A.M. Links: Taliban Attacks U.S. Base in Retaliation for Burnt Koran, Conservative Governors Worry About Culture War Backlash, Obama Administration Funds NYPD's Muslim Surveillance Program

Mike Riggs | 2.27.2012 9:00 AM

More murder, riots, and bombs in Afghanistan over the weekend, catalyzed by military occupation a burnt book.
GOP governors worry that culture-warring is going to hurt them.
NYPD uses federal drug-war funds to spy on Muslims.
Rick Santorum makes nice with Tea Partiers, Mitt Romney makes awkward.
Newt Gingrich preaches.
Feds increase pressure on California to drive medical marijuana underground.

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RoboCain 13 years ago

"Unnaturally forced into the reproductive role, these female animals are then denied the opportunity to nurture their young. Their milk, eggs and offspring are subsumed into the industry cycle, marketed and sold for human consumption, much as women's bodies are marketed and sold for male consumption."

http://www.thescavenger.net/fe.....s-822.html
1. o3 13 years ago
  
  men who stare at zygoats
2. John 13 years ago
  
  Talk to Peta, they have a final solution to that problem.
  1. Loki 13 years ago
    
    Which problem, the "cow problem" or the "men problem"?
    1. Sparky 13 years ago
      
      Yes.
3. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  Feminist solidarity with cows?
  
  Next up, the evil that is flowers.
  
  The exploitation of plant female sex organs cannot be allowed to stand!
  
  Just as men commoditize the bodies of women, they commoditize the female sex organs of plants!
  
  And note that the patriarchy has done nothing - NOTHING - to stop the Rape Culture of bees.
  
  Bees rape hundreds of plant female sex organs A DAY and the patriarchy just considers it business as usual!
  1. Rich 13 years ago
    
    Just as men commoditize the bodies of women, they commoditize the female sex organs of plants!
    
    Even more insulting: "orchid" means "testicle"!
    1. Zeb 13 years ago
      
      I thought it was "scrotum".
      1. RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        Scrotum means bag.
  2. Brett L 13 years ago
    
    Plus all that nasty male plant jizz known as pollen that oppresses wimmenz everywhere.
  3. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    Soon we will be eating air, pulling our nutrition from the patriarchal oxygen.
    1. Loki 13 years ago
      
      I'm sure breathing is somehow a patriarchical conspiracy as well.
4. victory 13 years ago
  
  hi
  
  I'm an attractive, caring, honest, good hearted women in search of bilover to explore bisexuality.I found a great dating bisexual site DATEBI*C'O/'M. It is a serious& safe dating site for the bisexual and bi-curious individuals to meet in a friendly and comfortable environment. It hopes that all members can make new friends and establish romantic relationships. I have to say DATEBI*COM the best site I have ever joined so far. They verify all members. Unlike other sites,NO scammers or fake profiles here, and you can meet many rich or mature women as well, including celebs, famous stars.BEST OF LUCK!
  1. o3 13 years ago
    
    do u like gladiator movies?
    1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      +1 Victor Mature
  2. Pip 13 years ago
    
    "in search of bilover to explore bisexuality"
    
    So here's what I don't get. You're bi, so you go either way, but for some reason you won't have sex with men or women unless THEY TOO are bi?
    
    That's fucked up.
  3. H. Reardon 13 years ago
    
    Good luck in finding a lesbian lover here.
    1. Francisco d Anconia 13 years ago
      
      I'm a lesbian trapped in a mans body.
      1. Francisco d Anconia 13 years ago
        
        '
5. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
  
  TEH MALE GAZE!!!11!!!!
RoboCain 13 years ago

"A plastic toy gun is to blame...It was found in the home of the Kitchener father of four after he was arrested over a drawing his daughter...had drawn a picture of a man holding a gun and said it was her daddy, triggering fears that the family home contained a weapon that was a threat to the children...

Thaler said investigators never saw the drawing that sparked the investigation. Sansone has not seen it. Bereznick won't acknowledge a drawing exists. Alison Scott, the executive director of Family and Children's Services, says the agency may or may not have a copy of the child's drawing."

http://www.therecord.com/news/.....-was-a-toy
1. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  I heard about that over the weekend. I think justice would only be served if the teacher, the arrest officer(s), the school administrators, and the child worker all had bullets put in their heads, preferably self-inflicted.
2. MP 13 years ago
  
  Well, it is Canuckistan, after all.
3. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  I would make it very clear that I was going to find the meanest, most cop-hating, winningest lawyer licensed to practice in my state and set him or her loose on everybody if they didn't get off my doorstep immediately. You want to play the harrassment game? Let's play.
4. The Pointer-Outer 13 years ago
  
  Janet Napolitano is taking notes on this.
5. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  The whole problem with this is that, school officials, police, and social workers all have more authority over children than their own parents.
RoboCain 13 years ago

The height of self-awareness:

http://jezebel.com/5887874/hor.....ill-passed

http://jezebel.com/5886947/fuc.....omney-sons
1. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  Didn't you read the comments? It's OK to be hypocritical here because rich white men will never have the same problems as ever-oppressed women.
2. Konfounded Kristen 13 years ago
  
  Do I really have to click over to Jezebel? Couldya do a sistah a solid and copypasta?
  1. Sparky 13 years ago
    
    Jezzies bitch about congressman saying he should start shooting senators to get some agreement with his budget bill. They then go on to play "fuck, marry, kill" with Mitt Romney's sons.
  2. AuH20 13 years ago
    
    Also, because of Gabrielle Giffords, How DARE These Republicans joke about shooting legislators.
    1. o3 13 years ago
      
      ilbehaved louts arent the province of just one political party.
  3. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    Sorry, 900 character limit.
RoboCain 13 years ago

If three black women beat a white man, is it a hate crime? The alleged victim claims it was because he was gay, and the accused claim they cannot be charged with a hate crime because they're lesbians.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/wes.....z1nWl4x7oN

http://www.theatlanticwire.com.....ime/49164/
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  http://www.queerty.com/idiotic.....-20120225/
  
  http://www.edgeboston.com/?130330
2. Rich 13 years ago
  
  It's a legal conundrum: Do hate crime laws apply to members of the minorities they seek to protect?
  
  This is a no-brainer: Of course they do.
  
  However, the notion of "hate crime" is an abomination.
3. AuH20 13 years ago
  
  Let me consult the Chart of Oppression.
  
  Well, they are both black AND lesbian. This white gay man can not even begin to understand the pain and suffering these women had growing up in the racist society of Amerikkka?
  
  Also, these are women and he is a man. Did he have to worry about rape? About catcalls in the street?
  
  I rule in favor of these poor, oppressed women. Next case!
  1. Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
    
    Do male gays have to worry about The Male Gaze?
    1. gaijin 13 years ago
      
      teh gayze!
    2. RoboCain 13 years ago
      
      I see what you did there.
      1. Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
        
        Had to be done, Robo.
  2. Loki 13 years ago
    
    Also, the women get to claim 3 "oppressed categories" at once: black, female, and lesbian. The white guy can only claim one oppressed category: gay, and 2 oppressor categories: male and white. That gives the women a -3 on the oppression scale while the guy still has a score of +1. Sounds like he's SOL.
    
    The pathetic part is there are people who actually think this way.
    1. DJF 13 years ago
      
      But since the females attacked the male then it evens out.
      
      However since a "hate crime" has occurred then punishment must happen. So the
      
      1. Nearest deep pocked business should be fined $10 million dollars for failure to prevent the hate crime
      
      2. A random white male heterosexual should be convicted of hate crimes and sentenced to a year in jail as an example of how important society thinks hate crimes are.
4. Capitalisms 13 years ago
  
  So is it a hate crime because he's male or because he's white?
  1. PBR Streetgang 13 years ago
    
    Yes
RoboCain 13 years ago

"The Rocklin City Council is considering making it against the law for smokers to smoke anywhere outside on their property."

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com.....own-homes/
RoboCain 13 years ago

"A123 Systems, an electric car battery company once touted as a stimulus "success story" by former Gov. Jennifer Granhom, D-Mich., has laid off 125 employees since receiving $390 million in government subsidies -- but is still handing out big pay raises to company executives."

http://campaign2012.washington.....125/394051
1. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  we should all be outraged, but... it's becoming a dog bites man thing. It happens so much, we are just becoming apathetic.
  1. Tulpa 13 years ago
    
    I don't know about that.
    
    The media never reporting these events is a huge part of why people are apathetic.
RoboCain 13 years ago

Stormtrooper Aim:

http://www.cracked.com/article.....ience.html
1. Tim 13 years ago
  
  Explains much.
2. robc 13 years ago
  
  I didnt follow thru links within the story, but hasnt modern military training greatest increased the number of soldiers who will fire?
  
  Research Ive seen in the past had shown that thru the revolution/civil/ww1/ww2 those numbers were consistent, but modern permanent army training had jumped it up, so that at Vietnam and after it was much higher.
  
  Anyone know what Im talking about?
  1. Brett L 13 years ago
    
    I've seen this. It used to be something like 1:12. Which was not such a huge problem before WWII because there was probably going to be an extended hand-to-hand engagement. After WWII or Korea the Army spent a good deal of time and money trying to figure out how to get that number up, and as I recall, was fairly successful.
    1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      I imagine that distance has also played a role. It' easier to kill at extreme impersonal distance, instead of the "white of their eyes" musketry days.
      
      And of course lobbing missiles, bombs and artillery at an invisible foe is always the easiest.
      
      Another thought - modern weaponry is so deadly, you have to shoot and kill in order to stay alive.
  2. sloopyinca 13 years ago
    
    Maybe they added policemen to the study sample group, causing the number to jump significantly.
    1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      or included dogs.
      1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        being shot... that is.
  3. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
    
    robc, I think you're thinking of SLA Marshall's interviews with U.S. soldiers post WW2. His findings, which were and are controversial, were that individual soldiers did not fire their weapons effectively, if at all. Guys operating a crew-served weapon, sure, but not most soldiers, by themselves or in pairs in a foxhole. (Continued)
    1. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
      
      [This spam filter is fucking ridiculous. Just get registration already.]
      
      [From above] The thought was that it the phenomenon (if it existed at all) was due to inadequate conditioning of the soldier to kill. This conditioning and the natural instinct towards self-preservation, would cause the individual soldier to either not fire their weapon or to fire their weapon ineffectively, e.g., holding it above the foxhole and shooting it in the general direction of the enemy. Crew-served weapons had peer pressure that reinforced the soldier's training to to use the weapon. Plus, it's pretty noticeable when the MG that's assigned to a sector isn't firing. Not so easy to pick out whether or not an individual soldier is firing back.
      
