A.M. Links: McCain Slams GOP for Payroll Tax Debacle, U.S. Admits Some Responsibility for Killing Pakistani Troops, Romney Wants to Deport Obama's Uncle

• "Next November, no incumbent is safe, nor should they be," says Sen. John McCain of the payroll tax holiday debacle. 

• Former compassionate conservative Mitt Romney wants to deport Obama's uncle. 
• Newt Gingrich wants to fight Mitt Romney (with words).
• U.S. admits partial blame for a murder-drone attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.  
• France further suffocates free speech with Armenian genocide law. 
• Fourteen bombs rocked Baghdad this morning (60 killed). 

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New at Reason.tv: "Reason-Rupe Poll: Americans Like Their Banks Better Than The Gov't."

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Newt Gingrich wants to fight Mitt Romney (with words).

Two men enter, one audience leaves bored.

[John]

+100

[Tim]

With Romney the mitts never come off.

[Ted S.]

On the bright side, NBC made this one of the top stories on the Today show, and didn't say anything (not even anything negative) about Ron Paul's treatment of the media in the couple of minutes of the show after the local news before I turned off the TV.

[robc]

I know this will come as a shock to everyone, but, based on a future appearance of an acquaintance of mine on a reality show, they are at least 75% bullshit.

Shocker, I know.

[Auric Demonocles]

Gasp! That's unpossible!

[Quetzalcoatl]

Is it one of the pawn shows? You seem like you'd know some pawnbrokers...

[robc]

heh, nope.

Im not sure if I should be insulted by that comment or not.

[Quetzalcoatl]

It's probably better than assuming you know someone from Jersey Shore.

[robc]

Literally 100% of that show that I have seen has been clips on the new Beavis and Butthead.

[Zeb]

Me too. I am very pleased with the new Beavis and Butthead.

[Brett L]

Is it on MTV? Does MTV still exist?

[robc]

Yes and apparently so. Im not sure what decade I last watched MTV before B&B came back.

[Zeb]

I have no idea if MTV still exists, but they do still seem to have a website which allows me to watch Beavis and Butthead (if you don't mind watching the stupid Zooey Deschannel cotton ad 4 times in a row).

[robc]

Actually on topic, the one with them flying the drones in Afghanistan was great.

[Mr. FIFY]

It's like Mike Judge just stepped forward in time, and picked up where he left off... the references are different, but he skewers them in the same way.

I think this is his way of atoning for creating The Goode Family, which was his That '80s Show.

[mad libertarian guy]

Until they do a Beavis and Butthead review of Opeth's newest album Heritage, it won't be worth anything to me.

[Lord Humungus]

I'm reminded of this:

Editing "Reality" TV with Charlie Brooker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEGqepsFTbI

[Ted S.]

Only 75%?

[Gimlet]

First?

"murder-drone"

Sensationalism rocks!

[Auric Demonocles]

First?

That's what you get.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Quetzalcoatl-Rupe Poll Question of the Day:
Is Megan McArdle the Zooey Deschanel of the blogosphere?

[robc]

Im not sure I know what that means, but the answer is no.

[Quetzalcoatl]

"Next November, no incumbent is safe, nor should they be," says Sen. John McCain of the payroll tax holiday debacle.

Obviously racist language meant to incite actual violence against politicians.

[Karl Hungus]

No, you have to show a photo of a specific politician overlaid with crosshairs for it to be considered an actual threat.

[Sarah Palin]

Like Gabby Giffords ?

[Montani Semper Liberi]

If you support Ron Paul, you wanted the Nazis to win WWII.

The man who wrote the newsletter story for The New Republic is back with Ron Paul Newsletters 2: Electric Boogaloo. This time in The Weekly Standard.

[RoboCain]

"This fits philosophically with his previous calls for "armed neutrality," which would turn America into Switzerland."

And we all know what a violent, impoverished nation Switzerland is.

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

hmmmm... what's the income tax structure in Switzerland?

[RoboCain]

I have no idea, but as far as national security is concerned they have been exceptionally safe for a very long time.

[Montani Semper Liberi]

Might have something to do with almost the entire country being a mountain range where all the adults have guns and know how to use them.

[Montani Semper Liberi]

Oh, and not sticking their noses into everyone's business playing World Freedom Police

[robc]

That does come with 3 weeks per year of military service from ~18 to ~35 (longer and more weeks if you are an officer, my boss was a colonel or something, I think he had to put in 8 weeks per year).

[robc]

Basically, every healthy male is a member of the national guard. Spend the summer after high school doing basic training, then a few weeks a year until 35ish.

[SIV]

And they keep murder-rifles in their closets!

[Joe M]

Not Switzerland!!!

[robc]

The only other country I have ever lived/worked in was Switzerland. They were, for at least a decade, my backup country if necessary. But, alas, I dont think I still have the contacts I used to have (although my old boss appears to still work at the same place but has his old boss' job).

I was disappointed when they joined the UN.

[Lost_In_Translation]

I was disappointed when they joined the UN.

They probably did it for the gravy train of conferences.

They wisely avoided the euro however.

[Quetzalcoatl]

I hear it's pretty hard to get Swiss citizenship.

[robc]

Not hard at all -- be born to a swiss citizen.

Its basically impossible if you arent born into it, but they dont mind foreigners working. I didnt need a work visa when I was there, I did need a housing visa though -- if I had commuted across the border every day I wouldnt have needed a visa at all.

[Matrix]

I'm pretty sure America and other Allied nations' treatment of Germany after WWI was largely responsible for the rise of Hitler and the Nazis

[Resto Druid FTW]

I did want the Nazis to win. Is that wrong???

[Matrix]

as a Jew, yes... and **** you!

[Montani Semper Liberi]

The Wall St. Journal goes all-in for the GOP neo-con establishment.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

What a surprise

[PS]

Nice hit piece, touching on all the salient points. Since everything Paul says is propaganda for America's enemies everything she says must be truth (pravda). And since she's telling the truth Paul must be speaking anti-American propaganda. The logic is really inescapable.

[Lord Humungus]

I thought this was a nasty, nasty little piece of work.

especially:

One who is the best-known of our homegrown propagandists for our chief enemies in the world. One who has made himself a leading spokesman for, and recycler of, the long and familiar litany of charges that point to the United States as a leading agent of evil and injustice, the militarist victimizer of millions who want only to live in peace.

If he had UK libel laws...?

[PS]

It is so nasty, that it ought to backfire from going full retard. Or maybe I'm just being overly optimistic.

[Zeb]

It might make more liberals support him.

[Rhywun]

But it won't - because it's preaching to the choir at WSJ.

And yes, it is a breathtakingly nasty piece of work.

[bosty]

The world may not be ready for another American president traversing half the globe to apologize for the misdeeds of the nation he had just been elected to lead. Still, it would be hard to find any public figure in America whose views more closely echo those of President Obama on that tour.

In conclusion, vote for a neocon whose policy matches Obama's, but will offer much better rhetoric.

[Underpants Gnome]

"But rarely have we heard in any American political figure such exclusive concern for, and appreciation of, the motives of those who attacked us?and so resounding a silence about the suffering of those thousands that the perpetrators of 9/11 set out so deliberately to kill"

Ron Paul: loves terrorists - hates 9/11 victims.
Tomorrow at the WSJ: "Ron Paul Fucking Hates Corn! And Even The Word 'Iowa'!"

[Quetzalcoatl]

Sixty bombs rocked Baghdad this morning.

Sharia don't like it!

[Terr]

Riggs: 14 bombings. 60 dead.

