A.M. Links: Ron Paul Still Leading In Iowa, Sears to Shut Down 100 Stores, Van Halen Reunites

• Ron Paul is polling at 21 percent in Iowa (to Romney's 20 and Gingrich's 19) with one week until the caucuses. 

• Due to poor holiday sales, Sears is closing 100-120 stores. 
• Al Qaeda in Iraq has claimed responsibility for last week's bombings in Baghdad. 
• Van Halen in America is taking responsibility for a 2012 reunion tour.  
• As part of Kim Jong-Il's funeral, "citizens will be asked to observe three minutes of silence," guns will be fired in nine provencial capitals, "then, trains, ships and cars across the country will blow whistles and sirens." 
• U.S. to possibly treat Yemeni President Saleh for wounds sustained during a bomb attack. 

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Comments

[RoboCain]

Yaaay!

[anon]

I think the last time I shopped at Sears or K-mart was at least 10 years ago, maybe more.

[Karl Hungus]

I think the last time I shopped at Sears or K-mart was at least 10 years ago, maybe more.

I didn't realize K-Mart still existed.

[WWNGD?]

I know the K-mart in my city is a sad place to walk into. The floors are all damaged, cracked and tiles are missing. It looks dirty and un-kept.

[Karl Hungus]

Sounds like K-Mart has become the Myspace of the retail world.

[Bones]

Sounds like every other Walmart.

[Karl Hungus]

Our Wal-Mart (one of the "super" ones) is quite new, and is in really good shape. But it's still Wal-Mart, so I avoid it unless the don't have what I'm looking for at the Super Target next door, or if I want to buy ammunition. No matter how new it is, or what side of town it's on, every Wal-Mart attracts the same type of people.

This is hilarious - scroll about halfway down and check out the 'Wal-Mart Bingo' card. Also, the blogger's "hidden-cam" photos and accompanying captions are funny.

[Karl Hungus]

Oops, forgot the link:

http://mockingwords.blogspot.c.....lmart.html

[RoboCain]

"You could even find a chicken roaming about the aisles"

WTF?? ROFLMAO

[bigbigslacker]

On what planet? I don't recall ever seeing missing tiles in a Walmart. Or dirt and clutter. Maybe Walmart store in a Liberal-American neighborhood that nobody wants to work in?

[Chris]

agreed...been to many a Walmart but can't recall seeing one run down in many years.

[John Tagliaferro]

I've never seen a run down Walmart either. The places I have been, they seem to build a new one not too far from the old one before the old one gets run down.

[Bones]

Latham, NY is a disgusting mess. 10 minutes away in Halfmoon, NY the Walmart is nice and new (hence the "every other" part of the comment) and I still hate shopping there and for the same reasons. Clutter, dirt, and broken tile don't stop me. "Walmart people" stop me.

[Rain Man]

K-mart sucks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9nlzNcujFs

[Spoonman.]

Kenmore appliances are great. I don't understand why they don't abandon their silly department stores and just become Kenmore outlets.

[Ice Nine]

Ditto Craftsman.

End of an institution and an era. Say it ain't so, Joe.

[RoboCain]

I agree with both. I have a Kenmore refrigerator and a number of craftsman tools.

Also, there are separate stores that just sell large appliances -- Kenmore outlets that are not department stores.

[Ice Nine]

When I remodeled my kitchen some years back I got a bid from a high-end design/build outfit. Their plans for the appliances included the obligatory SubZero/Miele/Bosch bullshit. My research showed Kenmore to be the best by far dishwasher - and Kenmore had some very slick, good-looking models. I told these jokers that that was what I wanted. They damn near went into cardiac arrest. Too funny. (They didn't get the job).

[Spoonman.]

My parents' SubZero once lit on fire.

[Ice Nine]

Those noisy sumbiches are complete bullshit. People buy them solely because they are de rigeur. That SubZero plaque on the fridge is the Mercedes Benz hood ornament of appliances.

[AnthonyD.]

Here is your Subzero...now, plain zero!

[Ray]

I got it. Not a lot of people got it, but I got it.

[Sheriff Bart]

I replaced our dishwasher six months ago with a Kenmore. Like you, I did exhaustive research...

[Tonio]

The Sears Outlets are where they unload their scratch-n-dent appliances; they don't stock brand new.

Great bargains there, though.

[RoboCain]

That isn't true, or maybe you are describing some other kind of outlet. This was just a Kenmore showroom. I got a brand new fridge delivered in a few days.

[Barbie wants More Ken]

[Tonio]

OK, the Sears Outlet stores (scratch-n-dent) are different from the Sears Catalog Showroom stores. Now that's a blast from the past, didn't know they still had the catalog showrooms - those were found only in very small towns.

