A.M. Links: Rick Santorum Could Take Minnesota and Missouri, Obama Embraces a Super PAC, Nepotistic Congress Critters Exposed

Mike Riggs | 2.7.2012 9:00 AM

Rick Santorum is shaping up to be the winner in Missouri and Minnesota.
Obama now loves Super PACs.
WaPo unveils a massive pork-documentation project.
White House reminds GOP of triggered defense cuts.
The right-wing response to Think Progress launches.
Catholic League is ready to go to the mat over birth control.

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RoboCain 13 years ago

"Following days of reported hate crimes and heightened security at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, a student has confessed to creating the list threatening black students because she wanted greater attention to the issue, according to authorities Friday night."

http://journaltimes.com/news/l.....3ce6c.html
1. lily 13 years ago
  
  looking for the bilover?---datebi*cO'm--- is a site for bisexual and bicurious singles and friends.Here you can find hundreds of thousands of open-minded singles & couples looking to explore their bisexuality.sign up for free.
  "
  1. JOhnny MAckson 13 years ago
    
    LOL, lily! Lookin' for a robolover?
    
    Jess
    1. wylie 13 years ago
      
      robolover.com, for your manbot-on-manbot-on-fembot desires.
      1. T 13 years ago
        
        Women of your planet often feel guilty when they reach ecstasy with mechanical assistance.
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        nice.
      2. Audrey the Liberal 13 years ago
        
        Have you any idea what's it like to be a fembot living in a manbot manputer's world?
2. SFC B 13 years ago
  
  So... a black student did this because she thought the RA didn't respond strongly enough to a string of rubber bands that looked like a noose?
  
  We are so fucked.
  1. Michael 13 years ago
    
    Judging by the accompanying photo, "noose" definitely deserves to appear in quotation marks throughout the article.
    1. SFC B 13 years ago
      
      Yup. If you are feeling threatened by a "noose" that looks like that, honestly, you're just looking for something to be mad about.
3. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
  
  This is what happens when a country fetishizes a culture of victimization--when you can't find hate crimes to complain about, make some up.
RoboCain 13 years ago

Illegal "assault rifle" stolen from a city councilwoman's house in California.

http://thegunwire.com/blog/wow.....-say-what/
1. mad libertarian guy 13 years ago
  
  The best part is that, unlike any other citizen of CA, she will not face any charges for having the "illegal" weapon.
  
  I'm not saying I'm in favor of draconian weapons laws, but if the average Joe goes to jail because of owning one, so should dear councilwoman.
  1. wylie 13 years ago
    
    what part of "peasants" don't you fucking peasants understand?!
RoboCain 13 years ago

Occucommies Throw Urine at Reporters

http://moonbattery.com/?p=7730
1. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  Win Win!
2. Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
  
  Not at all surprising. It's just part of the escalation of violence track the Occupy movement is on.
  
  When they start throwing Molotov cocktails at McMansions, is when it'll start to get really interesting.
  
  All they're waiting for is to be stirred up to that point, by their masters.
RoboCain 13 years ago

Inappropriate Stemware:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....laska.html
1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
  
  But Olaska then apparently lunged at the other two men with a five-inch folding knife, injuring them both.
  Mr Wild tried to stop him walking away, say officials, and Olaska stabbed him fatally in the heart,
  
  I guess we have this month's Darwin Award nominee.
2. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
  
  I'd stab that smug asshole myself.
3. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  But did he raise his pinky?
4. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  I try to refrain from calling the religious dumb, but:
  
  Members of his church are chipping in to help raise the $300,000 cash bond required for the alleged killer, who is not believed to have a criminal history.
5. Maxxx 13 years ago
  
  The fight in a bar in Naperville, Illinois started when student Willie Hayes taunted Olaska for drinking his beer out of a wine glass.
  
  Olaska, 27, had previously mocked tattooed football player Mr Hayes for wearing a tight T-shirt while they were drinking, according to prosecutors.
  
  What kind of teacher was Shaun Wild?
  1. Fatty Bolger 13 years ago
    
    Pretty sure he's a college student.
6. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  'Obviously, this is an incredible aberration in the life of Daniel,' Olaska's attorney told the judge.
  
  He didn't mean to kill the teacher. He's never done anything like this before. It was totally an accident and we should just let him go.
RoboCain 13 years ago

Cupertino High School locked down after student found with Nerf gun

http://www.mercurynews.com/cupertino/ci_19903501
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  Fear the Nerf!
  1. Sparky 13 years ago
    
    It's Nerf or nothin!
2. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  Cardoza said criminals also have been known to paint their real guns with whimsical colors to throw off police.
  
  Whimsical colors to match the whimsical killing sprees.
RoboCain 13 years ago

"My real fear is that June is neither well-off nor attractive enough to make it as a mean girl in Manhattan once she hits middle school. (The kids at this school are 10 or 5 percenters, not 1 percenters.) And while she's a totally cute kid, she's chubby with freckles and in need of braces. I'm sure she'll be pretty, but she's not going to be Grace Kelly. I worry that when she gets to the "big leagues" she'll either be crushed or engage in risky/self-destructive behavior to make up for not being perfect."

http://www.slate.com/articles/.....al_.2.html
1. John 13 years ago
  
  I don't really now why anyone would want to expose their kid to the kind of trash that inhabit New York Prep schools. Better off in the ghetto.
  1. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    Clearly, you are not familiar with NYC public schools.
  2. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
    
    Better off in the ghetto.
    
    School-wise, I doubt this is ever true.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      I was kidding, partly.
2. o3 13 years ago
  
  athletics will improve her self-esteem, health, & the crowd she runs & self-identifies with
3. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  Worried that the kid may not be bitchy enough for the big leagues?
  
  Whatever happened to being a cunt just for the love of the game?
  1. Fatty Bolger 13 years ago
    
    lol
4. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  I'm always a little surprised at people who think it's somehow odd that children talk to one another about people who aren't there.
  
  What else are they supposed to talk about? Immanuel Kant?
  
  And children who don't go through a phase where they "tattle" are the ones with emotional problems. It generally means they aren't noticing the other kids at all, or don't find the actions of the other kids interesting or important.
  1. db 13 years ago
    
    Small minds talk about people...
5. protefeed 13 years ago
  
  I worry that when she gets to the "big leagues" she'll either be crushed or engage in risky/self-destructive behavior to make up for not being perfect.
  
  Translation: "I'm afraid she'll try to compensate for not being all that physically attractive by becoming a slut who fucks on the first date."
  1. Audrey the Liberal 13 years ago
    
    Translation: "I'm afraid she'll try to compensate for not being all that physically attractive by becoming a slut who fucks on the first date."
    
    The story of my life.
RoboCain 13 years ago

Assholes Reject Anal Artists:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....58161.html

http://newswire.xbiz.com/view.php?id=143990
1. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
  
  I think it is disgusting that Ms. Grey is treated as if she suffers from corruption of blood because of her career in adult film.
  1. Abdul 13 years ago
    
    It's a fluid different from blood.
    
    Anyway, the pornographers stated that they were donating to the NEA because they wanted to improve education. Therefore, the NEA was right to reject the donation.
    1. SugarFree 13 years ago
      
      It's a fluid different from blood.
      
      Depends on how you are doing it.
2. Warty 13 years ago
  
  I still don't quite get how Sasha Grey got to be the most popular whore of all. It must be her dead eyes.
  1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
    
    It used to be that Jenna Jameson had that crown, but I think she plastic-surgeried herself off the throne.
RoboCain 13 years ago

Oh noes, not the MALE GAZE!!11!1!!ELEVEN!!

http://feministing.com/2012/02.....tbuyingit/
1. o3 13 years ago
  
  how to gambol when othered?
2. invisible furry hand 13 years ago
  
  God knows what they'd think about this ad
  1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
    
    Shouldn't "Don't feel bad" be a sentence in and of itself?
    
    /pedant
3. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  Abigail
  Posted February 6, 2012 at 10:41 am | Permalink
  
  The John Stamos Oikos yogurt ad really made my skin crawl! In the commercial he is seated at a table with a woman, teasing her with spoonfuls of yogurt before eating them himself. She grows frustrated and headbutts him and he falls to the ground and is out of the frame for the rest of the ad as she smugly eats the yogurt.
  
  Since when is it okay to depict domestic violence as normal and even "cute" in order to sell yogurt?
  
  Love it.
  1. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    I find it odd that they would care about domestic violence towards men.
    
    Imagine the shitstorm if the genders were reversed?
    1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      I find it odd that they would care about domestic violence towards men.
      
      They're worried about what might happen if the man decided to fight back. Even the Feministing harridans know that all the GI Jane, Action Grrrrl propoganda in the world won't change the fact that most men are physically capable of destroying most women with their bare hands.
      1. o3 13 years ago
        
        doubt it nowadays considering all the broken-down, obese men lacking any athletic tone.
        
        Loki 13 years ago
        
        Also most modern men of my generation or younger who aren't obese and unathletic are pasty little metrosexual douchebag Robert Pattinson types.
        
        Apatheist 13 years ago
        
        And then there are those of us trained from birth not to hit a women ever, even when they get physical. I'm not sure at what point I could break that rule but I haven't found it yet.
        
        Double D 13 years ago
        
        When you are attacked in earnest by a woman capable of causing you injury, you may change your mind. I make it a rule to not be the initiator of violence, but I will f up any gal who attacks me and cannot be otherwise restrained.
        
        shut the fuck up 13 years ago
        
        How are the broken down obese women lacking any tone different?
        
        What, you're actually going to pretend that it's only chicks who are fat?
        
        You ARE that stupid...
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        doubt it nowadays considering all the broken-down, obese men lacking any athletic tone.
        
        Even a typical fatty would maul an average woman if he decided to get physical.
  2. Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
    
    But SHE hit HIM. Feminists should be okay with that.
    1. Brett L 13 years ago
      
      As long as we're talking about Jon Stamos, my only problem with it is that she didn't use a weapon.
      1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        Stamos looks like he's been 32 years old for the last 20 years. I can see why a lot of guys despise him.
4. Warty 13 years ago
  
  And speaking of fairness and equality, H & M wants you to know that crushingly unrealistic beauty standards aren't just for women and girls anymore! Now men can hate their bodies just as much as women do! Hurrah for equality!
  