[Arduin Grimoire]

Your word for today:

butthuffer

1. one who like to smell others's and their own gas.
2. one who like to stick their nose in other peoples' business.
3. an idiot, a moron.
4. a smoker, one who smokes.

Usage:

Being butthuffers, Tony and MNG sleep together, nose to anus.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Shouldn't there be something about jenkem in there?

[SIV]

Murder Drones!

[o3]

The corporations that occupy Congress

Last month Citizens for Tax Justice and an affiliate issued "Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10?. It showed that 30 brand-name companies paid a federal income tax rate of minus 6.7 percent on $160 billion of profit from 2008 through 2010 compared to a going corporate tax rate of 35 percent. All but one of those 30 companies reported lobbying expenses in Washington.

Another report, by Public Campaign, shows that 29 of those companies spent nearly half a billion dollars over those three years lobbying in Washington for laws and rules that favor their interests. Only Atmos Energy, the 30th company, reported no lobbying.

Company reports to shareholders show that among the 30 companies in the Public Campaign report, the 10 firms that spent the most on lobbying during the same three-year period fired more than 93,000 American workers.

Those firings took place in an economy that had five million fewer people with any work in 2010 than in 2008.

The United States already ranks second among modern nations, just behind South Korea, in the share of its workers in low-wage jobs while too many companies lobby for ever lower taxes, ever smaller wages and ever fewer worker rights to protect the mighty torrents of greenbacks flowing into their coffers. A better balance would make America better off.

>For the amount spent lobbying, the companies could have hired 3,100 people at $50,000 for wages and benefits to do productive work.

http://blogs.reuters.com/david.....-congress/

[Zeb]

Hmm. I wonder what could be done about that? What possible incentives could corporations have for lobbying the government?

[o3]

...and what motives.

[Chupacabra]

We obviously need MOAR REGULASHUNZ!

[o3]

...so 93,000 MOAR wont be fired.

[P Brooks]

With any luck, McCain will fall victim to America's senseless, irrational urge to evict their selfless hard-working Senatorial benefactors.

[rac3rx]

Not for at least another 5 years. He was re-elected in 2010.

[Arduin Grimoire]

What Fannie and Freddie Knew
...The Beltway story of the crisis claims that Congress's affordable housing mandates had nothing to do with it. But the SEC's lawsuit shows that Fannie degraded its underwriting standards to increase its market share in subprime loans. According to the SEC suit, for instance, in 2006 Fannie Mae adjusted its widely used automated underwriting system, "Desktop Underwriter." Fannie did so as part of its "Say Yes" strategy to "provide more 'approve' messages . . . for larger volumes of loans with lower FICO [credit] scores and higher LTVs [loan-to-value] than previously permitted."

The SEC also shows how Fannie led private lenders into the subprime market. In July 1999, Fannie and Angelo Mozilo's Countrywide Home Loans entered "an alliance agreement" that included "a reduced documentation loan program called the 'internet loan,'" later called the "Fast and Easy" loan. As the SEC notes, "by the mid-2000s, other mortgage lenders developed similar reduced documentation loan programs, such as Mortgage Express and PaperSaver?many of which Fannie Mae acquired in ever-increasing volumes."

Mr. Mozilo and Fannie essentially were business partners in the subprime business. Countrywide found the customers, while Fannie provided the taxpayer-backed capital. And the rest of the industry followed....

...The SEC says Fannie executives also failed to disclose the company's total exposure to risky "Alt-A" loans, sometimes called "liar loans," which required less documentation than traditional subprime loans. Fannie created a special category called "Lender Selected" loans and it gave lenders "coding designations" to separate these Alt-A loans from those Fannie had publicly disclosed. By June 30, 2008, Fannie said its Alt-A exposure was 11% of its portfolio, when it was closer to 23%?a $341 billion difference....

[New York Times]

Bullshit! Greedy corporations!

[Invisible Finger]

But the SEC's lawsuit shows that Fannie degraded its underwriting standards to increase its market share in subprime loans.

I've been saying this for years. And F&F were resisting until public employee pensions started putting heat on them and on Congress. The public employees couldn't stand not getting in on the housing bubble (partly because of their inflated growth targets).

[P Brooks]

Megan McArdle is a worthless dope.

[RoboCain]

She can get a bit too wordy, but she is a good writer.

[SIV]

Megan is no Maureen Dowd.

See how that sounds?

[RoboCain]

Well, she is no Maureen Dowd. Dowd's stock in trade is chirpy fabulist snark, not long-winded analysis.

[SIV]

"Analysis" like:

"We have to pass TARP or my old classmates at Wharton will lose their jobs!"

[RoboCain]

Just because you disagree with something she wrote doesn't make her a bad writer.

[SIV]

Megan is certainly no Gretchen Morgensen either.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Although I disagree with you on that, the question is whether, in your opinion, being "a worthless dope" makes her the Zooey Deschanel of the Blogosphere.

[Ska]

Zooey Deschanel, being a much cuter, less skanky Fairuza Balk, has value - dopey or not.

[SIV]

I'd rather bang Fairuza Balk if given the choice.

[Ska]

I'd take both, but if it was a one-and-done-take-your-pick deal, I probably would too, only because I like banging freaky skanks.

[R C Dean]

That's a little harsh. She's more of a metro-libertarian. There's some libertarian rationale in there, but it loses out too frequently to the East Coast metro squishy-liberal groupthink that she marinates in.

[Lord Humungus]

If Ron Paul Wins Caucuses, Iowa Will Be Loser: Margaret Carlson
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/.....rlson.html

Paul has many fine qualities as a candidate, which his furious supporters are quick to point out whenever the news media treats his campaign as a sideshow. In a year when voters crave authenticity, Paul exudes it. He eschewed earmarks before it was cool and, according to the Associated Press, as a practicing physician he rejected Medicaid payments, instead taking whatever a patient could afford, including a batch of fresh shrimp once in return for delivering a baby.

Yet Paul is seriously out of step with much of the Republican Party and most of the U.S. He has long championed the gold standard and lenient drug laws while opposing U.S. interventions abroad, the Federal Reserve and the income tax. A unique politician? Yes. The Republican nominee? Never.

[Lost_In_Translation]

That tripe is getting old. Iowa is only rarely a bellweather. Its really the combined effects of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that make for a candidate.

You know, I like the idea of a state being first if just so candidates and media don't have to be everywhere at once like in a national primary. It gives low budget candidates a chance to overcome their better funded peers.

I just wish that state wasn't ALWAYS Iowa.

[Brett L]

From my state's experience, such heretical views will get your delegates cashiered at the convention.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Cashiered? Paid out? Forced into clerk labor?

[Lost_In_Translation]

or do you live in Florida?

[Brett L]

FL

[Fist of Etiquette]

Turkey's state-run TV says the country is recalling its ambassador to France in retaliation fore a vote in French Parliament making it a crime to deny the WWI-era mass killings of Armenians amounts to genocide.

French liberty. Genocide or not, making assertions criminal is tyrannical.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

The French and the Turks deserve each other.

[Zeb]

So, will this law preclude travel between France and Turkey? As I understand it it is pretty much illegal for anyone not to deny the Armenian genocide in Turkey. I wonder if they will start arresting Turkish diplomats in France?

[Lord Humungus]

How Mitt Will Win
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.c.....-will-win/

In the Real Clear Politics average of multiple polls, Romney trails Paul by less than two points for the Iowa lead. If the libertarian congressman dips just a bit, which is easy to imagine, since both the press and his rivals are only now beginning to highlight his more extreme views and dubious associations, Romney could plausibly squeak out a victory.