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

Most appliances you see these days (aside from the high-end stuff) are made in two or three different factories, and just have different styling and tags placed on them.

The Sears "Kenmore" appliances used to be made by G.E. Now they're made by L.G.

[Ice Nine]

Not so. They're made by various manufacturers, including LG. Kenmore DWs have always been made by Whirlpool and Bosch.

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

Ah. All I know is I couldn't believe how freakin' expensive a double wall oven is. Ours died so just a couple weeks ago we went looking to find a replacement. We ended up at the Sears "scratch-n-dent" outlet. Even at half of retail price, the thing was freakin' expensive. It does work well, though.

[WWNGD?]

You are right but I forget who makes who. Many of the major brands are made by who you would think were competitors.

[wylie]

I was not happy with the HiEfficieny Kenmore washing machine we had for a while, but the fridge and gas range definitely fit the bill.

[Mike Laursen]

I think it may be part of the plan. Here in California, they made sure to spin off their successful Orchard Supply Hardware acquisition back into a separate company. It sells Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools.

[CoyoteBlue]

I didn't realize that Sears still had a 100+ stores.

[Fist of Etiquette]

They were called Montgomery Ward back then.

[Tonio]

Uh, no.

[rsi]

Monkey Wards sold Signature brand. I still a have fridge of that brand.

[Name Nomad]

SHLD is getting creamed. Down 18% pre-market.

[RichK]

[Almanian]

Cool story, bro

[RichK]

I telled it reel gud.

[romulus augustus]

Columnist Susan Estrich warns this morning that "Paul is about to be held under the same bright lights that burned Gingrich and he's not likely to fare very well when he does. Gingrich may be off the beaten track but Paul isn't even in the same forest." She goes on to ask "Will Paul be able to hang in once the kitchen gets hot?"

[Spoonman.]

Hasn't it already gotten pretty hot for him, and he's still leading?

[Name Nomad]

I'm guessing most people weren't paying much attention to the news last week as they were busy getting drunk and fat. This coming week will be the test.

[DJF]

If Paul is not in the same forest as Estrich then:

This means that Estrich is in favor of the war on drugs which puts a disproportional percentage of black and brown people in jail

And it means that Estrich is in favor of the US use of military force all over the world

And this also means that Estrich is in favor of bailouts for bankers and other billionaires

[Lost_In_Translation]

Can that be denied? 99% of pundits agree, what Obama/Bush did was necessary and good for America.

[AnthonyD.]

Is that hypothetical kitchen filled with Subzero appliances?

[P Brooks]

Yay!

Legislation meant to help the United States government locate overseas assets of American tax cheats created little stir when it was quietly slipped into a jobs bill last year.

But the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or Fatca, as it is known, is now causing alarm among businesses outside the United States that fear they will have to spend billions of dollars a year to meet the greatly increased reporting burdens, starting in 2013. American expatriates also say the new filing demands are daunting and overblown.

"Congress came in with a sledgehammer," said H. David Rosenbloom, a lawyer at Caplin and Drysdale in Washington and a former international tax policy adviser for the Treasury Department. "The Fatca story is really kind of insane."

Congress created the act after the Justice Department's successful pursuit in 2009 of UBS that resulted in the Swiss bank ? which had encouraged American citizens to set up secret offshore accounts ? paying $780 million and turning over client details to avoid criminal prosecution.

This is why you don't pay the ransom, people. They just come back for more.

[Res Publica Americana]

I hope that if he wins, Paul's administration starts attempting to try and execute the Congressmen that wrote that shit -- we need a militant president, because, frankly, empty-suit pussies haven't worked out so well for us.

[PS]

I know a diehard liberal who got fucked by Fatca. He's got a small business that sells American road repair machines in Europe. He's rather less enamored of Obama now.

[J_L_B]

Being both a diehard liberal and a guy who has got a small business is a paradox the results of which could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe!

[PS]

He claims to have libertarian leanings. Those mostly consist of believing in free international trade, of the sort he happens to engage in.

[J_L_B]

I have a friend like that, he considers himself a liberal, but often concedes he's more of a moderate. I think he does so to avoid the guilt from activities he enjoys that are also sins against liberalism: an afternoon at the gun range and shopping at Wal-Mart.

[PS]

In this case, the guy's "libertarianism" is that globalization is really not that bad. Also, he's a big fan of immigration, especially for those countries that need more brown people to learn tolerance, like Denmark and Finland.

[Mike M.]

In spite of all their sanctimonious bullcrap, liberals don't like paying high taxes any more than anyone else.

In fact, my guess is that liberals probably cheat on their taxes more than anyone.