  They really want this to be true, don't they? Bitch, please. I love my repulsive hairy body.
  1. Double D 13 years ago
    
    There are some guys who struggle with body image problems even after the teen years. However, most guys accept that they will get broader and go to seed if they don't want to hit the gym. They accept the trade of. Many women, on the other hand, refuse to take responsibility and insist that standards must be changed to make their fat ass ugliness the standard of beauty.
    Not always true, but mostly true.
    1. Audrey the Liberal 13 years ago
      
      Women have way more issues about our bodies then men...and it's mostly our fault.
Tim 13 years ago

Throw in some Golden Girls links Robo, and you'll be the new Johnny Longtorso...
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  I have no idea who that is, but Betty White kicks ass.
RoboCain 13 years ago

Maria Menounos should gamble more often

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....l-bet.html
1. Jeff 13 years ago
  
  She should also eat more often.
2. White Idiot 13 years ago
  
  And gambol more often!
Bee Tagger 13 years ago

Obama gives blessing to a super PAC

Don't worry, there's still years and years of humor to mine from mocking Bill O'Reilly, amiright Colbert?
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  Afaik, Colbert's Super PAC only received one donation that a regular PAC couldn't receive. Although I wonder what Colbert is going to do with all the money.
2. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
  
  If I could stomach watching either TDS or Colbert, I would love to see how they handle this news. My guess would be, however, not at all.
RoboCain 13 years ago

Emily Miller (still hot) TV interview:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=49317
o3 13 years ago

'Euthanasia on wheels' starts next monthPublished on 6 February 2012

Six specialised euthanasia teams consisting of one doctor and one nurse will begin making house calls in the Netherlands next month.

Right to Die NL (NVVE) says the teams will visit people who want to end their lives and are eligible for euthanasia under Dutch law, but whose wishes are being thwarted. Such situations can occur when, for instance, doctors refuse to take requests for euthanasia seriously.

The NVVE will open an 'end-of-life clinic' in The Hague on 1 March. People not able to have euthanasia administered at home by their family doctors will be able to end their lives at the clinic from around mid-2012.

The NVVE expects to receive about 1,000 euthanasia requests per year. The organisation stresses that people will not be able to opt for euthanasia on impulse: they will have to go through a lengthy intake procedure as required under Dutch law.

This includes a period during which doctors ensure that the decision is voluntary and well-considered, and that the patient's situation is hopeless and unbearable.

In the past, most euthanasia cases have involved cancer patients who have run out of treatment options. The NVVE says people in the early stages of dementia and those suffering from chronic psychiatric problems can also be eligible under present legislation. The organisation says it will, if possible, co-operate with family doctors.
http://www.rnw.nl/english/bull.....next-month
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Once you start killing people, it is very hard to stop.
  1. o3 13 years ago
    
    the "you" are the patients themselves. libertarians should support this individual decision.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      I am sure the Jews wanted to go to the gas chambers too.
      1. o3 13 years ago
        
        false analogy. it tries moar harder
      2. Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        You realize that people actively cross borders to seek out Swiss and Dutch doctors to help them with this, so much so that the British government has to expend considerable resources hunting down and prosecuting those among its citizens who do so?
        
        I think that if your government actively needs to commit men and materiel to the process of stopping you from doing something, it's pretty good proof that you "want" to do it. Pretty badly, actually.
  2. Pip 13 years ago
    
    Is that some sort of confession, John?
2. Tim 13 years ago
  
  "Because I could not stop for Death, the Government mandated that he stop for me..."
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    Fun fact: the Gilligan's Island theme song and Dickinson's Death are written in the same meter. So you can sing Death to the tune of Gilligan's Island. Try it!
    
    It kind of freaks people out, btw.
    1. Abdul 13 years ago
      
      I think it was Garrison Keilor who tested the theory that all Dickinson poetry and be sung to the "Yellow Rose of Texas."
      1. Francisco d Anconia 13 years ago
        
        And Michael Garibaldi.
      2. Audrey the Liberal 13 years ago
        
        I heard the song was "Row row row your boat".
3. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  "G]overnment's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
  
  Ironically, a man nicknamed Dutch is proven right by the Dutch.
  
  Happy birthday, gipper!
  1. o3 13 years ago
    
    how does that relate to euthanasia in the netherlands?
    1. Abdul 13 years ago
      
      Euthanasia stops people from moving. the Dutch subsidized the practice of euthanasia.
      1. o3 13 years ago
        
        u talking insurance coverage?
        
        Abdul 13 years ago
        
        I'm talking the kervokian-mobile.
  2. Pip 13 years ago
    
    "Happy birthday, gipper!"
    
    Funny how that doesn't get a Google doodle.
4. Marshall Gill 13 years ago
  
  This includes a period during which doctors ensure that the decision is voluntary and well-considered, and that the patient's situation is hopeless and unbearable.
  
  In the past, most euthanasia cases have involved cancer patients who have run out of treatment options. The NVVE says people in the early stages of dementia and those suffering from chronic psychiatric problems can also be eligible under present legislation.
  
  So, for those "unable" to chose to die, the "doctors" will generously make the decision for them.
  
  The History Channel had a show called something like "The murder movies" or "Hitler's murder movies". They were portrayals of chronically ill people made in the mid thirties. Three movies were made with the third one being nominated for an Oscar, IIRC. They literally used the term "right to die".
  
  Not surprisingly, once a "right" to die is established, it becomes the business of the State to guarantee. It is only a very short step to then also have the State decide if and when it's wards should exercise it.
  1. o3 13 years ago
    
    ur kidding urself if you dont know that geriatric patients & families in the US make these decisions every day to withhold critical care & allow death w dignity.
  2. Zeb 13 years ago
    
    "So, for those "unable" to chose to die, the "doctors" will generously make the decision for them."
    
    Oh, for crying out loud. It doesn't say that at all. People have to specifically request euthanasia. Of course I don't think the government should be doing it, but that's how things go over there.
    1. Brett L 13 years ago
      
      You know doctors already possess that power in The Netherlands for infants with birth defects, right?
      1. Zeb 13 years ago
        
        Which power?
        
        Brett L 13 years ago
        
        Euthanasia
5. Loki 13 years ago
  
  When can we start making Soylent Green jokes? Is it too soon?
Jean-Luc Picard 13 years ago

Rick Santorum is shaping up to be the winner in Missouri and Minnesota.
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

Rick Santorum is shaping up to be the winner in Missouri and Minnesota.

All this focus on Romney and Gingrich leaves the real possibility of Santorum slipping through the cracks.
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  I see what you did there.
2. Tim 13 years ago
  
  Cracks?
  1. wylie 13 years ago
    
    yes, plural. that's just how FoE rolls...errr, fists.
    1. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
      
      It's always a party when I'm around.
Bee Tagger 13 years ago

"I would certainly vote for Obama anyway. The church has to get up to date," Manhattan resident Sue Thomas said.

The religion of the state always wins out.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Or maybe that guy needs to be honest with himself and leave the church. I have absolutely no respect for people who join an organization and get the advantages and then refuse to live by said organization's tenants.
  1. MNG 13 years ago
    
    Because changing an organization is wrong or something.
    
    Some of the best things that have happened to organizations are change from within.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      When changing it makes it into something antithetical to what it was when you go there, yes.
      
      We have been having these debates for 2000 years. The Catholic Church is what it is. There are tons of other Protestant Churches who take a different view. The Catholic Church is for people who hold a particular set of view. If you don't like it, go join a group that agrees with you. By coming in and demanding change, you are fucking all of the people who like it the way it is. Where are they supposed to go to church? There already are tons of churches who don't object to contraception. If the Catholic church changes, where do the people who object to such things supposed to go?
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        The question is, is opposition to birth control something central to Catholicism, or is it like indulgences, something the Church can, through inner debate, decide to chuck.
        
        I say let them talk about it, don't yell at the folks inside who suggest it's more like the latter.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        "The question is, is opposition to birth control something central to Catholicism"
        
        Yes it is central to the faith. It is not like indulgences.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        It's worth noting that indulgences are still very much okay under Catholic teaching. It was the selling of indulgences that was the problem pre-Reformation.
      2. Francisco d Anconia 13 years ago
        
        So libertarians taking over the Republican party would be wrong?
        
        Audrey the Liberal 13 years ago
        
        So libertarians taking over the Republican party would be wrong?
        
        If libertarians manege to make any head-way at all in the Republican party, I will eat my own hat.
    2. R C Dean 13 years ago
      
      Some of the best things that have happened to organizations are change from within.
      
      True enough, I suppose, but not to be confused with change by state fiat.
      1. Pip 13 years ago
        
        Winner^^
  2. Double D 13 years ago
    
    OK, I've seen this a few times and let it go, but it's driving me crazy.
    
    "Tenets"
    Tenants are something else.
    1. Sparky 13 years ago
      
      Psst, John is just a really bad speller. Although I guess he still could have typed that word on purpose.
    2. wylie 13 years ago
      
      up in ur living space, subletting all ur vocabs.
  3. Zeb 13 years ago
    
    I don't know. Most people seem to go to church out of habit or because they like the tradition. Like it or not, most churches have to deal with the fact that most of their members are not really true believers, but are there for the social and traditional aspects more than anything else.
    1. Sparky 13 years ago
      
      Most people seem to go to church out of habit
      
      Everyone but the nuns. Hiyooooo *rimshot*
2. Audrey the Liberal 13 years ago
  
  "I would certainly vote for Obama anyway. The church has to get up to date," Manhattan resident Sue Thomas said.
  
  The religion of the state always wins out.
  
  People are surprisingly good at not learning from their mistakes.
o3 13 years ago

This bourbon costs $100 per sip
By Kate Briquelet and Natalie O'Neill
for The Brooklyn Paper

No customer has ever ordered a glass of Char No. 4's $100 per ounce bourbon, a little-known and extremely rare 24-year-old liquor with complex butterscotch notes called Martin Mills.

"It's probably the richest and most memorable bourbon I've ever had," said Char No. 4 co-owner Michael Tsoumpas, a whiskey collector who donated that bottle and several others to the high-end meatery on Smith and Baltic streets. "I'd be shocked if it's in a bar anywhere else in the world."

The dusty bottle ? which is one of about 200 released in the world ? contains a 107-proof caramel- and vanilla-rich flavor bomb that is best served with some water, "which changes the molecules" and opens up the spirit, Tsoumpas said.
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/s.....10_bk.html
1. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  I'd buy it, but I'm waiting for a 24 year old Coke to mix it with.
  1. wylie 13 years ago
    
    And so his quest began, scouring every dusty Mom & Pop, Bodega, and Groceria across the blasted wastelands of Mexico.
2. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  Water? Heathen!
  1. Ska 13 years ago
    
    If you want to call someone a heathen, read the little mini-pamphlet attached to the neck of a bottle of Basil Hayden (also might be attach to Woodford Reserve as well). The distillers (or more likely their marketing department) recommend drinking Basil with ginger ale.
    
    I actually do enjoy bourbon with a splash of ginger ale, but I'm sure most purists would shun me for it.
    1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
      
      Hoi polloi.
    2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      You might like the Presbyterian. I always omit the soda water, and usually add a dash or two of Angostura or similar bitters.
      1. Ska 13 years ago
        
        Sounds pretty tasty, man. Would definitely enjoy that.
3. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  high-end meatery
  
  I am intrigue.
  