If that happens, the battle for the nomination will be all but over. Paul, Gingrich and Jon Huntsman have decent numbers in New Hampshire, but Romney has held a solid lead for months, and the state's famous contrarianism notwithstanding, it's hard to imagine his edge evaporating after an Iowan win.

[Joe M]

Well according to media received wisdom, Romney has this thing wrapped up no matter what. It's pretty obvious no one else besides Romney or Paul has a chance in Iowa, and I've been told a Paul win in Iowa is good for Romney, so... I guess we don't even really need to vote. Whew glad we figured that out and saved ourselves the trouble.

[Lost_In_Translation]

I don't disagree. Paul has to win to overcome the fringe label nationally.

Romney winning would deflate all other campaigns and the tide would overcome gingrich's S. Carolina lead.

Paul would continue to fight, but its likely that the establishmentarians would drop everyone else and fall in line behind romney, leaving at best an 60/20 split.

[pmp]

This sounds about right.

[mad libertarian guy]

It's totally "extreme" to suggest that maybe we shouldn't have the #1 prison population in the world, filled with drug users, or that maybe, just maybe, we should look to dial back on the international expeditionism, or that the FED is fucked.

Totally!

[P Brooks]

For the amount spent lobbying, the companies could have hired 3,100 people at $50,000 for wages and benefits to do productive work.

Unfortunately, in the current political and economic environment, money spent lobbying *is* a productive investment, you bonehead.

Whose fault would that be?

[Occutard]

TEH KORPORAYSHUNZ!!

[Chinese didnt get memo !]

Using Propaganda to Stop China's Strikes
Government and industry search for ways to calm the country's factory hands

Less than two years after the worker suicides at electronics giant Foxconn and a strike at Honda (HMC) suppliers in Guangdong province, labor troubles are again roiling China.

>On Nov. 17 around 7,000 workers at a Taiwanese-owned New Balance supplier in Dongguan protested plans to relocate production to Jiangxi province and cut bonuses. Dozens of workers were injured when police moved in, according to reports and photos posted on the Internet.

>Five days later, 1,000 workers halted production to protest overtime rules at a Shenzhen company that, according to its website, supplies Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

>In Shanghai, women workers at Singapore-owned Hi-P International, a supplier for Motorola Mobility (MMI) and others, struck on Nov. 30 over a planned shift of part of production to Jiangsu province. (Motorola confirms the incident, and says it is not directly involved in working toward a resolution.)

"We are seeing an upsurge in worker activism that exceeds anything since the summer of 2010," says Geoffrey Crothall, communications director at China Labour Bulletin, an advocacy group in Hong Kong.

>Some 180,000 riots, strikes, and protests occurred in 2010, according to Sun Liping, a professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University.

On Dec. 1 the government announced the first contraction in manufacturing since 2009. "As the environment goes from bad to worse, a lot of factories want to find a way out," says Willie Fung, chairman of Hong Kong bra-maker Top Form International.

"They want to downsize, shut down, or move somewhere else, and this sparks labor disputes." A strike at Fung's Shenzhen factory ended after he agreed to a holiday bonus of $189 each for 500 workers.

China's leaders don't want strikes to stoke broad social unrest.

http://www.businessweek.com/ma.....52011.html

[Fluffy]

You know what's funny/sad?

I think there's a pretty good chance the Iraqi government collapses.

Now, the obvious conclusion to draw from that collapse will be that our nation-building project there was stupid and a waste of time, money, and men, and that the Iraq exercise proves that even if you spend nearly a decade and hundreds of billions of dollars, you can't really turn Iraq into Belgium.

But the people who advocated that policy and who wasted those lives and that time and that money will say that the lesson here is that we should have just stayed in Iraq forever. To, you know, make sure it wasn't all in vain. Even though it probably was. And even though we said over and over we had no intention of staying there forever and that Iraq was sovereign.

[Joe M]

Well of course a puppet collapses when its strings are cut.

[RoboCain]

I agree. The neocons will never admit that they shouldn't have gone in there. Hussein was doing a better job keeping out terrorists than we ever could.

[John]

We could have ended the sanctions and welcomed Hussain back into the world community. That is true. Hell, we probably could have bought him off.

But last I heard you guys thought it was a bad thing to prop up dictators and that was the reason the Arabs hated us.

[robc]

Its not "propping up" if you arent involved at all.

[RoboCain]

Exactly. Iraq wasn't behind 9/11 and there were no weapons of mass destruction.

[Dead Kurds]

We beg to differ.

[RoboCain]

Not my problem.

[Dead Kurds]

True, so why say that the WMD that were used to slaughter us never existed?

[o3]

the nukes didnt...as in mushroom clouds over NYC...remember?

[Ray]

I'm not sure, how were the Kurds gassed in the 80's if not with WMDs?

[o3]

u mean the 20year old sarin gas we previously knew about when hussain gassed the iranians in the late 80's?

[Lost_In_Translation]

propping Saddam up would have involved the CIA aiding and abetting him like they did the Shah. I'm pretty sure we're not propping up the Myanamar government even though we don't have sanctions on them (I don't believe).

[John]

The only way to have kept him from causing us problems would have been to pay him off like we are doing the North Koreans. And that would count as "propping him up".

[Lost_In_Translation]

wait, what?

[Gray Ghost]

We do have sanctions against Burma. Sort of. (scroll down to U.S. sanctions) The EU's are more thorough, I think, but SLORC is still getting their oil and natural gas out.

[John]

I don't know that it is going to collapse and even if it does what happens? The Iranians invade? Worse case it just divides into three countries, which was a proposal that was on the table anyway. Whatever happens they won't be invading other countries and causing anymore trouble and the result will be better than it was had we left in say 2004. And also, there is a ton of foreign radicals who are dead now that would have been causing trouble elsewhere.

No, we should not have stayed forever. They have had eight years to get on their feet. If they can't get their act together, that is their problem not ours. At some point they will tire of killing each other and work something out.

[Arduin Grimoire]

Whatever happens they won't be invading other countries and causing anymore trouble and the result will be better than it was had we left in say 2004

The old "it would have just been worse if govt didn't act and you can't prove otherwise so STFU" argument, favored by Big Govt lackeys like Krugman and John......

[John]

To say otherwise is to say that Iraqi government obtained no improvement or no issues were settled between 2004 and now. And that is just not true. It really would have been Somalia in 2004.

[Arduin Grimoire]

It really would have been Somalia in 2004

ROADZ!!!!11eleven!!!11

[Itsmy Nature]

At some point they will tire of killing each other and work something out.

That's CRAZY TALK!!

[Quetzalcoatl]

Actually, I think that might just be the craziest thing I've heard a non-troll assert seriously on H&R.

[robc]

At some point they will tire of killing each other and work something out.

3000+ years. You would think that would have happened by now.

[Lost_In_Translation]

I don't think it was constant warfare, but the tribal system didn't lend itself to long standing peace agreements.

The only thing that changed was the sophistication of the weapons.

[Zeb]

I don't know. It happened in Europe.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Just give it a few months...

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Different cultures--plus the Middle East has not had literally tens of millions die in two massive industrialized wars. Their involvement was really tangential to the larger conflicts, Lawrence of Arabia not withstanding.

By the end of WW2, Europe was just plain worn out.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

You've got a couple of strawmen there.

What we're going to get is three countries that will be fighting over oil resources. And there will be potential for destabilization of Saudi Arabia. We should have split them up years ago, which is not to say that invading them was the right thing to do in any case.

[RoboCain]

Why should this splitting up be up to us? It's not our job to reorganize foreign countries.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

How is splitting them up any different from invading them and instituting a new central government by force?

