A.M. Links: Syria Downs Turkish Jet, Greece Calling In Sick, Healthcare Ruling Imminent

• Syria shot down a Turkish military jet after it violated the country's airspace. Turkey says the jet entered Syrian airspace accidentally but was not over Syria anymore when it was shot down. Syria says it downed the jet less than a mile off the coast. Turkey says it will present its findings on the incident to NATO this week.

• Both Greece's prime minister and finance minister are calling in sick for the Euro summit later this week. The finance minister has been hospitalized and the prime minister is having surgery.
• Mohammed Morsi is beginning the process of assuming  power as the Muslim Brotherhood continues to negotiate with Egypt's generals.  "I am today a president for all Egyptians," Morsi said in a national address.
• A TSA screener didn't realize his metal detector wasn't plugged in, causing hours of delays at New York City's JFK International Airport, the New York Post uncovered.
• Jerry Sandusky was found guilty, and he may appeal based on the speediness of the trial.
• An anonymous casino owner gave $1 million worth of $500 bank cards for the United Way in Las Vegas to distribute to the neediest. This has not yet been used in an Obama campaign mailer to explain the insidious use of big money and why you have to donate to them right now!
• An off-duty cop on his way home in the Bronx got caught in the middle of a drive-by after having bottles thrown at him, but was still able to make an arrest.
• The wait for the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare begins again today.

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Reason.TV: "Washington's Parasitic Economy with the Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson"

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The wait for the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare begins again today.

Would it be too much to ask for the whole thing to be overturned and have all those Congressidiots have lost their seats over it be for nothing?

[Ed]

Game over, man

[Brett L]

That gives me an idea for a new Constitutional amendment: Any member of the legislative or executive branch who voted in favor of or signed into law a bill found to be unconstitutional as written shall be immediately expelled from office and barred from ever holding an elected federal office for life.

[Rich]

I'll second that.

[anon]

It's too early in the thread to win, Brett.

[SugarFree]

I'd vote for it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I hope it then gets overturned so we can kick you out. Oh, wait...

[R C Dean]

I like it in principle, but in practice it would probably mean SCOTUS would never strike down another law.

[anon]

How do you figure, Dean? I read that two ways: Either congress will quit passing bullshit laws (yeah, right) or you think that the court is worried about congresscritters' careers (also unlikely).

[R C Dean]

The latter, anon. They can barely bring themselves to strike down laws now. Making it even more punitive won't help any.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm with Mr. Dean--the Court is often first about protecting the government's interests. If not, the tangled, twisted view of the Constitution we have today would've never happened.

The one thing in the favor of sanity with this particular decision is that the courts have paid some lip service to the concept of limited government (all while removing the shackles on government), which could mean this was a bridge too far for them. We'll see.

[Brett L]

I can see that. I'm not really concerned though. I imagine this one will come up for a vote just after legislative term limits in the absence of Constitutional Convention.

[anon]

In other words, definitely after we invade Iran and Syria?

[Brett L]

Yes. Those are in the realm of the possible. The legislative branch voting real limits on its own power -- no fucking way.

The Constitution, then, spells out four paths for an amendment:

Proposal by convention of states, ratification by state conventions (never used)
Proposal by convention of states, ratification by state legislatures (never used)
Proposal by Congress, ratification by state conventions (used once)
Proposal by Congress, ratification by state legislatures (used all other times)

[anon]

Constitution?

Where we're going, we don't need ... constitution.

[Brett L]

+1985

[Joe R.]

+88 mph and +serious shit.

[Emmerson Biggins]

so they should get a bonus instead?

[Lord Humungus]

Tragic online love triangle built on LIES: Two middle-aged lovers who started affair by BOTH posing as teenagers... before torrid romance drove Sunday school teacher to murder 'rival' over woman who didn't EXIST
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....rival.html

okay, who here really isn't a rock superstar/powerlifter?

[Quetzalcoatl]

I bet you're not even really a best-selling author!

[Lord Humungus]

heh.

[Rich]

"In fact, I'm the *president* of the organization."

[Groovus Maximus]

"I'm an *architect*."

[R C Dean]

As a marine biologist . . .

[General Butt Naked]

When I resigned my post as an astronaut and I took a job as a firefighter my wife, Daryl Hannah, was worried about the pay cut. But we still had the lottery winnings and my royalties from writing windows for Bill Gates, so we were okay. I even had time to tour the world with Steven Segal putting on martial arts clinics for poor kids.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Explain it to a Millennial:
Why on earth was Daryl Hannah a big deal?

[Lord Humungus]

Watch Splash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk9xhrjzjXQ

semi-NSFW

[John]

But that will just cause them to ask why Tom Hanks was ever a big deal.

[Lord Humungus]

now that's a good question. His best work was in Bosom Buddies. It's been downhill ever since.

[John]

Volunteers.

[Warty]

Bachelor Party, you morons.

[Ice Nine]

Geez, I'm really no fan but I thought he was excellent in SPR - even though I think casting a superstar for that role was a mistake.

[Ice Nine]

reply to LH

[Groovus Maximus]

His best work was in Bosom Buddies.

Dragnet, The Groovy one hath spoken.

[Timrek]

You are all incorrect.

The Man With One Red Shoe.

It's still used as a training film for US intel services and the TSA. Unfortunately, the real world agencies have yet to reach the competence level shown by the agents portrayed in that movie.

[mr simple]

What, no love for Mazes and Monsters?

[Cyto]

No, his seminal turn as "Uncle Ned" the drunk on "Family Ties" was clearly his best work.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

"C'mon, Alex, don't tell me you're too good to sit down and share a glass of maraschino cherries with me."

[CE]

Joe vs. The Volcano

There's no comparison. I'm surprised to this day the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences overlooked him for that one.

[darius404]

They boo her for BEING NAKED? What sort of backwards people are they?

[Ice Nine]

Too bad her talent was never really utilized - as her Best Supporting-worthy work in the trailer scene demonstrated.

[R C Dean]

Its what she did without support that is so watchable.

[Groovus Maximus]

I didn't figure you a fish tale (ha!) kinda guy, RC. My opinion of you is now...skewed.

[Groovus Maximus]

You know cap l, you have that down so pat, I think you may really be Dunphy!

Let's test this hypothesis:

**Lights DunphySignal**

[alittlesense]

I'm a football-playing King in Outer Space secretly married to Scarlet Johannson so the rest of youse can just envy me......

[CE]

When I resigned my post as an astronaut and I took a job as a firefighter my wife, Daryl Hannah, was worried about the pay cut.

That's where you messed up. You're supposed to work as a firefighter first, preferably in California, so you can retire on a six-figure pension at 45, and THEN go to work as an astronaut.

[invisible furry hand]

Fake Worlds Collide: Woman Posed As a Boy to Seduce a Minor, Then Helped Solve an Online Cancer Hoax

Oh, and I'm really you

[Groovus Maximus]

You're really me, then who is FoE? I thought I was him! And if cap l isn'r really cap l, then you are hime, he is me, and I is I...

Damn, string theory should solve this!

[invisible furry hand]

Calm down, it's all very easy - you are the Walrus

[Groovus Maximus]

This doesn't help me, lass, or does that mean it doesn't help you, since you're really me! Do I pee sitting down or standing up? Are we really in Sweden?

[anon]

Well who the fuck am I?

[anon]

Also: Groovus, I had surgery on my face recently, and now my eyelashes on the bottom lid are curved in towards my eyeball. Do I let them scrape off some of my lip to add under my eyelid? Will it be noticeable from face-to-face conversations?

[Groovus Maximus]

If you are serious, the procedure is called a blepharoplasty, and yes, if that is the case, your lashes growing inward will cause a lifetime of infection and discomfort. I would suggest looking into it.

