Reason Morning Links: Rick Perry Turns to Fundraisers After Crappy Debate Performance, The Eurozone Is Destined for a Bad Breakup, What U.S. Generals Can't Publicly Admit About the War in Afghanistan
- Rick Perry could not name three government agencies he would close during last night's presidential debate. He was able to name two, the departments of Commerce and Education, but simply could not settle on a third. Per usual, the geniuses at his campaign turned Perry's poor debate performance into a chance to raise money with an email that began like this: "President Obama is still trying to find all 57 states. Ronald Reagan got lost somewhere on the Pacific Highway in an answer to a debate question. Gerald Ford ate a tamale without removing the husk. And tonight Rick Perry forgot the third agency he wants to eliminate. Just goes to show there are too damn many federal agencies."
- The Guardian: "Reports emerging from Brussels said that Germany and France had begun preliminary talks on a break-up of the eurozone, amid fears that Italy would be too big to rescue."
- According to newly FOIA'd documents, J. Edgar Hoover referred to the L.A. Times' Jack Nelson as a "a lice-covered ferret" and put him on an "untouchables" list because he thought Nelson was going to out him as gay.
- WaPo: "The Dover Air Force Base mortuary for years disposed of portions of troops' remains by cremating them and dumping the ashes in a Virginia landfill, a practice that officials have since abandoned in favor of burial at sea."
- Courtesy of Foreign Policy, "a list of 19 things that many insiders and veterans of Afghanistan agree to be true about the war there, but that generals can't say in public."
- California tech company Blue Coat is incredibly popular with repressive regimes.
- Portland Occupier arrested for tossing molotov cocktail.
New at Reason.tv: "Singularity University: A School for Entrepreneurs Who Want to Change the World"
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Just goes to show there are too damn many federal agencies.
I make no judgement about his terrible, terrible debate performance, but I can't argue with that statement.
"President Obama is still trying to find all 57 states. Ronald Reagan got lost somewhere on the Pacific Highway in an answer to a debate question. Gerald Ford ate a tamale without removing the husk. And tonight Rick Perry forgot the third agency he wants to eliminate.
True. The big difference is that Obama, Reagan and Ford weren't dumb shits goin' in.
Perry's made so many gaffes that its amazing his campaign is still going. Every debate notches him farther out of contention.
Cain will either have to beat the harrassment rap or get dragged down with it (which I think is far more likely)
Gingrich is an asshole and given enough speeches, it'll be inevitable that takes him out.
Romney, as bad as he is and as white Obama as he sounds will be the nominee, which means Obama gets to play Bush and Romney gets to be a red "Kerry".
Obama 2012. Just accept it.
It is not 2004. The economy was good in 2004 and we were winning in Iraq. Romney is a sleaze bag and I won't vote for him. But if they nominate him, he will win, God help us.
Damn. Except for the sleazebag thing, you're wrong about everything you said. Amazing.
The economy wasn't good in 2004? Go back and look at the UE and the growth rates back then.
Also go back and look at how things were going in Iraq in 04 and how popular the war was.
Amazing, you apparently don't know anything. How do you get through the day?
Was the war going well before the First Battle of Fallujah or after the Second Battle of Fallujah? I ask because at the time it didn't seem like the war was going very well at all. As I heard one wag put it, "If we weren't wining enemy activity would be increasing even faster than it already is."
It's just with hindsight - because things got so much worse - that 2004 seems kind of OK.
Migrants blamed amid Greek debt crisis
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201.....is/3652092
long article:
impact on legitimate businesses
I imagine that by this they mean "the migrants work, and the Greeks don't, and that means the Greeks make less money."
Somehow I doubt that Greece's troubles are the result of labor costs being too low.
Zey took orr jorbs!!
Who the hell would sneak into Greece these days?
Actually, if you're one of the forty million Egyptians living on less than two dollars a day, Greece looks wealthy to you. Egypt imports almost half of their food and they're out of money in about four months. Interesting times!
Who isn't out of money in four months?
Seriously, the entire post-WWII state is on its knees.
You know who else blamed illegal immigrants for their problems?
Drew Barrymore?
Samuel Gompers and Cesar Chavez?
Animal Welfare Society Files Complaint against McRib Producer.
Well, the McRib is certainly inhumane to my heart.
Less than 15 hours to go. So glad they are releasing it over the weekend, so I don't lose my job.
That was in reference to your name, btw.
I have release day delivery from Amazon. If they fuck it up, I am going to rub sand in their dead little eyes.
...
Also, I don't know if they grade sand... but coarse.
I've pre-dowloaded it from Steam and will be able to get on at 12:01 AM EST. West coasters can DL from Steam and play at 9 PST tonight.
I probably should have done that, but I do like a physical copy. If Amazon bails, I may just throw some money away on that.
I'm going to be what I always am. A kung-fu kitty who steals stuff.
I'm curious though as to why they didn't go to Kittyland this game. No one cares what's going on where there are a bunch of shirtless Swedes (male) running around in snow. Kittytown also has all the drugs being prepped for export. There very well may be a feline Walter White that one could interact with but nooooooooooooooo. Not this time around.
The kajiit models look incredible this time around.
I think that the problem is with the Wood Elfs, Kajit, and Argonians is that they've written themselves into a corner with it:
Wolf Elves-Valenwood-One massive ass forest.
Argonians-Black Marsh-One massive ass swamp.
Khajit-Elsweyr-From the wiki:The northern part of Elsweyr contains arid badlands; the southern part is a lush sub-tropical environment with many forests. Only a few cities have been established, and most of the settlements are small villages.
Now, these environs are pretty monochromatic, which is the problem. They could be made interesting, but it would be harder than a Skyrim, where you get forests and plains and mountains to gambol across.
Also, I will be once again playing an Argonian who steals shit. Because water breathing can save your life on one or two key occasions.
So basically the creators are racist against anthropomorphic, drug-running cats.
I think the Argonian Black Marshes could be done and still have enough different biomes and villages to be interesting. Elsweyr also sounds like you can have different biomes and not pull too far from the core lore.
I'm also going to roll a rogue for my first character. I love stealth and I love alchemy - they
re so much more interesting than typical sword and board. Magic users can be fun, but again I just find the rogue play style to be the most entertaining.
Eh, I always cherry pick skills. I am excited about smithing and enchanting, though. Climb a mountain, mine some ore, smelt it, forge it, enchant it, give it a badass name, and kill a motherfucking dragon with it.
One thing's for sure...you won't get laid with it.
That's why there are these places called bars where you can buy this stuff called liquor that helps women open up.
To be fair, who isn't?
Review my friend read said that the main questline for Sryrim took 65 hours to complete. Woo!
There are reviews up?
Also, the creator has said that because of the Radiant system, the game can generate random quests infinitely (eg Dark Brotherhood hub would generate quests even after your done with the mainline, probably along the lines of "Go here, kill X". But fuck the Dark Brotherhood because the Morag Tong is where it's at)
I can't believe you call yourself an enthusiast yet curse the Dark Brotherhood.
Those bitches tried to kill me multiple times! Hell yes I curse their sorry asses.
Will there be quests based on the feud between them? That just sounds like such a sick premise.
I did read one thing saying that there is a city in Skyrim with a large population of immigrants from Morrowind, so I hope the answer is yes.
Nerds!!!
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/10/skyrim-review/
I haven't read it. I like playing games as cold as possible.
I read it; no spoilers.
A nice overview of the truly bottomless game world, with a very little carping about the (continued) clunky melee and inventory/spell management system.
I usually try to let Bethesda games settle in for a nice round of post-release debugging. I still haven't got FONV (waiting for the GOTY edition). This one, I will probably buy sooner.
If you play on PC, I recommend the following mods:
The Bounty Hunter quests (there are two or three different mod packs, each adding about 30 bounties with quests to the game; actually has NPCs and voice acting by the mod's creators)
Rebuilding Bison Steve's - this adds a series of quests (complete with voice acting, new locations, NPCs) that has you working to open Bison Steve's in Primm and your character can have an ownership stake in the casino
Fellout NV - removes the orange haze and has more natural environments
Now I'm drawing a blank because there is one mod I added that lets you tweak a ton of the gameplay elements, adds sprint, adds a grenade hotkey, and adds about 50 other things I just can't list in a blog comment.
many moons ago, when I first started programming, I wanted to make an 'infinite' quest program that would generate endless adventures. Sadly the computer power back then - Commodore 64 4life! - would have made this a near impossibility.