[RoboCain]

Why should invading them and instituting a new central government by force be up to us? It's not our job to reorganize foreign countries.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Splitting them up would have led to as much violence as each wanted the oil in the others territories.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

At the least, we would have been in more of a position to control the fallout. Now, we're going to be on the sidelines as it spirals out of control.

[Lord Humungus]

Iraq is a country with many (many, many) fault lines - political, economic, and religious.

I'm shocked, shocked - that our withdrawal would lead to sectarian strife.

[John]

There is sectarian strife in a lot of places.

[Whew!]

Glad the United States is not one of them.

[Joe Biden]

No shock. I advocated partition into 3 federal territories...which the neocons rejected in favor of the meme that iraq would recover like france after WW2.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

For once, you're not a moron Joe

[Brett L]

Blind squirrel. Acorn.

[Joe]

damn BIGG acorn

[Lost_In_Translation]

Once you leave though, can we really go back? Things will calm down soon enough when the Iranian Shias finish the purge.

[Joe M]

A not perfect, but decent article at Time: 12 Days Till Iowa: Ron Paul Is Not a Politician

I thought this was a mostly fair summary:

He can sum up his philosophy in a paragraph: "[The Washington Establishment] believes that if you have the freedom to keep what you earn and take care of yourself, you won't do it. They want to do it for you?and they've been trying for the past 70 years, since the Great Depression. But we've learned that government can't do it, either."

But then he misses the point by stating:

...that is where Paul's libertarianism falls down: This is a complicated society...

[Montani Semper Liberi]

It's a complicated society, which is exactly why central planning doesn't work. The number of decisions that individuals make on a daily basis is simply incomprehensible by any finite collection of Washington technocrats no matter what their egos might tell them.

[Joe M]

Exactly! I commented pretty the same thing over there.

[Lost_In_Translation]

...that is where Paul's libertarianism falls down: This is a complicated society...

Its a standard meme that many people have. Until that mentality is overcome, Paul types don't stand a chance.

[Lord Humungus]

Why Pilot Projects Fail
http://www.theatlantic.com/bus.....il/250364/

This is one more installment in a continuing series, brought to you by the universe, entitled "promising pilot projects often don't scale". They don't scale for corporations, and they don't scale for government agencies. They don't scale even when you put super smart people with expert credentials in charge of them. They don't scale even when you make sure to provide ample budget resources. Rolling something out across an existing system is substantially different from even a well run test, and often, it simply doesn't translate.

as usual, Reason was way ahead on this...

[Quetzalcoatl]

I thought that was a worthwhile article. I also liked her weigh-in on Forbes' "If I Were a Poor Black Boy"-gate.

[Fluffy]

The other problem the food police will run into is that...(drumroll)...

Kids don't like gourmet ethnic food.

So frankly the better they get at solving the problem of how they're doing to provide high quality vegeterian Indian cuisine to elementary school students, the farther away they're going to get from their goal of getting kids to eat the stuff.

My wife is a gourmet cook in several cuisines.

My kid looks at everything she makes and demands hot dogs or a bowl of Cheerios. And there is no amount of waiting him out that will get him to try vegetable somosas or zucchini fritters or coq au vin.

Now maybe in LA the focus on Mexican cuisine was giving many of the kids stuff they were eating at home. But I tend to doubt that the numbers were high enough to make up for all the kids who will only be willing to eat mac and cheese or pizza until they grow up and develop real palates in their 20's.

[Lord Humungus]

^this^

most of the 'exotic' food we make is snubbed by our son. Chicken nuggets it is!

[Lost_In_Translation]

carbs, sugar and fat. Its pretty much a base human demand. Only now, that we have so much food, is that demand become problematic.

[SteveGunn]

Carbs, Protein, and Fat and not necessarily in that order. You listed sugar twice.

[robc]

If people are honest, they will admit that even after they develop the real palate and can enjoy better food, they still love mac and cheese or pizza.

[Quetzalcoatl]

My one-year-old is practically a vegetarian. I'm not sure why, she just doesn't really like meat.

[Devil's Advocate]

Mine didn't like meat either for some time, until 2-ish or so. I fixed all her baby food; she liked most vegetables at that time. After 2 or so she started on her veggie-hating phase, from which she has not yet emerged. She does like carrots and broccoli (!) though, so go figure.

[Nipplemancer]

My one-year-old hates beef but will eat chicken and other meats.

[mad libertarian guy]

My 4 year old won't even TRY beef. He will eat SOME chicken.

Getting him to eat anything at all is a struggle.

[Karl Hungus]

My daughter, 11, has liked rare steak since she was first able to chew. She also likes steamed oysters, believe it or not.

[Gimlet]

Why on earth would one steam an oyster?

[Brett L]

That's what you do with the ones whose shells get all busted up and still won't open.

[Devil's Advocate]

I am like your wife (I like to cook, and I can do it in a number of cuisines), and so much this:

My kid looks at everything she makes and demands hot dogs or a bowl of Cheerios. And there is no amount of waiting him out that will get him to try vegetable somosas or zucchini fritters or coq au vin.

Nothing like having your precious darling turn up her nose at the carefully crafted meal you have prepared.

[Zeb]

Wow. With a few exceptions of things I still can't stand to eat, I don't think I ever rejected any food that my parents served to me (and they actually knew how to cook too). Your kids are ungrateful jerks. (just kidding, I was unusual in many ways).

[Brett L]

That was a good way to stay hungry in my home. Not only was I required from about the age of having teeth to eat what was served, but I also had to eat a little bit of every dish, even the ones I didn't like.

As an adult I eat anything put in front of me. Although some things I will pass on, given the chance. Like brussels sprouts and... well, that's about it.

[Chupacabra]

This.

We ask our kids to try everything that I put in front of them, and I refuse to make them a separate, kid-friendly dinner. We'll even reward them with a small treat if they eat something that kids usually hate.

And now, my five year old willingly eats roasted beets, red peppers, broccoli, and various ethnic cuisines that I cook extensively (Italian, Vietnamese, Spanish, Korean, etc.)

[wylie]

ROAST YOUR BRUSSEL SPROUTS.

I can't say this enough. I was a "i eat anything except brussel sprouts" kinda guy, then I had them roasted.

[Brett L]

Sure. That's why careful attention is paid in (at least the chemistry and petrochem) industry to how you build the pilot so that it will scale. These aren't even really pilot projects, so much as proof-of-concepts. Pilot is an intermediate scaleup of the proof of concept that allows a process to be evaluated at medium scale without bankrupting the company if it doesn't scale well and alternate solutions can't be found.

[db]

This. Much of my career has been doing pilot scale tests and scaling the results up to full scale processes. There is a huge difference between bench scale (proof of concept) and pilot scale testing. I imagine this holds true not only for chemical processes but for social programs as well. Maybe more so for social programs, as there are far more uncontrolled variables there.

[Mike Laursen]

Don't need no f'ing pilot when you've got Top Men.

[Fluffy]

BTW, please stop posting gross pictures on the main H&R page.

Thanks.

[Lost_In_Translation]

yeah, leave that to nutrasweet posts.

[Arduin Grimoire]

7 Ridiculous Origins of Everyday Words
...According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first person to use "OMG" was a 75-year-old British admiral, which is about as far as a carbon-based life form can get from a teenage valley girl in a mall texting her friends about Justin Bieber's butt. His name was John Arbuthnot "Jacky" Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher of Kilverstone, and he coined the term while writing his memoirs ... in 1917. Almost 100 years ago....

[John]

Jacky Fisher was the force behind the dreadnought and the modern battleship. He built the Navy that fought World War I under his protegee Jelicoe.