      The cure to the problem was pretty much what Brett L says below.
RoboCain 13 years ago

LOL

http://www.thedailyshow.com/wa.....on-s-death
sarcasmic 13 years ago

Shocker! Santorum is still a douche!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....state.html
RoboCain 13 years ago

Katy Perry is still hot:

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

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....e-dog.html
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Angelina Jolie is still hot. I don't care if she does have too much ink and has had however many kids.
  
  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....owers.html
2. JW 13 years ago
  
  I'll be in my bunk for the next several days.
3. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  Portman looked the best.
  
  Not that that's anything new.
  1. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    Too much of a prude. She even seemed prudish playing a stripper.
sarcasmic 13 years ago

Ban letter openers! Save lives!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....pener.html
RoboCain 13 years ago

http://www.thedailyshow.com/wa.....on-s-death
Citizen Nothing 13 years ago

Man. RoboCain was locked and loaded.
1. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  No kidding. Do you think he preps like a Word Document the night before and uses multiple H&R windows? That's all I can figure.
  1. Drake 13 years ago
    
    He certainly wasn't wasting time in the company of a woman.
    1. Evan from Evansville 13 years ago
      
      Legit LOL.
    2. o3 13 years ago
      
      well unless she is NOT on birth control in order to fulfill her only function.
    3. Yuno Hoo 13 years ago
      
      He certainly wasn't wasting time in the company of a woman.
      
      *cough*rather*cough*
  2. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
    
    I assume he then called Lord Humungus, breathless, and begged him to cover his shift.
    1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
      
      Heh heh.
    2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      it's a living.
2. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  What's weird is that the increasingly bizarre spam filter wouldn't let me post that Lewis Black link with "LOL" in the line before it.
  1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
    
    Lewis Black and LOL? Obviously, some kind of logic filter.
    1. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
      
      Nice
    2. RoboCain 13 years ago
      
      -1
  2. Abdul 13 years ago
    
    Whenever the spam filter blocks one of my links, I just think "What would a bi-curious spam-bot do?" and I do that.
    1. T 13 years ago
      
      The fact that you have insight into the mind of a bi-curious spambot should trouble you greatly.
      1. Abdul 13 years ago
        
        The fact that you are so close-minded to cyborg bisexuals should trouble you.
        
        Have you no decency, sir?
    2. Rich 13 years ago
      
      WWABCSBD?
      
      LOL
      1. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
      2. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
      3. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
      4. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
      5. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
      6. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
      7. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
      8. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
      9. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
      10. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
      11. Vote American (1969) 13 years ago
        
        WWABCSBD?
        
        LOL
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Debt ceiling limit looms months sooner than expected, during fall campaign
http://news.investors.com/arti.....-obama.htm

One of the key calculations in that deal was that by raising the limit $2.1 trillion to $16.4 trillion, it bought enough time for the country to get through this fall's presidential election before the next big debt-spending confrontation over raising the national limit. (The limit was $12.1 trillion shortly after Obama took office.)

Well, maybe not.
1. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  Just get rid of the farce and undo the debt ceiling limit. They will forever continue to raise it. Why continually put up the charade that they will actually cut spending? The debates are a farce. Just end debt ceiling votes and make our debt ceiling unlimited.
  1. MP 13 years ago
    
    C'mon. It's still super fun to watch them act all frantic, even if it always ends the same.
    1. Matrix 13 years ago
      
      It would be more entertaining if they would allow them to have duels. It would be great to thin out the herd a little.
  2. Nancy Pelosi 13 years ago
    
    Why continually put up the charade that they will actually cut spending?
    
    Are you serious?
  3. R C Dean 13 years ago
    
    Just get rid of the farce and undo the debt ceiling limit.
    
    No can do. Its Constitutional.
    
    Oh, wait, what am I saying?
    1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      The debt ceiling limit effect Commerce, ergo, the Commerce Clause comes to the rescue again!
      1. COMMERCE CLAUSE 13 years ago
        
        SMAAAAASSSSSHHHHHH!!!!
    2. John 13 years ago
      
      I am Barrack Obama. I can borrow as much money in your name as I want. And there is nothing you can do about it. Fuck you voters.
    3. Hobie Hanson 13 years ago
      
      The 14th Amendment says that no one can question the government when it wants to borrow more money.
      1. Hobie Hanson 13 years ago
        
        And that trumps even the 1st Amendment. So I'd advise shutting up about it.
        
        Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
        
        C+. Nice effort, but needs more subtlety.
        
        Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
        
        Who can tell, when it's Hobie's name being used? The man is triple-O stooopid.
        
        Hobie Hanson 13 years ago
        
        Extremism in defense of income equality is no vice.
        
        Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
        
        I missed this gem. Keep the stooopid comin', Hobie.
      2. Isaac Bartram 13 years ago
        
        Actually, according to Wikipedia,
        
        Under Article I Section 8 of the United States Constitution, Congress has the sole power to borrow money on the credit of the United States.
        
        At one time this was interpretted to mean that Congress needed to approve every expenditure that raised the public debt.
        
        This got changed in 1917 when congress agreed to the debt ceiling deal whereby they give blanket authority to the executive to borrow.
        
        Of course, given that just about every new law that CONgress passes increases the public debt the whole issue has become moot, I suppose.
2. Mike M. 13 years ago
  
  Yeah, we're still accumulating well in excess of four billion dollars of total debt a day. It will be somewhat close, but we will most likely get there before the election.
  
  It's pretty incredible to me that these SOBs all graduated from Harvard, and they apparently can't even do sixth grade level math.
  1. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    This.
  2. Sparky 13 years ago
    
    Harvard != good at math. They're all lawyers. They probably took remedial algebra Frosh year and that's it.
3. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  I love it. Fuck those guys. Playing politics with this and having it go off like a shit grenade all over their clean campaign.
  1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
    
    With any luck, Obama and Team Red will be playing Debt Ceiling Chicken right around the time of the debates.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

USA Today Poll: Both Romney and Santorum Lead Fading Obama
http://www.jammiewf.com/2012/u.....ing-obama/

Maybe those skyrocketing gas prices are indeed having an effect on the failed president, as a new USA Today poll shows a huge swing in the numbers for Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum and against Obama.
1. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  I said it the other day, but I did not used to believe that the President would lose the election. However, once I realized that gas likely will be over $5.00 a gallon over the summer, I knew he was toast.
  
  My guess? Gas hits 5 bucks, and then Iran pulls a stunt in July (like blocking Hormuz) that creates a weeklong panic, and gas hits 6-$6.50. The Republican nominee comes flying out of Tampa in August with Keystone pipeline, "drill baby drill", and a chart that goes from $1.83 (2009) to $6.50 (2012).
  
  And that's all she wrote.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    And the Republicans roll out the attack ads of Obama's energy secretary waxing philosophical about how great it would be if only we could get gas prices up to European levels.
    1. Exxon 13 years ago
      
      No prob
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        That doesn't even make any sense. You can't even troll properly anymore.
        
        Exxon 13 years ago
        
        "...get gas prices up to European levels."
    2. Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
      
      Gas at European prices... talk about regressive taxes... eh, liberals?
  2. Tulpa 13 years ago
    
    I wouldn't put it past BO to dump the entire strategic petroleum reserve on the market in October. Not sure how much of an effect that would have on prices.
    1. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
      
      I wouldn't put it past him either, but you can only take out 4.4m barrels per day, and we use 4-5 times that amount.
      1. Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        4.4MBB of extra daily "production" would put a serious dent in gas prices. It would be the best $12 billion that BO ever spent.
    2. DK 13 years ago
      
      I wouldn't put it past BO to dump the entire strategic petroleum reserve (equivalent in TNT) on the market Iran in October.
2. 13 years ago
  
  "Obama Slips As Santorum Surges"
  1. Teenage Girl 13 years ago
    
    Eew!
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Democrats: Americans Who Dislike ObamaCare Are Stupid
http://news.investors.com/arti.....n-ever.htm

Democrats used to say the more people knew about ObamaCare, the more they'd like it. Well, the public has had almost two full years to soak it in, and more want it repealed than ever.

A Quinnipiac University poll last week found 52% of Americans want ObamaCare scrapped. That's up from 44% last May. Meanwhile, just 39% want to keep it, down from 45%. Even one in five Democrats now says Congress should repeal the law.
Citizen Nothing 13 years ago

Are we only allowed to post links in A.M. Links now? I didn't get the memo.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Dad arrested over daughter's gun drawing
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/s.....95016.html

Police arrested a Kitchener, Ont., father outside his daughter's school because the four-year-old drew a picture of him holding a gun.

Jessie Sansone told the Record newspaper that he was in shock when he was arrested Wednesday and taken to a police station for questioning over the drawing. He was also strip-searched.

"This is completely insane. My daughter drew a gun on a piece of paper at school," he said.
1. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  I saw that and it feels like this is one of those stories where it's later revealed that there are additional facts unreported.
  
  Either that or Canada has gone completely insane--which you can't rule out.
  1. Matrix 13 years ago
    
    Well, in the US, they do suspend kids for drawing pictures of guns. Are we much better?
  2. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    It's both. The father had a criminal record, and many people are wildly irrational over guns.
    
    There was a story I posted here few weeks ago about parents being upset over the word "gun" in spelling homework.
    1. Tulpa 13 years ago
      
      I'd be upset at the lowered standards that implies. Spelling homework with common three letter words?
      1. RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        They were young students, and you have to start somewhere.
      2. Dick and Jane Idioms 13 years ago
        
        See Spot Run
        
        See Cop Kill Dog with Gun
  3. Loki 13 years ago
    
    Canada's gone full retard when it comes to guns. They have been for a while now actually.
2. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  Robo beat you to it.
  1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    yeah, missed it.
Citizen Nothing 13 years ago

More evidence of newspapers' decline:
After announcing my Twitter feed in my column yesterday, and analyzing the resulting "follows," I can only concluded that porn-bots are now a majority of my rag's readers.
1. Chupacabra 13 years ago
  
  Are they bi-curious?
2. JW 13 years ago
  
  Hey, paying customers are paying customers.
Bee Tagger 13 years ago

Republican Govs Worry Over Social Issues

I wonder if their endorsements of presidential candidates actually reflects this worry.
John 13 years ago

http://www.theatlantic.com/mag.....sues/8890/

Note to self, be glad Sandra Tsing Loh is not your daughter. You could just abandon him on an iceberg Sandra.
1. Maxxx 13 years ago
  
  "I WAAAAAAAANT MY FATHERRRRRR TO DIEEEEE!!!"
  
  Startled, and subtly stepping back to put a bit more distance between us, my co-worker asked what I meant.
  