But at least someone made Castle Wolfenstein.
What about NetHack?
Actually one of the devs did a speed run and finished the main quest line in two hours.
Think "smaller". Think "more legs".
Prius owners - this is why everyone hates you.
http://youtu.be/CVdMySWfAIQ
what is this I don't even
That woman is fat but makes up for it by having an unpleasant personality. God liberals suck
another suburban fattie
She makes me want to do violence. The guy making the video pussed out too, though, by trying to justify his truck to Fat LoudMouth.
I would have just kept video taping her and not saying a word, watching her impotent rage grow.
I bet she leans over to smell her own farts.
Yeah, he was a little too civil.
"What do you do for a living?"
"Go fuck yourself."
But these things always catch one off guard.
I would have just kept video taping her and not saying a word, watching her impotent rage grow.
Massive and continuous engine revving, complete with shit eating grin, would make this complete.
Makes me want to take the lifted Jeep with 457 gears and 4" of lift out and leave it parked, running, next to a Prius, video camera in hand.
13 mpg with loud 35" mud tires. It just eat petroleum and belches toxins all around!
I'll have to drive to another town though; everyone where I live drives trucks. Big ag community out here.
I admire this guy's self control.
Silly. Just shut the door.
His wife was outside, though.
When dealing with Prius owners, it's everyone for themselves.
Heh. Just took on a roommate who sells cars for a living. He was just telling me a story last night about the obnoxious Pysch prof from the local U who apparently thinks verbal abuse gets you a better deal on a car. Luckily he works for an independent dealer and the dude made the mistake of dog-cussing the owner. When the prof called my roommate back, the owner made a point to say, "Fuck that guy, he can pay our full asking price or go somewhere else. All previous quotes are off the table."
Obama orders agency spending cuts on travel, technology and swag
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....fedinsider
er, why didn't he do this at the beginning of his term?
You can't just go forward with all the Hope and Change at once, you have to spread it out.
So, ATF will stop giving out free
AK-47's ?
damn, I was hoping to get one too...
But what if staffers aren't wearing enough flair?
he could just cut his wife's travel & fashion budget. That would help.
Do they think most fed employees want to travel? The few that do will make an excuse to do so anyway. This will just make it harder for people to do their job.
Portland Occupier arrested for tossing molotov cocktail.
You liberals just hug your knees and chant "it's all the homeless, it's all the hopeless" for a few hours and you'll be fine.
Upside!
Oh, please. Everyone knows Hodson is a police patsy.
...are cops dressed as anarchists.
Police Provocateurs stopped by union leader at anti SPP protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow
Peaceful protesters stop police provocateurs from starting a riot at the Stop the SPP protests in Montebello Quebec. The police admitted they were their officers. CEP President Dave Coles confronts men with rocks and sticks.
the radical anarchists are active in oakland as acknowledged by the po po.
OWS has previously denounced the anarchists.
it tirez moar harder...
no REEL ows member suports vilence it si most likelly teebager infilltraiters
^actually mr spoofer, could be teh po po infiltrators per above ^
The best part of the story is the guy whose schnoz seems to be part of a Transformers play set. White boy dreads are just a bonus.
Wow, he is never getting a job with that look.
He'll never get to use his modern art history degree now.
The other guy has the crazy eyes.
Dreadlocked Transformer boy looks completely stoned.
So, at a certain point, given that most of these cities are broke, when will the expense of the Occupy movement lead to cutting off vital services or firing workers?
It isn't like Oakland has a ton of scratch to begin with, for example.
an older woman who beds younger guys is a couger...
...and now - an older man who beds boys is a...wait for it...is a nittany lion !
oh man, is it premature...(?)
and a retard who sucks a dog's asshole is a...wait for it...is an Orringoloid!
^sez mr penn state grad
happy valley babiee !
too big to rescue
I like the sound of that. We should of looked at the banks that way instead of bailing them out.
John Zogby: "Ron Paul And Libertarians Can't Be Discounted"
*pulls of John Zogby's mask*
It's Old Man Koch!
And he would have gotten away with it, too, if hadn't been for you meddling libertarians!
wait, whut?
America and China must crush Germany into submission
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/f.....ubmission/
If tadpoles isn't the winner, Jintao and Obama must make tadpoles the winner.
That'll definitely work. Why didn't we think of this before?
NLRB lawyer: "We screwed up the U.S. economy"
http://campaign2012.washington.....us-economy
Does the public even know what the NLRB is?
Something about baseball, "something something runs batted", right?
Net Left Runners on Base?
The Obvious Files: Jezebel contributor talks about her love of wearing men's clothes.
"I am a foolish old man who has been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers ? and a nincompoop!"
When does she get the part about her "unusually large clitoris and strange bag-like appendage under it?"
After the jump.
Meh. The shirt she is talking about is pretty nice; I'd wear it. (But not for $235, FFS!!!) I disagree with her comments about the type of "women's shirt" she is complaining about. If you don't like that type of shirt, don't buy it. She already says she doesn't buy them, so I don't know why she's bitching. There are lots of shirts in the world. Basically, this is another stupid/pointless/vapid article from Jezebel.
Are Perry's climate science briefers back at work ?
http://i40.tinypic.com/10n9g6h.jpg.html
Christ, that's some shitty work. Whoever did it should be beaten by a gang of graphic artists wielding the full Photoshop suite in pillowcases.
Dem lawmaker would be fine with supercommittee failure, automatic cuts
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-th.....matic-cuts
Me too
And when doctors stop treating Medicare patients? What then, hmmmm?
Florida cops pissed at that state trooper for giving one of their own a speeding ticket.
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2011.....gency-war/
Fuck them. They can eat shit.
After they clean what a trooper smeared on the glass of their cruiser!
This story is LULZ all the way around.
**gets popcorn in anticipation of cop-on-cop violence**
Portland Occupier arrested for tossing molotov cocktail.
So why didn't anyone at Occupy Portland tape the occupier throwing the molotov cocktail and post it on YouTube?
Skyrim releases tomorrow. Women of the world, you are on notice.
Important lists here people:
Blinking made me laugh. Been there.
LOL. My WoW guild called this poopsocking. E.g. you poop in a sock so you don't have to get up to go to the bathroom. Sadly, I am the one responsible for most of the things on this list, so I guess I will have to take periodic breaks.
No, DA, you backhand your husband and say, "BITCH! Go make me a sannich!"
Also, if your kids ask, just explain, "Sweetie, mommy loves you, but mommy also loves video games and, to be fair, video games came first."
Priorities woman!
"Now run along, Pacman, and go play with your sister, Dig Dug."
Jesus. Why don't you guys get addicted to something like heroin. That sounds a lot more fun than that.
Still infinitely more fun than arguing with MNG all day.
Absolutely. But WOW is blocked.
I can't wait to see the hysterics when the game finally comes out and REALLY SUCKS!
Sadly, Bethesda Softworks does have a rep for releasing buggy games. They are also pretty good about providing patches, but it can be pretty annoying in the meantime.
They already have a game day patch, but I'm not sure if that's a good or bad sign.
Business as usual.
My dream game company would have the story-telling and world-building mojo of Bethesda, and the glassy-smooth mechanics of Square Enix.
I still refuse to buy FFXIII. Autobattling in a Final Fantasy? As well as it being super linear? Fuck that noise. I want an open world and ATB.
That's a good call. I borrowed it from a friend and was completely disappointed at the end.
possibly related:
Missouri woman found fused to recliner in home
http://apnews.myway.com/articl.....JCLG0.html
I tried not to laugh when I read this:
according to court documents that described the woman as a "rotting corpse that was still breathing."
Orlando Bloom's wife could use a cheeseburger.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....d-bra.html
She could also use something to fill in that Grand Canyon on her chest.
I can think of a good something.
Think of your plastic allergy, man.
No, those are real. She just had a kid a few months ago and is still rocking the momma-rack.
Good lord, I thought you were joking until I goog'd it. Dude, there is only one thing that produces that preposterous gap and it ain't babies.
OK, sure.
http://www.celebritymoviearchi......php/17839
Tyra Banks feeling them up to make sure they are.
SFW
Homoerotic.
And by "cheeseburger" you mean my penis?
Google+ Is Dead
The search behemoth might not realize it yet, but its chance to compete with Facebook has come and gone.
http://www.slate.com/articles/.....more_.html
I like google+, but I think the people interested in moving to it were the people fed up with Facebook, and it might have been social media in general they were fed up with, not just the Facebook portal.
