A.M. Links: President Speaks on Gun Violence, Mitt Romney Crosses the Pond, Hollywood Director Blames Violence in Movies

Ed Krayewski | 7.26.2012 8:55 AM

President Obama addressed the National Urban League yesterday on the topic of gun violence. "Every day and a half the number of young people we lose to violence is about the same as the number of people we lost in that movie theater," he said. The president wants to "arrive at a consensus around violence reduction."
Mitt Romney begins his international trip with the opening of the London Olympics, and will then go to Poland and Israel. While the candidate vows not to bash President Obama publicly, he's expected to do so privately with Polish and Israeli officials.
Drug money may be involved in vote-buying schemes being prosecuted in eastern Kentucky. "These folks go out and hijack the local elections for their own purposes and then they use those jobs to enrich themselves and their confederates. It really is a terrible problem and it has to be stopped," said the U.S. attorney Kerry Harvey explained.
A United Nations report says there are so many drones over Somalia they're starting to interfere with air traffic. One even crashed into a refugee camp. The U.N. did not blame the United States, because, secrets!, but it noted the drones were manufactured in the U.S. and President Obama acknowledged military operations in Somalia in a war powers letter to Congress last month.
Director Peter Bogdanovich suggests the rise of "pornographic" violent movies may be to blame for violence in society.
State Farm and Chubb Insurance are both in court arguing they're not obligated to pay Jerry Sandusky's legal bills. State Farm says the convicted child rapist's insurance plan did not include "bodily injury that is intentionally caused by the policyholder."
Iran says it will comply with an Olympics rule that no country's representatives may refuse to compete against another country's representative. The only Iranian athlete that could've faced an Israeli competitor withdrew due to medical reasons the day before.

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Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

The president wants to "arrive at a consensus around violence reduction."

Unfortunately, he no longer has a super majority in Congress.
1. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
  
  But he does have a Supreme Court that's willing to modify legislation to be deemed constitutional. It's not a ban on guns, it's a tax!
  1. Palin's Buttplug 13 years ago
    
    The president made a point of emphasizing his support for the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, which covers the right to bear arms.
    
    "We recognize the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation, that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage," Obama said.
    
    Must be part of that Fast/Furious super secret plan to ban guns that whackjobs here keep talking about.
    1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
      
      Probably is, shit for brains, seeing as the 2A never mentioned guns were for hunting or sport but all the accompanying documents show it was written to defend against an oppressive government.
      
      I'm voting for Ice-T.
      1. generic Brand 13 years ago
        
        Damn, sloopy, second time in two days where you get the drop on the exact same comment.
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        I swear, tomorrow I'm not gonna weigh in on anything until you do.
        
        Azathoth!! 13 years ago
        
        Does this mean that you're the generic version of sloopy?
        
        Are you a factory second or a knock-off?
    2. generic Brand 13 years ago
      
      A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
      
      Where does that say that it's regulated only to "hunting and shooting"? Sounds to me like it is for defense.
      1. Palin's Buttplug 13 years ago
        
        Where does anyone say that? Self defense is implicit in the RKBA.
        
        wareagle 13 years ago
        
        self-defense is implicit, but POTUS seems unaware of that. Read his own words; he thinks the Amendment is about hunting, as if folks needed a govt okay in order to find food.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        "If you happen across an edible tuber, you didn't find that."
        
        generic Brand 13 years ago
        
        Okay. Then why is Obama emphasizing "hunting and shooting" as the traditional heritage of Americans? Why not just say, "Everyone has the right to keep and bear arms. We just need to do it more responsibly"?
        
        Palin's Buttplug 13 years ago
        
        Because "shooting thugs" is not the PC thing to say to the Urban League.
        
        Obama panders like every politician.
        
        Eduard van Haalen 13 years ago
        
        One might think the Urban League would have more understanding of the need to defend against criminals than about the predominantly rural enterprise of hunting.
        
        What would be incorrect about it? Do they think only cops - whom they love - should be able to shoot at alleged criminals?
        
        VG Zaytsev 13 years ago
        
        Because "shooting thugs" is not the PC thing to say to the Urban League.
        
        Obama panders like every politician.
        
        Did you just call the Urban League a bunch of thugs?
        
        Racist!
        
        Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
        
        "Obama panders"
        
        I smell a rat. Real shrike would never disparage his God.
        
        BarryD 13 years ago
        
        You said that, you ridiculous piece of shit.
      2. SugarFree 13 years ago
        
        It's Thursday, you bastards.
        
        generic Brand 13 years ago
        
        huhwhat?
        
        SugarFree 13 years ago
        
        We used to have Troll-Free Thursdays. Some traditions just don't matter anymore I guess. I'll be in my disappointment corner.
        
        generic Brand 13 years ago
        
        Understood. I haven't seen the laws posted in some time, but consider the lion towed.
        
        SugarFree 13 years ago
        
        We have no laws here, only consensus etiquette brutally enforced by social shaming. And if you persist, Warty will sext you.
        
        Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
        
        Nests started by yours truly are judgment-free zones. There will be no shamings here.
        
        Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        You need to raise awareness.
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        Yes. This needs to be reminded every Thursday. Probably every day.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        +99%
        
        Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        You know what happens when you assume a troll is arguing in good faith?
        That's right -- You make a GOOdFa out of I and TH(EE).
        Or something.
    3. wareagle 13 years ago
      
      shouldn't a constitutional law professor have a clue as to what the Constitution actually says?
      1. T 13 years ago
        
        SCOTUS doesn't, why should a lowly professor?
      2. Restoras 13 years ago
        
        Not when you are an affirmative action hire
2. wareagle 13 years ago
  
  seeing as how he was at the Urban League, one idea may have been "how about we work on black folks who think it's okay to kill other black folks." But that's probably racist.
3. protefeed 13 years ago
  
  The president wants to "arrive at a consensus around violence reduction."
  
  I'd say the spike in gun sales after the Colorado shootings indicate a different consensus than Obama was looking for.
4. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  You guys don't get it. He's laying the groundwork for proposing a brave new eugenics program. Improve a mechanical device and you may double productivity, but improve man and you gain a thousandfold.
  1. Alack 13 years ago
    
    Improve a mechanical device and you may double productivity, but improve man and you gain a thousandfold.
    
    Why hasn't anyone thought of that before! We could just make it illegal to be a bad person, and then we'll set up reform programs for people we catch being bad! Anyone who can't be improved will have to be removed from society, of course, and we'll have to make sure our program covers as much of the world as possible, but I don't see what could possibly go wrong!
    1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
      
      Well, Khan thought of it before me. Or maybe after, depending on how time grammar works.
5. VG Zaytsev 13 years ago
  
  Everybody buys a gun is consensus.
generic Brand 13 years ago

Whale attacks trainer

I got to see the video on the news yesterday, and the whale is just TOYING with the guy. I'm not usually big on "animal rights", but in this case I see no unintended consequences.
1. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  A little theme music from Neko Case.
  1. Alack 13 years ago
    
    Pretty sure this marks you as a hipster.
    1. NeonCat 13 years ago
      
      You're dead to me. Neko Case is terrific.
      1. Alack 13 years ago
        
        Didn't say she wasn't (though I prefer New Pornographers to her solo stuff); but it is sort of hipstery music. At the very least, having 6 album reviews on Pitchfork should be telling.
        
        NeonCat 13 years ago
        
        So if one doesn't like something because hipsters like it, doesn't it make one uberhipster, to coin a phrase?
2. CE 13 years ago
  
  The whale actually let him up every minute to breathe, so it never intended to kill him. The whale was just having a bad day, and wanted to let the guy know how it feels to be the toy.
generic Brand 13 years ago

Dumb parents let small children play with tiny magnetic balls, bans ensue

I have a set of Bucky Balls at my desk at work that I left everyone play with during the day. Some people treat them gently, but most of the time people just come up and crush the nice symmetrical shape that I worked them into.
1. wareagle 13 years ago
  
  saw this on Headline News this morning and the reporterettes were actually cheerleading for the ban; it was all about "safety, safety." Do like the company's statement, though, about a govt willing to drive someone out of business.
  1. generic Brand 13 years ago
    
    Although the commission issued a safety alert in November, it has received more than a dozen reports since then of children ingesting the magnets, with many requiring surgery, it said. More than 2 million Buckyballs and at least 200,000 Buckycubes, a similar cube-shaped magnet, have been sold in the United States.
    
    12/2,000,000... yeah, sounds ban worthy.
    
    ::facepalm::
    1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      "If it saves even ONE life, it's worth it!"
      1. Drax the Destroyer 13 years ago
        
        The funny thing about that statement, is that its adherents never think about the potential death and destruction the "saved life" could exact upon the world. And God/Bloomberg/Obama/Spaghetti Monster forbid, the saved life is a Republican/Libertarian or something.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Bloomberg/Obama/Spaghetti Monster forbid
        
        You forgot to Jamie Oliver.
        
        Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        When Barack Obama, Mayor Bloomberg, and the Flying Spaghetti monster are all in favor of something? in this case, magnet bans ?and there's still no chance of it being enacted, you can rest assured that forces other than reason and partisan politics are involved.
    2. wareagle 13 years ago
      
      evidently no parent has ever considered putting these things out of the reach of their kids or smacking junior's hand when he reaches for the balls. This story should be the poster child for govt nannies run amok.
      1. BarryD 13 years ago
        
        SOMETHING has to cleanse the gene pool. If not Buckyballs, it'll be something else. Natural Selection is a law of nature, as much as gravity (which can certainly play a part in NS, as well).
2. Rich 13 years ago
  
  I blame this epidemic on those damn magnet schools!
  1. gaijin 13 years ago
    
    How do they work?
3. VG Zaytsev 13 years ago
  
  Whatever happened to nature taking its proper course with dumb kids?
  1. $park? 13 years ago
    
    Same thing that happened to nature taking its course with people with heart disease.
robc 13 years ago

If you cant use drugs to buy votes, whats the use of even having drugs? Or elections?
1. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
  
  Getting through the fact that you live in Kentucky?
  1. Restoras 13 years ago
    
    Is it really all that bad?
    1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      Justified would lead me to believe so.
2. DJF 13 years ago
  
  It appears that they were at least using their own drugs to buy votes, most politicians use taxpayer money to buy votes.
3. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  Prostitutes are still okay, right? I mean, I saw it on Justified.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

UM Study: Sexting May Be Normal Dating Behavior For Internet Generation
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/20.....eneration/

For young adults today who were weaned on iPods and the Internet, the practice of "sexting," or sending sexually explicit photos or messages through phones, may be just another normal, healthy component of modern dating.

