Republicans Prepare for Illinois Primary, France Raises Terror Alert Level, Pirate Bay Plans "Server Drones": P.M. Links

• Hey! There's another important primary tomorrow! This one is in Illinois! Also here is Real Clear Politics' candidate averages if you're some kind of horse-race-following politico weirdo obsessive.

• Horrible French shootings — apparently by the same person or at least the same weapon — leads to France raising its terror alert to their highest level.
• Rick Santorum, equally amazing politicians, "as important" as Tank Man says 1994 Rick Santorum.
• "The state doing the best? New Jersey." Guess before you click. It's not a New Jersey joke, I swear.
• Supreme Court to consider question of sperm and survivor's benefits for children born after dad's death.
• The only place in Mexico where you can legally buy a gun.
• Pirate Bay claims they will start flying "server drones" in order to evade law enforcement.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Rick Santorum, equally amazing politicians, "as important" as Tank Man says 1994 Rick Santorum.

In that they have the same potential to block other people's forward progress.

[Pro Libertate]

Wish the Chinese hadn't executed Tank Man. Not just because I wish he'd hadn't been killed at all, but also because it would be nice to know what, exactly, he said to the guys in the tank.

And I loved the "horse-race-following politico weirdo obsessive" remark, Lucy.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I don't think we know that he was caught, do we? I remember reading that the commies never found him.

[Ice Nine]

It's not known. It is known that he was hustled away by ordinarily-dressed people. There is conjecture that they were sympathetic bystanders who knew they had to get him out of there. It is also very possible that they were police. Long live Tank Man. (I was in Beijing last summer and made a pilgrimage to and stood on the spot where that photo took place - as close as you can get to it now anyway, given the pedestrian/traffic barriers. That'll give you goosebumps.)

[R]

Yeah, I read the alt-text before I read the links, and had some slight hope that maybe tank man had been found and was still alive. No such luck.

[db]

I tried to get to that spot back in December but found the traffic and barriers hard to get through. When I was there you couldn't even get into Tianenmen Square without going through metal detectors and the whole thing was cordoned off with portable metal fencing.

[Maxxx]

Sounds like DC.

[Pro Libertate]

I don't think there's 100% certainty about what happened to him, but the best bet is they got him and killed him. He'd be a huge rallying point for anti-government forces there, after all.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Meh. I heard Ice Nine stood in the same spot and as far as I know he's still around.

[Pro Libertate]

I heard the same thing, too.

[sloopyinca]

dunphy will probably be along soon to tell us that he was, in fact, Tank Man.

[sloopyinca]

In his pre-Morgan Fairchild days, of course.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The only place in Mexico where you can legally buy a gun.

The trunk of Eric Holder's car.

[Voros McCracken]

{rimshot}

[Almanian SWATzi]

*mistakes rimshot for gunshot, starts spraying lead in Voros' general direction*

[Voros McCracken]

You killed my dog!

[SugarFree]

Bravo, Fistie.

[T]

Last time I read about Mexico's only legal gun store, the article (from WaPo) also mentioned that most people buy them illegally from cops. But, it's the lax US gun laws that are the problem!

[Sandinistas]

The liberal Hollywood left bought us so many guns we had far more than we needed so we sold the Mexicans our surplus. Odd though, the Hollywood liberals who bought us guns also campaigned against you possessing any. I'll have to ask my good friend Ed Asner about that one.

[Brett L]

When 100 years old you reach, look this good you will not.

"He doesn't drink or smoke, and centenarian Manohar Aich credits his longevity to a healthy lifestyle in which he minimizes stress and focuses on happiness.

Aich won the Mr. Universe international bodybuilding championship in 1952. He celebrated his 100th birthday on Sunday surrounded by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Kolkata, an eastern city in India."

[Zeb]

Clean living and good habits will get you to your 80s or 90s. Only luck and good genes gets you past 100.

[Brett L]

The dude can still get his fists up over his shoulders to flex. He's a badass.

[Francisco d Anconia]

From here to the eyes and the ears of the 'Verse, that's my motto, or it might be if I start having a motto.