Probably a lot this.
I use g+ and rarely go to facebook anymore. I resisted having a facebook acct forever and am probably using this as the chance to get away from it altogether.
The fact that little happens on google+ is a positive.
Yah, I got bored by Facebook several years ago. I have friends who post shit many times a day & I just. don't. get. it.
All I know is that sites like H&R have gotten much slower since the Google Plus anti-social networking widgets showed up. 🙁
I post there occasionally, but only a couple of my FB friends have bothered posting anything at all. What's the point? It's just another site to keep track of. FB is too entrenched for anything that's not totally mindblowing and new to knock it off its perch at this point.
that's been my experience too. Only a few fled FB. Setting up a new account, with the few friends on Google+, and then maintaining two separate social media sites... blah. Too much work. I'm no fan of FB, but for whatever reason, it's _the_ social media site. Heck, myspace was more fun in a clunky kind of way.
Jezebel reacts to the man arrested for sexually assaulting two women at OWS
The comments are gold, I tells ya, from the featured comment arguing that the main cause of rape is misogyny to all the other ones bitching about TEH PRIVELEGED WHITE MALES taking over protest movements.
The rapists are all homeless. Fucking homeless. How dare they be the lowest 1%!
We are the 98%!
The comments are gold
E.g.: "Rapists rape because society encourages and allows them to rape"
Yeah, a lot of pro-rape messages out there.
Where the fuck do these people live? I can't think of anything that is generally considered more horrible and less socially acceptable than rape.
I remember the uber-feminist 90s when I was told that "rape isn't about sex, but power!" etc etc.
PC-hat off here for this thought experiment - I'm not advocating rape which is a terrible thing for any woman to experience - but isn't there a evolutionary argument for rape? The Mongols invade, sack the village and rape a few of the local maidens. They are not only forcing sex, but increasing the size of the gene pool. Could this gene pool diversification actually be better in the long run? Of course it is bad psychologically for the women, but biology really doesn't give a damn about feelings.
and now, I will run away before I am pilloried.
There is also an argument to be made that you might expect criminals to act like criminals, so try to protect yourself best you can from becoming a victim.
Don't park your car and leave it unlocked with the keys inside. Don't leave your wallet out on a bench and walk away. Don't hang out in places where assault is likely to occur.
it won't solve all the problems, but risk assessment goes a long way in helping some people avoid being victimized
OK, you can all accuse me of advocating rape now. I know it's coming.
Yeah, I don't get the hate directed at people who advocate not making yourself look like a victim. "WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO WALK WHERE WE WANT AND WEAR WHAT WE WANT!!! WHENEVER WE WANT!!" Yeah, in a perfect world you should be able to do these things, but this world is far from perfect and the fact is you can't do whatever you want whenever you want. So you might as well work with the facts on the ground, and take steps to not make yourself look like a victim. Slutwalks are the stupidest, most thoughtless response to this subject ever. Although potentially titillating, to be sure.
I think it goes hand-in-hand with the utopian mindset of progressives. On a fundamental level they believe that society makes people bad, so society just has to stop making them bad for everyone to be an angelic figure of perfect morality. And because we are already "fallen," then society should make you perfect as well. Even if it has to torture them to death to accomplish it.
Yes... No one should ever be raped or be a rapist. Until that fairyland is achieved, protect yourself.
nature vs nuture spans ideologies
Slutwalks are despicable. Just another way feminazis assert their belief that no (female) behavior ever carries any risk, ever.
"Risque" is an adjective applied to clothing and behavior for a reason. People want "risk" without consequences. You can't have it both ways.
Is that what the "slutwalks" are about? I thought it was just women saying that they should wear what they want and be sexy and that's OK. Which seems like a good thing.
Perhaps a better message woudl be, if you are going to walk around dressed all sexy in a place that is not necessarily secure, carry a gun, or at least some pepper spray and be ready to use it.
If rape is about sex, then it throws off the power narrative. Jezebel types pitch rape as a tool of systematic oppression, an emergent behavior of the patriarchy to reinforce the inferior position of women in society.
If it is about sex--and not a basically impersonal campaign of terror by an anonymous "other"--then their behavior comes into to play and they reject any scenario that pitches women as not being 100% the victim in what happens to them.
Which puts women in a passive role--something they claim to hate--rather than teaching them to focus on the balls and the eyes.
I thought it was just women saying that they should wear what they want and be sexy and that's OK.
Same thing, Zeb. If dressing sexy attracts unwanted attention, its the people giving the unwanted attention (men) who are wrong, not the women calling attention to themselves. If you want that kind of attention, fine. If you don't, don't seek it.
Sexy is extremely subjective anyway. If you've ever seen any slutwalk videos, "titillating" or "sexy" probably won't come to mind.
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/vid......walk.kdaf
What brings lulz to me in these videos is the sneaking suspicion that probably every single one of the straight men there is looking to get laid. I guess that makes me a cynic.
I work on a college campus. I see slutwalks every day. Hi-Yo!
I guess that's the part I don't get. Why woudl you want to dress all slutty (or whatever you want to call it) if not to attract attention from men? If they want to be able to dress like that and then complain about the attention, then yeah, it's pretty stupid.
http://www.zombietime.com/deconstructing_slutwalk/
But that's what laws are for. To create our perfect world.
Duh!
OK, you can all accuse me of advocating rape now. I know it's coming.
Racist.
The Mongols invade, sack the village and rape a few of the local maidens.
Somewhere I read that genetic studies indicated that individual with the most descendants on the planet was either Genghis Khan or Tamurlane.
It's Genghis, the Original Original Gangster.
That's true! And another genetic nexus is supposedly Niall of the Nine Hostages, the progenitor of the Ui Niall clan: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....edirect=no (scroll down)
Basically, ancient kings got laid a lot.
"It's good to be the king."
I think there's some truth in that, although not in the "evil patriarchal males rule the world" sort of way that the feminists mean. A lot of it is the feminists' own doing.
Once upon a time, a real man who caught a man raping someone would castrate the offender and hang the remains from the nearest available tree, on the theory that having testicles is a privilege not a right, and by committing such a heinous breach of Manlaw the offender had forfeited said privilege.
Real men are scorned now by the feminists, who do everything possible to stamp them out.
Feminists also reject the notions of self-defense (especially with those icky guns!) and common sense ideas like not getting drunk in the company of strangers. They figure they "shouldn't have to do that".
And, of course, criminals in general are to be given counseling, because they came from broken homes and such.
Nothing will completely eliminate crimes such as rape but I do think that the State has made things worse, often at the prompting of these same enraged feminists.
For me, the sad thing is that the feminists have stretched the word "rape" so far that it now covers ambiguous situations that you come to regret after the fact, and can claim after the fact that "yes" really meant "no" and "he didn't read all my signals correctly".
This diminishes the gravity of actual violent rape by equating the two as being an inseparable action.
"the alleged assaults don't diminish the message of the Occupy protests"
I don't think that anything could diminish the message of the Occupy protests. If you can even find a coherent message.
I don't know who she is, but... damn!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....ikini.html
Watch Community? She was Pierce's ex-step-daughter.
no?
Personally, I thought she looked better before she went bottle-blond.
Here's what you are missing on Community.
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I'll be in everyone's bunk.
That would be the #1 reason to watch Community.
And the #2.
HIYO!!!
Seriously, this is putting a major damper on my productivity.
Joe M,
It's hypnotic, isn't it? It's like watching two lava lamps wrestle underwater.
My liberty loving employer blocked both links.
Occupy Boss' Office!
I came for the comments, but I stayed for the hypnotism.
Damn is right. Now she has a great body. Wow.
I bet she has puke breathe
or bad teeth.
Dead Tooth.
Europe's Entitlement Reckoning
From Greece to Italy to France, the welfare state is in crisis.
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....95230.html
Thankfully we don't have that problem here.
"The obvious question is why so few men are interested in dating women their own age."
Yeah, that's a real head-scratcher there.
The evils of the male gaze.
That's what I call jerking off on donuts in the break room.
Oh, I thought you wrote "male glaze".
I am certainly not in the dating market, but I would have a big problem dating someone close to my age if I was. (42)
I would figure that if you're 42 and reasonably attractive, the odds are that you were smokin' hot in your 20's. But that probably means you would have absolutely refused to date ME when we were both in our 20's.