[tarran]

John,

What did you think of Jellicoe? He got a great deal of crap for being overly cautious in the battle of the Jutland. I'm curious as to what your take on the controversy is.

[John]

I think Jellicoe gets a bum wrap. Everyone wanted him to be another Nelson. But there was no way to be another Nelson. Jellicoe was not going to win the war by himself. But he could lose the war. If he had lost the British fleet, the Germans could have starvation blockaded Britain and cut off supplies to France and the war would have been over.

Also, in Nelson's time the British had superior gunnery and far superior sailors to Spain and France. In Jellicoe's time the Germans had equal sailors and better gunnery. Nelson's genius was that he was brave enough and smart enough to charge right into the French knowing his superior firepower and sailing would win out. Jellicoe didn't have that. There was no guarantee he would win a fair fight with the Germans.

So Jellicoe did the exact right thing and played the who thing very cautiously. As long as Britain still had their fleet, it could use it to bottle up the German fleet rendering it useless. But people never gave him credit for that because the standard was set by Nelson and that standard was decisive victory at sea. Jellicoe did his job. He got the BEP over to France and he didn't lose the fleet. That is all he could have done.

[tarran]

That is basically my take too.

From the perspective of the British war effort, there was little difference between a German fleet bottled up in its ports or sitting on the bottom of the North Sea.

There was nothing to gain by using aggressive tactics and everything to lose.

He didn't deserve the crap he got for making the right call.

[John]

Also, the firepower was so deadly and battleships so fragile. Here you have a battleship that costs probably a billion dollars in today's money to build and has a couple of thousand men on it and a single mine or torpedo fired by a submarine or torpedo boat can sink it with all hands. You couldn't just charge out into the ocean looking for a fight like you could during the age of sail.

[Gray Ghost]

Agree with pretty much all of your and tarran's points. Damage control was in its infancy, never mind risk analysis---it turns out having uninterrupted powder chains from your turret to the magazine is a bad idea. Who knew?!---making the downside risk of charging in much harder to estimate. I really like tarran's observation that a sunk IGN dreadnought and one sitting at the Kiel docks are practically the same from the Admiralty's point of view.

A benefit to the Germans not yet mentioned is that, if the Royal Navy lost many of its ships at Jutland, they'd have a chance of not maintaining the blockade of Germany. No blockade and the U.S. would be able to trade with Germany. (I think whatever happened at Jutland would have been irrelevant though to the success or failure of the U-boat campaign though.) I'm not sure how much U.S. trade would help the German war effort, or whether it would be an effective counterweight to pressure on the U.S. to enter the War for the Allies, but considering how close the German offensives came in late 1917-1918 to breaking the French army, it may have turned the tide. It certainly would have made life much easier for German civilians.

[Lord Humungus]

my view of the British Navy is hopelessly colored by too many Hornblower novels, but perhaps people expected Jellicoe to go in, guns a-blazin' - and damn the consequences!

[John]

That is exactly what they expected. They didn't understand how technology had rendered such a tactic suicidal.

[PS]

And my view of the British army is hopelessly colored (or coloured) by Flashman.

[Lord Humungus]

ditto.

[SIV]

Murder-boats!

[Lord Humungus]

Shining A Light on Crony Capitalism
http://news.investors.com/Arti.....talism.htm

In 2007, Philips urged an incandescent ban as a way to force the market toward high-efficiency bulbs, complaining that without such laws, "purchase price and functional performance often take precedence over environmental concern."

That same year, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, which represents companies making 95% of bulbs sold in the U.S., told a Senate panel that a ban was needed "to further educate consumers on the benefits of energy-efficient products."

You can believe if you want these companies only had Mother Earth in mind with this ban. But more likely they saw it as a chance to fatten their bottom lines. Who wouldn't jump at the chance to outlaw a low-margin, 60-cent product when you're trying to hawk a high-margin $3 alternative?

[P Brooks]

Paul is seriously out of step with much of the Republican Party and most of the U.S. He has long championed the gold standard and lenient drug laws while opposing U.S. interventions abroad, the Federal Reserve and the income tax.

MONSTROUS FIEND!

[Brett L]

So seriously out of step that he polls on par with all the others that are in step.

[Political Scientist]

It's simply a manifestation of transient resonance. You wouldn't understand.

[Fluffy]

Also: "Killer robot" is the preferred terminology.

I have to give you credit: "murder drone" is a nice one, with its associations with "homicide bomber" and similar terms. But we've committed to "Killer robot" and everyone has to get on board.

[Fist of Etiquette]

At least until Skynet makes us start calling them HK-Aerials.

[BlueBook]

The Irken invaders prefer the term "Hunter-Destroyer Machine".

[John]

Robots are autonomous. Drones are not. Calling a drone a killer robot is like calling a gun one. They are both instruments controlled by a person.

[Fluffy]

Don't some predator models fly autonomously until an operator chooses to take control for the purpose of firing a weapon?

[Iran]

yep, auto-pilot takes control after we jam the GPS signal.

[John]

Maybe so. I didn't think they did. I always assumed they were all piloted by video game playing 19 year olds sitting in a trailer somewhere in Nevada.

The legality of a truly autonomous drone is in real question. Without a person controlling it, there is no way to guarantee it won't just start killing people. I thought they do not have the technology to do that and if they do haven't gone there. But maybe they have.

[Fluffy]

Maybe it's the sci-fi nerd in me making these things cooler than they actually are, but I seriously thought that they sent these things up to patrol an area Roomba-style and when a beep on somebody's desk told them it had seen something, the operator took over and decided whether or not to fire.

[John]

I don't think they are quite that slick. They fly totally remotely and have a TV camera. And some guy literally sitting in Nevada flies it. The day of the pilot is ending. Why pay a million dollars or more to train a pilot when you can pay a 19 year old with mad hand eye coordination from playing video games his whole life E4 pay to do the same thing?

[Gray Ghost]

Not to mention that eliminating the pilot and all of the hardware to keep him alive, allows you to make a higher-performing platform than otherwise.

All of this requires that your enemies' ECM and ESM technology be horrible, and thankfully, that's largely been the case these last 10 years.

I had thought there were studies for various land attack or air-to-air missiles that would be released into an area, loiter for a couple of hours until acquiring a target and then killing that target, all autonomously? Certainly, the tech is doable now.

[tarran]

John, the autonomous systems don't control the weapons systems.

My guess is that the auto-pilot has no involvement with the fire-control system other than possibly having an inhibitor relay.

[robc]

there is no way to guarantee it won't just start killing people.

The 3 laws of robotics. Duh.

[wylie]

I always assumed they were all piloted by video game playing 19 year olds sitting in a trailer parent's basement somewhere in Nevada.

ftfy.

[Brett L]

Not the armed ones. For all its many faults, the US armed forces require a human to make the decision to launch ordinance.

[Abdul]

Hey, next you'll harsh our buzz by saying that "robot wars" is actually "remote-controlled buggy fights."

I want my killer robots!

[robc]

That was the step I wanted to see "robot wars" take. Make them autonomous fighting bots. Let the creators be spectators.

[Abdul]

Even better: give the losing humans a chance to reclaim the title by stepping into the arena with the winning robots with a screwdriver and a super-soaker full of windex.

[Zeb]

People call a lot of things that are not autonomous "robots". As someone who makes actual robots, I find that annoying and inaccurate as well, but it does seem to happen a lot.

[Abdul]

How about a German style single word made up by slamming lots of words together?

Homicidadronerstrikerbabymangler?

[Atanarjuat]

Wild speculation on possible uses for the "Birdzilla" project: What Is Paul Allen's Venture Really For?