[Brett L]

Also, if Arnold has any class at all, he's chartering a plane to India as we speak.

(If you didn't RTFA, Mr. Universe '52 said he'd like to meet him.)

[MP]

Times have changed. Bodybuilders in general aren't known for their stature. But to win at 4'11"? Inconceivable, even in then late 1960's.

[Suki]

France's highest level, of course, is a white flag.

[R]

No, that's the second highest level. The highest level is "collaborate".

[Fist of Etiquette]

"We're going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air," MrSpock wrote. "This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war."

Ready the RIAA SAMs!

[lurker]

The pirate bay article was kind of dumb - those servers are going to need a high bandwidth connection to the internet - it is not clear from the article how they plan to accomplish that from a drone. Also, the article references:

Raspberry Pi, a $35 micro computer the size of a thumb drive

Very well, but they won't be able to host much content with a Raspberry Pi without some big, heavy and power-hungry spinning disk drives.

[Corneliusm]

Piratebay has migrated to hosting magnet links rather than hosting .torrent files. The entire collection is less than 100 MB.

[lurker]

Interesting - you probably could host that on a cluster of Raspberry Pis - maybe the drone idea is not so bad after all. I still don't know how they will get internet connectivity however, even if they won't need as much bandwidth as I had assumed they would need.

[Fist of Etiquette]

With magnet links they are clear once clients get the url, I believe. The central servers are out of it at that point.

[lurker]

With magnet links they are clear once clients get the url, I believe. The central servers are out of it at that point.

Yes, that sounds right. But they will still need internet connectivity to be able to serve the magnet links. So they won't need the kind of bandwidth they'd need if they were serving content (instead of links), but they still need a connection.

[Almanian]

Two things:

1) CAPTION: "I iz standin in ur roadz, blockin ur tankz"

2) LUUUUUUUUUUCY!

[Brett L]

The real caption is: "My left nut could be used for a tank shell."

[Almanian]

"Scuze me - can you terr me where I find Orympic Virrage?"

[Rodney Dangerfield's Ghost]

No respect at all!

[Lucy Steigerwald]

Dude, were you just racist about Tank Man?

...

I don't condone it in general, but do stick with being racist about North Korean dictators if you're going that way. Just my general advice.

[JW]

Ruh roh.

/scooby

[Fist of Etiquette]

Everyone knows that Chinese is not a race, it's a nationality. Or maybe this is the kind of place where everyone thinks all Orientals have to be China-men. Yeah, now who's the racist?

[fried wylie]

Chinese is not a race

not a language either.

[db]

Some of the Japanese folks I met would differ. I had it explained to me very matter-of-factly that Chinese are not the same race as Japanese and Koreans. I was somewhat dumbfounded.

[Libertarian2]

Just exactly when did making fun of accents become "racist"?? German accent. Racist? French accent. Racist? Japanese? Mexican? English? Australian? Irish? Canadian? What are the rules? And do they apply to regions? Is a Jersey accent racist? An Alabama accent? It's political correctness gone mad. And on a web page with the Koolaid guy coming out of the twin towers?

[HeroicMulatto]

Just exactly when did making fun of accents become "racist"?

I dunno, around the time one is 7 or 8?

[Brett L]

Ceelo Green secret Republican?

"Singer Cee Lo Green, best known for his solo career and his work in the musical duo Gnarles Barkley, was entertaining guests at the $500-per-ticket event at Tyler Perry Studios when he prepared to launch into a performance of his song "Forget You."

There was only one problem. Green decided, apparently at the last minute, to sing the uncensored and decidedly unpresidential version of the song ? titled "Fuck You" ? instead.

Before he began the profane song, though, Green attempted to exercise due diligence by flipping off the crowd and asking into his microphone, "Can I cuss?" "

[shrike]

Aww, hell. That is more desperate than the fake Fast/Furious nontroversy.

Wingnuts need to latch onto a real issue that bites Obama in the ass. Like medical marijuana!

I voted for that fucker and he SUCKS ASS on M/MJ! FUCK YOU OBAMA/HOLDER!

[Dead Mexicans]

Can a nontroversy kill us?