[anon]

Thanks a lot, just wanted a second opinion without wasting 3 hours to go visit another doctor for him to tell me what you just told me. Would you like me to send you my 25 dollar co-pay? :p

[Groovus Maximus]

Gratis. 🙂

[R C Dean]

Or did you mean "Gracias"?

[Groovus Maximus]

I meant "gratis", RC. I do believe in voluntary charity.

[?Ex Nihilo?]

voluntary charity.

This can't be as I have been told time and time again that no such thing could possibly exist outside of gov coercion.

[R C Dean]

I do believe in voluntary charity.

I'm on to you now, Groovus. You can't fool me. You're no doctor.

[Groovus Maximus]

I'm on to you now, Groovus. You can't fool me. You're no doctor.

Don't worry, RC. I'll make up the difference by charging you out the ass. And kick your ass in golf. Not sure about skeet though.

[R C Dean]

Perhaps I can interest you in a game of skeet golf?

You hit the little white ball.

I shoot the little white ball.

Everybody (well, except you) wins!

[perlhaqr]

I think you just figured out how to make golf interesting!

[Mickey Rat]

Now that's just great, RC, now you've outed the poor guy on a felony rap.

[The Hammer]

Is Groovus Ron Paul?

[Fist of Etiquette]

I'm anonbot's alternate personality. All the clues were there.

[invisible furry hand]

Wow dude thats jsut confusing LOL

[Fatty Bolger]

In December 2011, 14 months after they met online, A.L.'s mother drove her daughter to Corapolis, Pa., to meet James in person for the first time. That night, in a motel room paid for by the mother, Hads, posing as James, sexually assaulted A.L., according to the affidavit.

Mother of the Year.

[Lord Humungus]

Smearing Small Business
Liberals turn on NFIB for challenging ObamaCare in court.
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....on_LEADTop

On the eve of the Supreme Court's ruling on ObamaCare, and with the Justices now presumably beyond political pressure, the liberal intimidation campaign has moved on to other targets. The latest is the small business lobby for having dared to join 26 states in challenging the law.

According to the smear campaign against the National Federation of Independent Business, or NFIB, small businesses are thrilled with the Affordable Care Act and the trade group betrayed the 300,000 companies it represents. Among the dozens of media outlets publishing anti-NFIB op-eds disguised as reporting, Reuters recently asked in a headline, "Who truly speaks for small businesses?" The question mark was superfluous.

[The Hammer]

Jesus Christ. Shameless, state-worshipping assholes.

[RantoYang]

Sounds like a rock solid plan to me dude. Wow.

http://www.Dot-Anon.tk

[hamilton]

Too late Fist, we're onto you now.

[Fist of Etiquette]

My alter forgot to take its medication again.

[sarcasmic]

Let's go to the breastaurant! Breasts? John's there!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....sales.html

[Ice Nine]

He's such a weirdo.

[sarcasmic]

Believe it or not, there is more to a woman then her chest! Really! I'm serious!

[Abdul]

If eyes are the gateway to the soul, then cleavage is the gateway to the hole.

[RBS]

That really is beautiful Abdul, poetry.

[LTC John]

Huh? Wha? Really?!

[Fist of Etiquette]

No matter how hard they try to open their doors to a broader audience, Hooters and its rivals remain the subject of criticism. 'If it's an adult entertainment business, that's fine,' says Mona Lisa Wallace, president of the San Francisco chapter of the National Organization for Women. 'Where they're crossing the line is when they expose young children to the objectification of women.'

BREASTS AND CHILDREN DON'T MIX.

[sarcasmic]

When I was a kid I liked Three's Company because of the gags and physical humor.
Only when I was old enough to understand it did I realize how incredibly stupid it was.

What's my point? Children don't understand sex stuff, and liberals don't understand, well, much of anything outside their emotional reactions.

[wareagle]

NOW hates it when women decide for themselves to work for Hooters or otherwise use certain physical assets. Why do feminists hate women?

[Restoras]

Feminists hate women who look like women.

[Lord Humungus]

+1

[Brett L]

So they've been wholly repurposed as playgrounds? Sweet.

[Killazontherun]

Onion headline:

Why NOW Believes It to be Their Decision to Make Remains a Mystery.

[sloopyinca]

says Mona Lisa Wallace, president of the San Francisco chapter of the National Organization for Women.

I find it hilarious that the woman talking about objectifying women is named after one of the most objectified women of all time...and she chose to keep using her first and middle name, capitalizing on that model's recognition for her own benefit.

[wareagle]

as with all things liberal, it's okay when they do it. If she wants to objectify herself, that's fine but if you do it, horrors!, mass pearl-clutching and hyperventilation ensue.

[John]

I am sure you find all those women repulsively fat.

[sarcasmic]

I don't know about that, but the one on the left in the first picture has a repulsive smile.
Reminds me of Mr Ed.

[John]

I never got to the smile. They all looked fine to me.

[sarcasmic]

Reminds me of when a friend took me to the titty bar one afternoon, and got some butterface to sit at our table. He's feeding her all this bullshit about how dancing is an art form and all that, and she says "Do you like my boobs? I just finished paying for them in November."
I about fell out of my chair laughing.

[John]

There was a real tax case in Houston where the court ruled they could depreciate their boob implants as business assets.

[DesigNate]

There are much more attractive waitresses at Twin Peaks than the ones they picked for that article.

[creech]

Meh. How's the food?

[T]

Seriously. If I want to look at tits, I live in Texas. I can go to a strip club. The food at Hooters sucks, so if the food at Twin Peaks is edible, it's a step up.

[RBS]

Yeah, around here we have plenty of strip clubs with free lunch buffets.

[Joe R.]

But I can take my nephew to Hooters.

[Abdul]

The chef uses too much butterface.

[The Hammer]

There's a Twin Peaks in Denver(ish), and the food is decent, not great. Better than most of the stuff at Hooters, but not top quality. There's another chain along those lines called the Tilted Kilt, and the food there is actually really good.

[DesigNate]

I've been wondering if the food there was any good.

[Lord Humungus]

Samuelson: The sources of the global economic stalemate
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html

We live in a world of broken models. To understand why world leaders can't easily fix the sputtering global economy, you have to realize that the economic models on which the United States, Europe and China relied are collapsing. The models differ, but the breakdowns are occurring simultaneously and feed on each other. The result is that the global recovery flags, while pessimism and uncertainty mount.

Take the United States. The U.S. economic model was consumer-led growth. From the early 1980s until the mid-2000s, what propelled the economy was rising wealth ? stocks, bonds, real estate ? that encouraged households to spend and borrow more. Feeling richer, people traded up for better cars, homes and vacations. Everyone could afford or aspire to "luxury." Businesses responded by investing in more malls, restaurants, hotels, factories and start-ups.

[?Ex Nihilo?]

To understand why world leaders can't easily fix the sputtering global economy, you have to realize that the economic models on which the United States, Europe and China relied are collapsing.

See, he is so close to the answer that a bit of deeper thinking would give him the answer. I even bolded it for him.

[MP]

Well that was fucking depressing.

[R C Dean]

The U.S. economic model was consumer-led debt-driven growth. From the early 1980s until the mid-2000s, what propelled the economy was rising wealth ? stocks, bonds, real estate ? that encouraged households to spend and borrow more debt.

Year on year, increases in global debt in the US (government, student, mortage, private, etc.) equalled or outpaced growth in GDP.