University of Michigan researchers looked at the sexting behavior of 3,447 men and women ages 18-24 and found that while sexting is very common, sexting isn't associated with sexually risky behaviors or with psychological problems.
1. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
  
  I'm 24 and was pretty heavily dating this spring (20 first dates over about 3 months). I have never had any desire to send someone a picture of my dick. I didn't realize that common courtesy was so uncommon.
  1. generic Brand 13 years ago
    
    (20 first dates over about 3 months)
    
    Are you a millionaire or something? How could you afford that many first dates? Or have I missed something and YOU'RE the lady? (in which case, slut! or something)
    1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
      
      Maybe he's been on 20 first dates because he's too damn cheap to take one of them to a nice restaurant. In which case, I say kudos to him.
      
      If he's a she, I agree with the slut! sentiment.
      1. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        As robc pointed out, I'm the man.
        
        Maybe he's been on 20 first dates because he's too damn cheap to take one of them to a nice restaurant. In which case, I say kudos to him.
        
        The first few were dinners, but then I switched to drinks. Cheaper and easier to end early if it's not going well. If there's a second date I'll bring the fancy dinner.
        
        Plus most of the girls I was dating were broke (in grad school) and I didn't want to overly advertise my income.
        
        Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        Also, I'm 24. I eat out like 6 times a week regardless of whether I'm going on a date or not.
        
        some guy 13 years ago
        
        Also, I'm 24. I eat out like 6 times a week
        
        God damn 1%er. When I was 24 I ate cereal every damn morning and pasta every damn night. Lunch was usually either more cereal or leftover pasta.
        
        Restoras 13 years ago
        
        AD - none of my business, but save yourself some of that money you are spending on dining out and cook your own food. It's easy!
        
        Use the cash you save to buy guns, ammo, gold, and cigarettes.
        
        Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        My time is often worth more than the cost of paying someone else to make it for me. Particularly if it's a gym day.
        
        cook your own food
        
        Besides, why do you think I was doing all that dating?
        
        AuH2O 13 years ago
        
        As a 23 year old... what the fuck job do you work to eat out 6 times a week?
        
        Also, son, it's called a slow cooker. Couple chicken thighs from costco, hot and sweet paprika (I also add smoked cuz I am addicted to that shit) some broth, a red pepper, some onions, and you got yourself a paprikash to come home to.
        
        Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        As a 23 year old... what the fuck job do you work to eat out 6 times a week?
        
        Software/aerospace engineer. I finished grad school just before turning 23 which helped.
        
        Also, son, it's called a slow cooker. Couple chicken thighs from costco, hot and sweet paprika (I also add smoked cuz I am addicted to that shit) some broth, a red pepper, some onions, and you got yourself a paprikash to come home to.
        
        Which doesn't change the fact that I've got to go to Costco, prep in the morning, etc. Why do that when I can just buy it from someone else? Or if I want something homecooked, have dinner with my sister/roommate, or have my girlfriend make something? They're both far better cooks than I am, and actually enjoy doing it.
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Wait, you've got a girlfriend and you went on 20 dates in the spring?
        
        No wonder our space program is fucked.
        
        Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        Why do you think I stopped going on dates?
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Not only that, but it will get you those second dates you want.
        
        Women love a man that can cook well. It'll drop more panties than you could ever imagine.
        
        AuH2O 13 years ago
        
        Oh, so cooking question- how does one become a better chopper? Now, obviously my knives need sharpening badly, and I sadly kind of suck with the electric sharpener I have (also, these are cheap knives I had in college), but even when I have sharp knives, I am just mechanically slow.
        
        I mentally know what to do, but physically my hands just can't do it that quick. I do have abysmall hand eye coordination, but is there any way to overcome it?
        
        It does suck to set out to cook for an hour but to end up getting a lot less sleep because it takes me three.
        
        SugarFree 13 years ago
        
        The lack of sharpness is affecting the speed. You are having to saw at things rather than an efficient slicing motion.
        
        AuH2O 13 years ago
        
        It's not even sawing- the metal is just seperating at this point. I really do need to bust out the electric sharpener, but life has been very hectic, and it doesn't work that well to begin with.
        
        SugarFree 13 years ago
        
        This lifehacker shows you basic knife grips as well. These lead to greater control. Once you are fully in control, the speed will come.
        
        Electric sharpeners are basically useless. Call your local restaurant supply place and ask them if they sharpen knives or can direct you to someone who does. It shouldn't cost very much and they should ask you if you want them ground for sharpness or for long-lasting edge. Go for the long-lasting edge.
        
        Stay away from ceramic knives unless you have full control. The lightness of them throw off your balance and they are literally has sharp as a piece of broken glass, and they can break.
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Chopping has a lot to do with your comfort level with what you are cutting and the knife you are using.
        
        First off, get rid of whatever knife you are using and buy a quality forged or ceramic blade. I know they are expensive, but they're gonna last you a lifetime and are worth it.
        
        Second, make sure the style of knife suits your cutting motion. Don't buy a French knife if you have a lot of up/down motion and don't get a German blade if you tent to slice (out/in) as opposed to chopping. Personally, I have Sabatier K knives because I was taught by a French-trained chef.
        
        Third, get rid of the electric sharpener. Knives need to be sharpened by hand by the person using them. Are you left-handed or right-handed? Do you use the left or right side of the edge more often? What foods are you cutting with each knife? What kind of cutting board are you using? These all affect how a knife needs to be sharpened.
        
        Fourth, is to simply cut efficiently. Practice makes perfect, but there's no need to make every piece in your garde-manger uniform if you're gonna puree what you cut or if you're gonna saute them to the point the shape changes. However, if you're presenting something, you should make sure all pieces are uniform. Remember your audience.
        
        Chopping is a learned and developed skill. Practice. Practice. Practice.
        
        SugarFree 13 years ago
        
        sloop, if you are primarily dealing with vegetables, I've found that a Santoku is not a bad starter knife, which might help AuH20. But I bow to your training.
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        The Santoku is too tall for my tastes, but you're probably right. If I were gonna get one, it would be a Global.
        
        AuH2O 13 years ago
        
        Thanks for the advice sloop. I am essentially self taught- I decided in college I wanted to learn how to cook, watched a ton of online videos, made the best use of dorm and off-campus kitchens, and have gone from there.
        
        I am pretty good at the part of balancing flavors and the more artistic side of cooking (and I like cooking a lot more than baking because you can call audibles) but I am less proficient at the technical side.
        
        Also, I dream of one day cooking at sea level and water boiling in a few minutes.
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Baking is for women, fat German men and teh gays (NTTAWWT).* Stick with real cooking.
        
        *Part of what frustrates me so much with these competition shows like Masterchef. Every time they get their ingredients, I swear I come up with something in my head that would compete well...except for the baking ones. No way in the world should they include that in the show. There aren't any high end professional chefs in the world (that I know of) that develop the desserts in their restaurants. They have pastry chefs for that because those wierdos are wired differently than normal people. So why in the hell would they hold these home cooks to higher standards than they, themselves, are held to?
        
        AuH2O 13 years ago
        
        sloop, don't even get me started on the food network's cake shows.
        
        "We made this incredibly decorative cake with a fully working roller coaster inside"
        "Does it taste good?"
        "We aren't judging on that criteria"
        "THEN YOU AREN'T MAKING GODDAMN FOOD!"
        
        Brett L 13 years ago
        
        "Baking is for women, fat German men and teh gays"
        
        And people who understand chemistry. Ratios, my good man. You can learn some simple ratios that will improve your baking tremendously.
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        I eagerly await the Season 9 Premeire of Breaking Bad, when Walter White decides to give up his operation and open a pastry shop in Brooklyn. It'll go over well...with women, fat Germans and the gays (NTTAWWT). But I still won't watch.
        
        Seriously, though, you're right. I just prefer the fluid creation that goes on in a real kitchen as opposed to the precision and boredom that is a pastry kitchen. I used to do garde manger at a pretty high end place, and part of it was working with the pastry kitchen on garnishes, fruit plates and cheese trays. I couldn't do what they did.
        
        Isaac Bartram 13 years ago
        
        My two cents on sharpening is that once you have got the knife sharp (either outsourced or self done) get yourself a good steel and steel your knife before every use. The steel does not actually sharpen, it removes the burr that forms as the very sharp knife edge bends and burnishes away the little nicks as peices of the edge break away.
        
        With regular steeling you should be able to go six months or even a year between full sharpenings.
        
        Personally, I steel my knives before every use and touch up the edge every month or so with a ceramic sharpener (it looks sort of like a steel but with a ceramic sharpener instead of the steel). I do a full sharpening on an oilstone when I feel the knife getting dull. Usually I only use the fine side unles the blade has gotten extremely dull.
        
        Marshall Gill 13 years ago
        
        how does one become a better chopper?
        
        Sharp knives are important. When chopping, keep the tip of the blade on the cutting board and raise end near the handle up and down.
        
        When you hold the food to be chopped, curve your knuckles out past where your fingers touch the food. Then you slide the blade up and down against your knuckles with your finger tips slightly curved back out of the way. Slowly moving your hand as you chop.
        
        Watch how they chop things on almost any cooking show and you will see them use this method.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        I learned how to cut from Pepin's La Technique, and just doing it over and over again until I get it right enough. I don't have the chops to cook professionally, but I get by at home or helping out at dinner parties/Turkey-day, etc.
        