It would be pretty important to me not to end up dating the now-less-attractive version of someone who would not have dated me back then. If I do date them now, they win TWICE.
Screw that.
The only way to be assured that I wouldn't accidentally do that would be to box out the entire demographic across the board.
If you were 15 when I was 25, you're good.
I guess this means I'm outing myself as a former loser, but I'm OK with that.
Having been in the dating pool into my mid 30s, I can tell you that women from the ages of 30 to 45 are the worst pools. They either have been married and have kids and lots of baggage or they have never been married because they are princess who think that no one is good enough for them. Either way they are not worth the effort. Now, I did date a women in her mid 40s once who was divorced and had grown kids. That was actually a lot of fun. She was still nice looking, was very secure in herself and just came with a magnitude less bullshit than most women.
With this loan exception, I dated women in their 20s.
From whom did you borrow her?
LOL. yeah yeah yeah.
It would be pretty important to me not to end up dating the now-less-attractive version of someone who would not have dated me back then. If I do date them now, they win TWICE.
Not if you dump them, first, after sleeping with them. See if you can get a free breakfast out of it first.
I'll second Fluffy's comments. I'm the same age, and not in the dating pool, but the odds of finding a non-psycho without a truckload of baggage in our age range is vanishingly small.
A girl friend of mine is divorcing (thank goodness). This comes years after her husband has been accusing her of sleeping around (she hadn't). Then she found out he was sleeping around on her, but she didn't want to leave him once she knew, b/c he finally was paying the bills & had health insurance (stupid reason). Then she ran into an old HS buddy who had recently divorced. One thing lead to another, she slept with the HS buddy and now is filing for divorce (yay!)
so, where does this get me. Uh, she's got baggage from putting up with loser #1's bullshit from all those years, but she is willing to risk it for the new/old buddy who treats her decently. And she's not lost her looks! So nice guy from HS wins.
Casual rule of thumb, when someone accuses you of something, out of the blue, without a shred of evidence they are either A) crazy B) doing it themselves.
well i am in the dating pool & date younger women. women my own age are mostly waay outta shape & fat (i remain athletic), lack spontaneity, & specialize in moving the decimal point to the right (a $50 expense quickly becomes $500, etc).
So you cradle rob because you're a cheapskate, obsessively body conscious, closeted homosexual? I think the issues are yours dude, not the ladies.
nah, i date active, healthy women in the 25-35 age range...which is an ever smaller subset.
If there is one thing I am taking away from the GOP field is that corporate media hate them and their anti-crony capitalism stances - except for Romney. This gives me slight cause for optimism that they're not all faking it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f.....6hvmWDYiCY
"Reports emerging from Brussels said that Germany and France had begun preliminary talks on a break-up of the eurozone, amid fears that Italy would be too big to rescue."
Europe is going to amputate its own leg, just like in the movie 127 Hours.
It was his arm.
FACT PWN'D!
DAMMIT!
But isnt Italy the penis of europe?
Intelligent Women forced to "dumb down" their dating pool.
I fucking hate these trend pieces so much. Yes, woman are earning more and going to college more. So guess what? They're having to do what men did for thousands of years, which is marry a woman of lower standing (secretary, for example) and possibly intelligence for companionship.
Yes, I know this has some women butthurt because they thought the man would take of everything, but them's the feminisms for ya.
They wanted to out compete men but still expected all them to still be able to marry a higher status male. Math, how does it work?
Obviously, it's the fault of the patriarchy once again using logic to keep women in a continual state of oppression.
Should I repost the link to the Jezebel thread where one of them literally accuses the patriarchy of devaluing degrees because women get more?
Cuz that one's always fun.
I remember that.
My wife actually scores slightly higher on the IQ scale, and is working on a law degree too. But we're pretty equally matched - like all good relationships, it's a matter of give and take. I do all the giving and she does all the taking.
j/k, honey!
She could be like my wife, whose father was brilliant, had a PhD and made mad money in his 60's when he started consulting. She: only has a bachelors in sociology, has severe ego issues over not accomplishing and making more and not having a masters, wants to do nothing to improve it, yet expects it to improve regardless and when it doesn't, has spiraling depressive events and externalizes all her anxiety over it.
This is why I drink.
Sometimes, I think HnR should just be called, "Group Therapy for Libertarians"
"Show us on the doll where Warty touched you."
"He touched the doll too!"
"The doll... was not unresponsive."
+1.
what ?
.com/blog
But this would imply that the underlying distribution of intelligence has changed, and that certainly can't be true.
If the distribution of intelligence is the same (a statistical given) all that has changed is the distribution of occupations. These women can just date somebody intelligent but in a less-prestigious field.
Problem solved.
No. They think they are entitled to Fonzi with a PHD. Still the best line ever on Hit and Run.
umm John, "lesbian wrinkle death" is the best line ever on H&R. Jeesh, you and your hyper bowl.
Well, the IQ distribution is also an issue. From everything I read, the tails on the men distribution is longer at both ends, while women cluster more about the mean. So more men are geniuses or retards, with correspondingly fewer women at those extremes.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2.....x-exposed/
Lefty blog falls for Cain hoax. I like the "eponymous Crooks and Liars blog" line. Snap.
"He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it." - Ecclesiastes 10:8
Lie #4. Technology is neutral. Of all the lies about civilization, this one is the most insidious, the most challenging to refute, the one that most cripples the understanding of people who should know better. It's such a huge lie that it's hard to get a grip on it, so self-referential that it's hard to get outside it. Getting outside it is not a matter of learning a simple argument but learning a whole different and more complex way of thinking.
Seven Lies About Civilization
by Ran Prieur | November 24, 2003
http://ranprieur.com/essays/7lies.html
I'm neither a primitivist nor a techno-utopian. I think both positions are simple-minded, and I write more about this in Beyond Civilized and Primitive. Basically I think civilization was not a fluke, but emerged from our changing nature, so even if we could be forced back to the stone age, we would not stay there. I think human history has not yet explored even one percent of the human potential, and we should set the bar high, and try to achieve the freedom and aliveness of the best primitive tribes in a globally-connected civilization.
But we won't get there by broadly embracing "technology", any more than you will get a good meal by running through the forest popping every leaf and mushroom into your mouth. We have to learn to discriminate. My tech-rating system is intended as one step on that journey.
TechJudge
http://ranprieur.com/tech.html
You're already free to discriminate.
In the absence of a state, what's your plan to make ME discriminate?
In the absence of a state, what's your plan to make ME discriminate?
None, ya paranoid halfwit.
You are the Statist apologists who, while whitewashing aggression, is reliant upon the city-State's (civilization's) enFORCEment.
There is no point to speculating about how humanity can better "discriminate" what technologies to adopt unless you have a plan for compulsion.
Because I'm pretty sure your persuasion will fail.
you are free to gambol onto a busy highway.
wasnt anti-tech the unabomber's motive?
"The Guardian: "Reports emerging from Brussels said that Germany and France had begun preliminary talks on a break-up of the eurozone, amid fears that Italy would be too big to rescue."
I don't understand! You mean market forces (like the laws of physics) have their way with us and the world anyway?
You mean despite government pretensions to the contrary, these things are ultimately determined by people's willingness to finance Italy's debt?!
Believe me! If the EuroZone breaks apart it will not--will not!--be because France and Germany decide to break it up.
It will be because France and Germany decide to face the reality that market forces, i.e. people making choices, inflicted on the governments of Europe because of their overspending.
It's a good thing that there's a universal law that says this can't happen in the United States because of our overspending.
Since the Republicans are stupid religious fanatics. Because obviously if the Republicans are stupid religious fanatics (and Herman Cain has been accused of sexual harassment), then there's no way the U.S. Congress' overspending could cause any of the same problems we're seeing in Italy and elsewhere!
...and anybody who doesn't understand that is a stupid religious fanatic.
Something stood out to me in the FP article:
Why do the Europeans want us to stay? Is it purely economic? Have they gotten hooked on the trillions we have spent to maintain bases there?
Or are they afraid of someone? And if so, who? Russia? Iran? Germany? Liechtenstein?
Why do the Europeans want us to stay? Is it purely economic? Have they gotten hooked on the trillions we have spent to maintain bases there?
Or are they afraid of someone?
I have a feeling it's more of the former. Just look at the chimpouts that occur when CONUS bases are targeted for BRACs. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, flaming lefty congressmen were doing everything they could to keep the MIC humming in their districts, despite voting against military weapons and spending programs time after time.