[Killazontherun]

I was told this morning by a political cartoon that the economic sputtering was due to the Republican congress caring more about nailing Obama on Fast'n'Furious than they cared about the American people. Surely, Samuelson is over complicating it.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

The worst part about the current mess is that the tards in the pundit class betray just how childish their outlook is, as if they're a bunch of teenage girls who have found their access to daddy's credit card cut off. They expect some Dues Ex Machina--whether it be Uncle Sugar or a cabal of rich white men--to swoop in and magically pay off the balance sheets so our shopping-mall economic model remains intact.

As RC Dean so cogently pointed out, we've run over 30 years of a debt-based economy. In that time period, women became much more prevalent in the workforce, and blue-collar labor was marginalized as beaner work that only sub-literate goons and Messicans did. What we've run the last 30+ years is the equivalent of a trophy wife spending all the capital that her now-decrepit husband worked his whole life to build up, in an attempt to live an existence of unsustainable opulence.

[sarcasmic]

What is it with tennis chicks?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem.....kings.html

[anon]

Obviously we just need to play more tennis.

[Restoras]

Or just wear our top hats and monocles at tennis matches.

[sarcasmic]

Girls get sunburns so bad they needed medical attention because teachers wouldn't let them put on sunscreen.

Yet the girls say they were forced to watch one teacher put on her own sunscreen and then explain to the burning students that it was 'just for her' when they begged her for some.

Policy was followed. Nothing else happened.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....creen.html

[Quetzalcoatl]

It's stories like this that I email to my wife with the subject "Can we please homeschool?"

[anon]

It's stories like this that I say to my significant other "Yup, never having kids."

[Abdul]

Funny story from my retard-wrangler days. The special-ed kid I minded was mainstramed into an all black sumer camp program. One day, they had a field trip to the pool, and I forgot to bring sunscreen. By the end of the day, all his 10 year old friends were asking me if I was mad because they had never seen sunburn before and figured my face was red with anger.

[Ice Nine]

"retard-wrangler" - that was pretty funny.

[R C Dean]

all black sumer camp program.

Segregation. So racist.

[Abdul]

Apparently, Brown v. Board had an "except for Philadelphia" footnote. I worked in several schools where I was the only white man the kids ever met in person.

Fun fact--just as some white people think all blacks look alike, some black kids think all white guys look like Keanau Reeves.

[Groovus Maximus]

Whoa!

[anon]

Apparently, Brown v. Board had an "except for Philadelphia" footnote. I worked in several schools where I was the only white man the kids ever met in person.

In Center City, my mother was told that I should really go to a private school because I'd have been the only white person in the entire school. I believe what you say is true.

[Ice Nine]

That was good advice, if only because it kept you from have an Ebonics "accent" for the rest of your life.

[anon]

I grew up in the projects. I can summon that accent on demand.

[anon]

Then again, I've lived all over the east coast. My accent is mostly determined by my present company from New York on down, but I never picked up the Masshole accent (thankfully).

[Quetzalcoatl]

I'd prefer if they thought we all looked like George Clooney, but I'll settle for the Highlander Keanu.

[Spoonman.]

Turkey says the jet entered Syrian airspace accidentally but was not over Syria anymore when it was shot downs.

FYI

Also, I could really go for some Dem wailing and gnashing of teeth today.

[db]

When down it was shot?

[sarcasmic]

I'm not sure who Whitney Port is, but Oh My!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....s-sea.html

[sarcasmic]

Lonesome George is dead.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci.....e-100.html

[Quetzalcoatl]

So we can finally put their rumored deliciousness to the test?

[sarcasmic]

NASA's Curiosity to make super complicated landing on Mars. I bet is crashes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci.....lanet.html

[Brett L]

What could possibly go wrong?

[Troy muy grande boner]

The sky crane thingy look extremely complicated.

[CE]

Why don't they just request permission to land at my Martian air base?

[Fist of Etiquette]

A TSA screener didn't realize his metal detector wasn't plugged in...

I think I had a similar problem making waffles yesterday morning. Caused HUGE delays.

[Rich]

It gets better:

The chaos at Terminal 7 was caused by screener Alija Abdul Majed

[Fist of Etiquette]

Ouch. Like working on TSA's public relations isn't a tough enough job already.

[Groovus Maximus]

Indeed. If all the late nite "alleged" comedians weren't so PC, this would be a comedy gold mine!

[Quetzalcoatl]

Happens all the time with my electric kettle.

[Bee Tagger]

Did you eventually figure out how to plug your toaster in?

Yeah, that's right, I'm implying you have such poor taste that you eat Eggos from a toaster.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Leggo my ego.

[Anonymous Coward]

America's best and brightest.

[invisible furry hand]

Paris Hilton, DJ

[General Butt Naked]

Sounds like every bit of techno I've ever heard. I guess she isn't as good at putting records on as some guy with years of training, or something.

[Lowdog]

I know a lot of the old people (I'm 38, myself) on here don't understand, but there is some skill involved in djing. Also in producing EDM (electronic dance music). It's more like writing an entire song as opposed to playing an instrument, although some of the scratch artists are more like virtuosos. My friend Radar has put his scratching to paper, using notation that other musicians understand, and has played with symphony orchestras all over the world.

But since music is a subjective thing, I don't expect everyone to agree.

[Ice Nine]

She is so into the music; you can just tell.

[Groovus Maximus]

Speaking of blepharoplasty....

[Rich]

Both Greece's prime minister and finance minister are calling in sick

[Insert obligatory "Sick Man of Europe" snark]

[Spoonman.]

See alt-text

[Rich]

Oops.

** slinks off for more coffee **

[Lord Humungus]

Jimmy Carter: A Cruel and Unusual Record
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06.....ef=opinion

In addition to American citizens' being targeted for assassination or indefinite detention, recent laws have canceled the restraints in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to allow unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications. Popular state laws permit detaining individuals because of their appearance, where they worship or with whom they associate.

Despite an arbitrary rule that any man killed by drones is declared an enemy terrorist, the death of nearby innocent women and children is accepted as inevitable. After more than 30 airstrikes on civilian homes this year in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has demanded that such attacks end, but the practice continues in areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen that are not in any war zone. We don't know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks, each one approved by the highest authorities in Washington. This would have been unthinkable in previous times.

my god, I'm agreeing with Jimmy Carter?

[Palin's Buttplug]

As I have said, Carter was easily the most libertarian president since Coolidge with all his deregulation, peace, civil liberties, and no income tax hikes.

[creech]

Yeah, so when is hegoing to endorse Gary Johnson?

[KPres]

"...and no income tax hikes."

Of course. Who needs a tax hike when you have 10% inflation?

[Mr. FIFY]

And Obama is the second coming of Barry Goldwater.

Yes, shrike, you've tried to pawn off your bullshit on this topic more than once.

[KPres]

"We don't know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks, each one approved by the highest authorities in Washington."

Criticizing Obama? Doesn't this make Jimmy Carter a racist according to Jimmy Carter? Or does the fact that he didn't mention Obama by name keep him in the clear?

[Ice Nine]

In case you ever wondered what Johnny Longtorso looked like, here's a photo. (yes, safe for work)

[invisible furry hand]

Competition: Win a flight with a Dutch celebrity

At least 3 of these celebs are kinda cool

[Ice Nine]

Isn't sitting next to Wubbo Ockels on everyone's bucket list?

[Groovus Maximus]

It is now! My gosh!

[Abdul]

If it ain't Rutger Hauer, than I don't give a rat's ass.

[Lord Humungus]

Slapping a friend
Dems' risky assault on Supremes
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/o.....vMsCTyxnDK

For the past couple of months, Democrats and their pundit allies ? apparently expecting to lose on ObamaCare in the Supreme Court ? have been engaged in a campaign to delegitimize the high court in the eyes of the public. In a related development, Taliban spokesmen threaten to end polio vaccinations in areas they control unless the United States stops drone strikes.