        A giant +1 to the 'women love a man who can cook'. It's also a whole hell of a lot cheaper than going out, even considering the time spent cooking. (Unless you're billing out at $300 an hour + or something like that.)
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        Oh, and, yeah, find a professional knife sharpening service and let them deal with it. I have tried using flat stones, and I just suck at holding a constant angle while using them, even with knife guides and shims. I've looked at Spyderco's various knife sharpening systems and if I had a work bench/vise, I'd screw around with scary sharp, but I'm resigned to just letting the pros do it.
        
        Brett L 13 years ago
        
        I didn't want to overly advertise my income.
        
        And why didn't you want to get laid?
        
        ant1sthenes 13 years ago
        
        Maybe he didn't want them to poke holes in his condoms if he did?
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        In grad school, eh?
        What major are you going for?
        Trying to land a sociologist? A podiatrist?
        
        Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        All over the board. I ended up with a *cringe* food policy major.
        
        Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        I ended up with a *cringe* food policy major.
        
        Though as pointed out upthread, it does result in some really great food.
        
        Somalian Road Corporation 13 years ago
        
        That seems more like a happy accident to me. I would expect a "food policy" major to be less Epicurean and more hairshirt or otherwise authoritarian.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Actually, since Epicureans emphasized long-term health and happiness over short-term hedonism, they would likely be right on board the food nanny train.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        I don't know... nutritionists can be great cooks, but food policy doesn't sound very appetizing.
        
        Palin's Buttplug 13 years ago
        
        Any Sandra Fluke?
    2. robc 13 years ago
      
      I have never had any desire to send someone a picture of my dick.
      
      Or have I missed something and YOU'RE the lady?
      
      I think I know why SHE isnt getting 2nd dates.
      1. generic Brand 13 years ago
        
        Hahahaha okay I guess I DID miss something.
    3. MP 13 years ago
      
      First dates for the last decade have typically been chats over Starbucks lattes. Still not cheap, but not lobster dinners either.
      1. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        Screw coffee. I've I'm paying $5 for a drink it better be a beer. Plus alcohol helps with the conversation.
    4. Somalian Road Corporation 13 years ago
      
      She wants lobster, heh, I'm thinking Burger King.
      1. Alack 13 years ago
        
        Many props for this.
    5. protefeed 13 years ago
      
      (20 first dates over about 3 months)
      
      Are you a millionaire or something? How could you afford that many first dates?
      
      The first date should be over coffee or whatnot, if you're going on blind dates from Craigslist -- if she or he is obviously wrong for either party, easy to bail out early.
      
      The second date is when you take them someplace nice.
      
      And even that is way cheaper than hookers.
      1. CE 13 years ago
        
        20 first dates in 3 months probably means you're just not making a good first impression.
    6. Pip 13 years ago
      
      Not unheard of...
      
      http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3001391360/tt0343660
  2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    maybe you could increase your date quotient - give sexting a try and let us know the results.
  3. Brett L 13 years ago
    
    Yes. Chicks don't want to see pictures of your dick. They will explicitly tell you if they are an exception to this rule.
  4. wareagle 13 years ago
    
    AD,
    
    20 first dates, but how many second ones? Maybe there is a correlation between sexting and the continuation of casual fling relationships.
    1. robc 13 years ago
      
      In college I used to kid my roommate about being the one date wonder, as he had no problem getting the first date, but 2nd dates were very rare.
      
      He eventually (to be honest, Im surprised it took him so long) got sick of it and started pointing out my general lack of 1st dates.
    2. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
      
      Only 3. There were a couple other girls who wanted a second date but I wasn't interested in them (and of course several that I wanted another date with who weren't interested).
      
      Maybe there is a correlation between sexting and the continuation of casual fling relationships.
      
      That seems plausible, but it wasn't what I was looking for anyway.
      1. wareagle 13 years ago
        
        only 24 but with standards. What the hell is our gender turning into? Then again, I was married at your age with one child and a second not that far away.
        
        Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        Oh, don't worry. There are plenty of us who don't have standards and are just trying to bang anything that moves. Which just makes it easier for guys like me.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Then again, I was married at your age with one child and a second not that far away.
        
        Are... are you me?
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        Well, there's really only three or four people posting here. So you two might be the same. I don't subscribe to the singularity theory that it's all one person, but then even if that were true, I wouldn't believe it, right?
    3. protefeed 13 years ago
      
      20 first dates, but how many second ones? Maybe there is a correlation between sexting and the continuation of casual fling relationships.
      
      Most people you are going out with on a blind date aren't gonna be right for you. You just gotta go with quantity, and eventually you will find someone who you think is cool.
      
      Also, what you initially think you want and who actually turns you on may be totally different, which is why the quantity thing is important. For example, you might find, to your surprise, that you like short tattoed chubby younger Asian babes rather than tall skinny blond WASP debutantes.
  5. SugarFree 13 years ago
    
    (20 first dates over about 3 months)
    
    Very slow speed dating.
  6. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Auric, you should give AuH20 some tips.
    1. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
      
      -Live in a city with more women than men.
      
      -Be confident.
      
      -Be tall.
      
      -Have a respected career.
      
      -Don't send dick pics.
    2. AuH2O 13 years ago
      
      I am actually doing fine with a girl I met on OK Cupid. Apparently, internet dating is the way to go for us shut in types.
      
      Also, definitely broke some of those rules, Auric.
      1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Glad to hear it!
        
        Is she a fellow geek?
        
        AuH2O 13 years ago
        
        Not per se, but we share similar sitcom tastes.
        
        Also grew up with a family that watches Dr. Who, so kinda.
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        There are definite upsides and downsides to being in a relationship with a fellow geek.
        
        I went with a woman from a different geekosystem. This way, she can understand having niche hobbies, but isn't using the computer when I want to play videogames.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        It's a good plan. The wife sits downstairs and watches TV and makes chainmail (well, scale mail right now, actually) while I go play videogames and/or guitar.
      2. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
        
        Same place I found my food policy major.
        
        I didn't say they were rules, I said they were tips.
  7. Rasilio 13 years ago
    
    First off going on 1 date with a person does not mean you are dating them, you kinda need to actually have the relationship last past the first night and then for the sexting to come in you really need to have at least gotten to 2nd base with them with an implicit assumption that going all the way is coming soon.
    
    Second, as the article says, sexting is not just sending pictures of your junk, it could be sending a picture of your posing seductively with your shirt off (presuming you had the body for it) or it could be sending sexually explicit texts. In fact given the differences between the way the average male and female persue sexuality it is likely that in general both prefer for the guy to be sending texts telling the girl how he is gonna go all Christian Grey on her when he gets home and her sending him back nude or suggestive photos
    1. Somalian Road Corporation 13 years ago
      
      In fact given the differences between the way the average male and female persue sexuality it is likely that in general both prefer for the guy to be sending texts telling the girl how he is gonna go all Christian Grey on her when he gets home and her sending him back nude or suggestive photos
      
      Going to have to concur here.
      1. AuH2O 13 years ago
        
        Yeah, also, when your doing the long distance thing, sexting is good. Very good.
      2. Ska 13 years ago
        
        Anecdotal evidence shows this theory to be accurate (if saying I'm gonna go Christian Grey on her means sending detailed descriptions of all things I'm going to do to her when she comes over later).
    2. Pip 13 years ago
      
      http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2872.....WITTER.jpg
2. Palin's Buttplug 13 years ago
  
  Ubiquitous internet nudity makes more of such acceptable.
  
  A good thing. The Puritans are losing.
  1. ant1sthenes 13 years ago
    
    It isn't a good thing if it means seeing more male nudity. Or Midwestern women, for that matter.
    1. Pip 13 years ago
      
      No love foe Midwestern chicks?
      
      http://assets.sbnation.com/ass.....001200.jpg
3. sloopyinca 13 years ago
  
  More likely, the people from Michigan are sending pictures to people they just met in hopes that they can identify the disease that's rotting away their pubic regions. Remember, they're from Michigan.
  1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    heyyyy!!! /Michigander
  2. Translucent Chum 13 years ago
    
    I'm trying to come up with a reasonable defense for us Michiganders. I'll get back to you.
  3. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Not true. Vernor's keeps our regions nice and sterile!
4. ant1sthenes 13 years ago
  
  It does make wrong numbers more awkward.
  1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    or interesting. Make a new friend!
  2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    My wife got a BUNCH of those texts because some girl mispelled her own number on one of these terrible, trashy little social networks (I don't even remember the name of it, but it was basically for urban youth to hook up).
    
    They would not believe that she wasn't the girl they were chatting with last night.
    1. ant1sthenes 13 years ago
      
      I got one once from some random number. It took a while to even figure out what I was looking at.
    2. Bobarian 13 years ago
      
      "They would not believe that she wasn't the girl they were chatting with last night."
      
      But you believed it wasn't her, so score one for Mrs Quetzalcoatl.
5. CE 13 years ago
  
  How do you sign up to be a researcher for studies like this?
generic Brand 13 years ago

Iran says it will comply with an Olympics rule that no country's representatives may refuse to compete against another country's representative. The only Iranian athlete that could've faced an Israeli competitor withdrew due to medical reasons the day before.

If you can't beat 'em, jihad 'em.
1. Bardas Phocas 13 years ago
  
  The only Iranian athlete that could've faced an Israeli competitor withdrew due to medical reasons the day before.
  
  I was thinking he dodged a bullet there. Jews got cooties, as I've explained to my hebrewish ex many times. Got to keep your distance.
  1. protefeed 13 years ago
    
    I think the "medical reason" was "I don't want to be killed by my government because I got beat by a Jew".
2. BarryD 13 years ago
  
  It's called "forfeit". If someone wants to forfeit, he/she is out of the games, and so is the rest of that country's athletes. Put the kibosh on that stuff, really quickly.
Longtorso 13 years ago

'Balinese Teenager Passes Out While Marrying Cow He Had Sex With'
1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
  
  OT does Joe Pile have a Balinese adoptive son?*
  
  *Totally off topic, and in no way correlates to the above link.
2. Rich 13 years ago
  
  And then--sad ending--the cow was drowned in the ocean.
  