It's the same deal with Europe. Europeans might hate our culture, but they love our money, and they simply don't have the capacity to replace those lost dollars if we packed up and left.
Hey, Liechtenstein is terrifying - those bastards have had centuries to polish their plans for world domination.
It's pretty simple: Europe is able to keep their military expenditures down because they live under the NATO umbrella and hence can count on the US to come to the rescue if they ever get their ass in a crack. If we decide we no longer want to be Team America: World Police, they would actually have to pay for a military that is worth a damn. Which would be impossible given their massive welfare states.
Watching last night's South Park, did David "Running Horse" Sowinski remind you of anyone, perhaps?
Matt and Trey have been trolling Hit and Run all along!
Then where is my OWS episode??
*shakes fist*
Last week's episode.
That link doesn't work.
Just go to southparkstudios.com
I instantly cracked up because I'm a 1/16 Cherokee blond guy too.
Except that "Running Horse" made more sense and didn't fill the screen with pointless links.
So, once a fortnight I go check out Autostraddle, a blog for and by lesbians. I am not a lesbian, but they do post things like Hottest Lesbian Sex Scenes in mainstream film... so that. (Also a good illustration that hot for lesbians... not the same thing as hot. Do not understand the appeal of butch women or alt haircuts myself, but I digress.)
Anyway, they are also feminist because hey, why not. So, recently, they had a transgender Q+A, which is a part of the series. Because I find the trangender thing a) weird and b) hilarious (seriously, you can set your watch by the time in a feminist discussion where some transgender person will come in a bitch about not being included) I decided to read it.
Then I came upon this little gem:
That was written by a dude who used to be a chick, fyi....
Moving on... HOLY FUCKITY FUCK! For a movement all about privilege, could you be a more entitled douche? Yes, how dare straight women expect that when they want to fuck a guy, they mean someone with a penis and not a strap on or whatever the hell.
Can you imagine encountering this fuck in the bedroom, calling it off due to lack of dick, and getting some long lecture about feminist theories of gender as they put their clothes on?
Jesus fucking christ, this just makes my brain hurt.
Yes the source is cissexism, not a reasonable expectation of male anatomy.
One of the best Jezebel threads ever was the one where they argued that any straight guy that didn't want to have sex with a m2f post-op was a homophobic bigot, because there is no possible reason for a straight man not to want to have sex with a ertasz woman who was a man until a few months ago.
No reason at all.
Yet, the same feminists argue that mtf shouldn't be allowed to use women's bathrooms because they are essentially men.
Is there anything consistent about second-wave feminism?
They are consistent in blaming men for everything.
Oh, yeah.
Stop the mansplaining!
I have nothing against TG people, but I would think making clear exactly what kind of sexual equipment you possess, if it's non-standard, would be a courtesy.
Yeah. If you think you are transgendered, good for you. You should do whatever you want to about that. Just accept that you are not normal. That's OK too. I certainly wouldn't want to be normal.
Also, by and large, men are much better at becoming women than women are at becoming men. Sorry trans-gendered ladies, but that's just how it is. You either look like a 12 year old boy or a pudgy, out of shape, middle-aged man.
Do not understand the appeal of butch women or alt haircuts myself
Yeah, that always struck me as bizarre, too. They supposedly love women, yet end up with ones that look like dudes with manboobs. My lesbian aunt's been with a woman for several years who's got a deeper voice than James Earl Jones and a brush-cut mullet.
I think I've known maybe 3 or 4 lesbians out of the dozens I've met who didn't go out of their way to look as unfeminine as possible, which leads me to believe that most lesbians really don't want a woman so much as a guy with a vagina.
Yet they use all of these phallic sex toys.
Well that's just basic physiology.
"All every woman really wants, be it mother, senator, nun, is some serious deep-dickin'."
"What's a Nubian?"
I've always thought that was a little weird too. Even weirder when a lesbian and a transgendered woman (i.e. woman who wants to be a man) are together.
I do know quite a few lesbians who are very feminine and attractive, including probably the most attractive woman I have ever known personally, so there's that. But they do tend to pair off with one more butch and one more feminine.
I was thinking about an article I read by a transsexual awaiting SRS who was fired, and was worried he would spend his vagina money on subsistence rather than...a vagina. He claims he was intentionally "misgendered" by coworkers as a means of degrading him. He'd worked the for company for 5 years as a man before deciding to identify as female. How dare his coworkers refuse to recognize his new gender identity!
Anyway, while barefoot and washing the dishes this morning after feeding the kids, I was pondering the LGBT community. I think it was because O&A were discussing trannies...and I thought about how in general they are outliers on the continuum of human identity.
And I wondered why suddenly people who fall in the mean of the bell curve must now be forced to tolerate the outliers. When in nature do the extrema demand and find a fit into another's niche? They have a niche and a culture that doesn't fit with ours; sometimes it overlaps by necessity, but forcing the niche of "heteronormative" people to accept the encroachment of outliers is going to mean war, eventually. Someone is going to lose.
I think the thing is a lot of transgendered people want to be completely unique and totally different from anyone else, and attract attention. Whatever makes you happy, go for it, especially because a lot of transgendered people have deeper psychological issues. If that brings you happiness in life, do it and be proud.
But it shouldn't be entirely surprising when other people treat you as a curiosity, as "inauthentic", etc. If my dream is to be a cat and I undergo facial reconstruction and hair implantations, I'd better be strong enough to deal with the fact that other people will see me as a freak. Cost-benefit analysis.
The whole Joe DeRosa - Bailey Jay saga has been epic
Here is my question to the Occutards. Suppose it is true that all of these crimes are being done by homeless and crazies and not real Occutards. So what? At some point doesn't that become a reason to shut the protests down? Suppose the thirty or so regulars on here got together and we decided to "occupy Washington". And after a couple of weeks it became clear that our camp had just become a haven for crazy homeless and criminals and people were being assaulted and hurt. At that point I am voting to shut the thing down and find a new way to protest. Yet, the Occutards won't do that even though even by the most charitable interpretation of events their protest is at least indirectly causing harm.
But John, they don't mean to cause harm.
I mean, except when they surround the AFP conference, but that's different man!
I think that most of them don't care if it is really a meaningful protest or if it will accomplish anything good. They are having fun pretending to be like a little government and forming committees and doing all that activisty stuff they learned about in college. It's exciting to defy the man and feel lie you have a little bit of power. That's why I think most of those people are there, especially the hard core of campers.
They are having fun pretending to be like a little government and forming committees and doing all that activisty stuff they learned about in college.
So basically, they're playing a college student version of "dress-up."
Occutards are too losery to get elected to student government.
This is the kind of overgeneralization I object to. The protests are usually occurring in public places, the people protesting can't really "expel" troublemakers who may just be hanging on. Why should that impose a "duty" on the ones who are not causing the trouble to do anything?
And even if some of the troublemakers are OSWers that still leaves what seems to be the large majority not as troublemakers. The police should act against the latter, not the former, and we should not embolden the cops to do otherwise by lumping them all together. It is that kind of emboldening that leads to things like the LE beatdown in Oakland a while back.
Why should that impose a "duty" on the ones who are not causing the trouble to do anything?
That utilitarian thing you do kind of comes and goes, doesn't it?
In other contexts, you have been happy to impose duties on people who aren't causing any harm as a means of reducing harm caused by third parties.
Now, if you are moving toward a more personal responsibility/duty based approach, where an Occutard doesn't have to change what they are doing just because it would be good for society as a whole, then good on you.
1. That cuts both ways, suddenly you guys want people to stop doing non-harmful things because of the "influence" or "opportunity" it creates for other agents to do them? That's quite the turn-around...
2. I'm not sure the OWSers camps are giving anyone some unique opportunity to do bad things, those troublemakers would just be over in another part of town doing it.
3. Yeah, I'm not a perfect utilitarian, or you might say sometimes a utilitarian has to think of general rules (act utilitarianism) that would likely promote welfare overall in the long run.
That's quite the turn-around...
Your tu quoque is duly noted, and given appropriate consideration.
I'm not sure the OWSers camps are giving anyone some unique opportunity to do bad things,
I think they are. They are both a gathering of nice soft targets, and a safe haven.
general rules (act utilitarianism) that would likely promote welfare overall in the long run.
All kinds of general rules could justify booting the Occutards out in order to pacify the neighborhood. Such as "If your protest activity becomes a nexus of criminal activity, we are shutting you down."
