-Twins series.
      1. Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Woot! 1991 awesome season and series.
      2. xenia onatopp 13 years ago
        
        Agreed on the excellence of the 1991 Series, but it simply lacked the epic nature of the 1975 Reds-Red Sox series; Game 6 of the 75 series, all by itself, justifies its reputation as best series ever.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        I would vote the 2001 series as the best of my lifetime, even though a roided out expansion team won it.
Kant feel Pietzsche 13 years ago

Enjoy some high-grade stupid:

http://www.marketwatch.com/sto.....siteid=rss
P Brooks 13 years ago

high-grade stupid

Incoherent babbling is more like it.

Seriously, what the fuck is that guy trying to say?

If it's "WE'RE DOOOOOOOOOMED!" I already knew that. but not for the reasons he thinks.
PantsFan 13 years ago

A chat with the Shat
http://www.winnipegfreepress.c.....95728.html
Mango Punch 13 years ago

Where were you, 25 years ago today? If you're from Boston, you were probably weeping/gnashing your teeth!

I'm from Boston, and considering I was exactly 4 months old 25 years ago today, this sounds pretty accurate - at least the crying part.
1. Troy 13 years ago
  
  I was stationed at Ft. Sill 25 years ago. I was probably drinking.
  1. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
    
    I had recently turned two, so I'm guessing I was a jerk.
Hazel Meade 13 years ago

I bought netflix stock in 2007, when it was hovering around $20 a share.

I proceeded to sell it at $25, cause it wasn't going anywhere.

Fuck me.
GILMORE 13 years ago

Netflix stock reached $300 a share over the summer. Thanks to a series of widely detested business decisions, it's now down to down to around $94.

Silly rabbit...

as of the opening bell, NFLX has been testing new lows of $74-78.

I got short when Reed Hastings emailed me to tell me he was considering turning the company into a flower-delivery service, or maybe taking over SeaWorld ... or raising prices, then changing terms of service... or whatever, something like that, he wasn't sure.... but hey, it sure was nice of him *to tell me personally*.

Seriously though Reed, thank you. That trade was a bright spot in a rough few months.

I'd go long at this point if I could understand why their margins are so weak, or why long-tail content costs are going *up* instead of down... I have a suspicion no one in the media world really liked the idea of netflix making money off their legacy content, and would be thrilled to see them die.

Its kinda a bummer, because I actually watch netflix a lot. I once watched every Miami Vice episode *in a row* on a whim... whereas whoever actually owns the rights to the thing would probably be happier to keep the show locked in a closet or charge people $200 for a DVD set of *the first season*.

Seriously, I've watched 100s of things I'd never have bothered to go looking for just because they were so easily accessible... and hey, I'd paid for them all already.

They stream almost *every* Kurosawa film. Gotta respect that. I do sincerely hope they get their shit together.

Still doesn't mean I'm going long yet.
Proprietist 13 years ago

"They stream almost *every* Kurosawa film. Gotta respect that. I do sincerely hope they get their shit together."

No kidding. I wish they'd get the entire Criterion Collection up. That alone would make it worth every penny.
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