[Zeb]

Cee-lo is great. This makes me like him even more.

It must be really weird to write a hit song and then have to play the inferior censored version all the time. He won a friggin grammy for a song he was not allowed to perform at the Grammys.

[Brett L]

Yeah, I mostly think, 'good on him'. Now, the people who booked him? Dumbasses. Tyler Perry is probably in the market for a new executive assistant.

[fried wylie]

"In other news, Monster.com disclosed today that all users looking for EA/AA positions have mysteriously closed their accounts."

[Suki]

Rush spoke of that early in his show today.

[shrike]

Suck his tiny diseased cock now!

Do your duty!

[fried wylie]

Supreme Court to consider question of sperm and survivor's benefits for children born after dad's death.

You just pick the next name in the phone book, duh.

[Xenocles]

For those keeping score, that would be survivors' benefits for children who didn't survive the benefactor. That ties it up semantically but I don't know if the law actually says something else like "descendants" - that might have a case.

[Fist of Etiquette]

SPOILER

Despite ? or perhaps because of ? recent corruption scandals, New Jersey got the top ranking because of steps it took to combat corruption, including tough ethics and anti-corruption laws it adopted in response.

That's like praising Microsoft for Windows Updates.

[Brett L]

Or talking about how much better XP was than ME.

[Almanian]

"And now for the 'Congratulations for Not Beating Your Head Against A Wall Anymore' awards..."

[T]

Buy that measure, when you stop beating your wife you become husband of the year material.

[sasob]

Speaking of Windows Updates - if their opperating system and browser get any bigger, it's going to take a second computer just to load the damn thing.

[Pro Libertate]

That's a brilliant idea and would save the PC manufacturing industry.

[Pope Jimbo]

Ah the good old days of installing a math coprocessor.

Maybe you could install the Raspberry Pi to handle your IE cache. And you'd be Pirate Bat compatible.

[Pip]

Also here is Real Clear Politics' candidate averages if you're some kind of horse-race-following politico weirdo obsessive. (e.g., Tim Cavanaugh)

[Lucy Steigerwald]

Shhhhh.

[shrike]

Obama today would win 390 EVs. Intrade has him a 3-2 favorite.

Romney is a stuffed dildo. One must use wrist action to gain satisfaction since he cannot defend any of his "beliefs".

[John]

Links to these state by state polls?

[Joe M]

RCP has a lot of them. I've seen at least one site with pretty up-to-date state-by-state numbers.

[John]

But RCP's poll numbers are all over the place. It depends on who does the poll.

[Joe M]

Okay, and? You asked for state by state polls.

[Joe M]

Here are a few sites:

Map based on InTrade

Site you can change the totals with.

[Xenocles]

At least show us the map that led you to that figure.

[shrike]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.....on_results

Only 365 from 2008 but now Texas is in play due to the anti-Latino GOP.

Obama would win TX today due to the GOP's racist anti-immigrant stance.

[Brett L]

Oh, please. TX is not in play. That's a fantasy.

[shrike]

I didn't think North Carolina was in play back in 2008.

Seriously, I thought it safe (R) back then.

[shrike]

Fact is this.

Latinos + educated whites = Dem wins.

You have to dip into the rednecks to find a safe GOP demo.

[Cytotoxic]

Texas in play? AHAHAHAH

[Xenocles]

No, I have to agree. That's really stupid.

[Matthew P]

"We are angry that something like this could happen," said Claude Kilian, a retired man living in the neighborhood. "I didn't expect such hate crimes to happen in France."

Why does Claude think this is a "hate crime"?

[Claude Kilian]

Mon Dieu! J'ai voulu dire le "crime de col?re"!

[Zeb]

And why wouldn't you think that "hate crime" would happen in France.

It's cute when Europeans still think that Americans are more racist than they are.

[Jerry]

The French are pretty much the inventors of political anti-semitism.

[JW]

Fish don't know they're in water.

[Bill Gates]

I didn't expect such hate crimes to happen in France.

*Blink, blink, blink*

You didn't expect such hate crimes to happen in France?