  "What I mean, Rob, is that even if, while howling like a banshee, I tore my 91-year-old father limb from limb with my own hands in the town square, I believe no jury of my peers would convict me. Indeed, if they knew all the facts, I believe any group of sensible, sane individuals would actually roll up their shirtsleeves and pitch in."
  
  Aren't leftwing babyboomers awesome?
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    She is just setting the example for how her children will treat her when her time comes. That article is just appalling.
  2. JW 13 years ago
    
    49 is no Boomer. She's a Gen X Elder.
    
    I remember Tsing Loh when I used to listen to Marketplace. She was fairly acerbic and sarcastic then, no to mention one of the saner voices on public radio, and this article is no different. I suggest a 2nd read-through if you think the article is motivated out of indifferent malice.
    
    A good friend of mine is dealing with her 90-year old, ex-Buffalo Soldier father who will probably outlive us all, since he'll have driven everyone else in to the grave first. She loves him more than anything, but there are days when I think she'll take him out into a field and put one in him, just to get it over with.
    1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
      
      I'm with JW on this one.
    2. Anacreon 13 years ago
      
      baby boomers - 1946-1964
2. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  I'm glad just based on her painful use of language.
3. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  DEATH PANELS!!!!11!!!!11
4. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  Both of my parents just turned 70 - I'm their only offspring left in the state, so I have this feeling that I'm going to be stuck with lots of tough decisions in the future.
  
  Longevity doesn't exactly run in my family, but modern medicine and technology have certainly extended lives way beyond the olden days. But sometimes I wonder if such life extension is worth it. Perhaps I'll take up smoking 2 packs a day.
  
  Cue the "Logan's Run" movie.
  1. AuH20 13 years ago
    
    I am facing similar issues. I plan to take up crack at 70. Heroin is more of a 73 drug, y'know?
    1. T 13 years ago
      
      Alzheimer's runs in my family, although based on what I know I may be lucky enough to skip it. If not, I figure somewhere around the time I still know what a gun is for, I may suck-start a Mossberg.
      1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        The great conundrum of course is that ever so fine line between knowing what you wish to do at the "end" and being able to do it. It's sort of like calling a market top so you can sell at maximum profit - ie., nevah happen.
        
        AuH20 13 years ago
        
        That's why my plan is to go early. I figure there's worse fates than drowning in my bathtub, passed out from booze and Xanax
        
        Loki 13 years ago
        
        So you're just gonna go full Whitney Houston? Uhh... too soon?
        
        Whitney Houston 13 years ago
        
        +1 gold-lined casket
5. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  Listen, I'm sure most adult caregivers have these moments from time to time. Especially in alzheimers/senility cases, the person you are caring for often bears very little resemblance to the person who raised you. However, they're not sociopaths, recognize these thoughts as shameful and unworthy, and don't write about them in public.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    ^^This^^
  2. Tulpa 13 years ago
    
    Repression: it's what's for dinner.
    1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
      
      Tulpa finds an acorn. Not to get all psychomological, but there's value in a columnist admitting to, and writing about, something that many people think, but are afraid to say out loud.
6. Zeb 13 years ago
  
  Abandoning people on an iceberg sounds a bit too coercive. I say just unlock the Alzheimer's wards and let them wander off to their fate.
  Honestly, after seeing two grandparents lose their minds (and the awful effect it had on my father), the article sounds pretty reasonable to me. Once serious dementia sets in, the person you knew is already dead and their continued existence is just misery for everyone. No, you shouldn't be able to kill your demented parent, but wanting to seems quite rational.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    It is understandable. But why you feel the need to put in a magazine article is the question.
  2. Sparky 13 years ago
    
    The problem is the people who think it would be fine to kill their own parents but have a problem with you wanting to kill yours.
  3. Brett L 13 years ago
    
    Like I said above. More than one person I know who has dealt with senile parents who no longer recognize anyone or anything has expressed that there were times they wished the parent(s) would just die. Its okay to feel that way. Its poor taste to write up a woe-is-me article in a magazine about it.
    1. Loki 13 years ago
      
      Its poor taste to write up a woe-is-me article in a magazine about it.
      
      Agreed. This article just seems like a "my elderly alzheimer's ridden parent is cramping my style, woe is me" kind of article. Basically she doesn't like having to take care of him because it's all about her. She's a narcissistic little twat, like most boomers.
      1. Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        An Alzheimer's patient in the later stages requires a greater level of care than a newborn baby.
        
        You don't have to be a narcissist to not want that responsibility.
        
        Loki 13 years ago
        
        But you do have to be a narcissist to write a magazine article bitching about it to the whole world.
  4. Ice Nine 13 years ago
    
    Abandoning people on an iceberg sounds a bit too coercive. I say just unlock the Alzheimer's wards and let them wander off to their fate.
    
    That's merely using a different kind of iceberg.
  5. Tulpa 13 years ago
    
    I think the question is, are you OK with the idea of your kids similarly abandoning you when you got dementia.
    
    I think I would be fine with that, to be honest (though I don't have kids now). But I'm weird.
    1. T 13 years ago
      
      But I'm weird.
      
      I think we've all picked up on that by now.
      1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        Hell, I hope I've trained my kids well enough to know they damn well better find a way to kill me if I lose my senses.
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        I already told my wife, whose family has creepily long lifes, "when I get to a certain point, put the pillow over my face and hold it down TIGHT."
        
        Sparky 13 years ago
        
        I've told my wife and kids the same thing.
7. AuH20 13 years ago
  
  He who walks between the rows always needs new souls.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Santorum: My Economic Freedom Agenda

http://online.wsj.com/article/.....on_LEADTop

America's budget process is broken. Our economy and American families are struggling, and the country needs bold reforms and major restructuring, not tinkering at the margins. Obamanomics has left one in six Americans in poverty, and one in four children on food stamps. Millions seek jobs and others have given up.

Meanwhile, my opponent in the Republican primaries, Mitt Romney, had a last-minute conversion. Attempting to distract from his record of tax and fee increases as governor of Massachusetts, poor job creation, and aggressive pursuit of earmarks, he now says he wants to follow my lead and lower individual as well as corporate marginal tax rates.
Maxxx 13 years ago

I'm sorry president Karzai
1. HeroicMulatto 13 years ago
  
  It was better when I posted it yesterday.
John 13 years ago

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/20.....-year.html

Newspaper ad revenues fall to a 50 year low. LOLOLOLOL
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  I still magazines in the stores and wonder who still buys them.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Old people and doctor's offices. A few people buy the tabloids as guilty pleasures. But who buys the weekly news magazines? If there is a blind, deaf three legged dog in need of the full PETA treatment, it is those.
o3 13 years ago

Exploring the Right Wing Blogosphere
Sex Mad: Why the Rightblogger Obsession With Ladyparts Never Ends By Roy Edroso Mon., Feb. 27 2012

If you're wondering why conservatives, of all people, think adults need to be protected from the consequences of their own free choices, you're not the target audience.

Pakaluk's alternate prescription: The rhythm method, the number one birth control choice of early-20th-Century Irish Catholic households in which two or more children slept on the fire escape.

Ever-reliable Rick Santorum suggested that access to contraception had caused an increase in out-of-wedlock births, and was rewarded by a surge in GOP Presidential polling.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/.....hy_the.php
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

PayPal cracks down on erotica e-book sales
http://www.teleread.com/ebooks.....ook-sales/

Remember when Amazon started removing various kinds of erotica from its store? It's happening again, this time with a number of independent e-publishing sites such as All Romance and Smashwords. Today, Nate Hoffelder called attention to an e-mail from Mark Coker of Smashwords to authors who publish through the platform.

Coker reported that PayPal had issued Smashwords an ultimatum regarding certain categories of erotica published through the site. If books in these categories were not removed, PayPal would stop doing business with the site. Because Smashwords relies so heavily on PayPal as a payment processor, the site is left without any feasible alternative.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Dirty books? Really? Who even reads those anymore? What is wrong with people?
  1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    Video killed the radio book star.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      And the internet killed that. There are so many private blogs and vanity sites, I would think there would be endless amounts of written pornography to be had.
      1. protefeed 13 years ago
        
        Like, say, literotica.com
        
        Or... 13 years ago
        
        ...www.asstr.org
    2. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
      
      Just learned that this was the first vid shown on MTV:
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        You really didn't know that?
        
        Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        It's not something I ever even though about. But then I went on a Robert Palmer/Bangles/Euryhmics/Dire Straits binge last week. Man, Palmer was one sharp dresser. If I ever give up the Aloha-wear, that's the way I'm goin' -- as long as I also get the girls from his videos. Oh, wait. They'd be, what, 50 now? Already got me one a' those.
        
        Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
        
        I can't find any common threads between Dire Straits and the other bands, CN. Am I missing a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing here?
        
        Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        Just a "big on MTV" retrospective, FIFY.
        
        Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
        
        I was wracking my brain trying to figure that on out, CN. Thanks for making it make sense.
  2. protefeed 13 years ago
    
    It's almost as if there were no way to find free erotic stories on the internet with a 5 second google search, or something.
    1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      seems that Paypal objects to bestiality, incest, and rape stories. As someone pointed out on another blog, will that include George R. R. Martin?
      1. protefeed 13 years ago
        
        Incest stories dominate the ratings in the site I mentioned. Apparently Paypal objects to what the marketplace demands -- "sure, you can sell stories, just not the ones anyone wants to buy".
  3. HeroicMulatto 13 years ago
    
    Dirty books? Really? Who even reads those anymore?
    
    John, there are these people called, "women"; they're different than you and I.
    1. Azathoth 13 years ago
      
      And they're really into incest, rape and bestiality. To a frightening degree.
2. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  And why does Ebay even care?
3. AuH20 13 years ago
  
  Kindle actually has a lot of dirty books.
  
  Not that I would know or anything.
P Brooks 13 years ago

The pro-authoritarianism liberals on Morning Joke are unanimous; if Supreme Nanny Bloomberg says it's legal and necessary to spy on Moslems anywhere any time, it's legal and necessary.

New York is SPECIAL!
John 13 years ago

http://bostonherald.com/news/r.....position=2

Lesbians beat up gay man.
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  ^^^^^
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Yeah you beat me to it.
2. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  This is why hate-crime laws are fundamentally flawed.
  1. Chupacabra 13 years ago
    
    They work fine if you accept the premise that only white males can be racist/bigoted.
    1. Kreel Sarloo 13 years ago
      
      IIANM, blacks have the highest per capita rate of arrests for hate crimes in nearly every state in the US.
  2. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
    
    One of the best things about gays gaining more rights is that it's going to demonstrate just how farcical and illogical laws driven by political correctness rather than common sense are.
3. jacob 13 years ago
  
  Them's some fugly lesbians.
  