You're still looking awfully selective to me.
Since I completely lack principles, that's not surprising.
"Yet, the Occutards won't do that even though even by the most charitable interpretation of events their protest is at least indirectly causing harm."
_
this was exactly my point to several zucotti organizers on my first visit. i told em to gather a security team to confront & expell the drunk bums. the OWS'ers said they hoped it wouldnt come to that...but it predictably has
Thanks, John, for bringing this up. It's something that has made me wonder as well. The point of the occupation has been made - at least to some degree - although the message is scattered & poorly stated. But since all the other stuff is going on (and if I were involved, I would say it is detracting from the message to have violence, rape, and assault on food carts), wouldn't it be better to start again after breaking up the original camps, and make the second part of the "message" something a little more political, and organized in nature . . . because I can't see the point of continuing, and if I were involved I wouldn't want to continue anymore either.
The downward path of upward mobility
In fact, over the past decade, growing evidence shows pretty conclusively that social mobility has stalled in this country. Last week, Time magazine's cover asked, "Can You Still Move Up in America?" The answer, citing a series of academic studies was, no; not as much as you could in the past and ? most devastatingly ? not as much as you can in Europe.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
How much of that is the result of the credentialism and higher education bubble? Think about it. You have to go to college to get a good job. Worse, to get the best jobs you often have to go to just right college. Going to college let alone just the right college is not a function of who is the best or the brightest. It is usually a function of if and where you parents went to college and what socioeconomic class you were born into. That is a damn straight class system. Kill the higher education bubble and the credentialism and you will increase mobility.
Yeah John, no credentialism in Europe...
So what if there is? Maybe there are other factors at work there. Further, Europe has great apprentice systems that the US doesn't have. And having lived in Europe, I found the credentialism to be much worse here. In Germany at least, no one seemed to be obsessed about what university one attended. Totally different than the US.
I know they are leftists so it will hurt a lot to admit. But our university system may be part of the problem.
"So what if there is?"
Er, if it is worse or the same where mobility is higher then it kind of um, blows your theory out the water.
"And having lived in Europe, I found the credentialism to be much worse here."
That's goofy. In France the university system is incredibly rigidly ranked and influential regarding where a person ends up.
I think you two need to stop this before it goes any further...
Aren't European school systems more skill-focused, though? It was my understanding that a lot of European school systems have fairly robust trade schools that the less academically-inclined are pushed towards. If that's the case, I can certainly see why they'd have a better chance at social mobility, as they aren't relentlessly pushing the message that doing manual labor is demeaning and everyone needs to be part of the paper-pushing managerial class.
Exactly. Mike Rowe did a really cool TED talk about work, and restoring the value of work. There's nothing wrong with making 6 figures as a plumber or electrician with no student loans to pay off. It's good work, your kid never has to wonder what you do, it can't be outsourced, and it pays well.
The dismay shown by "educators" that tech school and shop class still exists is disturbing to me. Not everyone is cut out for college.
The dismay shown by "educators" that tech school and shop class still exists is disturbing to me. Not everyone is cut out for college.
That's because a lot of these "educators" were completely lost in the shop classes as kids, and looked like idiots compared to the UGH VAPID JOCKS and other mechanically-inclined students that tended not to do as well in history or chemistry.
The denigration of the industrial arts is really the result of a class of beta nerds who never got over being stuffed into lockers by the shop kids.
"Yeah John, no credentialism in Europe..."
Other issues with thsi analysis aside, europe has also had a positive shock over the last decade by mroe integration in the EU. People now can move for greater work and business oportunities.
It would be the equivelant if people werent allowed to move between states and then all of a sudden you are allowed to.
It's a shock of dynamism as everythig moves around and with it oportunities for advancement.
I know a couple of Italians and Spaniards who have moved to Britain to look for better work.
and you dont even have to move - the oppening allows for greater business eveolution, innovation and applied economies of scale.
Social and financial mobility is a function of opportunity.
Gosh, what could be the biggest barrier to exploiting opportunity in the US?
Would you say government Mr. Dean? Because I'd be happy to hear your arguments about all the small government in Europe.
Has Europe gotten better or has the US gotten worse? I think that is the question. Of course, both can happen and probably have to some extent, but I think it is more of the latter.
Either way I think it would be incredibly hard to argue that Europe has comparatively smaller, less intrusive governments.
When you say X is because of Y then places with more Y should have more X...
True. But on the specific issue of social mobility, certain things that government does will make more difference than others. You are right that it is too simplistic just to say that big government is bad for social mobility and smaller is good. You have to look at what the governments do that affects that.
I see your point, but I worry about how that plays into ad hoc "just so" stories like the Austrians often do where you just, after the fact, hunt down some government program (there will always be at least one) and say "a-ha, it must have been THAT one that done did it!" Much more testable are hypothesis that suggest the kind of relationships I'm suggesting.
Culture plays a role. To use an old disfavored term, we've done a remarkable job in exterminating the 'protestant work ethic' in the lowest quintile. If you don't believe you can work hard and get ahead, you won't and therefore you don't. The whole ideology of the rich man keeping you down becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Again, I think it is extremely hard to argue that European nations have a better work ethic than we do...
Whatever would explain differences between us and Europe would have to be something, well, they have less of, not more of a problem with than we do...
I would be interested to see a measurement of how white Americans compare to dominant-ethnicity Europeans.
We can debate the causes ("It's patriarchy and racism!" "It's the welfare state!") but the statistical reality is that a lot of these aggregate comparisons are skewed by the fact that our minority populations have such poor economic performance, and we have larger minority populations than most European states.
In many respects the European welfare state, while still destructive, is less destructive than ours precisely because its standards are less exacting. To wedge yourself into our welfare state, you have to adopt or achieve a plethora of social pathologies; in Europe, you can get money helicoptered onto you without "proving" that you're "truly needy". We have pretty successfully maneuvered large components of some minority groups into "social work profiles" that are extremely difficult to escape and are self-reinforcing.
We might get better results if we took all the money we spend on poverty programs (and social workers) and just handed it out to poor households based purely on income via the EITC, and not based on other circumstances.
Are'nt there a fair amount of "minorities" in most European nations now?
In most states other than France the numbers, while growing, still aren't as high as in the United States.
OK, MNG, I'll bite.
Are you saying that social and financial mobility aren't a function of opportunity?
Or are you saying that government isn't the biggest barrier to taking advantage of opportunities? And, if not government, then what?
I might also suggest that social mobility can increase in a society as barriers are removed (such as by creating a Eurozone economy) and opportunities freed up, so that social mobility increases even though major barriers remain.
Still, how bizarre would it be to suggest that if X causes Y a case with significantly less, but incresing amount of X will have more Y than a case the other way around. It doesn't make any sense.
So, not answering either question.
Duly noted.
My god you are dense. I guess you don't realize your questions are, well, made meaningless by my point there.
You ask "Are you saying that social and financial mobility aren't a function of opportunity?
Or are you saying that government isn't the biggest barrier to taking advantage of opportunities?"
The reason why I "didn't answer your question" is because, as I pointed out, even if the answer is YES you are left with the problem that in Europe they have MORE government but, according to these studies, MORE mobility.
Tut, tut, MNG. First, I notice that you aren't answering the questions (still).
And your excuse seems to be that the European formula invalidates the questions. Which it doesn't.
Even if you you believe that Europe has more social mobility, and you answer both questions "yes", you have set the table for considering why that might be.
Of course, if you answer both questions no, then you are down a different track, namely, what is the source of social mobility, and what is the biggest barrier?
So let me get this straight: you want to claim government is the barrier to social mobility and square that with the Europeans having more government but also more mobility?
By all means, be my guest and get that dog to hunt.
I'm asking you, MNG, two (OK, maybe three) pretty basic questions, which you seem desperate to avoid.
Are you saying that social and financial mobility aren't a function of opportunity?
Or are you saying that government isn't the biggest barrier to taking advantage of opportunities? And, if not government, then what?
The day after Brett Ratner quit as the Oscar show producer ? just before he would have been fired for making a homophobic remark ? his close pal and "Tower Heist" star Eddie Murphy bowed out of hosting the Academy Awards in February.
http://www.suntimes.com/entert.....-host.html
Of course the other day John and fluffy tried to argue that is illegal to publicly make anti-gay comments so I guess Ratner will be sued or arrested any day.
Or something.