  That'll learn 'er.
  1. $park? 13 years ago
    
    At least she wasn't raped by her father and brothers. Also, she didn't have any acid thrown on her. Seems downright humane to me.
3. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  No way I'm clicking the link to see if its true, just going with 'Who would even make that up'.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Weather Extremes Leave Parts of U.S. Grid Buckling
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07......html?_r=1

The frequency of extreme weather is up over the past few years, and people who deal with infrastructure expect that to continue. Leading climate models suggest that weather-sensitive parts of the infrastructure will be seeing many more extreme episodes, along with shifts in weather patterns and rising maximum (and minimum) temperatures.

"We've got the 'storm of the century' every year now," said Bill Gausman, a senior vice president and a 38-year veteran at the Potomac Electric Power Company, which took eight days to recover from the June 29 "derecho" storm that raced from the Midwest to the Eastern Seaboard and knocked out power for 4.3 million people in 10 states and the District of Columbia.
1. ant1sthenes 13 years ago
  
  Yeah, it's the weather extremes, not the shift from steady power sources like coal and nuclear to variable ones like wind and hydro.
  1. Drax the Destroyer 13 years ago
    
    And if it is, who cares? Mother Gaia is more important than tens of thousands of heat-charred elderly corpses. We can put them in our commune compost.
  2. Mo 13 years ago
    
    Wind power knocks down power lines and softens asphalt?
  3. JerseyPatriot 13 years ago
    
    Coal and nuclear need cool water to function. If the water is too warm, or there isn't enough, you have to shut coal and nuclear plants down.
    1. ant1sthenes 13 years ago
      
      Cool relative to steam, you mean.
      1. Pip 13 years ago
        
        No. If the Mississippi River drops too low, the nuke plants on it's banks get shut down.
    2. Isaac Bartram 13 years ago
      
      I don't think it's the power supply so much as the distribution.
      
      It's tranformers blowing and transmission and distribution lines coming down (or buried lines being torn up as trees are uprooted as happened in the last hurricans to hit Central Florida) that are causing most of the outages IIANM.
Longtorso 13 years ago

The New Artisan Economy
...While the idea creators?those who design iPhones and develop new drugs?will continue to be the drivers of prosperity, more than a few crumbs may fall to the workers who support them. For example, Moretti estimates that Microsoft alone is responsible for adding 120,000 low-skill jobs to the Seattle area, where the company is based. This is because of the support workers required to style the hair, cut the grass, and yes, build the houses, of all those Microsoft engineers and computer scientists. ...

... In the longer run, the bottom 20 percent?indeed the bottom 99 percent?will need to be retrained and re-educated to get a larger share of U.S. GDP. Eminent Harvard labor economist Larry Katz sees a future where many lower-skilled workers are employed in the service sector supporting America's innovative class....
1. Longtorso 13 years ago
  
  Personal servant jobs ARE green jobs, after all.
2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  this isn't a post to foster discussion about 'artisanal mayonnaise'?
  1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
    
    Let's hope not.
  2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    What about artisanal yogurt? I am a yogurteur.
3. $park? 13 years ago
  
  will need to be retrained and re-educated to get a larger share of U.S. GDP
  
  Fuck. That. They paid good money to get a useless degree and they're entitled to a job now performing that useless function.
4. AuH2O 13 years ago
  
  Jeeves or bust. I need that patented hangover cure.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    It's raw egg, Worcestershire sauce and some hot sauce.
    1. AuH2O 13 years ago
      
      The TV version also apparently includes brandy, clam juice, and tomato juice.
      1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        So he basically makes him a Caesar?
        
        AuH2O 13 years ago
        
        Apparently. A Caesar with an egg in it... which... strangely sounds okay.
    2. Ska 13 years ago
      
      I'll stick with Alka-seltzer.
Translucent Chum 13 years ago

Selena, all growed up.
1. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  Nice rack.
  1. AuH2O 13 years ago
    
    Tiny, though.
2. sloopyinca 13 years ago
  
  Does she have to have double doors installed throughout her house just so she can fit her enormous head through them?
  
  She's a walking, talking bobblehead doll.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Can't be as bad as Giada De Laurentiis.
    1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
      
      It's like Megashark vs Giant Octopus.
3. edcoast 13 years ago
  
  Remember that old song: "No hips at all . . ."
4. Pip 13 years ago
  
  I have no interest in the woman who fingers Justin Bieber's pussy.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Citizens United Doesn't Mean What Campaign Finance 'Reformers' Think It Does
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org.....k-it-does/

The underlying problem, however, is not the under-regulation of independent speech but the attempt to manage political speech in the first place. Political money is a moving target that, like water, will flow somewhere. If it's not to candidates, it's to parties, and if not there, then to independent groups or unincorporated individuals acting together. Because what the government does matters and people want to speak about the issues that concern them. To the extent that "money in politics" is a problem, the solution isn't to try to reduce the money?that's a utopian goal?but to reduce the scope of political activity the money tries to influence. Shrink the size of government and its intrusions in people's lives and you'll shrink the amount people will spend trying to get their piece of the pie or, more likely, trying to avert ruinous public policies.
Brett L 13 years ago

Multiple wives can be hazardous to your health.

No way do I want to die trying to perform for my five wives. Now, I'll gladly go through a pro football cheerleading squad if I get suicidal and uh, want to go out on top...
1. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
  
  Trying to get through a whole squad of cheerleaders would require me to be on the bottom.
  1. Pip 13 years ago
    
    Once knew a guy by the name of Joe,
    Who bet that he could fuck 100 women in a row,
    Gut through 98 when his balls turned blue,
    So he backed off,
    Jacked off,
    And fucked the other two.
    
    -
    1. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
      
      If 98 woman can't manage to finish you you should probably consult a doctor.
2. robc 13 years ago
  
  Ive long had a theory that only odd number of wives work. Zero is the only stable even number of wives. This guy had six, yet another data point in my favor on this.
  
  If you are going to be a polygamist, stick to the odd numbers, 3, 5, 7, etc. The problem, of course, is to get to a higher odd number you have to pass thru an even number.
  1. generic Brand 13 years ago
    
    After the first wife, only marry twins?
    1. Brian Combs 13 years ago
      
      I'm too slow!
  2. Brett L 13 years ago
    
    I intend to have the number of wives in my life at any time represented by a bit.
  3. Brian Combs 13 years ago
    
    Not if you marry twins!
    
    Personally, keeping one woman happy is enough work for me. Of course, now I have a daughter, so I've got to keep two women happy.
    1. robc 13 years ago
      
      Hmmm...just in case, you may want to get another daughter to get it to three...or another wife.
    2. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      Good Luck with that.
      1. Brian Combs 13 years ago
        
        Yeah, she's eight months old, and her and her mama are already ganging up on me.
        
        edcoast 13 years ago
        
        Get used to it.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        You're doing it wrong.
        
        My 13-year old she-spawn loathes her mother and views me as her ally. Granted, the teenage girl-mother hate fest isn't unusual, but you have to learn to use it to your advantage.
        
        Bobarian 13 years ago
        
        Puberty causes a significant shift in the dynamic. They gang up on you until then.
        
        From 12-13 to 21ish, Mom becomes the biggest idiot in the world. After that it shifts back again.
        
        At 26, my daughter broke up with her significant other and her,my grand daughter, and my wife proceeded to beat the living shit out of me. 3 on 1.
        
        Actually, it was 5 on 2, as we had 2 female dogs and one male. That poor male dog had to stay home with em all day. I'd get home and he'd just sit in my lap and shiver; poor bastard.
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

While the candidate vows not to bash President Obama publicly, he's expected to do so privately with Polish and Israeli officials.

The high road, you didn't build that.
1. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  I suspect the Obama bashing will be supplied by the Israelis and Poles, myself. Romney won't have to do anything nod along.
  1. Ska 13 years ago
    
    So an Irishman, an Englishman, and Obama walk into a bar...
robc 13 years ago

State Farm is being consistent. In the early 70s, a state farm insured driver ran my parents off the road then pulled a gun on my Dad. State Farm refused to pay for the damage to the car because it was done intentionally.
1. Translucent Chum 13 years ago
  
  Yep. I'm trying to think of any circumstance where intentional damage is covered and can't come up with one, including 3rd party liability.
  1. robc 13 years ago
    
    I would think the state mandated liability insurance wouldnt care about intent.
    1. Translucent Chum 13 years ago
      
      Insurance is still a contract. In the case of mandated insurance, any gray areas are in favor of the insured, but intentional damage is specifically excluded in every policy I've ever seen.
      1. robc 13 years ago
        
        Im not disagreeing, Im just saying that you think the state would mandate it be covered.
        
        They put silly bullshit mandates in health insurance coverage.
      2. some guy 13 years ago
        
        It wasn't intentional! I have a mental disability that made me do it! You wouldn't want to discriminate against a disabled man would you?
  2. Drake 13 years ago
    
    Crime insurance policies such as Employee Dishonesty, cover intentional acts.
    1. Translucent Chum 13 years ago
      
      Funny you bring that up. We require it for our vendors, but that coverage doesn't protect the person committing the crime, so I don't think it would apply to Sandusky himself, but it could potentially cover Penn State when they are sued.
      1. Drake 13 years ago
        
        Hopefully the University was carrying Directors and Officers insurance.
      2. MP 13 years ago
        
        I bet it doesn't cover administrative fines from the NCAA.
        
        Drake 13 years ago
        
        It wouldn't cover the fine because it is voluntary (and probably over the loss limit).
        
        The NCAA has specific rules on conduct, which Penn State never broke. It would be a PR mess, but Penn State could fight the penalties and win.
        