[J_L_B]

All the liberals that I know basically hate government as much as anyone else; but they consider it nuanced to say that are not opposed to the concept of government, just as it is in its current form (run by Republicans, corporatists, etc.)

And if you're wondering, no, they don't understand the concept of incentives and how the government responds to them regardless of who is in power.

[PS]

Getting majorly audited sucks, but I do have to confess to a bit of schadenfreude. This guy was glowingly talking about Obama's biography back in 2007.

[Ice Nine]

I was living in Panama when this went down. A number of the banks down there simply closed existing, and refused to open new, bank accounts for Americans. It was just too much trouble for these banks and it quickly became not worth screwing around with Americans. This is becoming more and more prevalent there now. It really makes things difficult for ex-pats - even of course the majority, who were complying with the law.

[SugarFree]

Then we need a law forcing foreign banks to give an account to any American who demands one. Problem solved.

[Rhywun]

Acronym FAIL. Couldn't they come up with something for the final "t"?

[James]

The last word is "acT". I don't understand why the aren't calling it Fatcat.

[Tulpa]

They leave off the T for taxes.

[P Brooks]

And-

The law demands that virtually every financial firm outside the United States and any foreign company in which Americans are beneficial owners must register with the Internal Revenue Service, check existing accounts in search of Americans and annually declare their compliance.

-----

"They're trying to force every financial institution in the world to sign onto this regime," said Denise Hintzke, who heads the global tax compliance initiative at Deloitte in New York.

Because we're exceptional FUCK YOU, that's why.

[Res Publica Americana]

Wouldn't it be funny if Walmart revealed that it has a multi-thousand-strong, armed and armored private military? And that if the US government tries anything, shit will get real? That would be great to watch.

[Ice Nine]

Their army would be all-Chinese, wouldn't it? That would be interesting.

[Res Publica Americana]

As long as they're the rabidly anti-communist, libertarian-leaning Chinese I meet every now and again, sure. Otherwise, patriotic American Tea Partiers/libertarians would be best.

[Ice Nine]

Yeah, but nowhere near cheap enough for WalMart.

[Lost_In_Translation]

If .1% of chinese are libertarian, that gives us an army of 3 million strong.

[Surly Chef]

They've now dropped all pretense of borders and just claim they own everything and everyone that has ever interacted with some nebulous idea of "America". I'm assuming drones will be re-purposed for hunting down tax "cheats" the world over.

[Francisco d Anconia]

And, of course, it's Constitutional under the commerce clause.

[Kaon Kristen]

By my last count that makes 3 Atlas Shrugged characters we have lurking around here. Or is it four?

[Name Nomad]

Van Halen in America is taking responsibility for a 2012 reunion tour.

Shouldn't they be touring in... PANAMA! PANAMA! Panama?

[RoboCain]

I think that was a car, not a country.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Saleh was wounded in a June bomb attack, forcing him to seek treatment in Saudi Arabia as protests grew against his 33-year rule.

In a few years we'll all be waiting six months for medical treatment as the United States government assesses our worthiness.

[Tim]

Six months will look good.

[Res Publica Americana]

I'm still hopeful it'll get repealed wholly.

[smz]

didn't ron paul go storming off a cnn set?

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

Actually, no. It has since come to light that CNN hyped that story up and edited the tape to make it appear he left in a huff.

[RoboCain]

So did Reason.

[smz]

ding ding ding. winner.

[Matrix]

a major news outlet would purposefully edit a video to make someone they don't like look bad? Say it isn't so!!

[Res Publica Americana]

I especially love the his rebuttal to her vindictive condescension.

Ball-gobbler Borger, or whatever the fuck her name was: "Well, NO, some of that stuff was pretty incendiary, you know? Like saying Israel was responsible for the World Trade Center bombing, you know? It was pretty incendiary. *Waves and intones as if she were scolding an infant.*

Ron Paul: "Yeah, because of people like you."

Ball-gobbler: "No, no, it was incendiary. Alright, Congressman, you understand it's our job to do this, right?

Ron Paul: "I don't."

[Res Publica Americana]

*loved his

[Reagan Library/Mises Institute]

...salutes Kim Jong Il, the man who privately owned a whole nation.

And despised democracy as much as we.

Kim Jong Il attributed his success to reading Democracy: The God That Failed.

Because privately-owned government is better than publicly-owned government.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe told us so.

[Obama saluted him]

cuz he had a great security state and free health care for the struggling masses.

[affenkopf]

Also: Gays are evil because of high time-preference.

[Mises Institute????]

As Barney Frank would ask, "What Planet are you from -- Pluto?

[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]

I'm from the Mises Institute.