So... the Academy Awards just went from sucking to still sucking?
Supposedly Eddie walked out the Oscars one year when he didn't when an award, I imagine it was not a tough decision for him to keep solidarity here.
Hasn't Murphy been in trouble in the past for gay-based remarks?
Odd considering his brush with infamy when he picked up that male prostitute a few years back.
Interesting how he rehabed his image from that by doing kids flicks...
Time magazine's cover asked, "Can You Still Move Up in America?" The answer, citing a series of academic studies was, no
If Time says it, it must be true.
RTFA, several major studies were cited as the source of the claim.
Many people can still move up in America. To the East side.
Time Magazine? How was your dental appointment?
Time is basically My Weekly Reader for grownups.
Without the fun parts.
Can you imagine encountering this fuck in the bedroom, calling it off due to lack of dick, and getting some long lecture about feminist theories of gender as they put their clothes on?
No.
And not just because I'm a guy.
Fucking warning signs- how do they work?
Now MY head hurts.
There are some awfully "convincing" transgenders.
(Sorry, I couldn't think up a better word, but you know what I mean.)
So you've been to Thailand too?
Sorry, I haven't, but I find it interesting that some countries have a much larger transgender population than others.
LOL. I loved the barhogs (do they still call them that?) that would almost have you convinced and then they would say "My name's Susie" in a fine baritone. Of course they're all named Susie or Nancy.
Adam's apples and hands, man, Adam's apples and hands will keep you out of trouble.
They can, and often do, get their adam's apple shaved off.
"And tonight Rick Perry forgot the third agency he wants to eliminate. Just goes to show there are too damn many federal agencies."
Except that nobody asked Mr. Perry anything about the many departments he does NOT want to cut; merely the three he DOES want to cut.
Nice try, though.
Lucky for Perry that he isn't nearly as different from politics as usual as Ron Paul is, or he'd actually have to remember five departments.
The Perry moment was classic.
I was dissappointed that Cain didn't try to push Bachman's head into his lap though...
Not since Admiral Stockdale has a candidate just {insert metaphor here].
"Who am I? What am I doing here?"
That still makes me sad, because Stockdale was everything McCain wished he was. Stockdale was about as real a deal as they come. It's tragic that his defining moment in the popular culture was that debate.
"Stockdale was everything McCain wished he was."
I dunno, I feel queasy about ranking POWs...
I don't, since it's not really relevant to the discussion. I can still say for example, that McCain has no business in Congress regardless of his time as a POW.
Stockdale, from everything I've read, had the personal integrity McCain lacks. Plus, he got to be an Admiral, which is what McCain wanted out of his Navy career. I suppose McCain didn't give a damn about the rest of it, since he's been a career politician since then.
Perot didn't do him any favors by tabbing him as a running mate--and the thing that pisses me off the most about it, is that he's remembered for that crap, and not the fact that he almost single-handedly held the POWs at the Hanoi Hilton together through sheer force of will. The man was a goddamn hero and it's a shame that his legacy in the public consciousness is that stupid fucking debate.
i'll 2d that. admiral stockdale was a stand-up man. he was just too old by that time.
Actually, Admiral Stockdale was probably the most authentic intellectual to have been on a presidential ticket since Jefferson.
I don't recall where I read it but he tried to explain what he had meant by that question.
Essentially it was a philosophical question. By "Who am I?" he was essentially saying "none of you have heard of me before but I am going to try to tell you who I am in this debate. An by "What am I doing here?" he meant "you want to know why i am running for vice president".
Instead a brilliant thoughful man came off looking like a doddering old fool. Sad, really.
Well, that's what you get for going into politics, I guess. Televised debates are not the place for subtle rhetorical questions.
That was pretty much my take on the matter, too, Zeb.
You can say that again.
I'm not blonde.
I saw a clip of Perry's little glitch. The best part (AWESOME, in fact) was when Doctor Paul turned and held up five fingers, indicating, "No, Rick; there are FIVE cabinet-level federal agencies which should be abolished, not three."
What were the five Paul suggested?
IIRC, they were Education, Labor, Commerce, HUD and Agriculture.
Unfortunately, he left HHS, Transportation, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and Interior off his list.
I wonder it is not silly to focus on whether there are departments for such and such as opposed to how much they do. If all departments had their budgets cut by 43% as I think Gary Johnson has suggested I think that would result in smaller government than simply messing with the organizational chart...
Perhaps. I suggest we get rid of the ten I mentioned and cut the budgets of the remaining departments by 43%. That way we can see which way works better.
And then Herman Cain broke in with; " Nine, nine, nine"
I LOLed when Ron offered to help Perry out, there.
I read the transcript from last night's debate, since I boycotted its lack of online-ness, and it sounds like Paul knocked it out of the park on his questions. He seems to be getting deeper into the subjects now, especially on calling out how the worse segments of the economy are the ones the government is most heavily involved in, e.g. housing, health care, and education. And he seems to be drawing a clearer picture of how inflation is a hidden tax.
I met Admiral Stockdale, many many moons ago. He was no politician, but he was obviously an excellent human being.
"The Dover Air Force Base mortuary for years disposed of portions of troops' remains by cremating them and dumping the ashes in a Virginia landfill, a practice that officials have since abandoned in favor of burial at sea."
I confidently predict that this will have no impact whatever on the statist meme that government cares about its citizens.
This is the kind of overgeneralization I object to.
when somebody else is doing it.
Mario Batali decides his career has gone on long enough. Decides to end it in style!
Go out with a bang!
Umm, can anyone explain why Mario Batali should have anything to do with deciding who should be Time's 2011 person of the year?
He's no more or less qualified to make that decision than the editors of Time.
I agree. But the question remains.
Ugh. Why can't talented celebrities just stick to the things they are good at? You're a chef. I don't want to know what you think about bankers.
At least he threw Stalin in there as well.
Another example of someone who should stick to what he does best, I guess. Some people can't open their mouths without stupid falling out; maybe he is one of them.
It's a shame Rachel Ray wasn't the one that said it. The world would be a better place if she had never walked into a professional kitchen room full of microwaves.
The stupidest thing about Batali Godwinning the bankers is that I highly doubt he keeps his money in tin cans in the backyard and pays cash for everything. As ubiquitous as the credit monster is, it's still possible to keep their imprint on your life to a bare minumum.
And the headline in the URL says "Bataligate"?
God I hate the fucking -gate suffix.
Speaking of agencies we could easily survive as a nation without, I nominate Labor.
But Perry thought it started with an E, and wasn't EPA.
Since when did the ATF become the ETF?
Ed, Ag, Labor, HHS, HUD, Energy, HomeSec.
I find it particularly galling that agencies that were created in my lifetime are somehow essential to the polity now. Strangely, we managed to educate people quite well without a federal department. But now it's essential!
"Strangely, we managed to educate people quite well without a federal department."
Actually, we didn't. Especially for minorities education done by many states was just godawful until quite recently. It was incredibly uneven across the nation and, as the Sputnik stuff demonstrated, woefully deficient in math and science. People forget that the feds got involved for reasons, in response to things like this.
Right, those urban blacks and Hispanics are doing much better now.
"Right, those urban blacks and Hispanics are doing much better now."
They are, much, much better than they were. Again, you're looking at the fact that we have not reached perfection rather than comparing to what we had before all this started. If you think black kids in Mississippi are getting a bad education today, think about what they were getting in 1950 when there was pretty much no mean ol' federal government involved.
Government involvement in education didn't improve education for minorities. Civil rights for minorities did that. Active oppression by the state and local governments caused a lot of problems for blacks back then. A government education department wouldn't have stopped local racism problems.
"Government involvement in education didn't improve education for minorities. Civil rights for minorities did that."
This sentence is almost a parody of itself. Yeah, the federal government played no role in civil rights for minorities, especially regarding schools...
Because the government is supposed to protect our rights. That's its proper role. Doubling per student spending on education since 1980 with no improvement in average results should tell you something, and it's not that we should double spending again.
I don't know if you realize this, but a fair amount of what the DOE is charged with doing is enforcing civil rights laws and/or programs trying to address the racial gaps that are thought to be a result of the lack of civil rights.
Pretty much gives away the game right there.
Those kids in the 50's may not have gotten a much book education, but I guarantee you they were prepared for their trade at an earlier age.
This is the flaw of compulsory secondary education. It doesn't prepare ditch diggers and doormen.