        Mo 13 years ago
        
        PSU agreed because the NCAA threatened that the alternative was a lengthy investigation with punishment being up to a 4 year death penalty.
        
        Concerned Citizen 13 years ago
        
        As I pointed out to a lefty friend on Facebook, the NCAA must see their rule book as a living document.
    2. Translucent Chum 13 years ago
      
      It would be odd that he would have that type of policy in any case. We require independent adjusters to carry it and name our company as the beneficiary, so we, and not they, are covered if they commit a crime while working for us.
  3. Mo 13 years ago
    
    Suicide is generally covered by life insurance after 6 months.
2. Translucent Chum 13 years ago
  
  The insurer would be obligated to pay for his defense counsel up to a point, but that's about it.
generic Brand 13 years ago

A United Nations report says there are so many drones over Somalia they're starting to interfere with air traffic.

Nothing to see here, folks. Seriously. Nothing. To. See. What drones?
1. Francisco d Anconia 13 years ago
  
  Question:
  
  What is everyone's issue with drones?
  
  To me their legitimacy depends on what they are doing and to whom. It's the act, not the tool.
  1. generic Brand 13 years ago
    
    I think crashing into refugee camps is pretty illegitimate. If all they are doing is spying, don't we have satellites for that? If they are doing more than spying... well we've seen what has happened in Pakistan. I think overall drones are too big an extension of government, unless we get to the point where we're like the Culture and everyone has a personal drone.
    1. Francisco d Anconia 13 years ago
      
      As far as I know (been out of the business for a few years), very few are armed. Most are surveillance.
      
      Who cares if there is a person in it or not.
      
      I see really exiting civil applications spinning off of this. In 15 years we can get rid of airline pilots.
      1. generic Brand 13 years ago
        
        But if that was the case let the private industry develop the tech with that in mind. Why does our government need to send armed or unarmed drones out into the world as a test for whether or not they work?
        
        Francisco d Anconia 13 years ago
        
        We can debate the "rightness" of our actions (military/intell...), but the drones themselves are just another weapon/collection device. They are neither good nor bad. It depends upon their use.
        
        For some reason, folks have this visceral reaction to the word drone. What's the diff between that an an agent or an aircraft or a tank for that matter?
    2. sloopyinca 13 years ago
      
      I have a problem with the armed ones for obvious reasons, but I even have a problem with the unarmed ones. Answer this: how would we feel if another nation, say Iran, flew unarmed surveillance drones over our homes? Why are we entitled to the airspace over another sovereign nation but will not afford anyone the same courtesy here.
      
      Actions have consequences. We ought to leave people alone and if we want to look in on them and see what they're doing, we can launch more satellites.
  2. ant1sthenes 13 years ago
    
    It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, thanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon?so long as there is no answer to it?gives claws to the weak.
    
    George Orwell, You and the Atomic Bomb
    1. R C Dean 13 years ago
      
      There's something to that, but he's missing out on the difficulty of using muscle-powered weapons, which limits their effective use to a smaller class that can devote the time and energy to mastering the weapons.
      
      Anyone can learn to use a gun reasonably well in an hour, even a muzzle-loader. Longbows, swords, even spears, take much, much more time. That's why even the relatively cheap and easy to make muscle-powered weapons coincide with despotism.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        The long bow didn't lead to a particularly democratic age. The hand gun and rifle did.
        
        Virginian 13 years ago
        
        Well kind of. See the longbow only ever took off in England. Continental aristocracies did not allow the peasants to train with a longbow, instead issuing crossbows. The reason for this is that a well trained force of longbowmen behind a wall of well led and disciplined infantry will absolutely shred even heavy cavalry. Crossbows have a much slower rate of fire and do not have the ability to penetrate armor at extended range. An English longbow firing a four ounce shaft with a bodkin point will punch through plate at 200 yards, and a good archer can fire four or five times in a minute.
        
        The only nation which did adopt the longbow was England, and that led directly to the development of the corpus of common law and charters we call "the rights of Englishmen". English lords simply couldn't trample on the peasantry. They all had longbows, and they spent every Sunday afternoon practicing.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

bama's feats of weakness
Administration's effort to boost global image has flopped
http://www.washingtontimes.com.....-weakness/

Since Mr. Obama took office, the opinion of the United States generally has declined in every country surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, according to a report released in June. Despite the vaunted White House effort to reach out to Muslim-majority countries, U.S. favorability ratings in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan are below where they were in 2008, when George W. Bush was at the helm. The study notes that "opinion is generally against Obama in most of the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed, with about half or more in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan saying Obama should not be elected again."
1. Palin's Buttplug 13 years ago
  
  So the Washington Times is suddenly concerned how Muslims view us? Why read that bullshit?
  
  Oh - its the print version of Hannity. I forget.
  1. wareagle 13 years ago
    
    did you that the article quotes a Pew report or being disingenuous in ignoring it? Maybe Pew is just another arm of that vast right-wing cabal.
    1. Palin's Buttplug 13 years ago
      
      I find it odd that someone cares. I don't. Fuck Muslims.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        You are such a pathetic troll.
        
        Palin's Buttplug 13 years ago
        
        I am far closer to passing the LP purity test than you are, dickhead.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Only if you count the voices in your head. You are the most totalitarian fascist who posts on here.
        
        Pip 13 years ago
        
        "I am far closer to passing the LP purity test than you are, dickhead."
        
        No one gives a fuck.
      2. wareagle 13 years ago
        
        oh please...your boy Obama and his dogwashers were all about how his coronation would raise our standing in the eyes of the world. Now this.
      3. Rasilio 13 years ago
        
        I don't fuck Muslims either, much rather stick with pagans cause they don't have all kind of mental hangups about it.
robc 13 years ago

Director Peter Bogdanovich suggests the rise of "pornographic" violent movies may be to blame for violence in society.

He may be right. There is correlation, if not causation, between the rise in the movies and the fall in over all violence.
1. Francisco d Anconia 13 years ago
  
  People stay home more...
Brett L 13 years ago

Hollywood for ugly people releases its top 50 hottest list. Most of whom I would walk past in a Southern city without a second look.
1. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
  
  I notice the top 3 on the list were all "assistants"...
2. Drake 13 years ago
  
  They seem attractive enough. It's a shame they are wasting their lives in the shithole Maryland swamp instead of doing something useful.
  1. Brett L 13 years ago
    
    For example, number 3 is a Tallahassee girl who is pretty, but only one night in three is she the prettiest girl at the bar, and game day she might not blip the radar.
    1. robc 13 years ago
      
      Yeah, I was thinking she wouldnt be in top half of FSU coeds.
      1. robc 13 years ago
        
        The top 3 women were all GOP.
        
        robc 13 years ago
        
        #5 women, #8 overall is libertarian.
      2. Brett L 13 years ago
        
        Remember the chick who Brett Favre sent a picture of his junk to? FSU alumna.
      3. mr simple 13 years ago
        
        It looks like they just found 25 or so skinny women in politics and included a couple older women to pander to women.
3. mr simple 13 years ago
  
  When Michelle Bachmann is your #10 you know you've done something wrong.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Just how subservient to Barack Obama is the Fed? We'll soon find out. The Fed is considering pumping more money into the economy and inflating the currency by the end of September, just in time to artificially stimulate growth and help Obama's reelection prospects. Just two weeks ago, Senator Chuck Schumer told the Fed it should act before the 2012 election.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-G.....-Out-Obama
Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago

Valve boss Gabe Newell calls Windows 8 a 'catastrophe'

If there's one thing that could make me a Linux user, it's Windows 8... I already own a tablet. I have no need for you to tabletize my desktop.

On a related note, does anyone want to start a pool on which will come out first: Black Mesa: Source or Half Life 2: Episode 3?
1. ant1sthenes 13 years ago
  
  PC gaming is pretty much the only thing keeping me on Windows. I understand that Linux is a lot better than it used to be, but as someone who has been PC gaming for a while, I appreciate not having to fuck around with configuration settings and the like just to get things to work. Though I guess did always feel like you had earned it a little more.
  1. some guy 13 years ago
    
    Go with Ubuntu. That shit just works... most of the time.
    
    Or just keep your Windows OS for gaming and create a new Ubuntu partition for everything else.
2. AuH2O 13 years ago
  
  Remember when Windows could design fucking user interfaces?
  
  Okay, to be fair, I like Windows 7, but they have not been hitting that ball too well lately.
tarran 13 years ago

IF Obama was serious about ending violence, perhaps he and his confederates who control or heavily influence cities accross the United States might want to end their economic repression of the populations of those cities?

A kid who can start a business and get rich is less likely to shoot anyone if his business isn't illegal.
1. Palin's Buttplug 13 years ago
  
  Damn, I thought you were headed into a WoD rant - something Obama is actually wrong on.
  
  Because inner cities just began crumbling in Jan 2009, right?
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    No they just got a lot worse thanks to Obama. And the were crumbling because of seventy years of wealth destroying policies Obama claims to love.
  2. sloopyinca 13 years ago
    
    They've been crumbling for decades, shrike. I'd say it started right about the time the Civil Rights Act passed and the Great Society got rolling.
    
    And the overwhelming majority of those plantations cities have been run by Team Blue political machines that entire time. Coincidence?
    1. Palin's Buttplug 13 years ago
      
      Yeah, and the East/Central Meth Belt has been crumbling the last 30 years too - and they were run by Team Red GOV/POTUS for the most part.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        The cities were not you fucking moron. Who do you think ran Detroit and Chicago in the ground?
        
        Good you are lying fucking hack. Please promise to kill yourself when Obama loses.
  3. tarran 13 years ago
    
    Shrike, you superstitious, gibbering imbecile.
    
    The War on Some Drugs is but one of many numerous laws championed by progressives that has laid waste to economic opportunity in cities.
    
    The permits to start a business, build a building, engage in trade, provide services, expand one's home, educate people etc are legion and are strangling commerce.
    