And I say privately-owned government is better than publicly-owned government.

Kim Jung Il is my anti-democracy hero!

[CrackertyAssCracker]

So all the people in North Korea are free to leave whenever they want?

[Ice Nine]

As I say, not as I do.

[Hank]

We can't get to the important business of dispelling stereotypes as long as every Jezebel in the office is free to beguile us with her sexy, sexy nose, now can we?

[Fist of Etiquette]

As part of Kim Jong-Il's funeral, "citizens will be asked to observe three minutes of silence," guns will be fired in nine provencial capitals, "then, trains, ships and cars across the country will blow whistles and sirens."

During the mourning period, North Korea will also observe a period of fasting.

[Res Publica Americana]

It won't be much of a tribute anyway. All of the six or so cars in North Korea probably don't have horns.

[Brett L]

I see a bunch of dudes with bugles sitting in rusted out hulks waiting for their cue.

[Billy Shakespeare]

"then, trains, ships and cars across the country will blow whistles and sirens."

Vuvuzelas!

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

Van Halen?

They were good, what, 30 years ago? The last decent album I recall from them was with Sammy Hagar, the one with "Why Can't This be Love". That was 25 years ago.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge had some pretty good tunes, but for the most part, you're right--Van Halen stopped being really innovative after 1984. The Hagar collaborations are interesting in that they all seem to reflect the musical trends of the period that they were released in.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Please don't mention Sammy and Van Halen in the same sentence.

[PS]

^This! Actually, they really didn't do much decent stuff after VH1, aside from some interesting guitar work by Eddie.

[Warty]

DONDERRRRRRROOOOOOOOOO ATTACK!

If they're down to using Dondero, do they have any weapons left?

[SugarFree]

I'm confident that Grand Libertarian Rudy Giuliani will save us.

[Warty]

Here's my cell phone number. Call it and prove to me that Ron Paul doesn't hate Jews. I'm waiting, pussy.

[SugarFree]

Ewik leaves, Edward appears... curious that.

[Warty]

Mr. Dondero and his tactical moustache will do whatever it takes to protect the homeland from Ron Paul.

[SugarFree]

He's wearing a Perry pin! So that's where the Lastest, Bestest Hope for Libertarianism has incarnated itself this time around.

[Brett L]

Haven't we already tried the incompetence route to lesser government?

[Hank]

That looks like the most miserable room on earth.

[Karl Hungus]

That moustache would go perfectly with a shaved head and a pair of Oakleys.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Aren't his 15 minutes up yet?

But I notice that he said Paul isn't anti-black or anti-gay, he's allegedly personally uncomfortable around gay people and around black culture.

How many other Republican candidates oppose a marriage amendment to the Constitution - which I'm told is an antigay piece of legislation?

How many other candidates attract supporters who produce rap videos about them?

I believe Ron Paul himself said, "I am very much down with my homie-American fellow-citizens."

[Lost_In_Translation]

So Paul has a background that is out of touch with modern America. McCain was probably shocked when he couldn't call a black man "boy" anymore.

Atleast Paul has beliefs that elevate above personal preferences, unlike say ANY OF THE OTHER CANDIDATES

[The Angry RPh]

"I worked with the man for 12 years, pretty consistently. I never heard a racist word expressed towards Blacks or Jews come out of his mouth. Not once," Dondero wrote.

And it's really not much of an attack.

[RoboCain]

Maybe it was just that scene in Bruno.

[sage]

Liked this comment from ghiggs: "You can literally SEE the racism oozing off the man!"

[P Brooks]

I would like to see Angela Merkel grab Obama by his scrawny little pencil neck and ask him if he really wants to start a trade war in financial services with the European Union.

[Res Publica Americana]

I really don't subscribe to the symbolism of German badassery, since that country's a totalitarian hole.

But she's probably beat the living shit out of him if she tried. She looks like she could. Obama's a pretty typical limpdick.

[What?]

Germany is "totalitarian"?
Do you know what the word means?

[Ag City-Statism = Totalitarian]

Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible.

Officer, am I free to gambol about plain and forest, hunting and foraging in a Non-State lifeway?

MARX: NO!
MISES: NO!
JEFFERSON: NO!
LUTHER: NO!
DA POPE: NO!

All agricultural city-statist (civilization) political schemes are totalitarian in their rejection of Non-State lifeways.

[sarcasmic]

Was Nixon a gay homo?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....ndal-.html

[Bones]

gay homo

Is that some sort of double negative?

[Ray]

A happy homosexual? Do those exist?