In France, home of the original socialist pogrom, the Reign of Terror?

France, the home of the Dreyfuss Affair?

France, where the Vichy government willingly handed over Jews to the Nazis for extermination?

Surely you jest, monsieur.

[Wizardo Grande KKK]

Good news if you hate black people. New York set to raise it's minimum wage by 1.25 an hour.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/b.....DSrzoChwOI

[Zeb]

It doesn't apply to poor white people?

[Wizardo Grande KKK]

Not 'bout po anything, ignoramus. Those slick dark devils will undercut the white man's bid every time.

[John F. Kennedy]

"Having on the market a rather large source of cheap labor [hundreds of thousands of black workers] depresses wages outside of that group, the wages of the white worker who has to compete.

When an employer can substitute a colored worker at a lower wage, it affects the whole wage structure of an area, doesn't it? There are, as you pointed out, hundreds of thousands of colored workers looking for decent work."

[Almanian]

Pirate Bay claims they will start flying "server drones" in order to evade law enforcement.

I hear there are some homeless people in the Austin, TX area with experience in this field that work for tips. Probably cheaper than drones...jes sayin...

[Almanian]

"I am a Server,
and I am the 99%"

[Lotta Dedfolks]

"It's whether children who are born after the father's death gets benefits," Scalia said.

Uh, no. No, it is not.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Karen Capato used the frozen sperm of her deceased husband to conceive twins, but the government denied them Social Security benefits as their father's survivors.

How much are Social Security survivor benefits, anyway? As opposed to, oh, I don't know, attorney fees?

["The Black Widow"]

Does it have to be frozen sperm?

[John]

he Bloomberg administration is now taking the term "food police" to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city's homeless.

In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can't assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/o.....z1pbBrNYGz

[Zeb]

Wow. So what does this mean? It's better for the homeless to starve than to face the possibility of eating trans-fats or something?

Shit, if there is anywhere where you should be serving whatever you possibly can, I would say homeless shelters are the place.

[SugarFree]

And with food donations blocked, there's more money to be made by the suppliers they buy from.

[John]

Wow, that is a great point. You are not valedictorian of your evil genius class for nothing.

[SugarFree]

I was also voted class clown.

[JW]

Evil clown?

[Pip]

Evil. Clown Genius. Extrordiaire.

[SugarFree]

I will eat the hearts of all your children.

[fried wylie]

Evil clown?

redundant much?

[Francisco d Anconia]

ALL clowns are evil!

[Francisco d Anconia]

Damn I gotta learn to read ahead before posting.

[fried wylie]

Since DHS can't assess the nutritional content of donated food

Those nutritional labels are hard to read. Plus, farmers refuse to print them on produce.

[Joe M]

We're one step closer to SkyNet:

Computer designs video game in which robots hunt and kill humans.

[Almanian]

Oh boy

[Al Calavicci]

Ziggy says you have to prevent the robot apocalypse in order to leap.

[Joe M]

Video of Kony 2012's Jason Russell freaking out.

[John]

The video message of the organization explaining his freakout is comedy gold. The pressure of 500 million people seeing their video apparently caused him to run naked through the streets jerking off.

And I love how his family is denying drugs were involved. Thanks mom. I would think if you did something like that you would want people to think drugs were involved.

[Brett L]

Good point. Must put that in a communication to my family. Always say I got dosed if I end up running around naked in public and jerking off on TMZ. Bad dose of Benadryl at the very least

[John]

If I am ever caught running through the streets naked jerking off, I would rather have people thinking that I got a bad dose of LSD than that is just what I enjoy doing.

[.]

If more people jerked off, the world would be a happier place. It might even chill out those Islamic terrorists.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Mohammed had 15 wives, yet somehow he found time for war, too.

[T]

I loved the 'dehydration and exhaustion' excuse. Last time I was clinically diagnosed with that, I was doing good to stand up, much less run through the streets freaking out with my dick in my hand.

[AuH20]

"Dehydration and exhaustion" are codewords for drugs. Think every rockstar ever who goes to the hospital.

[SugarFree]

Repressed homosexuality is very hard on the psyche.