  Water? Heathen!
  
  Adding just a tad of water is a well-known and accepted technique for whisky. Its amazing what just a few drops of water can do to the flavors.
  1. protefeed 13 years ago
    
    Whisky (and other liqueurs) of under 100 proof already are mostly water. Why would a few more drops of it make the slightest difference?
    1. Zeb 13 years ago
      
      Well, largish drops. And it does make a difference. My guess it that certain compounds become less soluble in the lower alcohol mixture which results.
      1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        True dat. I like my bourbon neat, but on occasion a dash of water really can change the flavor in a not unpleasant way.
        
        Zeb 13 years ago
        
        Especially barrel strength stuff.
Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago

What? No mention of Ginsburg and her love of the South African Constitution?
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  It was posted here several times already.
  1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
    
    I've been otherwise occupied. Late to the party as usual.
Montani Semper Liberi 13 years ago

Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook and first woman to join the Silicon Valley billionaires' club, says women need to stop blaming men and take responsibility for themselves. Naturally, Jezebel has a problem with this.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  She is the really the one who built the company. It wasn't the douche bag in the movie. Facebook was on its ass losing out to myspace when she took over. She more than anyone made it into what it is today.
  1. Montani Semper Liberi 13 years ago
    
    No, John, she was just really fortunate to get all the breaks in her life. Didn't you even read the article?
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      No I didn't. I have better things in life to do that read Jezebel, like picking my toes. But I did read a WSJ profile of her a few months ago. And it said she was really the driving force behind Facebook getting so big.
      1. Montani Semper Liberi 13 years ago
        
        Oh, I was joking. That is what the Jezzies are saying about her. God forbid that a woman could be successful on her own. That would mean the Jezzies would have to take responsibility instead of living in a state of permanent victimhood. No, easier to say her success is down to luck instead of having to take a good look in the mirror.
        
        Brett L 13 years ago
        
        Surely there must be some point at which the cognitive dissonance becomes fatal, right?
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Ask Sylvia Plath.
        
        Brett L 13 years ago
        
        The jezzies would use an electric oven and end up with even lower self-esteem when they didn't die.
  2. robc 13 years ago
    
    "losing out to myspace" seems to be questionable phrasing, IMO.
    
    They werent competitors at first. When I first heard of facebook, you basically had to have a .edu email address in order to get an account. Myspace was first and it was open to everyone, they werent in the same market.
    
    I dont know the history, but Sandberg may have been responsible for the move to the public, but once that happened, there was no way it was losing to the piece of crap that is myspace.
  3. Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    Right, that's the point they're missing here.
    
    A job at Google followed before she joined Facebook in 2008, an opportunity that Sandberg was prescient enough to take full advantage of.
    
    They are framing her success as being the result of a lucky decision to associate herself with Facebook's male founders.
    
    They completely discount the possibility that she made them rich.
2. Audrey the Liberal 13 years ago
  
  Seriously, why is the Hit & Run He-Man Woman Haters Club so goddamned obsessed with the impotent waling on so-called feminist sites?
Bee Tagger 13 years ago

But pro-choice groups said they will fight the church and fight for the right of employees of Catholic institutions to have birth control and other services paid for

I know the word "right" has lost all meaning, but this is pretty brazen. They actually include the phrase "paid for" in the same sentence.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  They are saying that people have a "right" to demand that someone else pay for their pony even if doing so violates that someone else's moral convictions. It is just fucking mind boggling.
  1. MNG 13 years ago
    
    Some people see control over reproduction as a right (hence "reproductive rights"), and they argue that being unable to exercise such control guts the right in a way similar to the way that being unable to afford a lawyer guts the right to counsel.
    1. Abdul 13 years ago
      
      Lawyers = $200 an hour.
      
      Condoms = $.020 for five minutes (YMMV).
      1. KDN 13 years ago
        
        That's some cheap condoms. You must deal with a lot of chafing.
        
        Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        That's some cheap lawyers!
        
        KDN 13 years ago
        
        Also quite chafing.
    2. John 13 years ago
      
      It is like saying that since I have second amendment rights, my employer must purchase guns for me. Sure, I have a right to own a gun. And sure these people have a right to use whatever contraception they want. But they do not have a right to use government coercion to make other people pay for it.
      
      It is against the Catholic religion to pay for birth control. Their right to believe and live by whatever morality they choose, trumps your right (which is really no right since it is not your money) to demand that they pay for your birth control.
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        But are they making the Catholic orgs buy birth control and give it to their workers, or are they saying the health insurance plans the Catholic church has for their employees must offer it as an option of covered things? No employee would be forced to get birth control.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        But the Catholic Church would be forced to pay for something that is against their religion. It is basically making it illegal to be a Catholic organization and offer health insurance. That is a violation of the Church's right.
        
        AuH20 13 years ago
        
        Yeah, MNG, this leaves Catholic orgs with the only option to not offer insurance.
        
        ...
        
        Although maybe HSAs?
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        No employee would be forced to get birth control.
        
        You only have to pay for the (other guy's) condoms, you don't have to actually wear them.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Dude, how is that not the same thing?
        
        If you can pass an insurance regulation saying that all insurers must cover birth control, why can't we also have regulations saying that all restaurants must offer pork on the menu?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Or all employers must purchase firearms for their employees? Owning a gun is just as much of a right as using contraception.
        
        R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        Owning a gun is just as much of a right as using contraception.
        
        Moreso, if you think being explicitly mentioned in the BOR counts for anything.
        
        Pip 13 years ago
        
        Or all persons must buy health insurance.
        
        Fatty Bolger 13 years ago
        
        Sometimes I think MNG must work here.
        
        Must be a pain sharing an office with Max.
        
        Seamus 13 years ago
        
        Employees may not be forced to get birth control. But those who don't want and don't need it are forced to pay for their co-workers' birth control. So what you're really calling for is a transfer of money from non-contraceptors to contraceptors. What's really ironic is that you probably consider yourself "pro-choice," while in the very act of denying anyone the choice not to pay for contraception.
      2. Pip 13 years ago
        
        I think the Catholic hospitals should go Gault, just like they did with adoption.
        
        Abdul 13 years ago
        
        In the '60's, we had back alley abortions.
        
        In 2016, we'll have back-alley abstinence!
      3. Zeb 13 years ago
        
        The problem is that no one should be forced to provide contraception (or health insurance at all). But here we are. And I do sort of have a problem with religious groups getting a special exemption. If the church gets and exemption, then so should any other group or individual who objects to the requirement for any reason. I don't understand how any law which treats a religious group differently from any other social club or charity doesn't violate the first amendment.
        
        Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        New law: No one is allowed to eat small circles of unleavened bread on Sundays. No exceptions for religous reasons.
    3. o3 13 years ago
      
      except that we're talking about the insured not indigents. i support the religious exemption AND employees choice to work somewhere else.
    4. SFC B 13 years ago
      
      If the only way you can get access to a freaking condom is to have your employer buy them for you, your plan for life went off th rails somewhere.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        IT is not about that. It is about control. It is about making sure there are no organizations and associations in society who do not toe the feminist lion. This is about freedom. It has nothing to do with birth control or insurance.
        
        o3 13 years ago
        
        conspiracies are the province of small minds.
        
        AuH20 13 years ago
        
        The feminist lion is too busy eating Ben and Jerry's and crying to herself on Saturday night to be towed by anyone.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        +100
        
        invisible furry hand 13 years ago
        
        You'd need balls of steel to toe a lion
    5. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      Generally speaking, women do have control over their reproductive rights. They can choose, or not, to open their legs, and not one thin dime was expended in the process.
      1. o3 13 years ago
        
        swear i wont cum peaches. swear....ssswwwweeeRrReeEEee!!111!!1
        
        Fatty Bolger 13 years ago
        
        We can only hope you're sterile.
    6. Maxxx 13 years ago
      
      Some people see control over reproduction as a right (hence "reproductive rights"), and they argue that being unable to exercise such control guts the right
      
      You lose control of your exercise of rights when you rely on someone paying for it.
      1. R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        My beef with mandatory contraception (and abortion) coverage is that these are purely elective, lifestyle products/services.
        
        Whatever argument you can make that insurance coverage should include certain minimum essentials completely falls apart when you start talking about subsidizing people's lifestyles.
        
        Zeb 13 years ago
        
        I agree with your main point. But I woudl also think that insurance companies woudl want to offer contraception in their plans. It costs a lot less than pre-natal care and giving birth.
        
        MJ 13 years ago
        
        Perhaps, but why do you think what the insurance company would like offer is relevant to the government dictating what package the insurance buyer must purchase?
    7. Marshall Gill 13 years ago
      
      Some people see control over reproduction as a right (hence "reproductive rights"), and they argue that being unable to exercise such control guts the right in a way similar to the way that being unable to afford a lawyer guts the right to counsel.
      
      Yet the right explicit in the 2nd Amendment, to bear arms, is supposed to be borne by the individual? Get back to me when these people demand "access" to guns for those without funds.
      1. Abdul 13 years ago
        
        Poor people have plenty of access to guns, just from the wrong end.
    8. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      Some people see control over reproduction as a right (hence "reproductive rights"), and they argue that being unable to exercise such control guts the right in a way similar to the way that being unable to afford a lawyer guts the right to counsel.
      
      Maybe, but it's a tenuous argument. If women have a "right" to receive free birth control pills, why do I not have a similar "right" to receive free firearms?
      1. Zeb 13 years ago
        
        Yeah, calling it a right is just dumb. If there is any justification, it is purely a practical one to avoid having to take care of people's unwanted spawn.
      2. Brett L 13 years ago
        
        Rights come with responsibilities. If "reproductive control" entailed providing indigent women with abortifacts after becoming pregnant by rape or sexual abuse, I'm cool with it. If you choose to have sex, though, I don't see it as society's duty to provide you with birth control.
        
        Also, the idea, in this age of government subsidized child care, that a woman is doomed to a suboptimal life by birthing a child out of wedlock strikes me as old fashioned and silly. But that's what these "reproductive freedoms" are still predicated on, '60s era morals.
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        If you choose to have sex, though, I don't see it as society's duty to provide you with birth control.
        
        Notice these demands always boil down to providing women with pharmaceutical contraceptives--even though a box of condoms costs about $7 and is way more affordable.
        