[Arduin Grimoire]

"Too Big To Fail" just turned the large banks into GSEs (PDF) like Fannie and Freddie:

...Of course, the GSE firms and these LCFIs were not identical in form. The [large complex financial institutions (LCFIs)] had a more diversified product line, were afforded greater flexibility, and increasingly were perceived to have a too-big-to-fail government guarantee -- while the GSEs had a public mission, received a more explicit government guarantee, and were subject to lighter capital requirements. But when one digs beneath the surface, the failure of the LCFIs and the GSEs is quite similar ? a highly leveraged bet on the mortgage market by firms that were implicitly backed by the government with artificially low funding rates only to differing degrees....

[Arduin Grimoire]

"Black Swan" Fund Creator Explains Why Central Planning Has Doomed Us All
...Suppressing fire, creating the illusion of fire protection, leads to the wrong kind of growth, which then invites greater destruction. About 100 years ago, the U.S. Forest Service took a zero-tolerance approach to forest fires, stamping them out at the first blaze. Fast forward to 1988 when a massive wildfire at Yellowstone National Park wiped out more than 30 times the acreage of any previously recorded fire....

...Herein are pearls of great wisdom for central bankers today. Central banks are creating a tinderbox by keeping alive many very bad investments, fertilizing them with everything from artificially low interest rates to preferential liquidity to outright securities purchases. As these institutions and instruments overrun the financial landscape, they hamper the economic ecosystem and perpetuate the environment of low growth and high unemployment in which we currently find ourselves....

[Brett L]

This counts as insight? Markets will remain overvalued until bad money clears (and some good money gets swept away with the bad)? Just what do they teach in economics these days?

[CrackertyAssCracker]

It's a new analogy. At least new to me.

[P Brooks]

Huh.

Largely insulated from the country's economic downturn since 2008, members of Congress ? many of them among the "1 percenters" denounced by Occupy Wall Street protesters ? have gotten much richer even as most of the country has become much poorer in the last six years, according to an analysis by The New York Times based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group.

*rummages under desk for "surprised" face*

[sarcasmic]

I'm quite positive that Congress' being exempt from insider trading laws has nothing to do with this.

Nothing at all.

[Lepus]

Eddie needs to quit drinking the Mad Dog, and Roth looks like a PBS children's host from the 70's.

[sarcasmic]

For fuck's sake Kate, EAT SOMETHING!

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

[Tim]

That's what I like about you Sarcasmic, so caring.

[Sarcazmic]

Sarcasmic is still hot.

[sarcasmic]

I don't know about that since I don't follow untrusted links put up by losers like you, but Megan Fox is still hot!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....-game.html

[SugarFree]

Don't bother, same whiny shit she always posts.

[sarcasmic]

This just in!

Milla Jovovich is still hot!

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

[RoboCain]

Yes, but I still found Bringing Up Bobby unwatchable.

[sarcasmic]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1656170/

Looks lame. I won't be renting it.

[RoboCain]

Faces in the Crowd was OK, but nothing special.

Stone was very entertaining.

[sarcasmic]

I liked the three Resident Evil movies that I saw. For mindless action films based upon video games they were pretty good.

[robc]

I will fight anyone who says Leeloo Dallas Multipass isnt the hottest SF chick of all time.

[RoboCain]

I don't know, there have been plenty of hot SF chicks. Erin Grey in Buck Rodgers, Jennifer Connelly in Dark City, Eliza Dushku in Dollhouse, Summer Glau in anything...

[robc]

Agreed that they are hot, but not Leeloo hot.

[sarcasmic]

Barbarella

[robc]

I orginally had a paragragh mocking the idiots who would claim Barbarella or Princess Leia, but I deleted it.

Not that Fonda wasnt smokin' in that movie. She might be in the running for #2, I consider that a fair position, but Milla wins and it isnt close.

[sarcasmic]

I'd definitely nominate The Fifth Element for the #1 worst big budget sci-fi movie ever made. Milla is hot in the movie, but not enough to offset the rest of it. Terrible movie.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

I'd definitely nominate The Fifth Element for the #1 worst big budget sci-fi movie ever made.

Firmly in the "so bad its good" category. That movie does everything wrong, and I still like to watch it every few year.

Whiny radio guy: W..Wh..W...where did he learn to negotiate like that?

President: I wonder?

[RoboCain]

Jane Fonda is too much of an annoying Liberal. Not that I supported the Vietnam war, but she's still an asshat.

[sarcasmic]

Jane Fonda is too much of an annoying Liberal.

Thankfully I wasn't alive at the time so her off-set personality never had a chance to soil her on-screen image for me.

[robc]

While looking at clips, I never noticed her eyes before in this scene, amazing.

[Trespassers W]

Then let battle commence, because it's hard to top Slave Leia. Or what's-her-face from Species? It's like you're not even trying.