  Did you see the picture where they covered their heads with coats while in court? Why do people do that? It's not as if the outside observers don't know who they are, and also they just look much more stupid.
Ken Shultz 13 years ago

Feds increase pressure on California to drive medical marijuana underground.

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

----Gandhi
1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
  
  Then pot smokers out here must be really close to winning, because the Feds are fighting like mad.
  1. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
    
    Has there ever been a time when that Gandhi quote turned out to be right?
    1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
      
      13 Colonies around the late 1770's-early 1780's maybe?
      1. Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        You in fantasy football last year. Well, except for the last part.
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Haha, asshole. You know nobody ever had to go beyond ridiculing me, what with my "draft a kicker in the 4th round" strategy.
    2. Tulpa 13 years ago
      
      Tebow
John 13 years ago

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02.....-its-care/

PETA kills more than 95% of the pets in its care. Is there a bigger fake organization than PETA?
1. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  They do it out of love.
  1. Randy 13 years ago
    
    Well.... never mind then.
2. sloopyinca 13 years ago
  
  Is there a bigger fake organization than PETA?
  
  The Galactic Empire?
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

Newt Gingrich preaches.

This is how you effectively preach your message.
Abdul 13 years ago

One of the kenedy clan kicks a nurse to the ground: http://www.google.com/hostedne.....062a3c.1c1

The real suprise is that it wasn't a sex assault.

As much as i like to hate on the Kennedys, I acutally think Chivas Junior here is kind of in the right. He wants to take his newborn baby for a walk, and the hospital won't let him? WTF? He wasn't putting it in a microwave or selling it to gypsies, let a dad walk around.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Yeah. It is the Nancy Graceization of the world. New born wards are maximum security prisons now. All to protect against the one in a hundred million chance someone will steal a baby.
  1. Abdul 13 years ago
    
    I had one kid in a hospital and one in a mid-wifery. The hospital really kind of sucks. Everyone has to wear a bar-coded bracelet (my kid had one that would set off the alarm and probably a dye-pack). They take the kid away for tests that could be performed in front of you. Just the whole idea that there's a nursery where you can go stare through a zoo window at your child in a cot with other children--why?
    
    Midwifes, on the other hand, you keep your baby from the get go. they perform the standard post-natal battery in front of you. They coach Mom through breastfeeding. The only drawback is that in the event of a real surprise emergency, they arent' as well equipped as hospitals. But the odd of those emergencies are thousands to one against.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      I think hospitals are all things being equal better. But since our society has gone insane, all things are no longer equal.
      1. Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        I actually don't mind the security.
        
        Awesome. Knock yourselves out, hospital staff.
        
        What I do mind, however, is that the public doesn't see that the hospital "adopting a policy" doesn't make them the police.
        
        If I'm actually the parent, and I want to take my kid out, "Our policy says you can't" means nothing and has no force whatsoever.
        
        It is reasonable for the nurses to defend themselves against charges of assault by pointing to their policy. "You see, officers, we thought he might be abducting that baby, so we tried to stop him." That's just fine. The nurses have an affirmative defense against assault and kidnapping charges.
        
        But Kennedy needs no defense at all. If other people attempt to assault me and unlawfully restrain me based on their false perception, I am absolutely entitled to defend myself. It is absurd that Kennedy is facing any charges here whatsoever.
      2. Zeb 13 years ago
        
        The hospital is a waste of money. Increasing uses of midwifery and other alternatives to full-on hospital care are exactly the sort of non-centrally planned things we need to reduce the absurd growth of health care costs.
        Of course, if you prefer the added security of being in a hospital, you should spend your money as you see fit. (Of course, this is all in fantasy land where there is a less insane healthcare system).
    2. Ice Nine 13 years ago
      
      The only drawback is that in the event of a real surprise emergency, they aren't as well equipped as hospitals. But the odd of those emergencies are thousands to one against.
      
      Those are really long odds - and the stakes are only the life of the child or the mother. Not a bad bet.
      
      And the Understatement of the Day Award goes to "they aren't as well equipped as hospitals."
      1. Abdul 13 years ago
        
        I don't know the actual odds, or even how to look something like that up. Thousands to one is an underestimate.
        
        I'm talking about a true surprise emergency. Most difficult births (twins, bad cord placement, deformed baby) are known in advance and done in hospital for that reason.
        
        Similarly, if a surprise emergency shows up at the last minute, a hospital is better equipped to handle it, but that does not necessarily mean that they have a far greater chance of fixing it. The majority of those emergencies are going to end up with bad outcomes no matter who is providing the care.
        
        Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        You were OK until that last sentence. Immediate access to intubation equipment, IV access, blood banks and operating rooms is everything when the meconium hits the fan and if they are, the common true emergencies of childbirth for baby and mother have pretty good outcomes.
    3. Loki 13 years ago
      
      Everyone has to wear a bar-coded bracelet
      
      Why not just go ahead and implant an RFID chip in their hands? Then when they reach a pre-determined age, say 30, the light starts blinking. Then you have to report to your nearest Soylent Green factory for "renewal".
      
      Actually that would be a pretty bitchin' idea for a sci-fi movie remake/ mash up. Call it Logan's Soylent Run.
  2. Ice Nine 13 years ago
    
    New born wards are maximum security prisons now. All to protect against the one in a hundred million chance someone will steal a baby.
    
    Yeah, the idiot hospitals have their priorities all screwed up. Everyone knows the resulting lawsuit would only be for five million.
2. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
  
  Speaking of gypsies. AMC had Stephen King's Thinner yesterday. Was that greenlighted shortly after Shawshank or something? Who in the world thought that story was complex and compelling enough to be a feature-length movie?
  1. jacob 13 years ago
    
    I hear you. It was an entertaining read, but the movie fell short.
3. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  The surprising thing to me reading the comments on this story all over the place this weekend is the shocking number of people who think that nurses possess police powers.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Over someone else's kid. I hate the Kennedys too, but I gotta side with him on this.
  2. NoVAHockey 13 years ago
    
    Wear even something resembling a uniform and have somewhat of a command presence and people will do what you tell them to. almost without question.
    
    People just get out of my way when I'm wearing my EMT class Bs.
    1. rac3rx 13 years ago
      
      You don't even need the uniform. If you're even reasonably well dressed, you can walk all over major hospitals in "secured" areas that are closed to the public/restricted access as long as you keep your head up and look like you know exactly where you're going and what you're doing.
      1. Eduard van Haalen 13 years ago
        
        I wish Ron Paul would offer his expertise. Why doesn't he post here?
P Brooks 13 years ago

I find the feverish distraught hand-wringing over Santorum's anti-intellectualist ruminations about whether the world really needs all those Sociology majors intensely amusing.
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

But this month, the permitting system became the most striking casualty of the crackdown on medical marijuana cultivation and distribution by California's federal prosecutors. The board of supervisors ended the experiment after the U.S. attorney for Northern California threatened take the county to court for helping produce an illegal drug.

I can't wait until we elect someone like Barack Obama president so this kind of thing will change.
1. Tim 13 years ago
  
  We won't get fooled again!
2. Tulpa 13 years ago
  
  The county was clearly violating state laws... or something.
mr simple 13 years ago

Police on the scene at high school shooting in Ohio.
1. o3 13 years ago
  
  Around 8:45, the Lake County SWAT team has arrived with a couple of big vehicles.
  _
  
  next challange for lake county swat - retirement & telling the BIG story to admirers
P Brooks 13 years ago

the accused claim they cannot be charged with a hate crime because they're lesbians.

OOOOOOOW!

STOP THAT.
1. Tim 13 years ago
  
  THAT'S NOT FUNNY!
  1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
    
    YES IT IS!
    1. Tim 13 years ago
      
      NO IT ISN'T!
      1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        YETH IT ITH!
        
        Tim 13 years ago
        
        Nein!
Bee Tagger 13 years ago

"I can't get out of here alive without taking a few questions," the former Pennsylvania senator said.

Is he suggesting that fetuses of mothers considering abortion need to be more transparent?
AuH20 13 years ago

The Feminist Potential Boyfriend or why all men suck.

Knows more about feminist than you? Well then he's just showing his privelege!
1. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  None of those descriptions contain enough eye-rolling.
  
  You need a category farther out on the extreme than Entomologist where the man asks provocative questions so he can listen to your answers, roll his eyes, and post mockery on the internet later.
2. Britt 13 years ago
  
  Wow she's kind of bug fuck crazy, huh?
  
  I just....I just don't get how you can seriously argue there's a patriarchy anymore. I think a lot of these women are watching Mad Men and forgetting a) it's fiction and b) it's a period piece.
  
  The funniest thing is when you look at say, the disparity in engineering and education schools....basically 70-30 at best...but ones mostly male and the other's mostly female. Obviously the patriarchy is keeping the women out of the engineering school, but it is also just as obvious that men are just not sensitive and nurturing enough to teach our children, by and large. I just don't get it. Guess that's my....uh...what am I being? Sexist, micro aggressive, what's the term for my particular brand of evil?
  1. AuH20 13 years ago
    
    Everything is just some flavor of misogynist.
    
    Don't like black people? Racist Misogynist.
    
    Find Jos Truit ugly? Trans Misogynist.
    
    Etc.
    1. RoboCain 13 years ago
      
      GAAAAAAHHH!!!
      
      The goggles do nothing!
  2. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
    
    I've been employed for 34 years, and in all about about five of those my direct supervisor has been female. Just sayin'.
    1. Zeb 13 years ago
      
      Should there be a "but" in there somewhere?
    2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      matriarchal oppression!
  3. H. Reardon 13 years ago
    
    about 85-15, at best, in my experience (2002 grad). Unless you went upstairs where the industrial 'engineers' were. It seems that a lot of scholarship students majored in industrial engineering. The gender and racial differences were hard to ignore.
3. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  I would be an angry feminist, too if I saw men through those goggles.
4. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  So there is no good way men can be feminists? Good.
  
  Except they can't give it some more thought and realize there is no good way women can be feminists, either.
5. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  During my college days, most of the "pro-feminist" guys I met were just playing the game to get into the girl's pants. Duh.
  
  However, only of them was really into it, stating, "I can't think of one single good thing that man has ever done."
  
  And at this point, I looked over where we were sitting and said, "They built this house, didn't they? And the car you drive. And the road you drive down..."
  
  *quiet*
  1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
    
    However, only of them was really into it, stating, "I can't think of one single good thing that man has ever done."
    
    How on earth did a feminized nerd managed to get into a party where normal human beings were gathering?
Bee Tagger 13 years ago

NYPD uses federal drug-war funds to spy on Muslims.