        What these women really want is for the state to subsidize their desire to go bareback without any consequences.
    9. Seamus 13 years ago
      
      You don't get a lawyer paid for by the government any time you need one. You don't get one if you want to sue your landlord. You don't get one to defend you in your divorce proceeding against the wife who's trying to take you to the cleaners. You only get one when the government is trying to put you in jail and you can't afford one. So if the government were literally fucking you (rather than figuratively, the way they usually do), they might arguably be under some obligation to provide you means to avoid pregnancy resulting from said fucking. (Even then, that's only if you can't afford it.)
    10. MJ 13 years ago
      
      Getting health insurance through your employer is a perk, it is not a right. The Catholic Church is not legally preventing it's employees from obtaining whatever birth control they want. An employer has every legal right to decide what will be in their benefits package and the state has no legitimate authority to dictate the terms to an employer, especially one that has moral objections to the type of coverage.
      
      The refrain used to be "If you disagree with X, then don't buy X", now you do not even het that choice.
Ice Nine 13 years ago

Here's a little something for Sarcasmic to flog his dummy to.
AuH20 13 years ago

Microaggressions, you have outdone yourself.

Microassaults: Conscious and intentional actions or slurs, such as using racial epithets, displaying swastikas or deliberately serving a white person before a person of color in a restaurant.

Microinsults: Verbal and nonverbal communications that subtly convey rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person's racial heritage or identity. An example is an employee who asks a colleague of color how she got her job, implying she may have landed it through an affirmative action or quota system.

Microinvalidations: Communications that subtly exclude, negate or nullify the thoughts, feelings or experiential reality of a person of color. For instance, white people often ask Asian-Americans where they were born, conveying the message that they are perpetual foreigners in their own land.

Yes, how dare you ask someone where they are from/where they were born. Or how they got a job. Clearly you hat them, and aren't just trying to make small talk.
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  When I was in college, the most bigoted organizations were the various ethnic Asian student groups and the black fraternities. The Koreans hated the Chinese, who hated the Vietnamese, who hated the Japanese, etc.... And the black fraternities made racial isolation and segregation into an art form.
  1. The Tri Lambs 13 years ago
    
    We did let in those nerds and never turned away the white wimminz.
2. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  Next will be a list of nanowhatevers.
  1. wylie 13 years ago
    
    "Attoagression" has a nice ring to it.
    1. Perfidious Malarkey 13 years ago
      
      I prefer femtoagression. The word itself qualifies as a microaggression.
      1. wylie 13 years ago
        
        fair enough.
      2. Sparky 13 years ago
        
        That's homeopathic level aggression right there.
        
        Zeb 13 years ago
        
        ++
  2. JW 13 years ago
    
    How dare you minimize my reaction to a non-existent slight!?
    1. wylie 13 years ago
      
      you got plankothered JW.
      1. JW 13 years ago
        
        We should reduce these alleged aggressions to their natural state: up, down, strange, charm, top and bottom.
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        the involvement of Color makes your suggestion incredibly racist. shame on you.
        
        Loki 13 years ago
        
        I'd hate for someone to feel othered because of their strange aggressions.
      2. Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Planckothered.
        
        /pendant
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        Shit.
3. Microaggression 13 years ago
  
  And then AuH20 decided to throw my words back at me, in a way that suggested he didn't take them or my experiential reality seriously. I felt disparaged, devalued, and violated, as if my very existence had to be validated
4. KDN 13 years ago
  
  deliberately serving a white person before a person of color in a restaurant.
  
  This is my favorite. We should make sure that all "coloreds" are served first in order to ensure they don't feel like they've been discriminated against. I mean, really? Has anyone ever been upset that a waiter served somebody else at their table before them? You couldn't wait the extra 3 seconds for your steak?
  1. I.E. 13 years ago
    
    Does the word "deliberately" mean anything to you, or are you too busy demonstrating that libertarians are racist conservatives who like weed?
  2. I.E. 13 years ago
    
    Does the word "deliberately" mean anything to you, or are you too busy demonstrating that libertarians are racist conservatives who like weed?
    1. Audrey the Liberal 13 years ago
      
      Does the word "deliberately" mean anything to you, or are you too busy demonstrating that libertarians are racist conservatives who like weed?
      
      The question is, how do you know it was deliberate?
5. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
  
  Yes, how dare you ask someone where they are from/where they were born. Or how they got a job.
  
  Of course microagression is bullshit, but where I come from, those questions aren't tactful topics for small talk.
  
  *shrugs* YMMV.
  1. AuH20 13 years ago
    
    Eh, I think it about context or tone. Where you're from is something that does tend to come up in conversation, but not like, "What Asian nationality" but more like "Chicago" "Oh, cool, I have family there. Where in Chicago?"
    1. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
      
      Where you're from is something that does tend to come up in conversation, but not like, "What Asian nationality" but more like "Chicago" "Oh, cool, I have family there. Where in Chicago?"
      
      Yeah. Though, and I understand this is a northern New England thing, my gut feeling is that "where I'm from" is not anyone's business. More so for 'how you got your job'. I'm just private like that. No pictures on the Internet, no social media, etc.
  2. Korduroy Kristen 13 years ago
    
    t, but where I come from, those questions aren't tactful topics for small talk.
    
    Shit, man - you better not come to DC. Those are the only topics most of the dullards around here can think to talk about at cocktail parties.
6. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  I think I really need to sit down and finally write the self-help book for the next generation, Fuck You and Your Fucking Feelings.
  1. Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    Seriously, these people are in a prison made up of their own priggishness. The new frontier of liberation pretty much has to be freeing these people from the torment of the sand in their vaginas.
    1. RoboCain 13 years ago
      
      "Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your vagina sand!"
    2. Sparky 13 years ago
      
      When there is nothing left to worry about in the upper-class white world, they have to invent shit to be upset about. #FirstWorldProblems
      1. o3 13 years ago
        
        and #zanex
    3. Audrey the Liberal 13 years ago
      
      Seriously, these people are in a prison made up of their own priggishness. The new frontier of liberation pretty much has to be freeing these people from the torment of the sand in their vaginas.
      
      Look on the bright side: Some day the sand in their vaginas will become beautiful pearls.
  2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    + 100 Internetz
  3. Night Elf Mohawk 13 years ago
    
    I think you just wrote it.
7. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  Microsleep: What I do at my job
  
  Micromasturbation: What I do when I'm on the computer (funny on two levels)
  
  Microfart: The wind that blows throw my Aeron chair
MNG 13 years ago

Did anyone catch this quote by Obama which he gave in an interview on NBC Sunday before the game?

""My No.1 priority continues to be the security of the United States, but also, the security of Israel"

The man just equated the security of the nation he leads with that of Israel, which he does not. Holy shit.

Entangling alliances anyone?

It's becoming more and more critical to support the one candidate who won't get us into a war over the interests of another nation, Ron Paul.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Good or bad, I think we are going to war with Iran. You have to remember that the Iranian leadership can't back down. If they back down or allow the sanctions destroy their economy, their government falls. And when you are a murderous regime like that, losing power means you end up at the end of a rope or with your head on a stick.
  
  Better to role the dice with a war than face certain death at the hands of your own people.
  1. MNG 13 years ago
    
    "Good or bad, I think we are going to war with Iran."
    
    How can you say that? We just came off several disasterous, costly wars. The last thing we (or that region) need is another one.
    
    Wars are incredibly costly in lives and money, they are indeed "the health of the state." I can't see how anyone who styles themselves as small government can be so equivocal about them.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      Because I don't know the future. And some wars are necessary. If Iran gets the bomb and then uses it to extort the world by closing down the gulf, we may pine for a nice conventional war.
      
      I would prefer the Iranians act peacefully and stop building the bomb. But that may not be an option. War may be the least bad option. That sucks, but that is the way the world works.
      1. anon 13 years ago
        
        Meh, there's never been a good war or bad peace.
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        Also, if Iran wants nukes that badly, why don't we just deliver a couple. Let them choose the destination cities; air delivery within 24 hrs.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        I really think making Iran into a parking lot because their leaders are insane would be a very bad thing. Even if we won, a nuclear war would be the worst event in American history.
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        I really think making Iran into a parking lot because their leaders are insane would be a very bad thing. Even if we won, a nuclear war would be the worst event in American history.
        
        Hey, they support their leaders enough to let them lead. Fuck em.
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        I mean this strictly in the sense that if Iran wants to build a nuke AND start a war, turn them into a parking lot.
        
        If they just want nukes, that's fine. Let them.
        
        Zeb 13 years ago
        
        "Hey, they support their leaders enough to let them lead"
        
        What about the one's who don't?
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        air delivery within 24 hrs.
        
        or your nukes are free....oh, wait.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        There have been lots of bad peace. The Vichy French got peace. They got to sit out the entire war. Do you think that was a good "peace"? Do you think the Czechs and the rest of Eastern Europe that wound up enslaved by the Soviets found that to be a good peace? Or what about the Cambodians? How did the peace at the end of the Vietnam war work out for them?
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        What I think about the Czechs et al is irrelevant. It's a subjective judgement to choose to live in such a society. They obviously thought it was better than dying for their freedom for many years, which means they deserved the governance they got.
        
        Maxxx 13 years ago
        
        Yes because the actions of country's government always represents the unanimous consent of the population.
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        The Czechs revolted and were slaughtered for their trouble in 1968. How were the Czechs supposed to take on the Soviet Union? They were occupied by thousands of foreign troops who imposed a nightmare police state on them.
        
        How exactly did they deserve that? What were they supposed to do to get rid of those Russian tanks that were supporting the government.
        
        That is first rate stupid anon.
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        72 casualties is hardly a "slaughter."
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Hungary had it a little bit worse. And the only reason more weren't killed is because the Czechs were not suicidal. Again, what were they supposed to do?
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        So, the United States should've just bent over for King George to avoid casualties?
        
        John, this is very stupid of you. Either people want to be free or they don't. Those that want to be free will gladly die for it rather than living in an oppressed society. I'd rather die than live in a full fledged communist state.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        "So, the United States should've just bent over for King George to avoid casualties?"
        
        No. But we had the ability to fight and win, the Czechs didn't. The Soviets has 100s of thousands of troops and were a murderous dictatorship who were more than willing to kill millions if that was necessary. The Czechs could have revolted all they wanted and they would have lost.
        
        But they did have peace. And according to you peace is never bad. So, they did the smart thing by living under the Soviet thumb. And the Americans should have chosen peace under King George's thumb rather than war.
        
        You said it not me. No peace is ever bad and no war is ever good. That means that peace under someone else's thumb is better than war to get out of it. If that is not true, than some peaces are bad aren't they?
        
        You just made my point for me.
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        No. But we had the ability to fight and win, the Czechs didn't.
        
        AHAHAHHAHAHA
        
        That's great.
        
        No, we didn't. In fact, we -barely- won, and only because we made an agreement with the French to help us.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        So what Anon? Did you not say
        
        Meh, there's never been a good war or bad peace.?
        
        If there has never been a good war or a bad peace than the founders, by started a long bloody war against their lousy but fairly benign colonial masters, clearly made a horrible decision by your standard. They gave up the never bad peace for an always bad war.
        