    People can't grow food in cities (we'll ignore the population collapse in Detroit for now). Thus to eat, they have to engage in commerce. And wherever they turn, the progressives and their conservative brethren are either outlawing their business or seeking to curb, channel or control it.
    
    Yes, people can turn to black market trades such as prostitution or drug-dealing, but there is a market clearing price that limits the number of people who can make a living off of such trades.
    
    And so people are driven to steal, mug, murder and hijack items rather than creating wealth.
    
    And it's been going on for centuries.
    1. some guy 13 years ago
      
      How much is a taxi medallion running in NYC these days?
      1. Pip 13 years ago
        
        Over $1M if memory serves.
  4. ant1sthenes 13 years ago
    
    I'm pretty sure that was a WoD comment, if not a rant.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Doc says 'physicians have reached a tipping point'
http://dailycaller.com/2012/07.....int-video/

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons estimates that orthopedic surgeons' revenue from Medicare reimbursements has decreased 28 percent in the past decade, and hospital employment of the surgeons has increased 300 percent in the past five years.

McIntyre believes this migration will encourage process-driven care over outcome and goal-driven care because hospital administrators may not appreciate patient care issues like the physician treating them would. He also said hospitals are less willing to try new methods.

He fears medicine will morph from a profession advocating for patients into a trade association advocating for physicians, and he proposes market-based solutions.
1. NoVAHockey 13 years ago
  
  "trade association advocating for physicians"
  
  that train left the station a long time ago.
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

In the Eastern District of Kentucky alone, more than 20 public elected officials and others have either been convicted or plead guilty in various vote-buying cases just in the last two years.

They should have called it stimulus spending. That's the above board method of purchasing votes.
SugarFree 13 years ago

"These folks go out and hijack the local elections for their own purposes and then they use those jobs to enrich themselves and their confederates. It really is a terrible problem and it has to be stopped," said the U.S. attorney Kerry Harvey explained.

Yes. Just a problem in eastern Kentucky.
1. robc 13 years ago
  
  Eastern Kentucky/Chicago, easy to confuse them.
  1. robc 13 years ago
    
    Im pretty sure Pikeville and Chicago are virtually interchangeable.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

A Drought Of U.S. Leadership
http://news.investors.com/arti.....ership.htm

There's nothing wrong with importing from Brazil, but it's a strange dynamic because our country is so big and has so much in reserve it shouldn't have to import.

The problem here is the man-made element that is exacerbating the U.S. drought. There should be plenty of corn from U.S. reserves after recent record harvests for exports ? 61 million metric tons in 2008 ? were it not for the 2007 law that forces U.S. corn producers to turn ever greater percentages of U.S. corn into ethanol.
1. Drax the Destroyer 13 years ago
  
  Meh...People eat too much corn here anyway, and a good chunk of that shit gets turned into corn syrup anyway. I'm not sure what to grow in its place, but there's got to be some sort of staple crop that people would accept/prefer.
  1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    beef!
    1. Drax the Destroyer 13 years ago
      
      I'm down with that. Red meat in general needs to be consumed more. Then again, the less people who eat it, the more there will be for me.
  2. John 13 years ago
    
    Get rid of the ethanol subsidies and the sugar subsidies and corn prices go into the basement. And people will get thinner.
    1. Drax the Destroyer 13 years ago
      
      But haven't you thought about the poor farmers? What about them you heartless bastard?!
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        Who will speak for Archer Daniels Midland.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        The current congressional delegation from Iowa?
        
        Brett L 13 years ago
        
        They have several senators on the payroll.
        
        wareagle 13 years ago
        
        you mean other than the Congressmen from IA, NE, KS, and a couple of other states? Farm bills - that's what bipartisanship gets you.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Sarcasm folks. Sarcasm. Lots of people, most of them in Congress speak for ADM.
      2. MP 13 years ago
        
        They'll get thinner too.
    2. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      The Constitution doesn't say anything about policies that make sense so I won't hold my breath.
      1. Drax the Destroyer 13 years ago
        
        It also doesn't say anything about multiple levels of the government blatantly and intentionally misinterpreting it for at least a century. No wonder we're fucked.
  3. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    I vote for quinoa.
    1. T 13 years ago
      
      Can't I just skip quinoa and eat dirt? You get the same flavor without all the pesky harvesting and cooking.
seguin 13 years ago

""These folks go out and hijack the local elections for their own purposes and then they use those jobs to enrich themselves and their confederates. It really is a terrible problem and it has to be stopped," said the U.S. attorney Kerry Harvey explained."

Are we still talking about Kentucky here?
sarcasmic 13 years ago

Kate Beckinsale is still hot!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....dress.html
1. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
  
  How can you tell when half her face is covered?
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    sarcasmic hasn't looked at a woman's face since the 80's.
2. mr simple 13 years ago
  
  What? you decided to skip the first six stories all about the twilight breakup?
  
  That's quite an obsession they have, but I guess it gets page hits.
sarcasmic 13 years ago

China opens world's most powerful dam. No fucking way an engineering project of that nature could happen in The Land of the Free.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....ctors.html
1. generic Brand 13 years ago
  
  I especially liked the picture of the man floating on an inflatable chair.
2. John 13 years ago
  
  And thank God for it. The dam is an ecological nightmare and it displaced hundreds of thousands of people for a dam producing power they could produce elsewhere in front of a lake that is going to silt up very quickly.
  
  Calm down there Tom Friedman.
  1. Somalian Road Corporation 13 years ago
    
    Perhaps he was making a statement about how the Chinese feel much less of a need to self-flagellate and pay penance to Gaia with decades of environmental impact statements regarding any development.
3. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  I seem to remember reading that the water is so silty that it just eats the generator turbines, so they're going to have a hell of a time with power generation.
  
  All that silt is also going to settle, and require monster dredging projects to keep the reservoir viable.
  
  As for its flood control potential, I am agnostic.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    When it silts up, the floods are going to be massive upstream.
  2. rac3rx 13 years ago
    
    I've read from other sources, and you can kind of see from those pictures, that water is NASTY.
    1. Pip 13 years ago
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onWArx6Ui1A
sarcasmic 13 years ago

I dunno, howsabout skydiving from EIGHTEEN MILES?!?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci.....Earth.html
1. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  I'm in. It'll kill me just as dead as 1800 feet.
2. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
  
  IIRC, this drop was only a test for his record-breaking skydive from ~25-30 miles.
sarcasmic 13 years ago

Pigs being pigs. I like the one where they synch up their lies.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-City.html
sarcasmic 13 years ago

Jamie Oliver is still a douche!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-food.html
1. generic Brand 13 years ago
  
  I'm gonna go out on a limb here and admit that I liked his show, The Naked Chef. The first time I scrolled through and saw it, I had hoped it was actually a woman cooking naked, but even being a dude fully clothed (Thank God!) the show was pretty interesting.
  
  I make no excuses for his crusade against bad lunch room cuisine. Leave square pizza alone!
  1. rac3rx 13 years ago
    
    Well and the lunch thing was a dismal failure. Squirrels won't let me post the link.
sarcasmic 13 years ago

Obligatory Ali Larter paparazi pics.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....shirt.html
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Butter face. There is something seriously wrong with her jaw line and features.
John 13 years ago

I read Slate like Sugar Free reads Jezebel. The train wreck of stupid is just irresistible. Don't worry out of work blue collar workers, you can always move to San Fransisco or New York and paint the toenails or be the personal trainers of the creative class!!1

http://www.slate.com/articles/.....ls_.2.html

Even for Slate this article is repulsively stupid.
1. SugarFree 13 years ago
  
  All that fancy writing about the "artisan economy" and not one word about mayonnaise?
  
  FAIL
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Or urban bee keeping.
2. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  Mfg never really left. I mean, the big factories with the cushy union jobs closed, but there are something like 10k unfilled light mfg jobs in Florida right now.
  1. wareagle 13 years ago
    
    I must be in the wrong part of the Panhandle. But I mostly came for the graduate program and to snap up a reduced-price property.
    1. Brett L 13 years ago
      
      Most of it is in the I-4 Corridor.
      1. wareagle 13 years ago
        
        should have figured. At some point, Volusia-to-Hillsborough is going to merge into a single county.
    2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      We spent Christmas in Vero Beach one year, and when we got back my wife saw that we could be renting a condo there for cheaper than here (CT). She was depressed for at least a week.
  2. tarran 13 years ago
    
    Russ Roberts at Cafe Hayek points out that the amount of goods that the U.S. Manufactures keeps going up.
    
    The factories just don't need as many people to do the job.
    1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
      
      Damn machines putting people out of work!
      
      Luddites, unite!
    2. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      Note to self - when I get fired and need re-training, go into robotics.
      1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Or, apparently, software/aerospace engineering.
        
        Bobarian 13 years ago
        
        Or become a robot.
  3. T 13 years ago
    
    A lot of oil and gas equipment is still made here. And exported all over the world!
    1. Spoonman. 13 years ago
      
      Not to mention most of the new techniques are innovated here.
    2. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      Where is it made? Location, please...
      1. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        There are a gazillion in Houston. Go to sites like oilcareers. or rigzone and look for engineering jobs. You'll find a lot here, from employers like, e.g, GE Oil and Gas, National Oilwell Varco, Schlumberger, Dresser, etc... Manufacturing, not just admin, financial and legal.
      2. Spoonman. 13 years ago
        
        Houston.
      3. Brett L 13 years ago
        
        There's a rig fab place in Brady, TX, too. Or there was 5 years ago. I know about them because they build chassises? for shipping containers when they aren't doing rig equipment.
3. General Butt Naked 13 years ago
  
  I can't stop reading Slate either.
  
  I'll read Dear Prudence all day. Gawd she is such a moralizing hag. Dad likes a beer after work? Call CYS, the police, and the ATF just to make sure we nail his ass.
  