How are the actions related? They're self-destructive and futile ? borne more of frustration than of any deep thinking.

[Lord Humungus]

Liberal Second-Guessing Won't Make ObamaCare Constitutional
http://www.commentarymagazine......cy-pelosi/

With only days and perhaps even just a few hours left before the Supreme Court rules on the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act, the second guessing has already begun among Democrats. Though the outcome is known only to the justices and their clerks and secretaries, in the months since the oral arguments revealed there was a good chance it would be overturned, the president's party has sunk deeper and deeper into depression over the possibility. Though they may yet win, as today's front-page feature in the New York Times reveals, many on the left are already starting the recriminations, with the White House and the congressional Democrats getting the lion's share of the blame.

[Jerry on the road]

The wait for the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare begins again today.

Seriously, the suspense is killing me. I could use some Obamacare if they don't overturn it soon.

[Mike M.]

Poor old Jimmy Carter; his one great foreign policy accomplishment as president is now up in smoke. Over thirty years of peace between Israel and Egypt is about to be flushed right down the toilet bowl. I'd sure love to know what he thinks about that right now.

[Ice Nine]

He thinks Israel deserves whatever the Muslim Bros have in store for it.

[Brett L]

He thinks Israel should possess the Suez canal? I guess that's not such a strange position for the guy who gave the Panama canal away.

[Bee Tagger]

I'd sure love to know what he thinks about that right now.

I'm sure he would love nothing more than to tell you and anyone else within earshot of a television.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Stick around, I'm sure he'll tell us.

[Bee Tagger]

I win.

[Lord Humungus]

a cupcake?

[Quetzalcoatl]

You said it better too. 🙁

[Groovus Maximus]

Jerry Sandusky was found guilty, and he may appeal based on the speediness of the trial.

I would say 45 counts convicted will increase the likelihood of a shiv whilst in the shower based on the ill-repute of kiddie diddlers in the klink. I don't think he will be making his appeal hearing, and if he does, he will be much worse for wear. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

[Mike M.]

I think he's being held in solitary confinement during his appeals process and until eventual sentencing. But I agree that once he's put into a general population, his life expectancy won't be worth a plug nickel.

Personally if it were up to me, Sandusky and other grown men who rape little children would be drowned in the ocean. I guess that's why I'm not a judge.

[?Ex Nihilo?]

Why not the Vlad Tepes treatment. Let him see how it feels.

[Matrix]

what? turn him into dracula?

[Groovus Maximus]

That means he would have to chase Wynona Ryder for the rest of his unlife. Though a very creative punishment, still not appropriate.

[invisible furry hand]

he'd also have to hump Sadie Frost

[SugarFree]

Impalement on a pike.

[ALHaines]

In an interview the other day, Warren Sapp said we should hang Sandusky from a sign post on 195 and let us drive past him and smack his balls all day.

Sandusky might like that, though.

I'm not sure if death is the best punishment. I rather think slowly flaying him alive and removing his toenails, one by one and day by day, with rusty pliers, is more fitting. But I'm not thinking rationally about it.

[John]

I think being locked in a cell 23 hours a day knowing everyone in the prison would like to kill you for the rest of your life is sufficient.

[Ska]

Channeling your inner Rasmay Bolton?

[Groovus Maximus]

You know, there always is the Raspytin method.

[Abdul]

This could be a great chance to re-make "The Longest Yard."

Coach sandusky's only chance of surviving prison is to keep the football team's winning streak alive. Can he do it when a warrantless search of the Dallas Cowboys tour bus reveals that they all have cocaine?

[Mike M.]

If he ends up in the G.P. he'll be experiencing the longest yard alright, but it won't have anything at all to do with football.

[Abdul]

Are they going to "split the uprights?"

Other material for Jimmy Fallon's writers:

wide reciever
tight end
laces out
two point conversion

[R C Dean]

Penetrate the backfield?

Go long?

[RBS]

Hard Knocks: SCI

[CE]

I thought a speedy trial was a good thing? As opposed to rotting in jail waiting for the court to be available so a jury of your peers could weigh the evidence against you and release you if the state were trumping up the charges.

[DEG]

Amendola claims he and Rominger didn't have enough time to prepare, and Cleland denied all but one continuation request. If Amendola would've spent less time grandstanding and if preliminary hearing would've happened (Amendola being in part responsible for not having a preliminary hearing), he and Rominger might have been able to prepare.

I read a claim that the prosecution dumped a shit-ton of documents on the defence near the beginning of the trail. If that's true, Amendola might get somewhere with appealing on these grounds. Otherwise, I can't see it happening.

I'm not a lawyer, blah blah blah.

[DEG]

trial, not trail.

[Lord Humungus]

German Finance Minister Sch?uble 'We Certainly Don't Want to Divide Europe'
http://www.spiegel.de/internat.....40640.html

You know who else didn't want to divide Europe?

[Rich]

Julius Caesar?

[LTC John]

Wait, didn't he divide Gaul into three parts?

[Quetzalcoatl]

Neville Chamberlain.

[Ice Nine]

Rhine Rift Valley fault residents?

[Brett L]

Not Charlemagne.

[hamilton]

Fuck it, I'm just going to keep on guessing Gaius Marcius Rutilus until I get it right.

[Rhywun]

"the possibility of each country in Europe going its own way"

The horror!

[Rhywun]

It sounds like the interviewer isn't buying the crap this guy is shoveling. How refreshing.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Vergara was hit once in the left shoulder and once in the right shin ? but still managed to handcuff the bottle-tosser, who had also been wounded.

Interesting priorities.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Alan Turing May Not Have Committed Suicide

At a conference in Oxford on Saturday, Turing expert Prof Jack Copeland will question the evidence that was presented at the 1954 inquest.

He believes the evidence would not today be accepted as sufficient to establish a suicide verdict.

Indeed, he argues, Turing's death may equally probably have been an accident.

What's next: Nixon was framed?!

[Brett L]

Duh. He was killed by The Laundry for having discovered and formalized a system for exposing us to eldrich beings that will be coming to a head when Case Nightmare Green arrives in the near future.

I think July 3. I will be reading at midnight.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"I am today a president for all Egyptians," Morsi said in a national address.

"...in that you will now all be required to follow Islam."

[The Coptics]

YAY! More dhimmitude for us!!! It's really not so bad once you get used to all the rape and sodomy...

[wareagle]

but but but, the Arab Spring and democracy and and...

[Red Rocks Rockin]

It's quite amazing how "democracy" typically gets confused with "white european progressivism," as if inside every reactionary Third Worlder is the soul of a Scandanvian seeking to emerge.

[Quetzalcoatl]

For sarcasmic for John.

News you can use:
More than half of British women's waists 'too big'

[Lord Humungus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qDgCmzh5ao

[Heroic Mulatto]

HA HA HA! Fat Ameri....wait.

[Lord Humungus]

Members of Congress trade in companies while making laws that affect those same firms
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) reported buying $25,000 in bonds in a genetic-technology company around the time that he released a hold on legislation the firm supported. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) sold between $50,000 and $100,000 in General Electric stock shortly before a Republican filibuster killed legislation sought by the company. The family of Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) bought between $286,000 and $690,000 in a high-tech company interested in a bill under his committee's jurisdiction.

[Bee Tagger]

Once again I'm left wondering what the most offensive part is:

1) the corrupt behavior
2) their inability to hide it
3) their lack of concern of needing to hide it

[RBS]

I think the part where we go to jail for this is pretty offensive too.

[wareagle]

BT,
the lack of concern indicates that you believe some exists. Come on now. When in doubt, go with choice 4: fuck you, that's why.