[John]

No kidding. This is the easiest society in the world to be gay.

[SugarFree]

I saw an interview with him and he struck me as being as queer as a three-dollar bill.

Be out, be proud. He lives in San Diego. Nobody gives a fuck.

[omnibot]

My gaydar went off after 1 sentence.

[omnibot]

The other guy sounds like the teacher from Beavis and Butthead.

[Tony]

Don't I know it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

He knows what he's doing.

[Raston Bot]

Step 1 should've been to link the categories for determining risk of public corruption to actual public corruption.

Illinois should be the benchmark of corruption. You're either above or below. And that Illinois is ranked 10th out of 50 makes me question this report.

Also, Virginia is 47 out of 50 b/c we don't require toothless conflict of interest forms from our pols. Somebody alert Justice!

[Statistician]

It's like trying to determine which neighborhood is the safest by counting the number of bars on the windows.

[Conan]

While we're on the subject of horrific shootings, how about the curious case of the Hispanic -- no, white wannabe cop who shot an unarmed black teenager?

He did something bad, so his identity must be "white."

[Eric Holder]

Or this one.

http://www.thegrio.com/news/ph.....in-bed.php

[Killazontherun]

That USAToday article goes a long way towards setting the 'stand your ground' law up for blame here to the point of getting statements from the fear mongering Brady Campaign assholes.

What Zimmerman did was not so much stand his ground but he actively confronted the kid. So, how do they in any reasonable fashion say his actions are protected under that particular law?

It sounds as if the cops are using the definition of self defense to the extent he has not been charged as it applied before the law. I suspect as much as there are no quotes from the investigative side in the article. Just a lot of irresponsible speculation that particular law will prevent justice from being served without stating how the context of the law applies here. This piece is gun control advocacy in its most disingenuous form.

[USA Today]

We have our narrative, and the facts will fit it whether they want to or not.

[Eduard van Haalen]

What's to explain? An innocent black teenager went to the convenience store to buy Skittles [presumably to give to the patients during his weekly volunteer session at the leper hospital], and then a racist Neighborhood Watch guy [who belongs to the Ku Klux Klan] decided to kill him in the name of White Supremacy.

It's a scandal they haven't arrested the guy already, but then, Jeb Bush probably told the cops not to arrest the honky.

[Cyto]

It didn't sound like "stand your ground" was the basis of the self defense. A 13 year old witness to part of the confrontation says there was a physical altercation with the shooter on the ground before shots were fired.

Random speculation: Neighborhood watch guy confronted 17 year old kid and tried to force him to wait for police to arrive (by threat). Kid sees armed guy at night confront him and (rightly) fears he may be shot. So he jumps him and tries to take the gun away. Death ensues.

Self defense at the moment of trigger pull.... negligent homicide for creating deadly circumstances in the first place.

[Eric Holder]

Mexico, awash in weapons, has just one legal gun store: The US Department of Justice.

[Lauri Osbourne]

Well thats jsut downright crazy dude.

http://www.Anon-Planet.tk

[Lewis H]

Who's a bigger criminal: Robert Bales or Bradley Manning?

[R C Dean]

Michael Bay. Duh.

[Xenocles]

Peyton Manning, obviously.

[mad libertarian guy]

The status quo in DC is peachy fucking keen; it's those fuckers who insist on talking about the low approval rate of congress and who seek substantive change who are the problem.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

The comments on that are expectedly nauseating. Lefties gotta get their CU-free speech hate on.

Also, every time I hear the "oh, Republicans were so nice and reasonable and we never thought anything about them but sunshine and happiness until they were hijacked and brought under the total control of Tea Party extremists" meme I laugh.

[mad libertarian guy]

Agreed. Lefties hate CU except when they do pretzel-like mental gymnastics to make excuses for Dear Leader using them.

To lefties, the Tea Party, despite having no power or any real support outside since it was co-opted by the standard bearers of the GOP, is the root of all evil. Everyone would have a (free) college degree and we'd all have top paying jobs were it not for the Tea Party. Money wouldn't be an issue because, were it not for the Tea Party, Top Men? would have firm control of the market by now.