[Brett L]

Cool article. I knew the short answer would be rentseeking.

[Fist of Etiquette]

He was initially held without bail on a detainer from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on allegations he violated an order to return Kenya issued 20 years ago but has since been released.

Obama's half-brother stole Kenya and won't give it back?

[Ice Nine]

Romney...said the nation's immigration laws should be enforced.

Not a particularly outrageous thing for a presidential candidate to say.

Enforced by the Judicial Department, that is!

[rac3rx]

Proofreading is dead. Long live proofreading.

[Lord Humungus]

Is Marriage The New Status Symbol?
http://www.yourtango.com/20111.....tus-symbol

Uh-oh, someone alert the Traditional Values Coalition, because marriage is on the decline. The percentage of married individuals in the U.S. is at a record low, with only 51% of adults 18 and over currently being hitched, according to a Pew Research Center study that came out today. This percentage is not only a drastic decline from the 72% of married adults in 1960, but it has also dropped a significant 5% between 2009 and 2010.

However, 61% of unmarried people still want to get married someday, and even 47% of those who believe "marriage is obsolete" still want to get married. So if all these people want to tie the knot, why is marriage on the decline? Well, it comes down to age.

[John]

Marriage is the quickest way out of poverty and the one rock certain predicter of higher income. Clearly, we need to tax marriage. It is totally unfair people are becoming prosperous by marriage and single people are not.

[Arduin Grimoire]

I thought singles were supposed to be taxed for the children of others, made to do the work for coworkers w/ children ("I have a thing with my kids, that excuse trumps any life you have"), and the rest.

[John]

Well everyone gets taxed. But married people all get this two income multiperson bonus that single people don't get. And that is not fair!!

[Innocuously Anonymous]

A marriage windfall?

[Lost_In_Translation]

what bonus, married couples can file seperately. If you file jointly, yes you're subject to the higher marginal rate, so then file seperately.

[John]

I am being facetious. But the fact is being married makes you richer. The stats show it. So if we hate the rich so much, why not tax marriage?

[Condescending Liberal]

So it's a racist conspiracy to not allow blacks to get married, so that the single moms stay dependant on gubmint and vote for us year after year? Brilliant!

[Lost_In_Translation]

ah, so that's your game.

[Zeb]

John, the stats can only show a correlation between marriage and being richer, not that one causes the other. The interpretation that occurs to me is that the sort of person who is likely to get married (and stay married) is also more likely to commit to and stick with other things in life like education, career and such.

[Trespassers W]

John, the stats can only show a correlation between marriage and being richer, not that one causes the other.

Oh yeah? Well I got a raise within a year after getting married. So suck on that anecdote!

[You're right, of course. There is an interesting story here, but John is screwing up the telling.]

[Chatroom Crank]

Depends on the income. For most people filing jointly does give them a higher refund at the Federal level. When they file separately they lose out on some credits.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Boo hoo.

[o3]

marrage is a rigged system favoring women.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

You're thinking of divorce courts.

[kinnath]

See "marriage penalty".

[Zeb]

You just have to marry someone who makes much less than you do and it works out great.

[o3]

...until the divorce

[Zeb]

Let me guess. You are divorced.

[Lord Humungus]

This was the 80s, but my dad's accountant once told him that he would do a lot better (tax-wise) if my mother stopped working.

Funny thing was, my dad was able to retire early because of my excellent mom's benefits (teacher's aide).

[BlueBook]

The US military has admitted it bears significant responsibility for last month's air strike on the Afghan border that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

...BBC correspondents say the admission is expected to embarrass the US military.

How will we know if the US military is embarrassed? Will it blush?

[Name Nomad]

Happy Festivus Eve, Reason. The DNC has purchased "newtgingrich.com"

[Name Nomad]

Whoops. A SuperPAC associated with the DNC, rather.

[Ice Nine]

No worries; Newt can still get "newtgingrich.xxx".

[Lord Humungus]

"The Wives of Gingrich"

Starring: ????

[Field Marshall Gill]

The former cast of Botox Bitches?

[rac3rx]

He apparently can't get newculartitties.com either.

[Rich]

"Next November, no incumbent is safe, nor should they be," says Sen. John McCain

I trust Janet Napolitano is keeping an eye on this McCain fellow.

[RoboCain]

Owner surprised to find cat regularly catches bus

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fam.....s-bus.html

[Owner]

Yeah, because he can't catch mice worth shit.

[tarran]

I like the bus company's attitude.

[Brandon]

Your link to the McCain thing points to the French law thing.

[Lord Humungus]

100% OT:

I epublished a little sci-fi novella today. It will take a day or two to work through the Amazon system, and even longer to disperse to Apple, B&N, etc.

[SIV]

Does it feature unmanned killer flying machines? I suggest you call them Murder-Drones!

[Murder-Drone]

DO NOT PISS ME OFF.

[Fluffy]

Let me know when the link goes live.

Congratulations!

Try not to spend the next three days checking to see if your product page is active. That's a real time-suck.

Nothing like the time-suck that will occur when you discover how addicting it is to check your sales report. But still pretty bad.

[Lord Humungus]

oh, I've made some other ebooks - sales haven't exactly been brisk, but it beats the six months of waiting around for a rejection letter. But yeah, checking the sales report (2-10x a day) is a major time suck!

[Fluffy]

Links or it didn't happen.

[Lord Humungus]

I don't really want to span H&R with my stuff. I mostly muddle around with historical fiction.

But here ya go:

A free one:
http://www.amazon.com/Murder-A.....t_ep_dpt_1

and my personal favorite:
http://www.amazon.com/Of-Ghost.....t_ep_dpt_4

lots of other junk on my blog...

[Spoonman.]

Think I'll get your free one and check out your writing.

[Fluffy]

I just one-clicked At Harper's Ferry.

You're in trouble now. If I don't like it I get to put up its first review. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Just kidding.

[Lord Humungus]

eep - my first book. Not my favorite, but it gets more sales than others.

[robc]

Speaking of which:

1. how have sales been?
2. When is Brookside putting out another?

[Lord Humungus]

sales have been fairly mediocre. It's not something I would recommend (e-publishing) unless you are a master at marketing, or write books that the masses love.

The problems I've been having is name and book recognitions. There are literally thousands of wanna-be authors out there, writing tons of material. It's easy to get lost in the sheer amount of 'noise'. Whether my stuff is actually good or not, I don't really know.

[Raston Bot]

Ken Burns thinks that whole audience fragmentation thing is bad for society.

[Fluffy]

Meh.

The zombie book trucks along paying the electric bill. But that's about it.

I like December - for the first half of the month there's a big run of paperback sales, and after the 24th there should be lots of Kindle sales, if this year is anything like last year.

I don't know when I'll have anything else out.

I have several open projects but my writing habits are so spotty that I am not that close to finishing any of them.

My choice of partially-finished projects is:

A coming-of-age / quest story set in ancient Sumeria, where the conceit is that the protagonist must gradually realize that everything he believes that the gods and demons that people his world is false.

A story using the same research but set in an "alternate reality" where the Sumerian beliefs about gods and demons are actually true, and you really do need priests to make the grain grow and the rain fall - and how truly horrible that would be.

An alterate history story where the "historical change" is that Columbus was right about the size and shape of the world and the Americas just aren't there, and you can sail from Portugal to Japan by going west. This would be the first of a series and would focus on a war between an elderly Admiral Columbus and the Duc d'Albuquerque (and tribal allies) fought over Taiwan.

Fun little ideas (to me at least) but I'm just so damn lazy, you see.

[Devil's Advocate]

These all sound really cool to me, fwiw.