[John]

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

Liberals, if obamacare goes down, just pack the court. How they plan to do that without a 60 vote majority in the Senate remains unexplained.

[?Ex Nihilo?]

In a related post on asking why 19, this is apt

The number of angels guarding Hell ("Hellfire") according to the Qur'an: "Over it is nineteen" (74:30).

[John]

If Obamacare goes down the liberal reaction is going to be more enjoyable than if Obama loses in November. If Obama losses it will be great for about 24 hours. Then the reality of Romney being President will kill the mood. But Obamacare going down has no such reality check moment. It will be an entire summer of yummy tears.

[sarcasmic]

What do you think the chances are of liberals simply ignoring the ruling?

[John]

I thought of that the other day. Obama just ignore the ruling. It wouldn't shock me.

[Brett L]

He can try, but do you think states like FL are going to spend a single dime on implementation?

[Groovus Maximus]

Don't you worry! Little Pammi Bondi is on the case!

[Ice Nine]

Man, it is really going to hurt when they uphold it.

[John]

They are not going to uphold it.

[sarcasmic]

Don't be too sure. They have no enforcement power.
So to avoid the embarrassment of having their ruling ignored, they may let it slide.

[Rich]

I still predict some BS twist, like "We're appointing a Blue Ribbon Commission to recommend a decision."

[John]

That will not happen. They will make a decision. The court has no power to appoint commissions.

[Restoras]

What if they do? Not saying it's likely, but what if?

[Whiterun Guard]

We got the SEIU ruling, they get Obamacare.

Even Stevens.

[John]

You are a paranoid nut. That is not how it works.

[Groovus Maximus]

Even Stevens.

I thought that very marginally good, mostly fucking evil walking colostomy bag retired.

[perlhaqr]

So, Romney wins, says he read the idea in the WaPo, and appoints 10 more SCOTUS justices. I'm sure the WaPo would be happy with that set of circumstances...

[Palin's Buttplug]

A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children's hospital goes unused in the south. A $100 million waste water treatment system in Fallujah has cost three times more than projected, yet sewage still runs through the streets.
As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds has been wasted on these projects ? more than 10 percent of the $53.7 billion the US has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.

http://www.salon.com/2010/08/3.....ions_iraq/

[John]

So 90% of it was spent well? That is a better record than the stimulus. And the Iraqis are rolling in oil. I think they can finish the projects themselves.

[Palin's Buttplug]

It was all wasted, dipshit. Your nation-building GOP pals waste more money than anyone else. $1 trillion just in Iraq.

[John]

When you are concerned about the money wasted on things like Solyandra come and talk to me. As it is, you are just trolling. As I said, 90% spent of valuable projects while doing it in a war zone is quite good. Certainly better than the stimulus which seems to have wasted every single dime.

Try again retard.

[wareagle]

so, we waste money on overseas infrastructure projects but those same projects are the key to domestic economic revival, right? That has been the liberal talking point even before the spendulus thing passed.

[John]

That is why Iraq is booming you stupid tea bagger.

[MP]

MOAR STIMULUS!*!

[wareagle]

maybe Iraq's success has to do with the lack of American union labor, American politicians regulating each step of the project, and all the other American things that serve to stymie progress here.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

maybe Iraq's success has to do with the lack of American union labor, American politicians regulating each step of the project, and all the other American things that serve to stymie progress here.

Who would have thought that Arab corruption American bureaucracy?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

That should have been "Arab corruption is greater than American bureaucracy."

fuck you, squirrels.

[Lord Humungus]

the takeaway for me: government spending is inefficient.

[Restoras]

Too bad your team didn't oppose it with something resembling vehemence. We'd all be better off. But, they didn't, did they?

[Mr. FIFY]

Your nation-building Democrat pals were in on it, too, shrike.

But do go ahead and vote for Obama again, Mister Barry Goldwater Super-Fan.

[MP]

We'll do better in Afghanistan.

[sloopyinca]

We're certainly getting the demolition part right.

[LTC John]

We can get by cheaper there - the Iraqis had too much pre-existing infrastructure and developed politicians (ie. graft sucking dirt slurpers).

When I got a well drilled for a village for $800 in 2005, and that was a notable feat to the locals... well, we should just avoid projects that give Kabul a chance to bleed dry. They are grafty folks, but have not the chance to engage in loftier amounts...yet.

[Rich]

"There's only so much we could do," Christensen said. "A lot of it comes down to [the Iraqis] taking ownership of it."

Oh, and don't worry: The reconstruction will pay for itself. 8-(

[Quetzalcoatl]

If it was a War for Oil, I wish they'd done a better job of it.

[VG Zaytsev]

More than $5 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds has been wasted on these projects ?

Sounds like stimulus.

You should be happy about it.

[Rich]

Right on. We should ship Americans over there to run these projects, then tax their high salaries!

[Red Rocks Rockin]

And not to be snarky, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to what's wasted on federal spending here in the states. Christ, the .gov spends $9.5 billion a day--if $5 billion was wasted on infrastructure projects over there in eight years of occupation, that's honestly not that bad.

If they want to really get pissed about the waste of US taxpayer funds, why not do a comprehensive look as to how much was wasted on stimulus-funded projects?

[John]

http://www.reuters.com/article.....3G20120623

Turkey says shot down jet cannot be ignored. There is Obama's excuse to go into Syria. Someone was lecturing me this weekend how the Turks didn't want the evil US involved and wanted peace. Uh huh.

[T]

See, we've learned something since Viet Nam. Outsource the manufactured casus belli and you never have to be subject to annoying investigation about it.

[John]

I don't see how the plane was shot down if it was in Turkish airspace. I know the Syrian idiot son running things is not bright. But I find it hard to believe he wants to start a war with Turkey. So if it was in Syrian air space, it is Turkey that has some questions to answer not Syria.

[?Ex Nihilo?]

IIRC they said it was over water in Syrian airspace. Not over land, which makes it trickier determining which side of the line you are on.

[John]

Why were the Syrians so stupid as to shoot it down then? You would think they would be avoiding giving NATO a reason to intervene at all costs.

[Restoras]

Missiles have a long range? Plane crosses border, Syria fires a missile, plane turns to recross the border and is struck by the missile over Turkey?

Any air defense artillery people out there?

[John]

That is possible. But there again, if that is what happened, the Syrians are morons.

[?Ex Nihilo?]

This is probably what happened. Plane strays into Syrian airspace, they fire missile. Plane picks up launch alert and unasses the AO. Missile gets plane.

You would think Syria would be a bit more careful about shooting off missiles though.

[Not an Economist]

Surface to air missiles generally don't have much of a horizontal range. They are designed to get to an altitude very quickly so they burn their fuel quickly. The article says it was flying low. If it was (and I don't trust the Syrians), then it was more than likely on some sort of mission. If it was training, then it shouldn't have been near the coastline. The only other option is take-off or landing and then Turkish aircraft have probably would have done this dozens of times and there is no way this was an accident.

[tarran]

If the wreckage landed 13 NM from the coast, the A/C was probably at high altitude when it was hit.

I would love to see the track of the plane from a third party's radars.

[Ice Nine]

But I find it hard to believe he wants to start a war with Turkey.

Amen. If you know Turkey and Turks you will know that fucking with Turkey is an extremely bad idea.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

I dated a Turkish girl back in 1995-1996. Psycho. Don't fuck with Turkey. Syria should know this.

[carol]

I lived in Turkey in 1977 '78. Had the time of my life but I would never piss off a Turk.

[tarran]

Someone was lecturing me this weekend how the Turks didn't want the evil US involved and wanted peace. Uh huh.