        At the same time, the Vichy French did the exact right thing surrendering to the Nazis early and getting peace over war in contrast to the British who could have had a fascist peace but instead fought a long bloody war instead.
        
        How does all of that not follow from what you are saying?
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        No peace is ever bad and no war is ever good. That means that peace under someone else's thumb is better than war to get out of it. If that is not true, than some peaces are bad aren't they?
        
        Poor Richard would say that just because war is bad and peace is good does not necessarily mean that no country should ever go to war. Come on John, you should know this.
        
        War is always bad for the people involved, which makes peace necessarily better. It doesn't mean that one should choose the easier alternative.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        "War is always bad for the people involved, which makes peace necessarily better."
        
        If peace is necessarily better, then you should always choose it. But peace isn't necessarily better. That is my point.
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        That's not the point John. The quote does not compare the two; it's two separate statements. "No good war, no bad peace." It does not say that "Peace is better than war."
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        I want to clarify a bit; I'm at work and don't really have much time for typing atm. If a country wages a war on you, you can still desire peace and fight the war without being in a moral conflict.
        
        Waging a war on another state because they're researching a technology is fucking retarded though.
        
        anon 13 years ago
        
        Oh yeah, and I guess trying to get the rest of the world to boycott your shit would be a great reason to desire war.
        
        Zeb 13 years ago
        
        "So, the United States should've just bent over for King George to avoid casualties?"
        
        About 2/3 of people in the colonies probably thought so.
        
        I think you overstate the ability of people to actually free themselves. How many revolutions can you think of that really worked out well?
        Also, I woudl contend that peace under unpleasant circumstances is vastly preferable to most people than a state of war. War sucks and revolutions usually just give you a new dictator. It sucks, but I think it is quite understandable. Most people just need to live their lives and do what needs to be done.
        Remonds me of the old Italian guy in Catch 22 who explains how the Italian people are very strong exactly because they lose wars and change allegiance easily.
        
        A Czech Child 13 years ago
        
        It is when it is your father, brother or son being killed.
        
        Vichy France 13 years ago
        
        "Meh, there's never been a good war
        or bad peace."
        
        Those are the words we live by.
      2. DJF 13 years ago
        
        Since US intelligence services say that Iran is not building a bomb where are you getting your evidence that they are?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        The US intel services say nothing of the sort. The 2007 NIE has been totally discredited and walked back from. No one to my knowledge claims they are not building a bomb. They have 1000s of centrifuges in underground bunkers. They are enriching uranium well past the 4% threshold needed for a civilian reactor.
        
        No one seriously believes they are not building a bomb.
        
        DJF 13 years ago
        
        That is not what James Clapper Director of National Intelligence testimony Jan 31 2012 says. He says they don't even know if Iran has made a decision to make nuclear weapons let alone actually building one
        
        """We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons"""
        
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....imony.html
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        Same intelligence services that said Saddam had WMD? Consider the track record.
        
        Marshall Gill 13 years ago
        
        WMD? Like chemical weapons? Does ANYONE deny that Saddam not only had WMD's but used them on his own citizens, the Kurds?
        
        You forgot to move the goal posts.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Of course Saddam had and used chemical weapons.
        
        I think you've forgotten that intervening event where we utterly crushed his armed forces on the battlefield and imposed a political settlement where we demanded (among other things) that he destroy his WMD stockpiles.
        
        Our intelligence community blew it because they just couldn't believe he had actually done it, and hadn't ignored the surrender terms we imposed. And honestly, I find that to be a reasonable error - but it was still an error.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        The other thing that happened fluffy is that they were reading his mail. It never dawned on them that a totalitarian regime would lie to itself.
        
        An unnamed source 13 years ago
        
        Of course he had WMD, we sold them to him
        
        Zeb 13 years ago
        
        I think that WMD should generally just mean nukes. But I guess I am in the minority. Chemical weapons can be deployed in a mass destructive way, but I don't see them as inherently weapons of mass destruction. Just nasty unpleasant weapons.
      3. Maxxx 13 years ago
        
        f Iran gets the bomb and then uses it to extort the world by closing down the gulf,
        
        This wouldn't be a realistic threat, if they had a product that they wanted to sell.
    2. Invisible Finger 13 years ago
      
      How can you say that? We just came off several disasterous, costly wars.
      
      I would think that is exactly WHY he would say that. Government is rather predictable at its doubling-down proclivity.
  2. o3 13 years ago
    
    moar like kinetic military action...involving deep penetration. boots not required
    1. KDN 13 years ago
      
      Considering Iran's population is 13x larger than Libya's, is that really the best idea if we're forced into an engagement (I read John's post as, "like it or not, Iran's about to make our cold war hot")?
      1. o3 13 years ago
        
        our interest is destroying the nuke equipment...hence the block 3, deep penetrators which the IDF doesnt have nor the means to deliver.
  3. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    It's definitely bad. There is no "good or bad" about it.
  4. Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    You have to remember that the Iranian leadership can't back down.
    
    John, the Iranians already did back down. They readmitted the IAEA despite the history of bad faith the international community has shown in response to past IAEA reports.
    
    We're only going to war if we decide to pretend we didn't notice that the Iranians have backed down. Which is pretty likely, but still.
    
    It's notable that Israel ramped up its rhetoric AFTER Iran readmitted the IAEA. Because that undermines the case against sanctions, and because both Israel and the US know full well that Iran can fully cooperate with the IAEA and still continue developing their nuclear program. If the Iranians take away the technical justification for sanctions and fall back fully on their NPT rights, we won't be able to maintain the new sanctions and bombing becomes Israel's only option to attain its true policy goal.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      US know full well that Iran can fully cooperate with the IAEA and still continue developing their nuclear program
      
      Then they are not backing down. They are just playing the IAEA.
      1. T 13 years ago
        
        They get to have nuke power, John. And nothing (AFAIK) prevents fast breeder reactors under the NPT.
      2. Whahappan? 13 years ago
        
        I believe he means their civilian nuclear program, hence his reference to Iran's NPT rights.
      3. Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Only if you admit something you denied before:
        
        That our real demand is that Iran give up nuclear development overall, and that we don't really care if it's a "civilian" program or not.
      4. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        John the warmonger says that if Iran admits the IAEA, that's proof that Iran is playing us. If Iran shuts out the IAEA that's proof that Iran wants nukes, too.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        RBM,
        
        Iran won't play the IAEA? Is that impossible? And you guys were all over the NIE when told you what you wanted to hear. Now that it doesn't, the intelligence agencies can't be trusted.
        
        And fuck you with the war monger shit. You are normally better than that. I am the last person who wants a war. But there is a middle ground between wanting a war with Iran and being totally naive and stupid about the reality of the situation.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Hey, they might play the IAEA.
        
        But you're trying to say that admitting the IAEA isn't backing down for Iran.
        
        According to the terms of the current dispute, it is.
        
        We got the sanctions upped on the basis of Iran's "noncooperation" with the IAEA.
        
        Now that they're cooperating with the IAEA, that cooperation will expose the fact that we were full of shit when we bitched that sanctions were necessary because they weren't cooperating. Because we'll continue to demand more and more sanctions even as Iran cooperates. Because (as Iran knew full well when they kicked the IAEA out) there is no level of cooperation they can give the IAEA that will satisfy us, because our real position is that Iran isn't permitted to have nuclear power even if they play ball with the IAEA.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        "because our real position is that Iran isn't permitted to have nuclear power even if they play ball with the IAEA."
        
        That is not true. I have no doubt that if they agreed not to manufacture their own uranium, which would prevent them from making nuclear weapons, we would have no problem with them having nuclear power.
        
        Not every country that has nuclear power enriches its own uranium. The only reason to make your own is so you have the capability of making bombs.
        
        I just don't understand Fluffy how you can give a country run by religious lunatics who say pretty much every day their goal in life is to destroy the US and kill every Jew in the world, the benefit of the doubt at every turn.
        
        There is literally nothing they can say that you wouldn't believe. All they have to do is stop making their own uranium and buy it from someone else. Hell, if they agreed to stop enriching it, I bet the world would give them the damn stuff. Yet they instead continue to court war instead. Why?
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        I have no doubt that if they agreed not to manufacture their own uranium, which would prevent them from making nuclear weapons, we would have no problem with them having nuclear power
        
        It doesn't matter - they have that right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        I have no doubt that if they agreed not to manufacture their own uranium, which would prevent them from making nuclear weapons, we would have no problem with them having nuclear power.
        
        That's just not true. That's what they tried to do at the outset, and we made sure they couldn't buy any fuel.
        
        R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        Hey, they might play the IAEA.
        
        There's not "might" about it.
        
        "They asked to see a particular site and they never got an answer," another envoy said. "The bottom line is: Iran did not engage the agency on the issues the agency wanted to discuss."
        
        http://www.jpost.com/Internati.....?id=256385
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        The United States has been continually moving the goalposts in this matter. Is Iran some great state I want the whole world to emulate? No, but its people want a nuclear-power program, Iran has the right to a nuclear-power program, and the US is constantly shifting the argument to prevent that.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        More importantly, no matter what the Iranians do, there is only one possible way they can ever convince the government (more properly, the mid and upper level bureaucrats) of the US that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons: have no nuclear program at all. If they have any nuke program whatsoever, they will never convince the apparatus of the state they aren't sneakily working towards building a bomb.
        
        Sucks to be them, I guess.
        
        Of course, given that somebody keeps whacking their nuke guys, pretty soon they may run out of people willing to work in the program.
        
        Bender B. Rodriguez 13 years ago
        
        Same thing happened with the sanctions against Iraq. The US government eventually admitted that the sanctions were never going away so long as Saddam Hussein remained in power, even if the Iraqis kowtowed to every demand regarding inspections, etc.
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        When you have excluded all reasonable routes Iran can take to satisfy you, then yes, I think that "warmonger" is apt.
        
        As Fluffy said, we want them to cooperate with the IAEA. Then when they do so, you say they're "gaming" the IAEA. you have put Iran in a no-win situation that necessitates war. Hence: warmonger.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        "When you have excluded all reasonable routes Iran can take to satisfy you, then yes, I think that "warmonger" is apt."
        
        But I have done nothing of the sort. All Iran has to do is stop enriching Uranium and buy it. Hell, I don't care if they extort the threat of enriching it and get it for free. But the idea that they are enriching massive amounts of Urainim to a much higher level of enrichment that is needed for peaceful purposes is just laughable. It is perfectly reasonable to expect them to either stop enrichment or only enrich what is necessary for civilian nuclear power.
        