[Trespassers W]

Yeah, I'll take Barbarella, too.

[RoboCain]

I liked the Fifth Element. I also liked Men In Black.

[sarcasmic]

I liked the Fifth Element.

I just can't stand Bruce Willis.

[robc]

I think Im one of the three people in America who liked Hudson Hawk.

[Whahappan?]

I've never made it through Men in Black. Literally fell asleep halfway through both times I tried to watch it.

[sarcasmic]

Number Six on Battlestar Galactica
Famke Janssen as Jean Grey
Olivia Wilde in the sucky Tron movie I never saw

[RoboCain]

Actually that Tron movie is surprisingly good, at least from a technical standpoint -- acting, editing, sound design, cinematography, etc. all top notch. And if you are willing to accept the premise, the protagonists are sympathetic and the plot works.

[RoboCain]

I've never seen Battlestar Galactica. But if we are counting comic books as SF, then Halle Berry as Storm, Jessica Alba in Fantastic Four, etc.

[RoboCain]

Also, Natascha McElhone looked fantastic in the Solaris remake.

[sailshonan]

Raquel Welch in One million Years BC. I remember the whole fur bikini thing...

[It Girl]

This is like the worst chat room ever.

[Kaon Kristen]

Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatop

[The Angry RPh]

...Or what's-her-face from Species?...

Oh hellz yeah. Natasha Henstridge. Highly underrated. One of the most beautiful women ever to draw a breath, IMHO.

[Kevin]

7 of 9 from Voyager. Smoking!!

[Barbarella]

I'll take you, big boy

[RoboCain]

Meh

[Ice Nine]

Kate Moss poses for the annual Pirelli calendar in this barely-there bikini

The "barely there" thing is pretty pointless.

[squarooticus]

She actually doesn't look nearly as emaciated as she was 10 years ago. She'll never be burly, but she's got *some* meat on her.

[sarcasmic]

aye

[Lepus]

Also, here is a treehouse controversy where a HOA is the problem.

http://www.lex18.com/news/home.....ntroversy/

[P Brooks]

Perhaps the most tantalizing but hotly debated factor in the rising wealth of Congress is lawmakers' performance in the stock markets ? and the question of whether they are using their access to confidential information to enrich themselves.

In a study completed this year, Mr. Ziobrowski at Georgia State and his colleagues found that House members saw the stocks they owned outperform the market by 6 percent a year. Their research from several years ago found that senators did even better, at 12 percent above average. The researchers attributed the performance to a "significant information advantage" that lawmakers hold by virtue of their positions and the fact they are not bound by insider-trading law.

But they work for the government, which purifies their souls and absolves them of any self-interest.

[P Brooks]

didn't ron paul go storming off a cnn set?

Why, yes.

Yes, he did.

He punched Gloria Borger repeatedly in the belly (no marks) after vowing to kill her for asking him about the newsletters, kicked over all the lighting and sound equipment, and volubly cursed all and sundry prior to storming out and slamming the door so hard the glass broke.

[Christian Bale]

Oh, good for youuuuuu!

[Brett L]

Quite virile for a man in his mid-70s.

[James Ard]

I'd rate Nick's appearance on this morning's Washington Journal as a solid C. Too much newsletter talk and very little about liberty.

[P Brooks]

Was Nixon a gay homo?

I remember him as being pretty morose.

[Ice Nine]

He was a wild man once you got to know him.

[rather]

onetime I licked the bottom of a stapler and it tasted like earwax.

[RoboCain]

"But now I'm thinking, maybe the Paul campaign is just smart."

http://highclearing.com/index......2/25/14114

[Warty]

Good thinking by Dr. T. One of Rand Paul's major assets is that Lew Rockwell doesn't like him, after all.

[Libertymike]

Warty, please don't trash Lew Rockwell. He has done far more for liberty than Reason.

[Warty]

Fuck off, weirdo.

[Lost_In_Translation]

he freed the slaves?

he get (the dissappointment) Reagan elected?

Lew Rockwell's version of libertarianism has continued to be the feared, reviled fringe that the MSM paints all libertarianism as.

I don't see what major benefit all of his activities (*cough* rantings) have contributed to. Maybe he supported Paul, but so have alot of people.

[Karl Hungus]

Looks like Andrew Sullivan is rethinking his endorsement of Ron Paul:

http://andrewsullivan.thedaily.....ement.html

[RoboCain]

I saw that. I find his point "But the words and sentiments in those newsletters cannot attach themselves - even by mere appearance - to a potential president of this country" quite specious. Mere appearance shouldn't matter. Based on that, no one could ever be President.