That was me, and I stand by every one of my statements.

Last I heard, sending the U.S. army into neighboring countries wasn't very popular after the utter disaster that was Iraq (including setting up Iraqi Kurdistan as a safe haven for PKK attacks into Turkey).

I pointed out that the Turkish military (you know, different guys than the general populace) would be more likely to welcome U.S. intervention.

Third, I said that the government would want stability in Syria, because instability would spill over into Turkey. And that appears to be happening, with southern Turkey being used as a staging ground for the anti-Assad insurgency and refugees streaming across the border.

My incorrect statement, that the government appeared to be playing it down was based on the fact that early news reports indicated a joint SAR with Turkish and Syrian forces cooperating. That news report was bullshit, although at the time I had no way of knowing that.

With that having been said, something is fucked up about this.
1) The only F-4's I know that NATO uses are "Wild Weasel" variants, used to destroy SAM sites.

2) The Syrian version of the story describes a Wild Weasel mission to a T.

3) The wreckage being 13 NM out to sea contradicts the Syrian version of the story and supports the Turkish version.

[Gray Ghost]

I think they also have some RF-4 variants. It could be that the recon pilot screwed up his navigation at high altitude/high Mach and the Syrians plunked him. The wreckage could easily have made it 13 NM out to sea, if the plane was moving very fast and high when hit.

It also could be that the Turks were getting frisky with a WW-style mission---perhaps to firm up their estimates of where Syrian radars/SAMs were---and got shot. God knows, the U.S. lost enough planes doing similar crap versus the Soviet Union from the 1940s on.

[Gray Ghost]

Hopefully this didn't double-post...

I think they also have some RF-4 variants, tarran. It could be that the recon pilot screwed up his navigation at high altitude/high Mach and the Syrians plunked him. The wreckage could easily have made it 13 NM out to sea, if the plane was moving very fast and high when hit.

It also could be that the Turks were getting frisky with a WW-style mission---perhaps to firm up their estimates of where Syrian radars/SAMs were---and got shot. God knows, the U.S. lost enough planes doing similar crap versus the Soviet Union from the 1940s on.

[Joe M]

Happy 5th anniversary, Lobster Girl!

[Brett L]

Say what you will about Michael Bay, he's definitely mastered the casting couch.

[mr simple]

Woman who cut off daughter's ponytail in courtroom to reduce the girl's punishment now regrets it

It's a story about a judge who ordered a woman to cut the hair of her 13yo daughter to reduce her sentence for assault, which she was charged with after she and an 11yo girl cut the hair of a 3yo girl they didn't know in McDonald's. No details about the event are given and it looks like the mother of the 3yo overreacted by having the girls charged. Then it ends with this throw away line:

Lopan (ed:the 13 yo girl) also admitted during the hearing to threatening a Colorado teenager with rape and mutiliation over the phone for a period of eight months.

WTF?

[invisible furry hand]

Yep, a clearly very fucked up 13 year old will really learn her lesson from court-ordered humiliation and hair-cutting.

[Brett L]

Don't trust your parents if they're cunts or the government ever isn't a bad takeaway.

[Groovus Maximus]

I say nuke it from orbit. It really is the only way to be sure.

[Ice Nine]

Lopan (ed:the 13 yo girl) also admitted during the hearing to threatening a Colorado teenager with rape and mutiliation over the phone for a period of eight months.

WTF?

I dunno; maybe the teenager had green eyes or something.

[Mo' $parky]

+1

[Bitter Taxpayer]

Well, duh.

These days the heritability of intelligence is not in doubt: Bright adults are more likely to have bright kids. The debate was not always this calm. In the 1970s, suggesting that IQ could be inherited at all was a heresy in academia, punishable by the equivalent of burning at the stake.

[KPres]

So you're saying a scientific "consensus" on a politically contentious topic was driven by something other than an honest, objective review of the evidence?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

So that means all the left-wing limpouts about The Bell Curve will be treated as the simple hackery and :librage: that it was, correct?

[Bitter Taxpayer]

Perhaps in some alternate universe.

[benji]

There was that post over the weekend about Orzag's piece on forcing people to vote. And Brutus posted a story about his kids elementary school voting on Skittles vs. Reese's Pieces and this being a lesson about democracy.

I got to thinking that a fun idea at a higher level would be a test where the last question was "pens" or "pencils"? And whoever wrote their answers using the "loser" writing instrument failed the test.

[Brett L]

I like this. Can I give this to some academic friends of mine?

[Groovus Maximus]

That is brilliant! Holy shit, benji! Stolen, this is (and I will give attribution).

[benji]

Of course.

[Rich]

Skittles vs. Reese's Pieces?!

RACIST!!

[ALHaines]

Stealing this. Easier to make the point than one thing I previously instituted: socialized grading.

We were studying 1984 and socialism/communism and so many students couldn't see the problem with "sharing the wealth." I proposed we share the wealth, then, in the classroom, and for the duration of the unit, I kept an official grade book (the students' real grades based on participation, quality of work, etc.) and a second book I shared regularly with the students, where everyone got the same exact grade (it varied between C and D according to my school's numeric grade policy). I averaged the entire class' grades to get the mean and assigned the mean grade to all students - it was sharing the wealth.

Result? The smart and/or harder working kids hated that they were getting a C or D when they knew they were better than that. The less motivated kids were fine with being able to skate by. The mean decreased from C to D quickly, and bordered Failure by the time the kids turned around. It was a long month.

I hope they got the point. When I revealed their real grades, relief spread through the more capable students, a kind of acceptance or indifference among the less motivated.

I was forced to leave after that year, so I don't know how well the lesson sat.

Your way is a much shorter path to the same kind of conclusion. Majority rule is still tyranny, and redistribution is unfair.

[mr simple]

I was forced to leave after that year

Because the administrators didn't like your capitalist lessons or because you touched the kids?

[Brett L]

"I just want to say that your children have all touched me, and I'm pretty sure I've touched them."

[0x90]

The thing that is very often missed is that there are two stages of decision, with respect to communal resources:

a) allocation
b) disposal

If you join a club which requires the paying of dues, voting on the disposal of club resources, whether directly or by delegation, is a sensible strategy -- you can, after all, always opt to leave the club. If, on the other hand, you cannot leave the club, without physically removing yourself from your place of residence, then what you have is simply tyranny, albeit with a disingneuous veneer of democracy.

[John]

http://hive.slate.com/hive/how.....tenderness

Washington's respectful balance would help resolve many of the controversies regarding government regulation and religion. He would not likely have approved of the Obama administration's initial problematic proposal to require Catholic schools and hospitals to include contraception in health coverage for their employees. But our first president could have supported the modification announced by President Obama in February, which preserved employee access to contraception, but shifted the burden of providing the coverage away from religious organizations and onto private insurance companies.

Because we all know insurance companies print their own money. I don't think these people are hacks so much as they really are that stupid.

[R C Dean]

But our first president could have supported the modification announced by President Obama in February, which preserved employee access to contraception, but shifted the burden of providing the coverage away from religious organizations and onto private insurance companies.

What. Utter. Horseshit.

Washington wouldn't have supported any federal insurance mandates at all, because he knew what "interstate commerce" meant.

And it didn't mean transactions that occur entirely within one state. Like, you know, the purchase of insurance under our current system of state-licensed insurance companies, which makes it illegal to buy insurance across state lines.

[mr simple]

I glanced at some of those updating the constitution articles. It's all prog nonsense. Just egregiously wrong and terrible. And this cult of personality they always try to foster with their ridiculous appeals to authority is absurd. What the fuck would Gen. Geo. Washington know about forcing religious schools to pay for contraception?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

How appropriate that a link to salon has "hive" embedded in it.