        And you only resort to calling me names because the sorry facts that yes the Iranian are intent on getting nukes and yes that is a really shitty proposition for the entire world is something that Libertarians for whatever reason cannot ever accept. So you have nothing else to say.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        If what we wanted in this dispute was for the Iranians to buy fuel, there would be no dispute.
        
        The Iranians originally wanted to buy fuel from Russia. We diplomatically convinced the Russians to renege.
        
        The US will bring pressure on any counterparty the Iranians could possibly deal with in the market for fuel.
        
        I know I certainly wouldn't invest billions in a technology if my declared enemy could deny me fuel for my finished plants.
  5. Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
    
    I don't want us to have to get in a war with Iran, but it's Iran's fault for pushing forward with their insane agenda.
    
    Personal responsibility, yo.
2. Shorter MNG 13 years ago
  
  JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZ!!!!!!111!11!11!11
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

Fearing a tide of spending by outside conservative groups, President Obama is giving his blessing to a pro-Democratic Party "super PAC" that will work to help his reelection, his campaign said late Monday.

WaPo does a good job rationalizing the decision for its readers on behalf of the Administration. Of course, this isn't the first time Obama sang two entirely different tunes on campaign funding.
1. MNG 13 years ago
  
  They say McCain felt really personally betrayed by Obama's walk back on his public financing committments...
  1. AuH20 13 years ago
    
    I wonder what the internal logic there is. Like, how does Obama justify it to himself? I get the obvious, he's just a hypocritical shitbag stance, but you have to wonder how he internally thinks.
    1. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      When it comes to staying in power, there is no logical arguement that can't be turned on its head.
    2. MNG 13 years ago
      
      Oh, that's easy. You may not like the coaches challenge rule in the NFL, but if you are a coach and they have it you still use it if they have it.
      1. AuH20 13 years ago
        
        But in 08, your opponent took the public money. So why do you need to use the Coach's challenge if you have a gentleman's agreement with the other guy to keep it in your pocket, and he follows through?
    3. Barack Obama 13 years ago
      
      Fuck you, that's how I justify it.
    4. Pip 13 years ago
      
      "but you have to wonder how he internally thinks."
      
      _________________________________...
2. DJF 13 years ago
  
  The WaPo was part of the MSM who thought that campaign finance 'reform" was the greatest thing since sliced bread until Obama found he would do better without it and then suddenly they decided it was a smart political move by Obama. The WaPo liked such rules when McCain was a 'maverick' and beating up on his fellow Republicans for not supporting it but as soon as such rules were in the way of an Obama victory then they supported going around it.
  
  It was like when the feminists were saying that bosses dating their employees was horrible because the difference in power in the relationship but suddenly found that Clinton screwing his intern was fine and acceptable
  1. Bill Clinton 13 years ago
    
    The job comes with a lot of stress. Everyone needs a safety valve.
MNG 13 years ago

I saw The Grey yesterday. Brief synopsis: Wolves will totally eat your ass.

I've been ruined since I saw Drive a few months ago, every subsequent movie has paled big time.
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  Honestly, I thought Drive was OK, but I don't get all the hype.
  1. MNG 13 years ago
    
    Maybe it just seemed so good in comparison to the mediocre fare I saw before and after it.
  2. Jordan 13 years ago
    
    Yeah, Drive was meh.
2. AuH20 13 years ago
  
  That movie kicked ass. Awesomely unsentimental.
  
  And I here Chronicle was good too. I thought late January/Early Febuary was a dead time for movies, but we also have that Denzel thing coming up.
RoboCain 13 years ago

Next will be a list of nanowhatevers.
Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago

Meanwhile, Philadelphia retains its title as shithole of America.
1. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  What about Detroit?
  1. DJF 13 years ago
    
    It advanced out of the American League to the World League and is now in competition for shithole of the world
    1. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
      
      Indeed.
  2. Loki 13 years ago
    
    Didn't we kick Detroit out of the country? At least that's what Chrysler's latest ad campaign leads me to believe. That, and I can always dream, right?
    1. Bobarian 13 years ago
      
      Yeah, since it is an Italian company making those nifty commercials!
SugarFree 13 years ago

Unlike like you crazy teabagging Republitarians global warming deniers, Jezebel only supports solid scientific facts! Proven by science!
1. Tim 13 years ago
  
  SCIENCE!
  1. invisible furry hand 13 years ago
    
    But it hasn't given me any side effects
    
    Because it's water, you daft cow!
    
    Thanks SF for the best laugh I've had all week
    1. SugarFree 13 years ago
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy#Dilutions
      
      Three logarithmic potency scales are in regular use in homeopathy. Hahnemann created the centesimal or C scale, diluting a substance by a factor of 100 at each stage. The centesimal scale was favored by Hahnemann for most of his life. A 2C dilution requires a substance to be diluted to one part in one hundred, and then some of that diluted solution diluted by a further factor of one hundred. This works out to one part of the original substance in 10,000 parts of the solution.[57] A 6C dilution repeats this process six times, ending up with the original material diluted by a factor of 100?6=10?12 (one part in one trillion or 1/1,000,000,000,000). Higher dilutions follow the same pattern. In homeopathy, a solution that is more dilute is described as having a higher potency, and more dilute substances are considered by homeopaths to be stronger and deeper-acting remedies.[58]
      
      A popular homeopathic treatment for the flu is a 200C dilution of duck liver, marketed under the name Oscillococcinum. As there are only about 10^80 atoms in the entire observable universe, a dilution of one molecule in the observable universe would be about 40C. Oscillococcinum would thus require 10^320 more universes to simply have one molecule in the final substance.[74]
      1. RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        Right, and she says the Arnica she uses is 30X.
        
        SugarFree 13 years ago
        
        patient would need to consume 10^41 pills (a billion times the mass of the Earth), or 10^34 gallons of liquid remedy (10 billion times the volume of the Earth) to consume a single molecule of the original substance[67] Moreover, since even in a 15C solution there would very likely be no molecules of the original substance left, the 30C solution would probably contain no molecules of water that had come into contact with the original substance.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        I think it's Zicam which runs the TV ads where in tiny print at the bottom it says 'homeopathic cold remedy'. I laugh at the fact they're telling you it's worthless right there in the ad, but people are still gonna buy it.
        
        Brett L 13 years ago
        
        That's true of a random sample, but someone's gonna get duck liver molecules. If they do 10mL/L as the first dilution, there's still 10mL of duck liver in the final 100m^3 product. Which should not be read, in any way, as an endorsement of homeopathy -- which is indistinguishable from the placebo effect.
2. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  Arnica is okay, but the placebos I sell are just as effective and cost twice as much!
3. AuH20 13 years ago
  
  They also hate evolutionary psych, because it says things like, "Oh, evolution makes women catty towards each other" and this does not square with their idea of TEH PATRIARCHY!1!!!
  1. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    But they simultaneously love evolutionary psychology -- when it says bad things about men.
    1. AuH20 13 years ago
      
      Well, only in the very specific case of "All men are rapists."
      
      See, science that threatens their view of the partiarchy threatens the whole theory. And if the theory is wrong, then they look doubly retarded when they say things like, "Can we dismantle the master's house with the master's tools?" which looks retarded even now because to compare the plight of modern American women to actual slaves is... I don't even know how to express how historically retarded you have to be to do that.
      1. RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        It's not only "rape". I've also heard EP used to explain why men are cheaters, domestically violent, afraid of commitment, etc.
4. Timon19 13 years ago
  
  I'd like to know how an "allergy to Aspirin" (which is acetylsalicylic acid) means "no Advil" (which is ibuprofin, an NSAID).
  
  SCIENCE! indeed.
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    I can see not taking NSAIDs for other reasons, but because you're allergic to aspirin is just stupid. That's like saying I'm allegic to shellfish so I can't eat chicken, either.
    1. Timon19 13 years ago
      
      My personal thinking on this is that the author is a retard who will buy absolutely anything that "sounds natural".
      1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        mmm... cocaine!
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        Weed, man. It's totally natural and stuff. It's like, a herbal remedy for the burden of consciousness.
    2. Ice Nine 13 years ago
      
      Her science is good. Aspirin allergy is a contraindication to taking NSAIDs.
  2. Cabeza de Vaca 13 years ago
    
    My wife is extremely allergic to aspirin. People who are allergic to aspirin can't take NSAIDs like Ibuprofen and Aleve, but can have Tylenol. NSAIDs have Salicylates in them, which is similar enough to aspirin that it triggers allergic reactions. Salicylates are in alot of things fruits,vegetables,yellow 5, benzoate,certain types of yeast.
  3. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
    
    Dr. Li frowns on your ignorance:
    
    Reactions to aspirin are common. If you have an aspirin allergy or sensitivity, you may also have a reaction to other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others) and naproxen (Aleve, others).
  4. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
    
    Dr. Li frowns on your ignorance.
  5. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
    
    Dr. Li frowns on your ignorance
    
    Reactions to aspirin are common. If you have an aspirin allergy or sensitivity, you may also have a reaction to other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others) and naproxen (Aleve, others).
    
    From: http://www.mayoclinic.com/heal.....gy/AN01467
  6. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
    
    I'd like to know how an "allergy to Aspirin" (which is acetylsalicylic acid) means "no Advil" (which is ibuprofin, an NSAID).
    
    See here.
  7. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
    
    For the past few minutes I've been trying to link to the Mayo Clinic, which explains that Aspirin allergy often goes hand-in-hand with allergies to NSAIDs...but Reason keeps marking it as spam.
    
    Fuck it. Look it up yourself.
    1. invisible furry hand 13 years ago
      
      http://www.mayoclinic.com/heal.....gy/AN01467
5. wylie 13 years ago
  
  She blinded me with science?
6. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  About a year ago, I took my addiction to the next level. I'd started a new, much more intense exercise regimen that left me totally crippled with muscle soreness.
  
  I CAN'T work out less because it's an addiction you cold hearted bastard.
7. Max Power 13 years ago
  
  Where do we get these placebos?!?
P Brooks 13 years ago

Fearing a tide of spending by outside conservative groups, President Obama is giving his blessing to a pro-Democratic Party "super PAC" that will work to help his reelection

From "Hope and Change" to Race to the Bottom".

Yummy tears.
1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  of course failing to meet (so far) his "1 Billion dollar" re-election war chest may have something to do with this.
  
  Gawd, I hate politics.
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

The debt limit deal included an enforcement mechanism ? $1.2 trillion in automatic, across the board cuts (half taken from defense) in the event that a powerful, bipartisan committee failed to reduce the deficit by the same amount over 10 years. That panel failed in November, and now Republicans want to nix the portion of the enforcement mechanism that was designed to make them negotiate a balanced deficit reduction plan, including new tax revenues, in good faith with Democrats.