[Karl Hungus]

I find his point . . . quite specious.

Ron Paul's newsletters - and his disavowal of them - have been a known quantity since what, the mid-90s? That Sullivan, in the space of a few days, would first give and then yank his endorsement based on that is yet more proof of what hysterical little poodle he really is.

[Rhywun]

You should see some of the vile filth in this Mitt newsletter I just got....

[NoVAHockey]

Like Sullivan didn't know about this issue before his endorsement.

[Karl Hungus]

Like Sullivan didn't know about this issue before his endorsement.

Exactly. But women given to hysterics will eagerly dredge up stuff from the past , if it gives them a reason to become hysterical.

[SFC B]

In 2008 Sullivan was too busy studying up for his OB/GYN practice.

[Karl Hungus]

I'm sorry, I just can't picture Sullivan rooting around in a cooch, even if it's part of an attempt to discredit the woman politically.

[Tonio]

A ref to Sullivan's choosing to ask hard questions about the provenance of Trig Palin. SFC B seems to have been trying to make a little joke.

[Brett L]

I knew Sully wouldn't stay sane long. His meds balanced for a week, and then it was off again.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Paul hasn't changed anything, so I can only assume that Sullivan must not be getting the New Year's invites he usually expects.

[RoboCain]

Because they might think Obama sounds Irish?

"A U.S. District Court judge has rejected a challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ? filled when the Department of Justice barred the city of Kinston, N.C. from holding nonpartisan elections ? reasoning that lack of access to party affiliation would discriminate against minority voters who otherwise wouldn't know how to find Democratic candidates on a ballot.

The Justice Department prevented the 2008 referendum change, arguing in part that "the elimination of party affiliation on the ballot will likely reduce the ability of blacks to elect candidates of choice."

http://dailycaller.com/2011/12.....n-ballots/

[P Brooks]

Scott Walker, NAZI.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday attacked the recall process currently underway to unseat him, calling it "unusual" for duplicates and obviously fake names to be allowed on petitions.

"The whole process is pretty unusual. We had one of the local affiliates here [reporting] about someone signing it, proudly saying they signed 80 different recall petitions," Walker said on "Fox and Friends." "As we see it, you should only be able to sign it once and only once, and it should be for a legal citizen."

Go ahead, Walker, hate the working man, hate democracy, HATE AMERICA.

[P Brooks]

The Justice Department prevented the 2008 referendum change, arguing in part that "the elimination of party affiliation on the ballot will likely reduce the ability of blacks to elect candidates of choice."

Wow.

According to the enlightened social progressives at the Justice Department, teh darkies are too stupid to know whom to vote for without a party affiliation stamp of approval.

But Ron Paul is a crazy old racist.

[RoboCain]

That was my take as well.

Also, how the Democrats became the black people's party is beyond me.

[Karl Hungus]

Also, how the Democrats became the black people's party is beyond me.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and so forth. It's easy to become someone's party when your entire platform is based on giving them other people's stuff.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Agree.

Has nothing to do with race. The poor vote for those who who promise them money from the rich.

[Francisco d Anconia]

And as long as you define poor as the bottom 51% of the population, you can't lose an election.

[SIV]

In some alternate universe somewhere Sears didn't kill the catalog in the early/mid 1990s. They put it on the internet in 1995. Using their existing distribution and warehouse network they became the most successful retailer on Earth.

[Ted S.]

They put it on Minitel. 🙂

[P Brooks]

Fuck off, weirdo.

*wiggles fingers*

[Another Weirdo]

unnnggghhh! Not so rough...

[P Brooks]

I'd definitely nominate The Fifth Element for the #1 worst big budget sci-fi movie ever made.

You're crazy.

The Fifth Element can't hold a candle to Starship Troopers, which was not merely the worst science fiction movie in any budget category, it was

THE

WORST

MOVIE

EVER

MADE.

[Joe M]

What?! Those movies were both extremely subversive and clever. Maybe you thought they were serious?

[sarcasmic]

touche

I'm surprised I forgot that one.

Some asshole took one of my favorite books of all time and managed to turn it into a movie while completely ignoring everything that made the book good.

[RoboCain]

It was not, lol.

[sarcasmic]

Read the book and then feel free to revise your position.

[RoboCain]

Internet assumption!

I did read the book, albeit long before the movie was made.

[sarcasmic]

does not compute

[RoboCain]

The book came out in 1959, the film in 1997, 38 years later.

[Concerned Citizen]

But the song, "Starship Trooper", by Yes, still rocks. Forty freaking years after it's release.

[robc]

This is, without a doubt, insanely true.