Bill Bennett will be in his bunk.
Comcast Sucks (Coxswain Hardy) 13 years ago

Why the Climate Skeptics Are Winning
...The dog that didn't bark for the climateers in this story is the great disappointment that Heartland receives only a tiny amount of funding from fossil fuel sources???and none from ExxonMobil, still the b?te noire of the climateers. Meanwhile, it was revealed this week that natural gas mogul T. Boone Pickens had given $453,000 to the left-wing Center for American Progress for its "clean energy" projects, and Chesapeake Energy gave the Sierra Club over $25 million (anonymously until it leaked out) for the Club's anti-coal ad campaign. Turns out the greens take in much more money from fossil fuel interests than the skeptics do....
1. Kreel Sarloo 13 years ago
  
  Off the top of my head I would guess that Chesapeake Energy has its capital tied up in natural gas facilities.
  
  That's why Enron gave so much money to Global Warming causes. It's still a mystery to me why Ken Lay gave so much money to Dubya who never had a good word to say about GW and so little to Gore who probably would have bailed Enron out if he had been able to steal Florida.
2. Anacreon 13 years ago
  
  Our local paper's AP story kept referring to Heartland as the "controversial industry-funded group".
Comcast Sucks (Coxswain Hardy) 13 years ago

The Heartland Affair: A Climate Champion Cheats ? and We All Lose
...Many climate advocates, while acknowledging that Gleick made a mistake, are calling him a heroic whistle-blower. "For his courage, his honor and for performing a selfless act of public service, [Gleick] deserves our gratitude and applause," wrote Richard Littlemore of DeSmogBlog. But the prize for which Gleick broke the rules and damaged his own credibility hardly seems worth it. The alleged memos seem to confirm that the Heartland Institute is trying to push its highly skeptical view of climate science in the public sphere, which is only surprising if you've paid exactly zero attention to the climate debate over the past decade....
Matrix 13 years ago

Open Carry is scary, 'cause you never know what a person might do

Well, if you're carrying as well, you won't much have to worry about that person. If they get out of line, you can drop 'em.
1. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  And here's a rebuttal
2. robc 13 years ago
  
  The KY constitution specifically guarantees the right to open carry.
  
  I dont ever have to worry about these arguments.
3. Tulpa 13 years ago
  
  If open carry is scary, how terrifying is concealed carry?
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    If you don't see the gun, Tulpa, you can live in your reality-proof bubble where it doesn't exist.
  2. Matrix 13 years ago
    
    Out of sight... out of mind
Comcast Sucks (Coxswain Hardy) 13 years ago

Fakegate Illustrates Global Warming Alarmists' Deceit and Desperation
...The real story in this Fakegate scandal is how the global warming movement is desperate, delusional and collapsing as global warming fails to live up to alarmist predictions. People with sound science on their side do not need to forge documents to validate their arguments or make the other side look bad. Also, people who are so desperate as to forge documents in an attempt to frame their rivals are clearly not above forging scientific data, studies and facts to similarly further their cause.

It is both striking and telling how global warming activists have failed to condemn the acts of forgery in the Fakegate scandal.....
P Brooks 13 years ago

I can only concluded that porn-bots are now a majority of my rag's readers.

Average IQ on the rise, then?
1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
  
  Unfortunately, focus-group research shows that porn-bots like The Family Circus just as much as do other typical newspaper readers.
Comcast Sucks (Coxswain Hardy) 13 years ago

Should Global-Warming Activists Lie to Defend Their Cause?
...Kant said that when judging the morality of an act, we must weigh the intentions of the actor. Was he acting selfishly, to benefit himself, or selflessly, to help others? By this criterion, Gleick's lie was clearly moral, because he was defending a cause that he passionately views as righteous. Gleick, you might say, is a hero comparable to Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who in 1971 stole and released documents that revealed that U.S. officials lied to justify the war in Vietnam....
1. cynical 13 years ago
  
  So long as they don't get upset when we assume that the "science" they are doing is also based on lies.
Comcast Sucks (Coxswain Hardy) 13 years ago

Heartland Publishes Gleick Emails
John 13 years ago

The man who tried to kill President Ronald Reagan more than 30 years ago said he would like to be known as something other than a would-be assassin.

John Hinckley made the statement to a doctor who interviewed him in the past year at a Washington mental hospital. The statement and other pieces of information about Hinckley's life are part of hundreds of pages of documents prepared for court hearings in Hinckley's case.

"I don't have a microphone in my hand. I don't have the video camera. So no one can hear my music. No one can see my art. I have these other aspects of my life that no one knows about. I'm an artist. I'm a musician. Nobody knows that. They just see me as the guy who tried to kill Reagan," he said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
1. John 13 years ago
  
  You try to kill one President and it is like people hold it against you are something.
  1. Tim 13 years ago
    
    Worse than being an actor on Star Trek...
2. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  Charles Manson feels his pain.
  1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
    
    And some other would-be artist -- I think he was European?
    1. Brett L 13 years ago
      
      We remember him for his toothbrush mustache, too.
  2. H man 13 years ago
    
    It's not like he even killed anyone. He just said a lot of crazy shit trying to get laid and those girls all PMS'ed at the same time on him.
Matrix 13 years ago

Right to resist in Indiana

Naturally, law enforcement is upset.
1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
  
  SF'd
2. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  You glycoreleased the link.
3. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  dammit.
  
  here
  1. robc 13 years ago
    
    Indiana cops better learn to read numbers. And quick.
    1. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
      
      Classic:
      
      "We believe people have the right to be secure in their homes," said Hendricks County Sheriff Dave Galloway. "But the people who hear about this law are going to think it's okay to kill a law enforcement officer. What you and I think is 'reasonable' isn't the same as somebody high on meth. They're going to shoot first, and ask questions later."
      
      As if Mr. Methhead is going to pull out the Indiana Code before firing.
      1. RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        "But the people who hear about this law are going to think it's okay to kill a law enforcement officer."
        
        No they won't, but did you ever think if you followed the 4th that maybe that would be a non-issue?
      2. gaijin 13 years ago
        
        They're going to shoot first, and ask questions later."
        
        The irony is pretty ironic.
      3. R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        "But the people who hear about this law are going to think it's okay to kill a law enforcement officer."
        
        Well, it is, under certain circumstances, legal to exercise your right to self-defense even when the aggressor is an LEO.
4. jacob 13 years ago
  
  What you and I think is 'reasonable' isn't the same as somebody high on meth.
  
  No, asshole. The law isn't intended to protect meth heads, who would shoot first anyway. This is to help the innocent civilians that have their doors kicked in due to a "mistake."
  
  See also: Jose Guerena
kinnath 13 years ago

I'm looking for some advice from the H&R regulars. I've collected about 5GB of PDF files for "out of print" books through Google Book Search. I need to find a portable reader of some sort.

Should I stick with a bottom end reader (Kindle/Nook), move up to the reader/tablets (Kindle Fire / Nook Tablet), or splurge and go for a full blown tablet?
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Just by a basic Kindle or Nook. I know several people who have tablets and they are not happy with them. They are not useful enough to replace a laptop. But are too big to carry around like a smart phone or a MP3player. They really are jack of all trades master of none.
  
  Save your money and buy a Kindle and forgo the extra features you won't ever use.
  1. robc 13 years ago
    
    That was my initial thoughts on tablets, but Ive changed my mind.
    
    When I get one, it will totally replace my laptop for travel. And is perfect for web surfing in front of the tv.
    
    As far as reading on it...I like books. Real books. So I have no comment on that.
    1. kinnath 13 years ago
      
      I love paper books. But I have accumulated 20 to 30 thousand pages of out of print books (15th to 19th century). Right now, I can only read them on my computer at home.
    2. Brett L 13 years ago
      
      I thought I was a bibliophile, but I love being able to carry the tablet everywhere and have a choice of books to read (and re-read) even when I'm not on wi-fi and I finish or grow bored with what I planned on reading when I left the house. I took it with me on a vacation, and fell in love the day I finished reading the books I'd pre-loaded, went to an internet cafe, and picked up 2 more books to get me through in about 5 minutes. (Trying to find English language novels in Athens would have been a fun adventure, but dling them was certainly convenient.)
      1. RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        It certainly makes things lighter and less bulky. Compare an iPod to a truckload of cd or cassette tapes.
    3. R C Dean 13 years ago
      
      When I get one, it will totally replace my laptop for travel. And is perfect for web surfing in front of the tv.
      
      Bingo. That's about 80% of what I use my IPad for (the rest are a few apps that I honestly wouldn't miss, mostly). Think about how much work you will want it to do. I believe a Kindle Fire could handle websurfing.
      
      I do use it as a replacement laptop when I travel (great work email integration), although I did get an app that lets me work Windows docs and a keyboard (the Logitech folding keyboard) for that.
  2. kinnath 13 years ago
    
    Another choice is to move up to a netbook or ultraportable.
    
    $500 buys a high end tablet, a mid range netbook, or an entry-level ultraportable.
    1. JW 13 years ago
      
      You can pick up v.1 Android tablets for < $400. I picked up a Bluetooth keyboard folio case, which makes typing much easier. I also get Google Docs if I need to word process.
      
      I picked up a refurbed Xoom at Xmas and it is one of the first devices to be updated to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It might be refurbed, bu tit was in brand new condition when I got it.
      
      I have a bunch of eBooks on it, but I haven't really used it for reading them yet. Like RC, it's a toy for casual use around the house. I'd also take that before any laptop on travel, since it's about a 1/5 of the weight.
      1. JW 13 years ago
        
        Oh, and it's a wi-fi only device, so no $40/month data plan needed for it.
        
        kinnath 13 years ago
        
        Asus has a well-reviewed netbook for about $260.
      2. kinnath 13 years ago
        
        So you take a tablet and put it into a keyboard folio, what advantage to you now have over a netbook with built-in keyboard and cover.
        
        You loose the touchscreen going to a netbook, but gain processor performance and disk space right?
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        So you take a tablet and put it into a keyboard folio, what advantage to you now have over a netbook with built-in keyboard and cover.
        
        Versatility and format. I can take the tablet out and just use the soft keyboard, if I just want to surf. I picked it up at a fire sale price, for when I know I'll need a keyboard, but I typically just use my plain folio for everyday use.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        You loose the touchscreen going to a netbook, but gain processor performance and disk space right?
        
        Compared to a netbook, I don't think you lose anything power-wise and pick up a vast library of apps, many free. I used Google Sky for the first time the other night, to show my son the Moon/Venus/Jupiter alignment, which was very cool. That even impressed the wife.
        