This will be the mechanism for Congressional Republicans to lose the White House as well as seats they should win.
1. SFC B 13 years ago
  
  Their abiltity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is something which should be studied for generations to come.
P Brooks 13 years ago

Do I "microinvalidate" stupid people Progressives by not listening to them?

I hope so.
1. invisible furry hand 13 years ago
  
  yes you do. You big meanie
2. o3 13 years ago
  
  no
COXSWAIN HARDY 13 years ago

Huhne is no loss
...When I visited the House of Lords' minister, Lord Marland, at the Climate Change Department a couple of years ago, I asked him and the Department's chief number-cruncher, Professor David Mackay (neither a climate scientist nor an economist, of course) to show me the Department's calculations detailing just how much "global warming" that might otherwise occur this century would be prevented by the $30 billion per year that the Department was committed to spend between 2011 and 2050 ? $1.2 trillion in all.

There was a horrified silence. The birds stopped singing. The Minister adjusted his tie. The Permanent Secretary looked at his watch. Professor Mackay looked as though he wished the plush sofa into which he was disappearing would swallow him up entirely.

Eventually, in a very small voice, the Professor said, "Er, ah, mphm, that is, oof, arghh, we've never done any such calculation." The biggest tax increase in human history had been based not upon a mature scientific assessment followed by a careful economic appraisal, but solely upon blind faith. I said as much. "Well," said the Professor, "maybe we'll get around to doing the calculations next October."...
COXSWAIN HARDY 13 years ago

Global Warming Engine Unexpectedly Slows
...Preliminary reports from the Energy Information Administration's "Annual Energy Outlook" (which will be fully published in April) suggest that any carbon crisis may not be quite as imminent as thought. Not so long ago, the EIA predicted carbon emissions levels would rise by 37 percent between 2005 and 2035. The EIA ? get this ? now thinks that global CO2 emissions in 2025 will be 6 percent lower than they were in 2005....

GISS Temperature Trend Is Complete Garbage
...Before Hansen tampered with the data, the 1880s were nearly as warm in the US as they were in the 1990s. This is critically important ? because the lion's share of quality weather stations during the 1880s were in the US.

The hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe and in Washington DC both occurred in 1881. Hansen's data has zero legitimacy. He is missing data from at least 0.70 of the land surface during the 19th century, yet reports trends within 0.01 degrees. He would fail any undergraduate science class for using a precision two orders of magnitude larger than his accuracy....
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  James Hansen is a hack? Who knew?
  1. Mike M. 13 years ago
    
    He's not just a mere hack. He's a data falsifier, a fraudster, and a criminal. He should be prosecuted for the misuse of taxpayer funds.
2. Tonio 13 years ago
  
  It will be interesting to see how they walk back their gloom and doom predictions, and how long it will take.
  1. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    My bet is never.
Ricky 13 years ago

Wow. That is huge. That has got to be the biggest crap I have ever taken. Wow. Hey, hey Karen. Karen, you gotta come see this. K-Karen!
1. o3 13 years ago
  
  means ur either eating garbage for food or ur body has all the fat it needs.
P Brooks 13 years ago

From that "Wannabe Mean Girl" link:

She also seems hypersensitive about fairness. We have some smaller kids who participate in the activity I coach, and we move them around so groups are disadvantaged equally over time.

Is this the Diana Moon Glompers School for Girls?
1. SFC B 13 years ago
  
  reading it I can't help but think that the letter writer is writing about a "child in her class" in the same way people ask doctors for advice about embarassing problems "for their friend".
SugarFree 13 years ago

Literally Unbelievable: A blog of Facebook posts where people took Onion stories seriously.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  In their defense, I sometimes confuse real headlines with ones from the Onion. So I can't really blame them for going the other way.
  1. Tonio 13 years ago
    
    We know you do, John, and you are therefore the source of much lulz for the rest of us.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      You misunderstand me. The real headlines are so unbelievable, I ignore them thinking they can't be real.
      
      I don't post fake articles. So it is odd how you could be reading my mind and getting so much lultz. How did you acquire such a power?
      1. wylie 13 years ago
        
        So it is odd how you could be reading my mind and getting so much lultz.
        
        Up in ur mind, stealin all ur lulz.
    2. Confession 13 years ago
      
      I can't tell the Onion from H&R.
      1. Confession 13 years ago
        
        Is John real? I just don't know.
      2. Confession 13 years ago
        
        I mean, COPS BUST GRANNY, FIND $37 WORTH OF POT
        
        Somewhere there's a cat in a tree, saying, "What about me? What about meeeee?!"
2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  Life (especially these days) seems to imitate the Onion.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Curb the pensions!
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/o.....z1lhfYR1Bi

The unions may be dead set against it, but New Yorkers overwhelmingly support a new pension system for future government employees.

That's according to a new Siena College opinion poll, which found that New Yorkers, by 69 percent to 28 percent, wholeheartedly agree with Gov. Cuomo's proposal for a new pension tier.

And that support is seen across the board ? in every demographic, geographic and political group.
DanD 13 years ago

Read it and weep:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02.....AY&ei=5065

The "NYT Picks" comments are especially, ahem, delightful.
1. SugarFree 13 years ago
  
  It is literally painful to read.
2. WTF 13 years ago
  
  FTA:
  
  "The United States Constitution is terse and old, and it guarantees relatively few rights. "
  
  Wow, just fucking wow.
  1. Sparky 13 years ago
    
    And these assholes outnumber everyone else now. FFFUUUUUUUUUUU
  2. Brett L 13 years ago
    
    And they don't like the ones they do guarantee. Religion, fuckit (unless its paganism or theosophy). RKBA, fuckit. Search and seizure, fuckit. Habeus Corpus, fuckit. Speedy trial (aka no indefinite detention), fuckit.
    
    Just which rights do they wish were guaranteed?
    1. cynical 13 years ago
      
      The right to have someone else take care of your every need and want at their own expense without expecting anything of you in return, and then suggest that people who don't care for this arrangement are like spoiled children.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

A Question with an easy answer:

Do We Need Even Tighter Controls on Sudafed?
http://www.theatlantic.com/hea.....ed/252637/
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  "Methamphetamine cooks cannot operate their labs without easy access to the cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine (PSE)."
  
  That simply isn't true. There are many way to synthesize meth.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    And even if there was not, they can just make it in Mexico and smuggle it in. You can't grow opium poppies in the US. Yet, we have never had a shortage of heroin. These people are so fucking stupid it is a wonder they can feed themselves.
    1. RoboCain 13 years ago
      
      Opium poppies can grow in the U.S. It's just not profitable. Growing opium is very labor intensive. It's the same reason how abolition ended rice in the Carolinas.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        You can? They are pretty innocuous looking plants. I am surprised people don't grow and make their own more. I would think it would be easier to hide poppies than pot plants.
        
        RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        Well, growing marijuana is much easier. It's a weed that can grow anywhere. And it does well indoors.
        
        Poppies are raised in California for their seeds (which only contain trace amounts of opiates) but that takes much less work.
        
        Regardless, even if you lived where there is enough sun to grow opium poppies. And went through all the trouble to extract the opium, you would still need to turn it into heroin.
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        all the trouble to extract the opium, you would still need to turn it into heroin.
        
        I'm not greedy - Opium would be fine.
        
        RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        "I'm not greedy - Opium would be fine."
        
        Well, then if you had the time, an opium garden might make a nice hobby.
        
        My point was that I doubt you would even make minimum wage from selling it.
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        oh - profit. I was thinking personal consumption.
        
        Pip 13 years ago
        
        Smoking opium tar works for me.
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        I would think it would be easier to hide poppies than pot plants.
        
        I think opium poppies are like tobacco, in that you need a sizeable plot to harvest a reasonable amount of product.
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        (kinda like how nobody grows wheat in their backyard garden, because they wouldn't even get a loaf's worth of flour.)
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        COMMERCE CLAUSE!
        
        RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        It's the extraction process. With both wheat and marijuana, you can simply harvest the plants when they reach their desired maturity. Or you can pick them like apples. Opium poppies are more like dairy cows. You need to keep milking them.
        
        wylie 13 years ago
        
        still seems like a pretty large-scale operation.
        
        to continue the opium/wheat analogy, pot is like tomatoes or capsicums: a few bushes can produce more in a season than a single family could consume. you couldn't use the same plot of land to produce anywhere near enough wheat to feed the same family.
        
        Zeb 13 years ago
        
        If you are just looking to get high, making tea from poppy straw works pretty damn effectively.
        
        Zeb 13 years ago
        
        Lots of people have opium poppies and don't know it. They grow as weeds in a lot of places.
2. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  "Let's return to those 15 million cold sufferers. Assume that on average, they want one box a year. That's going to require a visit to the doctor. At an average copay of $20, their costs alone would be $300 million a year, but of course, the health care system is also paying a substantial amount for the doctor's visit. The average reimbursement from private insurance is $130; for Medicare, it's about $60. Medicaid pays less, but that's why people on Medicaid have such a hard time finding a doctor. So average those two together, and add the copays, and you've got at least $1.5 billion in direct costs to obtain a simple decongestant. But that doesn't include the hassle and possibly lost wages for the doctor's visits. Nor the possible secondary effects of putting more demands on an already none-too-plentiful supply of primary care physicians."
  
  And then multiply that by all the other drugs that are prescription only, and you get an glimpse just how much the government increases the cost of health care.
3. robc 13 years ago
  
  I have a lot of friends who work for the company that runs MethCheck. Ive even done some contract work for them in the past.
  
  For a company that started out with a great product, they have drifted in a scary direction over the last decade as they have gotten a closer working relationship with police departments.
  1. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    Isn't that the whole point of MethCheck?
    1. robc 13 years ago
      
      They didnt start with MethCheck, that is my point. That is a very recent add-on.
invisible furry hand 13 years ago

From that journal of record, the Daily Mail:

A mother who allowed her 11-year-old son to get drunk in the street told horrified onlookers 'we always get drunk together'.

Police were so concerned about the welfare of the boy, who they found staggering around a residential street in Bransholme, Hull, an ambulance was called to take him to hospital.
Tests showed he had a blood alcohol level of 187mg - more than twice the legal limit for driving.