[John]

Williams doesn't just prefer his old chalkboard to the high-tech version. His kids learn from textbooks that are decades old?not because they can't afford new ones, but because Williams and a handful of his like-minded colleagues know the old ones are better. The school's parent-teacher association buys them from used bookstores because the county won't pay for them (despite the plentiful money for technology). His preferred algebra book, he says, is "in-your-face algebra. They give amazing outstanding examples. They teach the lessons."

The modern textbooks, he says, contain hundreds of extraneous, confusing, and often outright wrong examples, instead of presenting mathematical ideas in a coherent way. The examples bloat the books to thousands of pages and disrupt the logical flow of ideas. (For instance, the standard geometry book for Fairfax County, which is used in schools around the country, tries to explain what a mathematical point is by analogy to pixels on TV screens, which are not in fact point-like.) Teachers at other schools in the county have told him that they would rather use the old books, too, but their principals would kill them. Other teachers have told me the same about new technologies?they, like Williams, think the technologies are ineffectual, but lack his courage to oppose them.

http://www.slate.com/articles/.....tion_.html

[wareagle]

opposing even foolish policies also means opposing the spending of money, and if this year's budget allotment is not spent, then next year's will not grow. It's not about education; it has never been about education. It is about empire-building.

[Jerry on the road]

It's the same with college textbooks. They're full with color, typefaces and chartjunk that have nothing to with conveying information to the reader. Do principals get kickbacks from publishers as well?

[John]

The people who choose the textbooks for the state do.

[Brett L]

Eh. The Khan Academy is the perfect counterpoint. Competent teaching, when done, is the most efficient way to transmit information to others. Technology and pedogogical fads are not as important as competent teaching.

[John]

You have textbooks for a reason. And if the textbook is fucked up and wrong, sure a great teacher can overcome that. But it sure doesn't help.

[invisible furry hand]

Of course, if the teacher is fucked up...

Loch Ness monster cited by US schools as evidence that evolution is myth

http://www.scotsman.com/the-sc.....nI.twitter

[John]

Given a choice of a society that disbeliees evolution but can add and subtract and one that believes evolution but can't add and subtract, I am taking the former. Evolution just isn't that important to daily life. I don't really care if the women giving me change at the store believes in unicorns or if the engineer building a bridge doesn't believe in speciation. I just care if they can do math.

[Heroic Mulatto]

But, as Daniel Dennet argues in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, the process of evolution through natural selection is an algorithm. I don't see how one can be numerate, but lack the ability to apply that mathematical understanding to understanding why evolution through natural selection is a more valid account of the origin of life than Judeo-Christian Creationism.

[Jerry on the road]

More valid how? A statement about evolution is an untestable hypothesis.

[CE]

Yeah, but Bigfoot is a counter-example in favor of evolution.

[Brett L]

Eh. I don't know that they make the point as well as they think. In computer geometry, pixels are, in fact, point-like. I doubt you can see a single pixel on a non-CRT anymore. Drawing a 1-D point on the chalkboard that can be seen in the back row is also not very point-like.

I agree with the point of the article, but the problem with the books are pedagogical faddism promoted by the textbook industry to sell new versions of textbooks.

My physics prof (at a community college) had a PhD in Nuclear Physics from a Big 10 school. He went out of his way to find the cheapest textbook that he could that was a) sufficient to teach out of and b) available in sufficient quantities. It was a fairly new book done in 4-color as a paperback. It was also fairly short as these books go, maybe 200 pages per volume. It came in 2 paperback 8.5"x11" volumes so you only had to buy 1 per semester and it was pretty cheap. Maybe $25/volume.

Sure school districts are going to pick some shit textbooks, but a good teacher can work through that. Especially in the internet age. "Okay, the section on parabolic functions is wrong. We're going to watch these videos in class and I've prepared a handout."

[Heroic Mulatto]

^This^

The Slate article is just old-fogeyism disguised as a Back-to-Basics 3Rs manifesto.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I agree with the point of the article, but the problem with the books are pedagogical faddism promoted by the textbook industry to sell new versions of textbooks.

The intellectual class has been fashion-obsessed for several decades, which indicates just how decadent our society has been during that time period.

And your observation about pedagogical faddism isn't far from the mark. If you took AP US History the last 20 years, you probably had "The American Pageant" to refer to, which is a fascinating case study in the intellectual culture of left-wing academic SWPLism. My first AP US History teacher, before I switched schools, used an old college textbook from the early 1980s that was much more detailed and comprehensive than "Pageant"--the latter was used in the basic US History class instead.

[wareagle]

but if you allow for competent teaching, it puts a harsh light on the incompetents whom unions are designed to protect. And the fads and trends they tout so that parents are distracted from the lousy results. Good for the Kahn folks for remembering they are in the education, not job protection, business.

[Warty]

Look up Feynman's essay on his time on the California school book commission. And that was 50 years ago, imagine how bad it is now.

[John]

That was my first thought. BTW, you missed your calling. Cat whisperer, get your own show and everything.

http://animal.discovery.com/tv/my-cat-from-hell/

[Warty]

That's an excellent beard on that obese gay man, isn't it?

We have one cat who's afraid of me because I'm giant and scary. I was out of town all weekend, and apparently the cat was just overjoyed that I was gone. I HAZ A HEARTBROKE

[John]

My cat of 12 years died this month. We had to put her down because she had renal failure and had stopped eating. World's greatest cat. So good I can't bring myself to get another one.

[invisible furry hand]

I knew someone whose cat had to be put down. The family consoled themselves by deciding to bury her on their hobby farm and plant a tree on top of her. The father got the job. A few days later, they're finally bringing up the painful subject over dinner, and how lovely the tree will be. Dad confesses that he hadn't been able to remove her from the plastic bag, so the tree probably wouldn't grow. The mother went up to the farm the next day with an iron stake and stabbed the ground around the sapling to break the bag and, presumably, the cat.

[Ice Nine]

Feel better now, John?

[Warty]

Sorry, that sucks. I always found that the best thing to do when a cat dies is immediately replace it, but there's no replacing some. Like the one cat I had when I was a kid who would hide in the bushes and jump into the back of my mom's knee and knock her down. That guy was one of a kind.

[John]

This one would play fetch. She stayed with my mother when I was overseas. Stayed with her while she had cancer. She just loved people. We could have a party with 30 people in the house and she would be down in the middle of it where most cats would be hid under a bed somewhere. Friend to man and beast, except mice, she was despite only being six pounds, an expert mouser.

[Warty]

She sounds like a better version of my fat little tortie. Was she a tortoiseshell or a calico? They tend to have the most personality.

[Killazontherun]

The best ever was a untamed bob cat that lived on nearby farm land when I grew up. Friendly with humans, but he hunted stray dogs and foxes for fun and profit.

[Killazontherun]

And condolences. Loosing a pet with personalty is among the worst happenings.

[Groovus Maximus]

I'm sorry to hear that, John. Really. It's losing a member of the family.

[NoVAHockey]

sorry to hear about that. losing a pet is just awful.

[R C Dean]

Its hard, I know. Condolences.

I'm no cat person, but I've always tried to get a new pup whenever a pack member dies.

[Whiterun Guard]

If you eat them, they're with you forever.

Just like relatives.

[Brett L]

Sorry, man. Mine will be one of the irreplaceable as well. Even if he did play in the tropical storm all night last night and then come in at 3am and use my beard as a towel.

[perlhaqr]

I know this is a momentarily sad thread, but I laughed out loud at this.

"beard as towel" indeed. 😀

[Troy muy grande boner]

John, you hsould have done thi with your cat.

http://www.latimes.com/busines.....0173.story

[Rich]

"Because he can."