  Also, you can totally see the double standard she sets for the complaints about men and women. Read the ones about older people dating younger people; she'll basically call an older guy a pedophile for dating a 25 year old.
  
  Now I'm all fuzzed up over this, goddammit. Calm down General.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Sometimes I like her. I think she is about the only sane person who writes there. I don't always agree with her. But she is usually sane. And if you think she hates men, read Hannah Rosin sometime. Rosin is the most vicious sexist ever published in a mainstream publication.
    
    And yes, she is too forgiving of women. She had one reader who had a step son. She married her husband when the kid was three. She worked so it was off to day care for him. Now she was having her own kid and planned to quit work. No day care for her little snowflake. And Prudence thought that was just great and the older kid shouldn't have a problem with it. I was like you are a loon if you don't think the older kid is going to feel like a second class citizen if she quits work for the baby but never did for him.
    1. Brett L 13 years ago
      
      Uh, yeah. I have a friend who has a son from a previous marriage. Everyone (including his wife) can see that she treats her kids different from the older son. Its fucking hormonal or something. She really doesn't mean to at a conscious level.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        Mixed marriages work better when it is a step father and the same mother to all of the kids. Men can get over their attachment to biological kids easier than women.
        
        Fairy tales are not full of wicked step mothers, as opposed to wicked step fathers, for nothing.
        
        tarran 13 years ago
        
        Mixed marriages work better when it is a step father and the same mother to all of the kids. Men can get over their attachment to biological kids easier than women.
        
        Crap!
        
        MP 13 years ago
        
        Spreadsheets foster detachment.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Family budget hearings do as well.
  2. Brett L 13 years ago
    
    She did kick that drunk married chick in the twat for suggesting that her husband could possibly be raping her when they were getting it on drunk.
    1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      True. That was a good one.
4. Longtorso 13 years ago
  
  Beat you to that one up higher in the thread.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    I know. I bow to your link skills.
SugarFree 13 years ago

State Farm and Chubb Insurance are both in court arguing they're not obligated to pay Jerry Sandusky's legal bills.

Err...
John 13 years ago

http://news.investors.com/arti.....ership.htm

US now importing corn. Add to the greenie butcher's bill.
1. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  WTF.
2. Spoonman. 13 years ago
  
  You know there's a fuckup when anything, even a drought, can cause the USA to import grain.
3. some guy 13 years ago
  
  It's ok because we're already subsidizing the Brazilian corn crop anyway. (Reason and ?NPR? covered this some months ago but I'm too lazy to look up a link)
4. VG Zaytsev 13 years ago
  
  Reminds me of that old joke about communist control of the Sahara leading to a shortage of sand.
5. AuH2O 13 years ago
  
  Holy fucking shit. Props, Obama.
  
  Fuck, and I'm going grocery shopping today.
Rich 13 years ago

The president wants to "arrive at a consensus around violence reduction."

Well, many people already buy into the non-aggression principle.
1. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  I really don't think its paranoid to read that as a dogwhistle for gun control if he's re-elected and off the leash.
  
  There's that UN gun control treaty in the works, too. I'm always kind of fuzzy on how those treaties work when they are signed by the Prez but not approved by the Senate. Not fully binding, but kinda binding, or something like that.
  1. Tulpa the White 13 years ago
    
    It's not even a dog whistle. There's much more explicit calls for legislative action in that speech but for some reason Mr Krayewski chose not to mention them.
  2. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
    
    How much of the objectionable stuff in the treaty could Obama implement just by executive order?
    
    I thought the general rule on treaties was that they had no force against a signatory until the signatory ratified. The Vienna Convention provides somewhat differently, but the U.S. hasn't ratified, (nor signed, IIRC) that either. Here's an article from the Harvard J. Int. Law from 2007 discussing the issue of the duties and restrictions on a signatory that hasn't ratified.
tarran 13 years ago

Over at the Agitator, Maggie McGill rips Buckaroo Banzai's "I vus only vollovink orderz" shtick to shreds.

People tend to overlook the fact that the Nazis were a legitimate political party duly elected to leadership of an advanced, modern country by the exact same democratic process as leaders are elected in every Western nation today. Hitler was not a military dictator who seized power in some bloody coup d'?tat but a politician who gained his position by popular vote, and all of his actions as chief executive were 100% legal under the laws enacted by the German legislature. The Nazis came to power by the same means as politicians always come to power everywhere (namely by telling the people what they wanted to hear)...

What this means is that whatever we may think of the Nazi's morality, it's impossible to fault their legality. Morals are principles which transcend human behavior, while laws are merely arbitrary rules invented by eminently-fallible humans in order to control others and/or impose their own personal views of right action. Some laws are moral and many immoral, but the majority are simply amoral; however, even moral or amoral laws can be (and often are) used for the highly immoral purpose of exerting external control over inoffensive individuals who neither desire nor require that control.
John 13 years ago

http://articles.boston.com/201.....edom-trail

Even the Boston Globe embarassed by liberal fascism against Chick Fil A
1. tarran 13 years ago
  
  On facebook, several of my high-school classmates are praising Menino for this move. I took U.S. history with these people and we all had to read Tammany Hall. It's disgusting how these kids who all wrote essays condemning machine politics have completely forgotten what they were taught the moment Menino blows his dog-whistle.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    The government punishing people who hold the wrong opinions and ensuring they can't open businesses or make a living.
    
    That is called fascism. It is comical to think progressive kids have spent their whole lives falsely accusing everyone else of "fascism" only to become real live fascists themselves.
    1. AuH2O 13 years ago
      
      The problem is that modern day libtards don't connect this with things like Tammany Hall, because Tammany Hall was all about back scratching and rewarding "ethnic" constituency.
      
      With gays, they tell themselves that the mayor is just standing up for "human right"
    2. Pip 13 years ago
      
      This means it's okay for cities to refuse Planned Parenthood if they so choose.
  2. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
    
    I've seen several posts about it on Facebook too. I kind of hate social networking because of stuff like this.
2. wareagle 13 years ago
  
  this from the mayor of the city with one of the nation's sorriest histories on race relations. The CEO of a company is entitled to an opinion and, by the same token, those who disagree can choose to not buy his company's products. But an opinion is not discrimination. Saying you believe in traditional marriage is not the same as, say, refusing to hire or serve gays, neither of which CFA has been accused of doing.
  1. generic Brand 13 years ago
    
    This! All they've done is give money to organizations that speak out for traditional marriage, or maybe against the redefinition of marriage. If they fire people for being gay, or refuse to serve people, have a cow, go wild, I get it.
    
    If people want to boycott, that's their prerogative, but to use the arm of the law to refuse access to a business because of its beliefs is actual discrimination.
    1. VG Zaytsev 13 years ago
      
      If they fire people for being gay, or refuse to serve people, have a cow, go wild, I get it.
      
      I don't.
      
      They should be free to pursue whatever policies they want.
      
      And everyone else is free to not patronize their establishment.
      1. mr simple 13 years ago
        
        Exactly. How they use their property, including spending money to hire people or selling their products, should be completely up to them. Otherwise they don't own their own property. If you don't like it you can exercise control of your property and not give them your money.
      2. generic Brand 13 years ago
        
        I guess I meant within the BS confines of the CRA, I get it. SLD applied, I agree with you 100%.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        Have GLBT folks been added to the protected classes under the Civil Rights Act? I didn't think they were explicitly added by legislation, though the Office of Personnel Management seems to have added them by executive fiat.
        
        Regardless, if Chik-fil-a wants to be a bigot, they should be allowed to. I'm free to go buy chicken from other people.
3. Mike M. 13 years ago
  
  I love how Rahm Emanuel says that Chick-Fil-A doesn't represent "Chicago values".
  
  Chicago values?? I don't know how anyone could possibly read that without bursting into laughter. The phrase is practically the textbook definition of an oxymoron. What the hell are Chicago values?
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    And of course Emanuel has appointed himself dear leader and arbiter of who has values and who is allowed to do business in his fiefdom, I mean city.
    
    Pathetic.
  2. Auric Demonocles 13 years ago
    
    It's a company. I don't give a shit about its "values". I care about the chicken sandwich it's making for me.
  3. MP 13 years ago
    
    You can't bribe a Chick-Fil-A person to give you a sandwich discount.
    1. Eduard van Haalen 13 years ago
      
      +1
  4. Drax the Destroyer 13 years ago
    
    The only reason these diabolical fucks want to ban it is because they know most people would not theoretically take their business elsewhere because they couldn't give two shits about what the CEO thinks about anybody. Unless the guy was funding an armed group of murderers sent to only kill gay people, why should the general public give a shit? It's not like he has any real political power, unlike Rahm and Obama who preside of groups of armed thugs killing and maiming people who haven't anything of consequence.
    
    Moreover, chicken don't discriminate. If you don't like Chik-Fil-A, for whatever reason, DON'T. EAT. THERE.
  5. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
    
    So Whole Foods with its libertarianism is okay, Rahm? Or will you be engaging in illegal viewpoint discrimination against it, too?
  6. VG Zaytsev 13 years ago
    
    I love how Rahm Emanuel says that Chick-Fil-A doesn't represent "Chicago values".
    
    Of course they don't.
    
    They're not killing black kids daily are they?
4. sarcasmic 13 years ago
  
  Chick Fil A can't create jobs and pay taxes in Boston because the owner supports traditional marriage, yet Menino is pushing to allow a mosque to be built in Boston.
  
  Gee, I wonder how the fine folks in the mosque feel about homosexuality, and if, as a religious institution, they will pay any taxes.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    LOL. I hadn't heard that. That is classic. But it is okay when the brown people hate homosexuals and want them stoned to death.
    1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
      
      It's all about being politically correct.
      
      Fuck the Christians and pander to the Muslims.
      1. Mo 13 years ago
        
        The Catholic Church still operates in Boston.
        