[robc]

The zombie book trucks along paying the electric bill.

Im disappointed that Jericho isnt doing better. Did it entirely miss? Too religious oriented sounding for the atheists and too irreligous in tone for the christians?

Am I its entire demographic or something?

[Fluffy]

It pretty much missed.

As you said above, I think the combination of subject matter and POV, which I thought would provocatively attract a wide audience, actually ended up driving away both possible audiences.

[Warty]

Vogalize the tyrnical kilnbrators!

[Quetzalcoatl]

What name do you publish under?

[Lord Humungus]

a pseudonym - Paul Westwood

[Paul Westwood]

You'll be hearing from my attorney...

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

It's pronounced throat warbler mangrove.

[RoboCain]

Go you!

[Brett L]

Let me guess, a true account of what actually happened out there at the refinery?

In more seriousness, very cool. I'm jealous.

[Tim]

Ditto

[SFC B]

I can't wait to read the reviews in the Morning Links...

[Lost_In_Translation]

Is it any good? Does it star Newtzilla?

[John]

Madison announced today that it has settled a lawsuit brought by five men who openly carried handguns in a Culver's restaurant last September for a total of $10,000.

The men -- members of Wisconsin Carry -- met at the restaurant on September 18, 2010 for an informal social gathering. A 62-year-old woman sitting in her car noticed their weapons and called police. She later told officers: "I didn't know what the law was, and I thought I should at least call so the police can come and check it out 'cause I didn't want to be that one person that saw guns and didn't call, and then have something terrible happen."

Eight Madison Police officers arrived and asked all five for identification. Two refused and were tentatively charged with obstructing justice. Two days later, the city dropped those charges and instead charged all five with disorderly conduct. In April, those charges were dismissed.

http://www.thedailypage.com/da.....icle=35497

Oh well, they made their point. And the taxpayers get stuck with the bill.

[Abdul]

New scandal for the US navy: horny sailors force women to make out with each other in ritualistic sex act.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....63444.html

[John]

They are actually not bad looking for lesbians. I am sure the other sailors appreciated the show that came with homecoming.

[Abdul]

I thought the reporting was horribly biased. The reporter never asked: "What the hell kind of first name is 'Citlalic?'"

[Ice Nine]

Move the first "l" around and it will make perfect sense.

[Lord Humungus]

Clit-tastic!

[That's what she said]

Maybe it's a typo for Clitalic?

[That's what she said]

Wow... only 40 minutes late... guess I need to refresh more often.

[Arduin Grimoire]

This topic deserves its own thread and much more extensive research.

[Rich]

Gaeta, 23, wore her Navy dress uniform while Snell, 22, wore a black leather jacket, scarf and blue jeans.

What?! Snell was barefoot?!

[Lost_In_Translation]

going pantyless i see. Nice!

[Red Rocks Rockin]

"Lesbian #1 looked FABULOUS in her fetching pea coat and service cap. Lesbian #2 took no backseat herself with a fetching ensemble that was a symphony of leather and denim!"

[RoboCain]

"horny sailors force women to make out with each other in ritualistic sex act"

It doesn't say anything like that.

[Abdul]

Again, because the reporter was lazy. I had to punch up the story-line.

Alternative: US Navy officials raffled off a public lesbian sex act!

[PS]

Don't Ask, Do Tongue

Sailor Sex: There's Something Fishy Here

Two Girls, One Dock

Why Is The Navy Paying $10,000 for Turkey Basters?

[Brett L]

News? For the Navy? The only news is that they were women.

[Abdul]

Rum, scissoring, and the lash--now that's and e-book that would sell.

[tarran]

Oh good lord!

When a ship returns from deployment, there is a joyful reunion between the crew and their families. Some CO's allow a raffle for the first person allowed off the ship as a way of raising money for the MWR fund. A lesbian won and got to be the first off the ship to get a kiss from her sweetie.

It's heartwarming and sweet, and is - properly - otherwise unremarkable.

[rac3rx]

Dammit when I first saw the tab line, and before I actually read it, I saw "Clitalic Smell". WTH my brains?

[P Brooks]

Jesus butthuffing Christ in a pigskin suicide vest; Dorothy Rabinowitz is a despicable hyperventilating cunt.

[Ted S.]

Sad, considering the work she did bring the injustice of the bogus day-care child abuse prosecutions to light.

[Ron Paul Survival Report]

What we need to know about Newt and Mitt is if they supported the new 100 dollar bills that were distributed in the 1990s. When I was a doctor back in Texas during that time I warned you about the potential financial consequences of the new money. Some stores stopped taking the old money, others thought the new money was counterfit. I would be willing to bet that Mossad was behind it. Back when I was in Congress I wondered if my phone was tapped. Then I would have to worry about getting robbed after leaving the Capitol. I used to run track but there is no way I can keep up with those fleet footed animals. But now I am running for President. Please subscribe to the Ron Paul Survival Report, donations of 100, 200, or 500 would be great and donations of 1000, 2500, and 5000 would be magnificient.

Ron Paul

[Tim]

Ron Paul has loosed more bowels than Cholera.

[John]

Link or it didn't happen.

[Tim]

John he's risen on the threat level enough that the dirty operators are out spamming blogs. As Mr. Spock would say: "Fascinating"

[John]

I have attacked Paul on this. But sorry I am not believing uncredited text on a comment board. That is bullshit.

[Tim]

Yes, but at least when you do it we know it's sincere.

[Matrix]

list of companies supporting the SOPA bill

http://gizmodo.com/5870241/pre.....orship-law

[?]

BTW, please stop posting gross pictures on the main H&R page.

I'd have alt-texted it "IN YR BOX."

Because outreach.

[John]

This is just amazing.

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ? The City of Los Angeles reportedly faces millions of dollars in expenses brought about by the Occupy LA movement.

City agencies have been ordered to calculate what was spent on the Occupy LA protests.

Repairs to City Hall's lawn where the Occupy group set up camp on Oct. 1 will require an estimated $400,000. The police action to clear out the encampment on Nov. 30 cost more than $700,000.

Additional expenses are attributed to hauling away debris from the camp, and cleaning up graffiti that defaced City Hall marble walls and trees.

Mayor Villaraigosa says more budget cuts will be necessary to offset the costs.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com.....-la-costs/

[kinnath]

Not exactly the zero-impact camping the boy scouts talk my son and me.

[John]

And I am sure a lot of those cuts will come to services to the poor the Occutards claim to be so concerned about. What a bunch of animals. They really are just animals.

[o3]

hipsters aint animals. jeesch

[Self-Righteous Jerk]

It is necessary to hurt some people to help all people.

[Fluffy]

How the eff can it cost $400 grand to fix the lawn?

Buy a couple $9.99 bags of grass seed and call it a day, guys.

[John]

IT is all of the overtime pay that went to the cops. I think that is the bulk of it.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Oh, it gets better:

Occupy Denver disrupts vigil to honor homeless who have died, refuse to allow mayor to speak

A traditionally solemn candlelight vigil for people who died on Denver's streets was disrupted tonight by a loud, angry Occupy Denver group.

The night before, the Occupiers' tents, shanties and other possessions were removed from Civic Center park by police across the street from the vigil.

They shouted "fascist" and other slurs as Mayor Michael Hancock stepped forward to deliver the city's annual address on homelessness.

Hancock pleaded with them to show civility to the families and respect for the 136 men and women whose names would eventually be called. After a few minutes, he surrendered the podium on the steps of the City and County Building so that the vigil could continue.