        I find the times I need to do a ton of typing to be < 5% of its usage. So, for me a laptop or a netbook to be overkill. I haven't touched my laptop since I got the Xoom.
        
        kinnath 13 years ago
        
        thanks. I've been trying to figure this out. Good to hear from someone that's using the devices now.
2. Translucent Chum 13 years ago
  
  I have a Kindle3g and an iPad2. I always find myself grabbing the Kindle for any reading. It may be different if you're talking textbook or manuals.
3. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  I love the shit out of my iPad for reading. Love it, love it, love it. I regularly read PDFs on it preferentially to the computer (or printing). I would say about 95% of the time its a fancy reader for me, 3% email, 1% email, 1% netflix. YMMV, but the battery life is great, and with dropbox, getting PDFs on there is simple. Goodreader works too.
  1. Translucent Chum 13 years ago
    
    We replaced our laptop with the iPad. We love it. Kids love it. Using it for surfing and banking; and multimedia. Use a desktop in the office when we need it. Just wish we could get some Flash detente. I have not being able to get my real time fantasy hockey scoring on Yahoo!...
    1. Translucent Chum 13 years ago
      
      er, hate not having flash.
      1. robc 13 years ago
        
        The sooner flash goes away, the better.
        
        Translucent Chum 13 years ago
        
        We have to go to the internet with the standards we have now (or something Rumsfeldian like that).
      2. R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        You can do flash on an IPad now. Just read that somebody put out an app that emulates Windows and (among other things) runs Flash.
4. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  Don't you own a printer?
  1. kinnath 13 years ago
    
    you want me to pring 20,000 pages?
    1. RoboCain 13 years ago
      
      That can get awfully expensive and time consuming.
5. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  I'm not sure if the more basic kindle can even handle .pdfs well:
  http://www.amazon.com/forum/ki.....LHT2D4GZJU
  1. kinnath 13 years ago
    
    This is one of the things I was worried about.
6. kinnath 13 years ago
  
  Thanks for the inputs.
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    I'm late, but I love my Kindle Fire. I use it when I'm out anbd about because I'll email PDFs to myself so I can have them rather than carrying a stack of paper. The e-reader works great, lots of time-wasty games, and web surfing at the house is a primary function.
    1. kinnath 13 years ago
      
      Can you view PDF in landscape on the Fire? Do you have control over Zoom?
      1. T 13 years ago
        
        Yes to both. The Kindle Fire has orientation based on the internal sensor. You can zoom in and out at will. If you know somebody that has one, play with it a bit. I think they have them at Best Buy now, so you can go play with one.
P Brooks 13 years ago

They just see me as the guy who tried to kill Reagan," he said.

Jeepers! You suck one cock shoot one President...
AuH20 13 years ago

Because some of y'all missed it last week, this has to be one of my favorite microaggressions:

What settler colonialism does is that it sets a ceiling on what the future can be such that we cannot even imagine a future without genocide. This tendency then leaves us to develop critical visions only within the constraints of the possible and then infects all the work that we do.

Curse you character limit!
1. AuH20 13 years ago
  
  For instance if we look at the Academic Industrial Complex. We whine and complain about how racist it is. As if the only problem is a few racist administrators who need to be fired. And if we just convince them how great Ethnic Studies is, they'd just give us more money. But if we were actually to imagine a liberatory educational system would this be it? Professors, do we say, "Tenure was the most fun thing I've ever done, I wish I could do it again"? Do students say, "You know, I love it when I work really hard for my finals and then get a bad grade anyway, how empowering was that"? We don't even try to imagine building an alternative to the Academic Industrial Complex. We act as if the problem is that there is racism in the academy, not that the academy is structured by racism.
  1. AuH20 13 years ago
    
    And here's where we can learn from the Prison Industrial Complex. Is not that the organizing against the Prison Industrial Complex puts forth a model of abolition that doesn't just say that it's about tearing down prison walls now but it's about building alternatives that squeeze out the current system. Similarly, while we might have day jobs in the academic system, why can't we start building alternatives to this system, build the educational system that we would actually like to see that could then squeeze out the current system as it develops.
    1. AuH20 13 years ago
      
      So, for instance, when Arizona says something like they're going to ban Ethnic Studies, we think, "Oh no, there's not going to be Ethnic Studies because the State says so!" We presume the state owns Ethnic Studies and it actually can ban it. We don't say, "Uh, whatever, Arizona! Ethnic Studies is not a gift from the Academic Industrial Complex or from the state. It's a product of social movements for social justice, and as long as they exist there will be Ethnic Studies wherever and whenever we go." And did we ever really think Ethnic Studies was going to be legitimate in a white supremacist and settler colonialist academy? And if ever did become legitimate, we would know we had failed in our task.
      
      That's dumber than two inbred rednecks after a jug of bad moonshine.
      1. 900 Characters 13 years ago
        
        Nice treatise. Didn't read any of the chapters. Brevity is a virtue.
      2. Loki 13 years ago
        
        And did we ever really think Ethnic Studies was going to be legitimate in a white supremacist and settler colonialist academy?
        
        Uhh, no? Why would anyone think that a field of study that only prepares students to repeat the words "Would you like fires with that?" a thousand times a day would ever be legitimate?
        
        Shorter version: "WHAAAAAAA, nobody takes our made up bullshit degree seriously! WHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
    2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      that's a lot of complexes.
      
      Howabout the feminist-power-complex? Or the Juggalo-paint-complex?
  2. John 13 years ago
    
    If only we didn't have to work or sacrifice. That is just so racist.
    1. AuH20 13 years ago
      
      Honestly my favorite part. "Let's imagine a system where we don't judge output, but effort."
      
      Say it with me folks: This is why communism doesn't work!
      1. Sparky 13 years ago
        
        Well, you certainly put a lot of effort into that so I won't judge the output.
      2. John 13 years ago
        
        It always seems to be about these people wanting the rest of society to change so they can be happy with their decisions.
        
        It is like that reporter that wrote the Atlantic article about how women just can't get married anymore and society needs to do something else. The root of the whole things was she was a snotty bitch in her 20s. And she dumped the only nice guy who ever thought anything of her. And now she is 40, past her sell by date, and can't stand being alone. So we are all supposed to change so she can feel better about herself.
        
        Sparky 13 years ago
        
        At least for women like that there is now a greater chance for me to say "Oh, you're the self-absorbed bitch who wrote that stupid column" and bail before the first date.
        
        Sparky 13 years ago
        
        Chance for *men to say
  3. Brett L 13 years ago
    
    We covered this, because I had a 900+ character rant about the idea of the "Academic Industrial Complex" having anything to do with Ethnic Studies*.
    Ahh, the good old days.
    
    *Unless you're ranting about student loans.
  4. Loki 13 years ago
    
    if we just convince them how great Ethnic Studies is
    
    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
2. o3 13 years ago
  
  what are u on about? seems like WI type stuff
sarcasmic 13 years ago

Here come the drones..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46.....0uU5nmuHvl
1. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  First, you have to learn to ride your bike with no handlebars.
2. Attila the Huh 13 years ago
  
  provided they meet still-to-be-determined requirements, such as having an operator on the ground within line-of-sight of the drone and flying it at least 400 feet above ground.
  
  Huh?
sarcasmic 13 years ago

Town considers banning smoking in your own backyard.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com.....own-homes/
1. Entreprenuer 13 years ago
  
  "As a smoker, I think that smokers should be considerate," said Rocklin resident and smoker Ryan Malonson. "But on your own property, that's unacceptable. It's not going to pass."
  
  Whole property enclosures! Get your whole property enclosures here!
2. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  ^^^^^
Matrix 13 years ago

AG Holder could face jail time for F&F cover-up

why he is not occupying a prison cell right now is the question to ask.
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  XOMG RACIST!!!
2. Rich 13 years ago
  
  This.
  
  PSA: Do not click that link if you have high blood pressure problems.
  1. Matrix 13 years ago
    
    Reading this site is bad for people with high blood pressure.
    1. Rich 13 years ago
      
      True dat. But H&R has redeeming features.
P Brooks 13 years ago

At leasrt he's honest.

That's because, says Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank, a bad guy with a loaded weapon can do "a lot of damage very fast."

He said that in his 20 years as a policeman, "we've had very few problems and concealed-weapons holders. It's not a big issue."

But open-carry is different, he adds. For example, a law enforcement officer openly carries a weapon for its "intimidation factor. In law enforcement, that's the message you send."

And, not answering a cop's questions must by definition be "disorderly conduct" because any order by a police officer carries the full force of law. By not responding, you other them; this is frightening and confusing and hurtful.
1. robc 13 years ago
  
  We see the real issue here. If 5% of the population (or maybe lower) started open carrying, it would be such a normal sight that the cops would no longer be intimidating.
  1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
    
    If that many people carried openly, the cops would be intimidated.
    
    Which is why open carry, while being technically legal in most places, pretty much guarantees an arrest on charges that will be dropped in the morning.
    1. robc 13 years ago
      
      Ive seen no evidence of that. Cops will harass open carriers in Louisville/Lexington/Covington, but not arrest them.
      1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        Where I'm at carrying openly pretty much guarantees a night in jail for disorderly or disturbing the peace. That's if they don't find anything after they search you a few times and run you for warrants.
      2. sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        Round here someone exercising their right to carry openly results in a flood of calls to 911, and the cops take the guy off the street so the lines don't get jammed.
        
        It's not so much a case of the cops being dicks as the peasants sounding the alarm.
        
        Loki 13 years ago
        
        It's not so much a case of the cops being dicks as the peasants sounding the alarm being whiny little pussies.
        
        FTFY
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        I though that was implied by the word "peasants".
  2. Tulpa 13 years ago
    
    Cops are intimidating not because they have a gun, but because they can kidnap or shoot you and the presumption of society will be that you deserved it. Unlike a random open carrying "civilian".
P Brooks 13 years ago

No biases, here.

But seeing the whole open-carry picture from a regular person's standpoint tells another story.

Simply seeing someone carrying a handgun, rifle or shotgun can cause fear among the unarmed. If I were to see someone with a .45 strapped to his hip, I'd have no idea who that person is and what his intentions are and would get out of there quick.

A police officer wouldn't run, but she certainly would want to know the same thing.

No "regular person" would swagger around with a big ol' hog leg; that man iss definitionally insane.

Which is why we need a Pistol Packin' Momma With a Badge to save us from scary deniers of the Communitarian Consensus.
1. Brian D 13 years ago
  
  "If I were to see someone with a .45 strapped to his hip, I'd have no idea who that person is and what his intentions are and would get out of there quick."
  