        NoVAHockey 13 years ago
        
        yeah, but it's on probation.
      2. Drax the Destroyer 13 years ago
        
        Why can't we hate everyone equally?
  2. T 13 years ago
    
    Menino got a mosque built.
  3. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    I guess it wasn't being built on a catchy site, like Beacon Hill or something.
Pip 13 years ago

The NCAA fined Penn State $60,000,000.00 because of the Sandusky cover-up. So what happens to that money?
1. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  It is to go to assistance and awareness for sexually assaulted minors in a program NOT to be run by and hosted at the university.
  1. wareagle 13 years ago
    
    60-mil buys a lot of awareness. I'm sure none of the money will be misappropriated.
    1. Brett L 13 years ago
      
      Yeah, the specification was to keep PSU from building and funding some sort of "Awareness Pavilion" where they spent $59.9M on infratstructure, faculty, and staff and called it charity for sexually abused kids.
2. robc 13 years ago
  
  Its required to go to charities that aid sexually abused children. The charities cannot be connected to PSU.
3. John 13 years ago
  
  It is going to create a fund to help victims of child sexual abuse.
tarran 13 years ago

Live long and prosper, bitches!
DEG 13 years ago

I read about the Obama speech on CNN. I was amused to see that comments on the article are closed.

http://politicalticker.blogs.c.....?hpt=hp_c1

But note that the article about Romney stating that new gun laws are unnecessary has open comments (well, open at the time I post this).

http://politicalticker.blogs.c.....-gun-laws/
1. DEG 13 years ago
  
  Bastards! CNN opened the comments on the Obama speech story. I should have taken a screen shot of the story with comments closed.
  1. DEG 13 years ago
    
    I like the comment from Sarah:
    
    Sarah
    
    AK-47.
    The.Best.Gun.Ever.Made.
    
    If there is a perfect thing Russians ever made it was the AK-47.
CampingInYourPark 13 years ago

"Democrats pop balloons, cut cake, sing Happy Birthday to Medicare, Medicaid"
http://dailycaller.com/2012/07.....aid-video/
Restoras 13 years ago

Can't wait for the Rush tour to start! Anyone here going?
1. gaijin 13 years ago
  
  yup!
John 13 years ago

http://www.suntimes.com/news/m.....marks.html

Chick Fila not Chicago values. Louis Farrakhan, Chicago values.
1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  I was thinking that. Any company or organization whatsoever that operates in Chicago can now be assigned as holding "Chicago values." Like the Illinois Nazi Party (making that up, but such things are legal and almost certainly in Chicago).
  
  Prepare to impute!
  1. Eduard van Haalen 13 years ago
    
    A quick Google search shows that Farrakhan isn't a big fan of gay marriage, either:
    
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....52556.html
    
    Explain again why the Chick-Fil-A guy's comments were intolerable, but Farrakhan's were OK?
    1. Restoras 13 years ago
      
      Because Farrakahn is black, a moozlim, and hence a victim. Or something like that.
      1. Mike M. 13 years ago
        
        Yep. For now, blacks apparently still rank above gays in the "progressive" political victimology hierarchy.
    2. Drax the Destroyer 13 years ago
      
      Because the Chick-Fil-A guy is trying to make a profit and PROFITS ARE EVIL and if you say something bad about Farrakhan that means you are a racist. Obama is even half-white, but we are all still racists for having beef with him even though said beef has nothing to do with his race.
    3. Matrix 13 years ago
      
      And Farrakhan hates Jews. Does Rahm suffer from self hatred?
      1. Pip 13 years ago
        
        I would, were I him.
DJF 13 years ago

Just what the US does not need, more cost overruns at the Pentagon and stationing troops in more foreign countries. Has anyone mentioned to these idiots that the US is deep in debt?

"""Pentagon More Than Doubles Cost Estimate for B61 Nuclear Bomb""'

http://www.defensenews.com/

"""US to station forces in Poland for the first time."""

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/inde.....Itemid=625
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Neither link works.
  1. DJF 13 years ago
    
    The first link works for me, it goes to the main page because the strait link is over 50 characters
    
    Try this for the second link
    
    http://www.sundaytimes.lk/inde.....Itemid=625
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      I keep getting the 404 error for that one.
      1. DJF 13 years ago
        
        Try this
        
        http://www.airforce-technology.....20365.html
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Thanks
2. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  There was a time when I would have thought stationing troops in Poland would be a good idea. Come to think of it, there was a time in my life when this was inconceivable!
  
  Now, however, we can't afford this nonsense anymore.
  1. DJF 13 years ago
    
    Everyone in power in Washington wants to keep on doing what they have been doing even when the money isn't there.
3. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
  
  I wonder how much of the overruns are due to differing assumptions about environmental issues? It sounds like they need a new bomb factory, as Rocky Flats has been decommissioned, and Pantex is, IIRC, only concerned with maintenance and disassembly. Rocky Flats was hideously contaminated, and despite whatever assurances the project manager gives, I've no doubt that the new CMRR facility will be contaminated as well.
  
  Having to restart one, maybe two new production lines for degraded components ('Fogbank' and Tritium---god knows what else these things need after 45 years), can't be cheap either.
  
  So, over/under on Ukraine asking us nicely to station troops there? Are they, like Poland had, helping out in Afghanistan?
The Late P Brooks 13 years ago

Russ Roberts at Cafe Hayek points out that the amount of goods that the U.S. Manufactures keeps going up.

What right wing crackpottery is this?

Virtually every fucking day, somebody tells me "We don't make anything in this country anymore!"
1. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  Well, "we" don't but our robots do!
2. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  I'd read something a few years ago about how incredibly dominant we were in manufacture for commercial and industrial consumers (as opposed to individual consumers). But you never hear about that.
The Late P Brooks 13 years ago

Explain again why the Chick-Fil-A guy's comments were intolerable, but Farrakhan's were OK?

PROFITZ.

duh
1. Bobarian 13 years ago
  
  And Farrakhan is a lot more likely to vote for and endorse team BLUE.
Tulpa the White 13 years ago

Are you flerking kidding me Krayewski? Minimizing Obama's anti-liberty remarks, again! From the very same speech Mr Krayewski summarizes with the quote on "consensus on violence reduction":

"I believe the majority of gun owners would agree that we should do everything possible to prevent criminals and fugitives from purchasing weapons; that we should check someone's criminal record before they can check out a gun seller; that a mentally unbalanced individual should not be able to get his hands on a gun so easily," he said. "These steps shouldn't be controversial. They should be common sense."

"When there is an extraordinarily heartbreaking tragedy like the one we saw, there's always an outcry immediately after for action. And there's talk of new reforms, and there's talk of new legislation," Obama said in his speech. "And too often, those efforts are defeated by politics and by lobbying and eventually by the pull of our collective attention elsewhere."

That's the line liberty lovers should be concerned about. Not some innocuous vapid thing about youth violence.
1. sloopyinca 13 years ago
  
  Can't we be concerned about both? and FWIW, Krayewski's point is still valid and he didn't have to trot out an extremely long quote to make it.
  
  Remember: these are morning links, not morning stories. They're meant to get us to click on a link and read the story ourselves.
  1. Tulpa the White 13 years ago
    
    Krayewski's quote sounded like the vapid boilerplate every politician spews. It doesn't even necessarily call for coercion.
    
    And it would have been easy to quote one sentence from that part or summarize to entice a click to read more.
  2. Tulpa the White 13 years ago
    
    I mean, this is an explicit call for legislative action to restrict gun sales. How can a libertarian quote some styrofoam instead?
    1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
      
      Yeah, how can you be a fucking libertarian without possessing the innate ability to spot the nut graf immediately? Fucking cosomtarians.
      Cancel my subscription!
      1. Tulpa the White 13 years ago
        
        So you don't expect the selector of the morning links to find the most important part of the links?
        
        I expect perfection from myself; how can I tolerate any less from Reason writers?
        
        Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        I said "Cancel my subscription!" What more do you want from me?
        
        mnarayan 13 years ago
        
        Take off and nuke it from orbit
Eduard van Haalen 13 years ago

The South Koreans seem to have recruited Daredevil for their archery team - the gold-medalist archer is legally blind.

Says he: "I don't have a stick, I don't have a blind dog. It's unpleasant when people say I'm disabled. All this interest in my sight is not welcome."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/spo.....Games.html
Warty 13 years ago

I didn't know that I was too stupid to save for my own retirement, but apparently I am. A Top Man told me so.

This do-it-yourself pension system has failed. It has failed because it expects individuals without investment expertise to reap the same results as professional investors and money managers. What results would you expect if you were asked to pull your own teeth or do your own electrical wiring?
1. John 13 years ago
  
  You need professional help. You know, the guys who invested in credit default swaps and were convinced that the laws of supply and demand didn't apply to the housing market.
2. Brett L 13 years ago
  
  Uh, I do my own electrical wiring. No degree or nothing. They have these things called books you can check out from the library. And videos on youtube after that. Fucking worthless slugs. I also repair small engines and do my own plumbing. I'd pull my own teeth if I could find a decent sedative that left me aware enough.
Michael Ejercito 13 years ago

Drug money may be involved in vote-buying schemes being prosecuted in eastern Kentucky. "These folks go out and hijack the local elections for their own purposes and then they use those jobs to enrich themselves and their confederates. It really is a terrible problem and it has to be stopped," said the U.S. attorney Kerry Harvey explained.

And I thought voter fraud was a hoax...along with the Holocaust.
The Late P Brooks 13 years ago

how can you be a fucking libertarian without possessing the innate ability to spot the nut graf immediately?

Every time I hear or read the Supreme Zero's words, in my head they sound exactly like Charlie Brown's teacher. So yeah, it's hard.
1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
  
  Late again, Brooks?
  And yeah. Why quote "whaaw whaaw whaaaaw whaw whaw," when you could have quoted "whaw whaw whaw whaaaaaw whaw"?
CE 13 years ago

Does that mean they're going to cancel Spartacus?
dinfeee 13 years ago

Wow man that girl is really CUTE!

http://www.Anon-Rules.tk

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