What's an 11 year old doing driving?
1. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  Duh! His mother's too drunk to take him to school.
2. Zeb 13 years ago
  
  It is funny how the legal limit for driving is presented as if it is relevant to people who are not driving. It should not be surprising that a drunk 11 year old has enough blood alcohol to make him drunk.
Anomalous 13 years ago

I wouldn't say Santorum's an asshole, but he's descended from assholes. And keeps doing so.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Obama to Return Major Donations Tied to Fugitive
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02.....wanted=all

Two American brothers of a Mexican casino magnate who fled drug and fraud charges in the United States and has been seeking a pardon enabling him to return have emerged as major fund-raisers and donors for President Obama's re-election campaign.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Does this mean EJ Dione will describe Obama's reelection campaign as being propped up by a failed casino owner?
  1. cynical 13 years ago
    
    No, it does not. Funny how that works.
Pip 13 years ago

Gotta love MSNBC. You know how they have those "Leaning Forward" spots with Rachel Maddow in in front of the Hoover Dam and what not, always ending with "Leaning Forward"? Well they do one about how evil politicians work to better themselves instead of the nation and that people like that all rely on empty slogans. And the funny part? It's the only one of these spots that doesn't close with their trademark slogan.
1. AuH20 13 years ago
  
  The funny part is Maddow at the Hoover Dam while still saying Hoover didn't spend any money to help the Depression.
P Brooks 13 years ago

Like, how does Obama justify it to himself? I get the obvious, he's just a hypocritical shitbag stance, but you have to wonder how he internally thinks.

I think The End Justifies The Means pretty well covers it.
Ken Shultz 13 years ago

Catholic League is ready to go to the mat over birth control.

It is positively disgraceful how this regulation is violating the religious rights of Catholics.

Libertarians have a chance to score some political points here with Catholic swing-voters, and we should make the most of it.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

Obama should be ashamed of himself.

I know this has become a cliche, but...

"First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak out because I was Protestant.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came?

Fact is that all our rights are interconnected. We've stood up for the rights of all kinds of people--even people we don't like--from the right of terrorists not to be tortured and to have a trial to the right of commie protestors not to be arbitrarily beaten by the police.

I don't know why we shouldn't stand up for the right of Catholics to freely exercise their religious beliefs, too.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  You are right. I think the Catholics are bonkers for objecting to birth control. But it is their right. And how dare that paper hanging little bastard in the White House take it from them.
  1. AuH20 13 years ago
    
    Eh, it is a whole faith/reason thing. The Catholics come off pretty sane next to the evangelicals.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      I have nothing against the Catholics. My point is it doesn't matter what I or anyone else thinks about them. They have the same rights regardless.
    2. Ken Shultz 13 years ago
      
      The Catholics come off pretty sane next to the evangelicals.
      
      I'll keep that in mind the next time somebody finds the Virgin Mary in a slice of pizza.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        That is actually the evangelicals who do that not the Catholics. In the Catholics' defense, the virgin Mary sitings that the church has recognized have hardly been Mary in a cheeseburger kinds of things. They have actually been cases of some very weird shit going on. The whole thing at Fatima is better than a Hollywood movie.
        
        robc 13 years ago
        
        That is actually the evangelicals who do that not the Catholics.
        
        That is almost an entirely catholic thing. For one thing, evangelicals would never refer to her as the virgin Mary, because they dont assume she stayed that way.
        
        Ken Shultz 13 years ago
        
        Wrong.
        
        Protestants don't venerate the Virgin Mary OR images and icons the way Catholics do.
        
        No sense in pretending otherwise.
        
        http://virginmaryagain.com/?p=7
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Fair enough. But the Church only recognizes very few of those. People of every stripe do crazy things.
      2. wylie 13 years ago
        
        I'll keep that in mind the next time somebody finds the Virgin Mary in a slice of pizza.
        
        Let's say you find the Virgin Mary's image on a whole pizza.
        
        Does it work like a hologram, where if you slice it up, you still get the whole image of The Virgin in each slice, just in less detail?
        
        Revelations 69 13 years ago
        
        And lo, the H&R commenters did defend the Catholic Church...
        
        Ken Shultz 13 years ago
        
        Would the miracle multiply itself in real time before your eyes? I don't think it works that way. Miracles reinforce faith, but they also preserve doubt.
        
        If you don't have any doubts, then you can't have any faith. So, miracles shouldn't destroy your doubt because that would destroy your faith.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        No, if you never had any doubts, you can't have faith. There is nothing to say the doubts have to persist forever in order for the faith to exist.
        
        Ken Shultz 13 years ago
        
        Sure it does.
        
        That's why religious belief can be just like science.
        
        If a scientist no longer had any doubt, he would no longer be a scientist. Science is all about revising what you think you already know based on further evidence. We used to think the sun orbited the earth, but when new evidence became available, we had to revise what we believed. Is there any doubt that it's the earth that orbits the sun now?
        
        Very little, but there still is some in the sense that if new convincing data became available tomorrow--information that showed that we were wrong again! That the sun really DOES orbit the earth after all?
        
        Then real scientists would need to revise what they believe to reflect that new evidence.
        
        Faith is like that, too. If you don't have any uncertainty, then it's impossible for faith to exist. I don't have any doubt that I'm typing on a keyboard right now, so I can't have any faith that I'm typing on a keyboard right now.
        
        The uncertainties surrounding religious faith are even thicker than they are with scientific beliefs. That's why the word "agnostic" is such a useless word. People call themselves "agnostic" to suggest that they're uncertain about whether there's a god--as if that justifies their bias for atheism. But their uncertainty is a distinction without a difference...
        
        There isn't a sane Christian in the world who doesn't have any doubt or uncertainty as well--note that whether their uncertainty is conscious or subconscious is completely beside the point.
2. SFC B 13 years ago
  
  This is the sort of thing that I could see pushing churches to just stop what they're doing. There has to be a tenet of their religion where the price of compromising isn't worth their desire to support the hospital.
  
  I think the point of this is one of two things, which are both ultimatly about control. Either they're hoping the Catholics will cave and offer the birth control, thus making it easier to say they should cave on other issues. Or they're hoping they just throw their hands up, say "screw you, were' out of the hospital business" and shutter their doors. Thus proving "the market has failed" and allowing for some sort of gov't intervention.
  1. cynical 13 years ago
    
    Ideally, the Catholics will simply disobey the law and force the government to shut the hospitals down, thus proving (if the Komen debacle didn't already) that killing fetuses is far more important to the left than saving adults.
  2. Anonymous Coward 13 years ago
    
    But when they do that, some "clever" statist says that the Catholics should "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" or "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."
3. Zeb 13 years ago
  
  The thing is that if you are going to allow religious exemptions, you have to allow exemptions for every religion. Even the one I just made up now. Otherwise you end up with laws regarding the establishment of religion. As I read it, the first amendment says that religious groups should not be treated differently from any other club or organization because they are religious.
  1. Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    The thing is that if you are going to allow religious exemptions, you have to allow exemptions for every religion. Even the one I just made up now. Otherwise you end up with laws regarding the establishment of religion.
    
    To me the fact that you can't really square the modern regulatory state with the 1st amendment just proves that we shouldn't have a modern regulatory state.
Pip 13 years ago

Man's death puts Minneapolis police tactic under scrutiny

Family of David Smith says Mpls. police suffocated him during arrest.

David Cornelius Smith lay face-down on the floor of the downtown Minneapolis YMCA, groaning, as a city police officer knelt on his back and another officer straddled his legs.

A video camera worn by one of the officers captured the Sept. 9, 2010, confrontation, which occurred after the YMCA asked police to eject Smith, a mentally ill 28-year old who was acting bizarrely. The video shows the officers used a Taser several times before they could subdue Smith. But after nearly four minutes holding Smith down, the officers realized he was not breathing. He died a week later.

Police Chief Tim Dolan has defended the actions of Officers Timothy Gorman and Timothy Callahan, saying "a tragedy can ensue" even when officers "act appropriately." The officers' attorney, Fred Bruno, noted that a Hennepin County grand jury cleared Gorman and Callahan of any criminal wrongdoing, and said that Smith has only himself to blame for his death, because he was "out of control."

http://www.startribune.com/loc.....21999.html
1. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  "Mistakes were made. People were suffocated. NOTHING ELSE HAPPENED"
P Brooks 13 years ago

Smith has only himself to blame for his death

I would say exactly the same for the cop shot by Ryan Frederick; or the one shot by Cory Maye.
Poop Jokes 13 years ago

It was the biggest poop I have ever seen

In your heart you knew that, eventually, inexorably, H&R must come to this.
invisible furry hand 13 years ago

My past life in Tampa's hardcore/metal scene earned me an entry in the Encyclopaedia Metallum: http://www.metal-archives.com/.....oot/159248

Damn!
1. robc 13 years ago
  
  That is worse than "Mostly Harmless".
Joshua 13 years ago

Best part of the Beacon thing:

"At the Beacon, all friends of freedom will find an alternative to ... paranoid hyperbole..."

Wait... what did I just read?
John 13 years ago

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

Here is a man who has ? as I read this truly fascinating article ? devoted himself to sperm donation for altruistic, religious reasons. He gives the sperm, only to couples, and he maintains a rigorous health regime designed to produce the best quality product.

And I use the word "product" to highlight the fact that the FDA has filed a "cease manufacture" order against him.
1. cynical 13 years ago
  
  Unless the law only applies to commercial manufacture, surely every male with functional testes is in violation of FDA rules, yes? Or can the FDA not distinguish between manufacturing and packaging/shipping?
Francisco d Anconia 13 years ago

I just can't find anything in the government to cut.

http://www.greatfallstribune.c.....dyssey=tab|topnews|text|Frontpage
Sparky 13 years ago

Coming soon to an inbox near you.

Political communications are not spam. Political communications are a demonstration of free speech in America," said Stuart Shapiro, president of iConstituent, a Washington, D.C.-based firm which uses state-generated email lists to send messages on behalf of clients on all sides of the political spectrum.
1. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  Here's hoping Anonymous hacks everything he owns, drives him before them, and revels in the lamentations of his women.
2. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  Similarly, then, posting my opinion of his opinion on his website should not require his permission, right? What with free speech and all, I can just hack the fucking thing and call him a sheepfucker, right?
  1. Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    I think that's kind of a silly analogy.
    
    Sending an email is not the same as hacking a computer.
    
    When you sign up to be part of a communications technology, as far as I am concerned, you don't get to complain if people communicate with you.
    
    To me the Do Not Call list and the CAN SPAM act are more analogous to buying a ham radio and being pissed off that other people have ham radios and are trying to talk to you.
    1. Brett L 13 years ago
      
      My anger is over the idea that his communications are somehow privileged because they are political in nature. Fuck him.
    2. Sparky 13 years ago
      
      Except it's not illegal for anyone but the government to contact you on your HAM.
3. Zeb 13 years ago
  
  There's an easy solution to that. Don't put your email on your voter registration.
Brett L 13 years ago

Lawyer in encryption case: My client may never have known the password, and even if she did, she may have forgotten it.

Believe me, the day I get arrested, I'm forgetting all of the passwords that don't contain exculpatory evidence, too.
1. cynical 13 years ago
  
  Understandable, really. It's much harder to remember things when you're under a lot of stress, and what's more stressful than a police investigation?
Audrey the Liberal 13 years ago

Shorter John: They are brown and Moosilim, there for we must bomb them.

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