  By contrast, seeing no pistol in a stranger's possession grants me immediate knowledge of their identity and intentions.
2. Tulpa 13 years ago
  
  I'm pretty sure that armed robbers would go out of their way to conceal their weapons until it's time to do the deed. Crazed murderers don't care about the law and aren't likely to submit to a police officer's commands if he interrupts their plans, just shoot him.
  
  So basically, unless you want to shoot open carriers on sight, you're not really gaining much by getting hot and bothered about it.
Gus 13 years ago

Hundreds of threats for assault victim in case dismissed by Quran-minded judge

Ernest Perce told The Daily Caller that Talaag Elbayomy, a Muslim man, "grabbed me, choked me from the back, and spun me around to try to get my sign off that was wrapped around my neck."

Elbayomy reportedly admitted to a police officer, Sgt. Bryan Curtis, that he attempted to rip Perce's fake beard off, remove his "Muhammed of Islam" sign and choke him.

Last week Judge Mark Martin sided with Perce's attacker, saying in open court that Perce would be put to death in Muslim societies for showing disrespect to Muhammad. The judge dismissed the charges against Elbayomy.

"You're way outside your boundaries of First Amendment rights," the judge said during the trial.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02.....z1nazBpFoB
1. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  This is so much crazy that there has to be a more rational explanation.
  1. Sparky 13 years ago
    
    Don't be so sure of that.
  2. The Pointer-Outer 13 years ago
    
    The future of America.
2. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  A tarring and feathering is in order for the judge. He should also have to hang on the stockades for a couple of days while people throw rotten vegetables and fruit at him.
  
  This is EXACTLY what the First Amendment is for.
  
  "Urge to kill... rising!"
3. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  Someone else's view
  
  This link was posted in the comments of the daily caller. The writer is definitely taking the side of the Judge.
4. Ring 13 years ago
  
  Remind me again Reasonoids how we should open our borders and ridicule those who would warn against the transformation of society and culture?
Gus 13 years ago

Hey Reason. Your 900 character limit sucs ass!
Carmen D?az 13 years ago

This is like the worst chat room ever.
Joe M 13 years ago

My second son was born yesterday, and for the second time, I am unable to brag about him being delivered by our ObGyn, who is Ron Paul's daughter. My wife had borderline "precipitous labor" as they call it, and delivered less than twenty minutes after we arrived at the hospital, before our doc could even make it up there. The first son wasn't delivered by our ObGyn because she was hosting a Super Bowl party and wasn't on call. Crummy libertarian luck...
1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
  
  Congrats, man. Where's my gar?
2. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
  
  What's even worse is that you and your old lady probably missed the Academy Awards.
  1. Loki 13 years ago
    
    I'd call that win-win.
3. JW 13 years ago
  
  Congrats, old man!
4. jacob 13 years ago
  
  CONGRATS!!!
  
  I'm also happy that Ron Paul's daughter is carrying on the faith.
5. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  Thanks all. And no, contractions started at 2:30 am and the baby was born just before 6am, so we had plenty of time. I got to see Sasha Baron Cohen dump Bisquick on Ryan Seacrest, which was all the Oscars I needed.
Angelina Jolie's Right Leg 13 years ago

Hey, pay attention to me. PAY ATTENTION TO ME! I SHAVED FOR THIS FUCKING EVENT. LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOOOOOKATMEEEEEEEE!
1. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  It worked.
2. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  She is just trying to make Heather Mills jealous.
3. JW 13 years ago
  
  Is this the new Tebowing?
4. Angelina Jolie's Left Leg 13 years ago
  
  Hey, at least you get to go out once in a while. *sniff* And get a load of this beard. I look like Rip Van Leg.
5. Ice Nine 13 years ago
  
  Exploring new frontiers in skankiness. The gross tattoos apparently weren't sufficient for her.
  1. RoboCain 13 years ago
    
    Oh, you!
P Brooks 13 years ago

"You're way outside your boundaries of First Amendment rights," the judge said during the trial.

So, you don't have to know anything about the law to be a judge; that's my takeaway.
Mr. FIFY 13 years ago

Wow... who knew Muslims carried their grudges long past their shelf-life date, let alone over trivial bullshit like accidentally burning a book of their belief system?

/snark.
1. MNG 13 years ago
  
  I was curious, the President apologized for the burning of the books, has the Afghan President for the murders of US soldiers in anger over the burning of the books?
  1. Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
    
    Good point, MNG.
  2. AuH20 13 years ago
    
    Oh, silly silly MNG. Of course not!
    
    You see, it's just their culture to be backasswards fucks. And no culture is better than any other.
    
    Seriously, I've said it before and I'll say it again: We could win in Afghanistan. But we simply lack the will, as a society, to do what it takes.
    
    For starters, when shit like this happens, we kill 10 of theirs for every one of ours.
    
    However, the US doesn't want to do that. It wants to occupy nicely. So we become all carrot and no stick, and the carrot that we offer is one that a lot of them find detestable (education for all? EVEN WOMEN?!)
    1. Fluffy 13 years ago
      
      But we simply lack the will, as a society, to do what it takes.
      
      Why would we? For the sake of saying we won?
      
      That's utterly valueless.
      
      If you want to encourage me to have the "will" to kill 10 civilians every time an Afghani kills a US soldier, you're going to have to give me a reason why.
      
      There's nothing in Afghanistan worth even cursory effort or minor costs. That means there damn sure isn't anything there worth whipping up a Mongol fucking invasion for.
      
      "You simply lack the will to increase your efforts despite the absence of any benefit to doing so!"
      1. T 13 years ago
        
        I disagree, Fluffy. We need to build a giant pyramid of skulls for the same reason the Golden Horde did: pour encourager les autres. But once we build that pyramid, we need to walk away. Whether or not we make explicit the threat of coming back and doing it again if necessary I leave to the professional Foreign Service types.
        
        Why we're still in Afhghanistan is what baffles me.
        
        sarcasmic 13 years ago
        
        You've heard of the Social Contract, right?
        
        It's where one generation pays for the last generation's retirement, and by doing so obligates the next generation to pay for theirs?
        
        Well, there's something like that in the military.
        
        Who do you think runs the companies that do the military contracting? That's right. Retired brass. They make millions of dollars doing it.
        There must always be some sort of conflict going on so that retired brass can make bank as contractors.
        
        That's why we're still in Afghanistan. To line the pockets of retired generals and admirals.
  3. sloopyinca 13 years ago
    
    He's asked for calm, which is about as close as we're going to get to an apology.
    
    Of course, if you look at the ledger, we're still way ahead on the number of innocent Afghanis we've killed since GWB got mus involved. Hell, we've likely killed more of their children in mistargeted bombs in the last three years than they've killed of our soldiers in the entire war.
  4. Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    I actually don't think that would be appropriate.
    
    We pre-define every last Afghani who takes any action opposing the occupation whatsoever as a member of the Taliban.
    
    Therefore, according to the terms of our own propaganda it's definitional that Karzai could never have to apologize. As soon as someone attacks a member of the US military, it proves that they were members of the Taliban. How can you expect Karzai to apologize for the actions of the Taliban?
  5. Ring 13 years ago
    
    Seriously though, who thought it was a good idea to burn the things without a covert operation first transporting them out of country in the middle of the night?
2. Tulpa 13 years ago
  
  We invaded and occupied their country for 10 years and counting over the fact that their former government allowed the guy who planned and bankrolled 9/11 to live there for a while.
  
  If anyone's holding grudges past their expiration date...
  1. Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
    
    I'd say "ask Theo van Gogh", Tulpa, but he's kinda dead. Ask Salman Rushdie what kind of life he's had with a death sentence hanging over his head over writing a fucking mere fiction novel.
    
    That kind of shit, and the accidental Koran-burning, are what I was getting at.
    
    Being pissed off over being invaded, I can understand. The other shit?
    1. Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
      
      Forgot the outrage over cartoonists drawing funny pictures of Mohammed.
      
      How fucking stooopid is that?
R C Dean 13 years ago

This would be an ideal time to ask Karzai if he wants us to stay, or just pack it all up and go home.

If he says the latter (which he just about has to, given the Muslim Street and all), then I say we oblige him. Really, we don't have a choice. Can't stay in a country when the Maximum Leader has told you to leave, unless you want to go to war with him.
1. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  Why ask. Turn off the money tap today, move the troops ASAP.
2. Loki 13 years ago
  
  Why bother asking? Just pack up and leave the stone-age backwards fucks to rot in the hell on earth they've made for themselves. Fuck them all with a stick, why should we care?
  1. R C Dean 13 years ago
    
    Why bother asking?
    
    Political cover.
3. GILMORE 13 years ago
  
  R C Dean|2.27.12 @ 11:19AM|#
  This would be an ideal time to ask Karzai if he wants us to stay
  
  I think the broad consensus is that Karzai would be dead the second we ceased propping him up. His 'opinion' is not particularly relevant, or reflective of the afghan 'people's will'. At best he's a puppetshow that makes our continued presence in the country have some semblance of purpose, a simulacra of 'nation-state-ness'...the appearance of having established nominal 'governance'.
  
  And rioting in Afghanistan /= 'muslim street'. there is no street. There's a dirt goat track. And no one uses it because its been mined since 1986.
  
  as per below comment = we've passed far beyond the point where our 'war cliches' have any connection to reality anymore. The joke has stopped being funny.
4. romulus augustus 13 years ago
  
  But as one of the doofuses on Fox and Friends said this morning, "We can't do that or do you want more people flying airplanes into buildings?"
  Since we can't watch all the sick aholes that might do that, then why doesn't Fox just advocate shutting down the airline industry?
GILMORE 13 years ago

Taliban Attacks U.S. Base in Retaliation for Burnt Koran

Do they really need an excuse anymore?...I mean, isn't the only relevant detail there in the "attacks" bit? What about all the times they attacked *before* the book got burned? Was the motivation completely different then?

I think we're doing a bit of narrative superimposing. Might as well say, "Taliban attack US soldiers because its Monday"

I'm really starting to think that we've completely worn out a number of our "war cliches" - example =

"A key part of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is training-up Afghan security forces and government ministries so the country can stand on their own."

Yeah, its really kind of a bitch when the "standing on their own" part involves the policemen you just trained and equipped *murdering your senior officers* the first opportunity they get.
1. Loki 13 years ago
  
  "Taliban attack US soldiers because its Monday"
  
  Afghan social calender
  Sunday: Riots, angry because of [circle all that apply: Muhammed cartoons, western decadence, korans burned, teh jooz, other:___________]
  Monday: Looting, enraged
  Tuesday: Arson, incensed
  Wednesday: more riots, apoplectic
  Thursday: Throw acid in school girls' faces, pissed off
  Friday: more looting, still pissed
  Saturday: Harvest poppies for opiates (seasonal), mildly enraged (gotta take it easy once in a while, right?)
  