[Killazontherun]

But the method they are using ? a super PAC that can collect and spend unlimited amounts of money ? is the opposite of good government, and demonstrates the inherent danger in allowing big money to steer election results.

It takes a certain talent and long patient years of trial and error before you can write something that illogical. Both arguments represented in that sentence strangulate any sense of sound meaning. Opposite of good government is bad government, as a super PAC is a difference of kind, not just degrees like a white unicorn versus a black unicorn, the comparison between the two is nonsensical.

This Super PAC not only does not 'demonstrate the inherent danger in allowing big money to steer election results', it strongly undermines that claim. It is an example that a supporter of the Citizen's United case would use to show it in the best light.

[fried wylie]

wouldn't it have been easier to post the Billy Madison trivia game quote?

[Killazontherun]

The hard part was putting it within the White Indian Won We Lost 900 character limit. I had to cut out the 'NYT editorial board are some seriously fucked in the head by a squirrel jamming its dick in their ears dipshits.' Shame when you have to sacrifice the poetry like that.

[mad libertarian guy]

Not to mention that a Super PAC isn't government at all, but citizens who have pooled their money to engage in that quaint notion some refer to as free speech.

[Shocked]

OMG! Without regulations "we don't know if they have personal interests in the outcome of the elections". How the fuck does this idiot write this shit and not realizing what he is saying?

[Greg]

Mexico is nuts. They put practically ban guns and cause chaos; and then blame it on our "lax" gun laws? LAX!?

[P Brooks]

The only place in Mexico where you can legally buy a gun

That is AWESOME.

It's like a Brady bunch wet dream.

[John]

http://www.examiner.com/bob-dy.....ch-19-1962

Fifty years since Dylan's first record.

[P Brooks]

That USAToday article goes a long way towards setting the 'stand your ground' law up for blame here to the point of getting statements from the fear mongering Brady Campaign assholes.

I don't know if that is the one I saw, but I found myself immediately asking, "What the fuck does the 'stand your ground law' have to do with this?"

It's like they have had that article in the can ready to go ever since the law was passed, just waiting for a few details to be inserted later.

[John]

Facts meet predetermined narrative.

[Killazontherun]

Daddy, is it true you use assassination as official policy?

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q.....8zVqboQ4jQ

I mean, that shirt actually means something to the people who wear it, right?

[Killazontherun]

And, what the fuck, Reason? On a side ad here?

http://pagead2.googlesyndicati.....9040496412

Let them know Reason readers are not amused by that ignorant shit.

[R]

Apparently, my Adblock Plus plugin blocked that entire page.

[Ghost]

"We're going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air," MrSpock wrote. "This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war."

And? You think the authorities wouldn't fire a missile at it to take the thing down? Afterwards maybe they could even use a trollface in the press release and say "we did it for the lulz".

[cynical]

I think they see it as a win-win: either the U.S. avoids attacking the drones, or it gets dragged into a war where its casus belli is helping a corrupt industry make money off of the world and its enemies are liberal Western democracies with modern military technology.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Here's some NYT chum I think I'll throw in the water (thanks to Volokh conspiracy):

"Mixed-race blacks have an ethical obligation to identify as black ? and interracial couples share a similar moral imperative to inculcate certain ideas of black heritage and racial identity in their mixed-race children, regardless of how they look....

"With the number of Americans identifying as both black and white having more than doubled in the first decade of this century ? from 785,000 to 1.8 million ? such demographic shifts are bound to shape social policy decisions, playing a role in the setting and reassessing of national priorities at a time when Washington is overwhelmed with debt obligations and forced to weigh special interests and entitlement programs against each other."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03.....gewanted=1

[HeroicMulatto]

Dear Thomas Chatterton Williams,

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

Heroic Mulatto

[Joe M]

I like how he tries to use the opinion of "an older white woman... in the early 1980s" to indict American society in 2012. That women was probably born near the turn of the last century and is long dead. Her beliefs have jack shit to do with us.

[mad libertarian guy]

How else is Team BLUE going to identify people to send their propaganda to?