Other people in the audience shouted things in reply, including "show some respect" and "grow up."

http://www.denverpost.com/brea.....source=pkg

[Lord Humungus]

http://www.washingtontimes.com.....m-jong-un/
"In the message Jimmy Carter extended condolences to Kim Jong Un and the Korean people over the demise of leader Kim Jong Il. He wished Kim Jong Un every success as he assumes his new responsibility of leadership, looking forward to another visit to [North Korea] in the future," the KCNA dispatch read.

[Lost_In_Translation]

And people consider Paul crazy. What the hell is Carter's problem?

[Raston Bot]

Spin: JC's taking one for the team. Next time some American hiker strays from the mtn pass and gets picked up by NK border patrol, JC'll roll in and secure his release.

[Joe M]

Gary Johnson's 2012 Libertarian run: 4 predictions

He could certainly do something no Libertarian standard-bearer has done in the party's 40-year history: Win a state

[Brett L]

Sorry, I disagree. The clear lesson of 2008 is that Ronulans need to be wooed after the primary as they don't hold their collective nose and vote R. If Paul doesn't win, he'll be wooed. (I'm guessing he won't be Secretary of State or the Treasury, but I suspect cabinet/kitchen cabinet level.)

[Lord Humungus]

Ho ho no: The 10 worst presents for children ever?
http://www.birminghammail.net/.....U.facebook

[PantsFan]

4. PLAY-DOH DENTISTRY KIT ? ?20

I had one of those.
It sucked.

[John]

My wife is the total well meaning dingbat aunt when it comes to giving presents to her niece and nephew. They are 6 and 8. And she does things like buy license plates from places we have traveled with their names on them. I am like "he is an 8 year old boy, that is the picture of lame gift from a crazy aunt". She never agrees or gets it.

[T]

I like to give children noisy things. I figure their parenst have annoyed me sufficiently (especially if the parents are realtives) that I can get some payback through the kids.

Persoanl favorites: the air hockey table, and the musical sit-n-spin.

[John]

I may still have kids some day so I am avoiding that hoping not to incur any pay back.

[o3]

yea, i always broke those loud "gifts" fairly quickly...then bought a less-loud substitute.

[kinnath]

I gave my grand daughters toys that would make noises every time you walked past them. I also told my kids that this was just the start of the payback they could be expect over the coming years. The toys still make noise 4 years later -- the gift that keeps on giving.

[CrackertyAssCracker]

Loud toys in my house have a funny way of disappearing and never being heard from again. (pun intended).

[mad libertarian guy]

^^THIS^^

If it's loud, it's out. And fucking quick too.

[Fluffy]

I took my kid to a birthday party a few weeks ago. As we're getting ready to leave, my wife hands me the present she got.

A book.

I asked her why she didn't just get socks.

Naturally, at McDonald's at present opening time it went something like:

Toy gun. YAY!

Toy gun. YAY!

Crazy robot that is holding a toy gun. YAY!

Book.

(crickets)

[kinnath]

I had a mother bitch me out for bringing her son a book for a birthday party.

It was a nice book (medieval shit or something geared to a 12-year-old boy with lots of cool pictures). But I insulted her some how.

[John]

Every year I have to do an intervention and get the poor kid at least one decent gift for a boy. This year it was the official US Army survival kit I saw at Barnes and Noble one day.

[Ted S.]

My niece and nephew get DVDs of classic films, because it's the one thing that I know they won't have yet but also shows I put thought into it. (Otherwise I'd just give them cash.)

That having been said, I try to limit my selections to the films on sale....

[John]

Cash is never a bad gift. But good luck convincing a woman of that. "But it is not thoughtful".

[rac3rx]

I'm feeling fortunate to be that adult relative who the kids will tell about the cool shit they want. I'll ask Mom & Dad why they didn't or wouldn't buy it, and usually the answer is, "well he never told me about that." Nonetheless, I usually get the opportunity to get the kids that thing they wanted most that for whatever reason they didn't feel comfortable sharing with Mom & Dad.

[Kanye West]

2. FISH BONING KIT ? ?8.99

I did not bone a gay fish!

[T]

I just got an email with a picture of a new TX DPS boat. I'd source it, but I didn't get one. Why does the Texas Highway Patrol need a riverine assault boat with 6 mounted machine guns? 2 dual mounts on front left and right, and 2 single mounts behind the pilot's seat. 6 belt-fed M240s on a boat.

What the ridiculous fuck?

[John]

No shit? So they can play with it and probably shoot them selves with one of the weapons eventually.

[PantsFan]

Is it this?
http://www.kvue.com/home/relat.....96258.html

[R C Dean]

That's overkill, but I can see the need for something to patrol the lakes and waterways along the border with Narxico. There was a guy shot off of his jetski earlier this year.

Naturally, I would prefer that the WOD end, but since it won't and we now have a failing state with a very long border with Texas, a few armed patrol boats might not be so bad. That said, that one is ridiculous, though.

[T]

Yeah, that's the one.

Here's my problem: belt-fed machine guns. You're spitting out a LOT of bullets. All those bullets have to go somewhere, and 7.62 NATO goes a hell of a long way. Coupled with the po-pos notoriously poor gun handling, and this thing is a recipe for disaster.

[Brett L]

Preparing for secession?

[T]

When they start running interdiction patrols on the Sabine & Red rivers, I'll believe that.

[Brett L]

Arkansans and Lousianans aren't reason enough for interdiction? I mean Oklahomans have essentially colonized Dallas, so that's a loss.

[P Brooks]

Wheeeeeeee!

Occupy.

It is now nearly impossible to hear the word and not think of the Occupy movement.

Even as distinguished an expert as the lexicographer and columnist Ben Zimmer admitted as much this week: "occupy, " he said, is the odds-on favorite to be chosen as the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year.

It has already succeeded in shifting the terms of the debate, taking phrases like "debt-ceiling" and "budget crisis" out of the limelight and putting terms like "inequality" and "greed" squarely in the center. This discursive shift has made it more difficult for Washington to continue to promote the spurious reasons for the financial meltdown and the unequal outcomes it has exposed and further produced.

---------

In the face of such widespread language-based discrimination, Occupy Language can be a critical, progressive linguistic movement that exposes how language is used as a means of social, political and economic control. By occupying language, we can expose how educational, political, and social institutions use language to further marginalize oppressed groups; resist colonizing language practices that elevate certain languages over others; resist attempts to define people with terms rooted in negative stereotypes; and begin to reshape the public discourse about our communities, and about the central role of language in racism and discrimination.

Stop oppressing me with your intrinsically paternalist insistence on making words have meanings, Dude!

[Joe M]

Wow. It becomes clearly that people with that mentality don't want to end "inequality" as they see it, because then they wouldn't have any more fun. They just want to "expose" things.

[tarran]

Yeah, in my circles, the word "occupy" has acquired a derisive meaning.

The lexical shift is staggering.

[P Brooks]

I have attacked Paul on this.

Concern troll is concerned.

[P Brooks]

There was a guy shot off of his jetski earlier this year.

Somebody deserves a medal.

[Trespassers W]

This wins.

[Monty]

Yep

[Murder-Drone]

There also was an Amish girl in Ohio shot and killed a few days ago by a gun that went off while being cleaned more than a mile away. G-d only knows how far the Texas gunboat can send all of those rounds.

[Kreel Sarloo]

How does a gun go "off while being cleaned"? Especially one powerful enough to kill from "more than a mile away"?

The first thing I do if I'm cleaning a rifle is unload the bitch and remove the bolt. Secondly, while it's being cleaned it's never pointed in such away that it could give a misfired bullet a trajectory to carry it more than a few yards before hitting the ground, let alone a mile.