[robc]

Starship Trooper

[Concerned Citizen]

Cool, a fellow Yesfan. I've lost count of the times I've seen them live. 7/31/77 in Wheeling, WV was a life changing experience, as was attending the LPO convention in 1989.

[Almanian]

lulz

I still have my "Yes" cowboy-sized belt buckle from college days.

And my c. 1975 Rickenbacker bass, which brand Chris Squire used to play before he got all bigtime and started getting custom basses that look like fish and stuff.

[Kaon Kristen]

The only thing I really know about Yes was that fucking awesome video wit the maggots and shit. That shit rocked my tweener brain.

[db]

Love me some Yes.

[Brett L]

C'mon. The straight to DVD Warlord of Mars or whatever the name of the updated Princess of Mars that came out 2-3 years ago with Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris. Easily worse than either movie listed. Although, I have a soft spot for self-aware camp in sci-fi, so I don't hate either movie.

[sarcasmic]

I'd definitely nominate The Fifth Element for the #1 worst big budget sci-fi movie ever made.

The other day I watched Alien Apocalypse starring Bruce Campbell.
Much worse than either movie listed, with maybe a hundredth of the budget.

[Another Weirdo]

This is utterly impossible. It's a law of existence that Bruce Campbell simply cannot be associated with anything that is less then complete brilliance.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Harumph! No body disses Bruce Campbell, you hear? Nobody!

[Brett L]

Will Smith is in the worst big-budget sci-fi movie ever. Take your pick of anything except the MIB franchise. I, Robot would be mine. Others prefer Wild, Wild West.

[sarcasmic]

I didn't mind either of those. Wouldn't recommend them, but they're not the worst.

[RoboCain]

Wild, Wild, West is the worst.

ID4 also sucks balls.

[sarcasmic]

How can something with Salma Hayek in a pushup bra be the worst?

[Brett L]

I ask the same question about your stand on Starship Troopers. How can anything with Neal Patrick Harris camping it up in a neo-SS uniform be the worst? Also, I've developed a new love since the digital cable started asking me "do you want to know more?"

[sarcasmic]

I ask the same question about your stand on Starship Troopers.

In all seriousness the book upon which the movie was "based" is one of my favorite reads, mainly because of Rico's flashbacks to History and Moral Philosophy class.
It helped to put me on the road to becoming a libertarian.

The fact that those themes were intentionally omitted is a crime for which the director deserves death.

[Brett L]

Look, dude, movies can either sell or propagandize. The director and producers chose sell. And a whole new generation went out and read the book. Because of whatshername's naked boobs in the shower. So, mission accomplished. Now the Bourne trilogy. That's a travesty against the author and humanity. Turning such an excellent character into just another action hero.

[sarcasmic]

Having not read the books, and with no plans to, I must plead ignorance.

[sarcasmic]

But I see your point. If it did get some kids to read the book, then I suppose it can be somewhat forgiven. Twenty lashes instead of death.
I still say the movie sucks.

[Paul Krugman]

Just what do they teach in economics these days?

Read my columns, and see.

To Q E INFINITY, and beyond!

[MlR]

"Ron Paul still leading in Iowa..."

"Mainstream" Republicans and Conservatives still freaking out, monkey shit-throwing style.

[Lost_In_Translation]

"Mainstream" Republicans and Conservatives still freaking out, monkey shit-throwing style.

Racist?

[sloopyinca]

I'm gonna say no, but upthread somebody said "hysterical," which I find very SEXIST!!!

[Brett L]

Let me help you to the fainting couch.

[Max]

I hope the racist bag of shit wins Iowa and furthers fucks up the Republican race. At least Herr Doktor Paul has some use.

[Almanian]

So Max is now a Paulite.

therefore

We are all Paulites now.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Court in Austria convicts woman for saying Mohammed had "a thing for little girls"

http://volokh.com/2011/12/27/a.....s-beliefs/

[RoboCain]

"The judge ruled that Sabaditsch-Wolff committed a crime by stating in her seminars about Islam that the Islamic prophet Mohammed was a pedophile (Sabaditsch-Wolff's actual words were "Mohammed had a thing for little girls.")

The judge rationalized that Mohammed's sexual contact with nine-year-old Aisha could not be considered pedophilia because Mohammed continued his marriage to Aisha until his death. According to this line of thinking, Mohammed had no exclusive desire for underage girls; he was also attracted to older females because Aisha was 18 years old when Mohammed died....

In January 2009, Susanne Winter, an Austrian politician and Member of Parliament, was convicted for the "crime" of saying that "in today's system" the Mohammed would be considered a "child molester," referring to his marriage to Aisha."

So if I have sex with a nine-year-old Austrian girl that's OK as long as I keep fucking her until she's eighteen??