[Groovus Maximus]

You know Warty, whatever happened to that teevee show that Dagny T. was going to produce, the one where you have kitties and you lift heavy things, with lots of German Death Metal...

Also, KOSHKACH!

[Warty]

????!

I thought the plan was just to have a segment on the Hit and Run talk show where I would beat up the guests or something.

[Groovus Maximus]

HEY! How did you get that Cyrillic past the squirrelz!

[Warty]

Maegya.

(It's not letting me this time.)

[Groovus Maximus]

I can't either. 🙁 My VK isn't Unicode based either.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

An interesting quote from the picture:

If you learn how to multiply 37 by 41 using a calculator, you only understand the black box. You'll never learn how to build a better calculator that way

There's always been this idea in Western societies that "success breeds success," and that the quality of life will increase exponentially in the same trajectory as technology. What's rarely considered is the limits of scale and how "success" can ultimately undermine the very society it initially improved. The calculator is a microcosm of that--the developers of this technology created it to make increasingly complex mathematical equations easier to solve, but that technology isn't capable of increasing the understanding of WHY and HOW the solution is calculated.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

The result is that now students have trouble calculating even the most basic of mathematical equations in their heads--try asking a teller at Mickey D's to make change without looking at the register screen and they'd likely end up being there for five minutes trying to figure it out.

[Killazontherun]

For instance, the standard geometry book for Fairfax County, which is used in schools around the country, tries to explain what a mathematical point is by analogy to pixels on TV screens, which are not in fact point-like.

Huh? That's not right. If the purpose of the lesson is to track descartian coordinates or arrays, matrix transformations or any other aspect of linear algebra for that matter, and there is very little other reason to be talking about points, pixels are an excellent medium for representing points from a visual standpoint. He is just painfully wrong.

[NotSure]

I don't blame the Greek ministers for calling in sick, I would probably do the same if I were in charge of fixing the mess that is Greece right now.

[NoVAHockey]

Montana campaign finance law summarily reserved.

[John]

They are on a roll.

[John]

RULED: Eighth Amendment forbids life in prison without possibility of parole for juveniles...

[NoVAHockey]

ruling was less than a page: "The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law. There can be no serious doubt that it does."

[Tulpa the White]

"Are you serious?"

I would love for the Obamacare decision to be one page long too.

[Warty]

The fact that it wasn't unanimous is baffling.

[R C Dean]

Who dissented? Breyer?

Results-based jurisprudence. He hates Citizens United, so the hell with incorporating the 1A against the states.

[Warty]

It was 5-4, apparently. Mind-blowing.

[Tulpa the White]

5-3. Kagan sat it out.

[Tulpa the White]

oops, wrong case.

[benji]

Parts of AZ immigration law upheld, don't know what.

[benji]

Nevermind FOX changed the thing to "strikes down 3 of 4 provisions"

[benji]

Oh, MSNBC never change:

The Supreme Court on Monday struck down key parts of the tough anti-illegal immigration law enacted by Arizona in 2010.
...
The decision was a victory for President Obama who had criticized the law, saying it "threatened to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans." The Justice Department moved quickly in 2010 to block enforcement of the law.

[NoVAHockey]

pasting from scotusblog: The Court rules that Section 3, 5, and 6 are preempted.

[NoVAHockey]

but the state may apply the "check your papers" provision -- for now.

[R C Dean]

Facially, that was always the least objectionable part of the law. The cops already (rightly or wrongly) have the authoritay to ask you for ID if they have cause.

I'll have to read the pre-emption bits. I was having a hard time seeing it, since the Constitution only vests naturalization, not immigration, in the feds, although there are cases taking the usual expansive approach to federal power (namely, anything that can be remotely implied from an enumerated power is a an exclusive federal power).

[Isaac Bartram]

Trouble is, a lot of cops will think that "because you look foreign" is cause.

[R C Dean]

That's why the court said it could still be challenged as applied.

[Mike M.]

Yet another ruling with some significant libertarian overtones to it. This is definitely starting to take on the appearance of a trend.

[Brett L]

I think the part where LEOs can ask for identification, including proof of valid immigration status or visa, during routine stops was upheld.

[benji]

No ObamaCare today.

[Matrix]

14 year old shoots armed intruder

This is why gun safety needs to be taught to kids. Locking your firearms up so your kids have no way to access them is just as bad as leaving them out so they can get them and have no proper training and safety guidance from their families.

This scenario would have turned out much differently if the parents hid the firearm in a manner that the teen could not access it and be able to defend himself and his younger siblings. Kids need proper firearms handling and safety training, not being shielded from them. Kids have a right to defend themselves and their homes and families as much as adults do.

[?Ex Nihilo?]

Kids have a right to defend themselves and their homes and families as much as adults do.

Damn straight. I wish the hand-wringers could figure this out. We taught our kids how to handle weapons so they can protect themselves and each other if we are not home. Everyone should.

[R C Dean]

Textbook example of how to do self-defense right.

I like the way he testified that the perp pointed his gun at him. Very nicely done.

[Tulpa the White]

Depends on how old and mature the kids in question are. For every kid like this one there are 10 others who will misuse a firearm that's left out.

And training isn't a sure-fire thing. Some kids just simply can't handle the responsibility regardless of how much training they have. Again, it's up to the parents (though there is NO WAY you should be leaving a gun out for a kid less than, say, 10 years old at a minimum).

[Matrix]

well, then you would hope that kids under 10 aren't left home alone (though I was as early as 5)

[CE]

In California the kids would be dead, because you're required by law to have child-proof locks on your unloaded guns in an approved firearms safe, or something like that.

Wanna bet Obama doesn't invite this kid to the White House to give him a medal?

[Sevo]

CA sets new record! Boat ride costs $14, gets $94 in subsidies:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/.....659513.php

[Sevo]

Oh, and that presumes the ridership matches the projections, as it always seems to do...

[Brett L]

Oh noes! Trebek in Jeopardy!

"Alex Trebek is in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after suffering a mild heart attack, according to a statement from his representative."

[Whiterun Guard]

I'm sorry, I need that statement from his representative in the form of a question.

[Ska]

"This game show host was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after suffering a mild heart attack, according to a statement from his representative."

"Who is Alex Trebek?"

[Killazontherun]

He's had a bad few years of it. His second heart attack, and between injured while chasing a burglar.

He's strong as a Monty, so he'll be back better than ever.

[Loki]

"I'll take The Penis Mightier for 100!

[LTC John]

O! care decision on Thursday?! These 9 nags in black mumus sure know how to string us along.

[Killazontherun]

The Obama's first date was to see Do The Right Thing.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....z1yo9cbHBB

Movie still bugs the shit out of me. We had (and still do) an Italian diner in our town where the kids hung out after playing D'n'D at the school on Saturdays down the road from it. You never heard us complaining about not having our cultural icons on the wall. Where's the poster of Douglas Adams? Iron Maiden album designs? What's all this Sinatra memorabilia shit?

[Whiterun Guard]

You should have hit them with a variety of Bixby's Hand spells.

[R C Dean]

I don't know which is worse: that they made that up for PR, or that its actually true.

[Killazontherun]

I guess it wasn't memorabilia back in the 80's since he still had a decade or so to go.

[Loki]

A TSA screener didn't realize his metal detector wasn't plugged in

TOP. MEN.

[Tulpa the White]

SCOTUS strikes down 3/4 of AZ immigration law

[topmywatch777]

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[topmywatch777]

Replica Watches of all world brands for sale - Replica Rolex Watches, Breitling, Tag Heuer, Cartier, Hublot Replica Watch at topmywatch.net online store.
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