We look at the fact that many kids, especially minority kids, don't get a real good education these days and forget that in, say, 1955 it was just shit-terrible, especially in many minority communities. Science teaching was an absolute joke, curricula were amazingly uneven, resources were incredibly uneven.
Maybe there was a better way to improve that than the feds getting in, but they didn't get in for shits and giggles, they responded to what many people saw as a real crisis.
Holy shit, could anyone possibly cram any more unsupported generalizations into a paragraph as MNG did into that first one?
That's a record, even for super self-righteous bleeding heart bullshitting MNG.
I'm afraid the case is much worse for you.
Are you unfamiliar as to the federal involvement in education increasing post Sputnik because of assessments that our science base was terrible? Are you unfamiliar with how blacks especially were much worse off by any metric before the era of major federal involvement?
It's your side that has the worst evidence going. All you do is point to the fact that minorities are doing worse than whites today as proof of, well, something.
We have the same educational performance today statistically that we had in 1980.
In every measure but one: dollars spent per student.
If we had the same performance in 1980 with fewer dollars spent per student, only a perverse love of bureaucracy and a desire to provide employment for degreed education deadbeats would lead you to not want to return to our previous spending level.
"We have the same educational performance today statistically that we had in 1980."
Now, now, this citation begging must go both ways. Linky?
And let's say this is true, what can be said then seems to me to be this: federal involvement in education was heavily associated with gains in many metrics until the last few decades when those gains seemed to freeze (though freezing at a point much higher than before the involvement started). This might imply a limit on what can be done but in no way proves nothing is or was done.
Well, education standards in Mississippi schools may not have been that great, but schools in New York State (to name only one state) were the envy of the world including ones with minority black enrollments (whether due to de facto or de jure segregation).
As for the the post Sputnik propaganda, it was just more of the same Military-industrial complex bullshit propaganda.
Bomber Gap...Missile Gap...Sattelite Gap...just one more gap to add to the whole litany of alleged gaps. The only real gap is the fucking Credibility Gap.
But the funny thing is, why this game? I've posted here long enough to know that you guys don't determine your support for federal education spending based on its effectiveness, even if it could be prove to you it was incredibly effective you would oppose it on philosophical grounds (teh STEALING! and such).
So, I submit you may not want to think fairly about how effective it is because you want it cut regardless...It's like arguing with you guys about deficets and hearing you say "we must cut this because we can't afford it." That's funny, you don't care about deficets apart from their usefulness in pushing what you really want, less government period.
And even though their decades of involvement haven't improved the situation statistically, now that they're in they have to stay in, because...
Why, exactly?
They are, much, much better than they were.
The US Department of Education started operating in 1980. So I want a cite showing that minority educational performance has improved since 1980.
I'm not interested in talking about 1955. 1955 as a start date has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the effectiveness of the US D of Ed. You can use 1955 to prove the effectiveness of the SCOTUS if you want but not the cabinet department.
The department of education that was 'created' in 1980 simply took over a lot of federal programs and mandates that had been in place long before, so how do you tease them out? If getting rid of the DOE means all of its functions then yes, you have to deal with those which predate it but which it now administers.
Walter Williams...or Kanye West?
Thomas Sowell...or Spike Lee?
Clarence Thomas...or Barack Obama?
I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't the education they were getting that was the problem.
The Department of Education was created in 1979. Given that, how is anything you said relevant?
Dude, you are thinking of the current cabinet level Department of Education. There was a Federal Department of Education that looong predated that.
http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html
But that would mean that the bad performance in 1955 would be under that office's watch.
So you still don't have a way to say, "Gee, performance in 1955 was bad so that meant we needed a federal department of education." How can you say that if we already had one?
My guess on MNG's answer: it needed more money!
Well, this is exactly what happened if you read the excerpt. The feds poured money and standards in after Sputnik and then again during the Civil Rights movement. Much of that kind of thing is now administered by the DOE. They have a record of proven success.
Much of that kind of thing is now administered by the DOE. They have a record of proven success.
They had a record of proven success (at best).
What they have since 1980 is a record of wasting everyone's time and money.
Education spending has tripled since 1970 with no real improvement in educational achievement.
I think it's important that we continue wasting money on education since the largest donor to the Democratic party.
It was incredibly uneven across the nation and, as the Sputnik stuff demonstrated, woefully deficient in math and science.
All it demonstrated to the Beltway is that space was the next ruler to be used in the continued dick-measuring contest between the USA and USSR, paid for by tax dollars.
No shit. Like I would ever even get within a country mile of fucking some dude who knew the least little bit about feminist theory of anything. He'd be no different that the 1000s of effete, delicate born-men that I ignore every day.
But then you'd miss out on hunks like SugarFree and AuH20.
And me, I suppose, although I tried very hard to scrub that entire episode of marxist feminism from my brain.
I do have a fine beard, but I'm not nearly woodsy, taciturn or handy enough with an ax for dear Kristen.
You are kind of verbose.
...
Not everyone has had the opportunity to be mentored by Ron Swanson.
Knowledge of something doesn't mean that you have anything to do with it. I'm sure many of the people here have read Keynes, Marx, etc.
I suspect the MNGs of the world, when referring to "upward mobility" really mean "getting a highly lucrative unskilled union job".
Meh, I've settled for Fonzie with a GED. His eyes glaze over when I talk about economics, but god damn is he a bad ass on guitar.
If I had a son, I hound him to learn guitar. My dad tried with me, but I have no musical ability whatsoever. I can barely play my iPod.
I think I'd push for bass. Bring the funk, junior!
Trying to convince a buddy to put his 5yo son in ballet. Sure, he'll hate you 'til he's 16, but after that, he'll be the guy who has been putting his hands all over the hot dance chicks for the last decade. Buddy isn't sold yet.
Dear Kristen-
Sometimes I have an overpowering urge to go to the second hand store and buy an assortment of darling little ceramic figurines, and then take them to the gun club and blast them to smithereens with my pistol(s).
Is that wrong?
I can feel the anger spreading within you. Use the Force, Brooks.
VIOLENT RHETORIC!
[swoons]
Where's my fainting couch?
I wonder what PR firm Stockdale's estate hired on such short notice to get people to run around to various blogs today and defend his memory in the comments on various Perry threads?
This is problem with most of you. Regardless of looks, quirky unattractive idiosyncrasies, and nerdy obsessions, you would all be knee deep in pussy if you would have just learned to play guitar.
I'm already knee-deep in pussy. Hip-deep would kill me professionally, so I will take this opportunity to thank my dad for buying me a basketball instead of a guitar.
Why the fuck did no one tell me this when I was 14?
Mwaa ha ha! And everyone at the time thought me a fool to drop junior varsity basketball to become a home recording nerd. Revenge was mine, in the long term.
Being quite stupid does not disqualify Perry from getting the GOP nomination. The last nominee couldn't say how many houses he owned; the nominee before that was George W. One can make the argument that GOP voters WANT a stupid president; certainly one cannot avoid the argument that a majority of GOP voters are intensely stupid.
. . . certainly one cannot avoid the argument that a majority of GOP voters are intensely stupid.
FIFY
Especially for minorities education done by many states was just godawful until quite recently. It was incredibly uneven
As we know, the real sin here is unevenness.
It is better to have uniform mediocrity than a dispersion of outcomes.
Can't have laboratories of education to see what works, after all. We should let the feds cram the pet theory of the day down everybody's throats.
And while they're at it, fuck up education all together. Next thing you know, we'll have a Department of Pedestrian Traffic.
They have a record of proven success.
*outright, prolonged laughter*
pretty cool how the one link about perry goes to the admin login for your site.
I am sad to see one prediction that i made coming true:
Euro goes BOOM
and an earlier version
and I have e-mails from around 2008 where i said this will be the case.
Don't know if anyone else noted it but Bil Keane is dead. Our long national nightmare is over.
Speaking of the U.S. fashion industry, a handful of the few big-name designers. However, you must not forget Marc Jacobs. His designs are generally free, but the product is designed themselves. For example: Marc Jacobs Handbag, Marc by Marc Jacobs Handbag. In fact, his decks Marc by Marc Jacobs also stand out in the fashion industry. Marc by Marc Jacobs Bags as many types of styles, has also been sought after by many big Hollywood stars.
Stick a fork in Rick Perry. The Texas Toast is burnt. There are a few things Rick should know, One: debate performance must be top level, two; speak in complete sentences and three: uh, uh, let's see... uh... oops!