  I made the same joke on Friday's P.M. links, but it still works.
  1. Team Blue 13 years ago
    
    But... but... abortion-clinic bombings happening many times a day! Timothy McVeigh! Uh... Christian Taliban!!!!one!1!!eleventy!!!exclamation po!nt!!!
    1. Fluffy 13 years ago
      
      If the US was occupied by Afghanistan, I would certainly hope that shit would blow up every single day.
      
      Screw that taking Saturday off shit. Bring in a special Saturday shift.
  2. Killazontherun 13 years ago
    
    You forgot the Saturday night entertainment of dancing adolescent boys dressed in veils. That's one way to get around the prohibition on women dressing immodestly, but I would burn my so called holy book before doing that.
2. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  "A key part of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is training-up Afghan security forces and government ministries so the country can stand on their own."
  
  Christ, they've had nearly ten years. That's longer than it takes to train up a fucking neurosurgeon. If they haven't learned by now, they ain't gonna.
  1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
    
    Christ, they've had nearly ten years thirty centuries. That's longer than it takes to train up a fucking neurosurgeon go from living in huts to building suburbs full of McMansions. If they haven't learned by now, they ain't gonna.
    
    FIFY!
  2. Isaac Bartram 13 years ago
    
    Unfortunately we adopted the nation-building route to keep our NATO allies on board in order to maintain the appearance of the "consent of the international community".
    
    I am still of the opinion that a punative raid to neutralize al-Qaeda and to punish the Taliban was all that was required. Bin Laden's head on a pike would have been a bonus but not really essential for the excercize.
    
    Instead of leaving Afghanistan with al-Qaeda in shambles, a chastened Taliban (less likely to harbor Arabs) and acceptable losses we hung around "rebuilding" the place.
    
    Now after ten years our NATO allies have lost their will and are withdrawing (in all fairness it is the home front that is tiring not the military personel themselves) we face a situation where the instant we leave a reinvigorated Taliban will send our puppet to his reward.
3. Pip 13 years ago
  
  You know who else burned books?
  1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
    
    The Nazis?
    1. o3 13 years ago
      
      republicans?
Killazontherun 13 years ago

Imminent domain abuse and Keystone:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.....hp?ref=fpa
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Nagapatnam ? India, 17th July, 1702
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Dear Husband,
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

I honestly hope this letter finds you well, please offer the best welcome to Mijnheer Abbott, our neighbor who has so kindly offered to deliver this letter to you as he was going to sail to my dear country.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

From a wife to a husband I wish your rage has stormed away by now. Strong, spiteful words were written in your last letter. They were meant, as you said, to bring a high-born wife back to the honesty and decency she should have never left. Did I?
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

What is respectable? A life without pleasure means decency, or may it mean death? And how can one live a life that is dead already?
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Is honesty the murder of pleasure and desire? Or it may be more honest to take pleasure in what life gives us, our bodies too?
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Yesterday I went out for seeing a bit of this lovely country. Neela is my maid, a lovely young girl around the age of eighteen. She dresses in a white gown as all servants do and walks like a feather on the wooden floor. She is a good company, good at conversation and good at her chores. The Marquise surely picked the right girl to serve me, yet I like to treat the servants with more familiarity than she does.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

This country is so warm and beautiful that exploring it without a local guide is like smelling a rose without being able to feel its scent, for this reason Neela often joins me into my promenades out of our residence.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

The warm humid air embraces our bodies in a wet hug, sometimes with a light breeze from the ocean tickling drops of sweat on our foreheads. Indian women wear colored sarees fluttering in the breeze, no corsets but a small blouse; what a difference from our strict undergarments!
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

I can only imagine how fluidly those colored vests fall on the floor showing perfect ebony bodies, not like our laces and petticoats, leaving a caricature in fluffy cotton.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Yesterday we left home early morning; the air was still fresh enough to take a long stroll. Neela was with me, walking side by side. The Marquise advised me this habit of letting the servants out with me and allowing them to walk by my side, not a few steps behind me, was going to create some minor scandal through the good society. They are just blind, unhappy people craving for a satisfaction of any kind, so poor inside that they can only take it out on the servants!
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

We walked in front of our fort, from which the Official in charge controls all the trades, then headed to the Temple. It will sound strange, dear husband, how I love that temple. All the figures carved in the rock, attractive unknown gods entering into the most human activities.
Neela tells me tales of her gods from time to time. Each god has had a life, with passions and flaws; martyrdom is not their only value. Can you believe couples too are carved into statues, or painted on walls? As if our churches could ever host a husband taking his young wife. Our old society can only learn from these natives, and then we will see how valuable was the freedom we have lost for the sake of a strict etiquette.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

In front of the temple there is a market, families mix with merchants, selling produce of their own gardens or goods just arrived from the land. Women in colored sarees happily mix in a swirl of colors and languages, tasting, touching and haggling over the price.
It is a sea of colors, sounds and scents, big sweaty merchants and women who use fragrant spices on their skin. There are so many unknown powders, fruits and roots peeping from baskets, attracting our attention. Smooth, firm mangoes their fibrous sweet pulp showing up bright yellow or red colored litchis with the pointy hard shell protecting the white pulp around the ebony seed; there is so much bounty to choose from.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

As the sun was getting higher into the sky the pleasant breeze from the sea faded and I started to feel tired. Neela pointed me to a group of banyan trees making quite a shelter from the road. There I sat on the grass and watched the hummingbird flying in a frenzy around flowers. The long beak entering the flower, barely touching it, sipping the nectar then gracefully fly to the next flower.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Hummingbirds have nothing to hide, neither their shiny feather nor their making love to the flowers. They are a banquet for the senses to watch, sin would be hiding them.
As I was lost in my thought over the hummingbirds my mind returned to the Temple gods, the sculpted figures and their poses.
The image of those two gods standing with their legs entwined stood in my mind, how lucky was the goddess, engaged in an eternal kiss of stone she had hosted the divine cock for centuries. Other two gods were watching the scene, with a badly hidden interest. Maybe Neela could tell me if they all took part in that mythological orgy. Lucky gods, for they can have all it is forbidden to us.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Lost in those thoughts my hand had started wandering on my corset and started tickling a breast. Lifted my skirts, aided by the privacy given by the tree and bushes sheltering our private spot, and touched my most intimate parts to send a thrill through my body.
Indeed, I was wet and my breasts were strictly closed under the corset, begging for freedom. Neela was laying on her side, her quiet dark eyes staring what I was doing. I asked her to help me with the corset, definitely too strict for that heat and sat up enough to let her access the laces on my back.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

You could never imagine, my dear Husband, what the dear Neela did. I felt her breath on my neck and her soft lips kissing it. I turned surprised and caught her cheeky smile. She said "If Madam will allow ..." and did not finish the sentence, for I had allowed her already by returning the smile.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

My corset came off and her thin fingers closed in a cup around my breast; what a vision! Her ebony fingers on my pale white skin, her mouth on my neck, kissing and arousing inch by inch as she was undressing me.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Her tongue nibbled and tickled one nipple, then moved on the other, with a twirling motion she bought me close to ecstasy, once, twice, she did it over and over leaving me panting for more after each time. In my eyes I could only see the pointy hibiscus flowers, carefully attended by hummingbirds, just as my breasts.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Her hands moved as feathers on my body, removing garments and leaving my pale skin exposed to the warm exotic air. I sat up and helped her undress; her full breasts were hanging free under her white cotton dress, and the big nipples were pointing to my mouth just as if they were calling for attention. When I got closer to suck one I felt the scent of spices, of almond and turmeric the local women use on their skin, mace, or cinnamon maybe. They were a drug to the senses, penetrating my nostrils and my mind, attracting my lips to fondle that ebony skin.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Neela's dress fell on the grass and my lips approached her crotch, what a pleasure. A smell of freshly caught fish mixing with cinnamon and other spices, my dear Husband, what a pleasure we are forbidden. Neela laid on the grass spreading her legs, showing her secrets, you should have seen those lips, darker than the rest of her skin, slightly wrinkled, soft and juicy under my tongue. The warm moist center in the middle, dark pink and wet of a white humor, inviting my tongue to probe deeply, then move up to the pinhead over it.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

She called me to straddle her face so she could, "return the favor Madam is doing to her," I did not waste time and moved as she directed me.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Two of my fingers plunged deep into her opening, her hips moved to meet my hand, the palm grinding on the little needle tip. What a contrast were my pale fingers against her tanned skin, how inviting was that opening, I dipped my tongue in it.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

I tasted her juices, moved my tongue inside and felt more of them dripping in my mouth.
Neela reacted arching her back and moaning softly, that excited me so much I sealed my lips around her cunt, explored and sucked with passion. Any time I would push my tongue in Neela moaned; I wanted her moans to never stop so I didn't leave her flower until her legs trapped my head in place on her groin.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

She was holding me between her strong tanned thighs, grabbing my hair with a hand so my tongue couldn't leave her groin. It was like convulsions shook her, so close to reaching her final pleasure. My fingers, my face, they were all coated in her juices and I was feeling so hot and wet myself.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

She came like a wave, grabbing my head so strong I thought she could pull it off. My fingers inside her cunt felt her inner muscles throbbing, then every muscle of her body contracted and she let out one final loud moan before collapsing, panting heavily, just as if a demon, or a god, had just possessed her.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

I stood back a little and feasted on the view of her naked body, smooth colored skin. My own body was reclaiming attention and my pussy was now dropping juices all over my thighs, so my hand slipped under my garments and started rubbing my most intimate place.
Standing on my knees I opened my legs as wide as my unacceptable clothing would allow me and dipped three fingers into my pussy, used them to furiously fuck my own cunt, as if they could be the most amazing tool of a man. I reached my own pleasure quickly, for I was already far on that path.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

The scents, the sight, all came to my senses and pleasure took a hold of me, rushing, gushing and owning my body as if the same demon that owned Neela had moved into my body. I collapsed near my trusted maid and must have needed some time to regain consciousness.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

I must tell you, my dear Husband. The pleasures of this world have always been forbidden to us, but no more! A life with no pleasure I will have no more.
Mijnheer Abbott will deliver this letter into your safe hands but our home country and its silent rules will see me no more. The time of six months the doctor had prescribed me that dark day in Rotterdam is up, but the Sereniteit will sail back home without me.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

The few coppers I had sent you from my last adventure were returned. I once again enclose them into this last letter, in the hope you will use them as a payment for my services, as a loyal yet not pleasure-deaf wife, when you will take your pleasure from me. Otherwise may they just be a help to the distant memory of a once well-known person.
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

With love,
Vote American (1969) 13 years ago

Margriet

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