Shooting Outside Empire State Building, Greece May Take a Break From the Eurozone, Early Nomination for Mitt?: P.M. Links

• Rather than file a grievance, complain to his buddies or just get drunk, a man who was fired yesterday shot his former boss and then opened fire on passers-by outside the Empire State Building.

• Let's take a break in our relationship, Germany is poised to tell Greece. It's just temporary, while we work things out.
• The GOP may give Mitt Romney the official nod a tad early in order to avoid the twin threat of Tropical Storm Isaac and Ron Paul supporters.
• Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a former Osama bin Laden aide, will have to serve out his life sentence for stabbing a federal prison guard in the eye.
• Lance Armstrong may have been stripped of his Tour de France titles, but he still has his deal with Nike to keep him warm at night.
• Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer, apparently considers himself an underachiever. He apologized for not killing more people. This is what evil looks like, folks.
• The guy brought in to clean up Miami's Code Compliance division has been paying for parties on his city account, taking freebies from restaurants, dating staff and generally not cleaning up the division.

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Comments

[Banjos]

My comment is the first.

[Archduke PantsFan]

How do you figure?

[Trespassers W]

Shouldn't you be gestating?

[Not an Economist]

Only because you cheated 😉

[Pro Libertate]

Sorry for not killing more people? And he got 21 years? What happens at the end of that sentence, anyway?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Since he was already at the upper sentencing limit when he killed his first, why not more?

[Pro Libertate]

I guess he wasn't too worried about the possible conviction but still.

[General Butt Naked]

So a demented 18 year old over there could kill 1000's and be out before middle age. Wow.

They're gonna see a real uptick in mass-killing tourism.

[General Butt Naked]

He's eligible for release in 10 years. After 21 he's a free man.

I am the furthest one can get from being a 'law and order asshole', but jesus man he killed 77 people.

[Pro Libertate]

Yeah. He should be done.

[Episiarch]

That's why the prosecutors are arguing for insanity, because then they can hold him indefinitely.

[General Butt Naked]

Yerp, I know. It's kinda perverse that the only people you can put away forever are the people who don't understand the consequences of their actions.

[Pro Libertate]

There's something fucked up about ever letting out someone who murdered that many people. I mean, it's not like they don't know he did it, or that it was 77 cases of self-defense.

[JW]

Just let him loose on the island with a 10 minute head start on the victim's families. I think we'll find justice there.

[Scarcity]

From what I've gathered today they have a max sentence, for anything, of 21 years. But then they can hold you indefinitely is you are judged to be a "danger to society."

[General Butt Naked]

That sounds familiar, I think I was reading some hyperbole earlier.

France has the same thing. It's how they keep The Jackal locked up.

[Scarcity]

It sounds to me more like what we would consider life with the possibility of parole after 21 years.

That, or if we actually kept sex offenders in jail after their sentence rather than the extra-incarceration methods we use now.

[Scarcity]

The report on NPR this morning made it sound like no one ever expected him to get out.

[Scarcity]

Or "expected him to ever get out," take your pick.

Time to go pretend Chicago has happy hour - cheers!

[Xenocles]

What happens at the end of that sentence is that he stays in jail because apparently that's how it works in Norway - they can keep you in jail after your sentence if they consider you dangerous. Odds are he will never get out.

[mad libertarian guy]

For a truly chilling look at what this man actually did, click here.

It's uncomfortable to read, but it's a good read. It took me a while to get through it, and I found myself very sad for these people. The horror must have been terrible.

That said, I feel it very strange that the camp he did his killing at was a socialist political indoctrination camp for teens. Who the fuck send their kids to a camp about fucking politics? That's just sick.

And no, this isn't some link to a fat chicks with dicks site or anything.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Let's take a break in our relationship, Germany is poised to tell Greece.

The Krauts want to see other freeloaders.

[Episiarch]

"It's not you, it's us."

[Dr. Frankenstein]

I'm not sayin' Greece's a gold digger but she ain't hanging out with no broke n.

[SugarFree]

The Krauts want to see other freeloaders.

Wow, I didn't know German was that blonde I adored in 1990.

[Episiarch]

What word is "adored" a stand-in for in this case? Stalked? Molested? Hot Carl-ed?

[SugarFree]

A little over-the-shirt-no-bra and a single frustrating night of fruitless mutual dry-humping.

[Episiarch]

Sounds like being a teenager.

[SugarFree]

She was.

[Episiarch]

Please tell me it was statutory rape.

[sticks]

Don't hear that everyday.[insert joke about warty]

[SugarFree]

It wasn't legitimate, if that's what you're getting at.

[Warty]

It was only statutory.

[Tulpa Doom]

This strikes me as giving toothpaste a break from being in the tube.

[BakedPenguin]

"We just need some lebens... ah, space."

[Archduke PantsFan]

You know who else wanted to take a break?

[Anacreon]

Kit-Kat?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The GOP may give Mitt Romney the official nod a tad early in order to avoid the twin threat of Tropical Storm Isaac and Ron Paul supporters.

Equal potentials for destruction.

[Pro Libertate]

The storm will miss us, probably completely. This is my prediction.

As for Paul, I think he personally has gone quiet in exchange for some sort of political concession. Not sure what it is. The GOP will be sure to screw the Paul delegates thoroughly, however.

[R C Dean]

I'm pulling for that storm to make a hard left turn and a beeline for New Mexico.

We need the rain more than I need the lulz of watching the Repubs flail around in a hurricane.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, I'd prefer that the storm give us a miss. Traffic is going to suck, anyway. Why more pain?

[General Butt Naked]

Y'all thought you were going to put up all 'em titty bars and Jesus was not going to e pissed?

I'd hunker down, board up the windows and stock up on paul-tard spray.

[John]

I think the concession is going after Bernake and the Fed.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm inclined to agree.

[Brett L]

Headed out to Port St. Joe in the morning to batten down the coastal command center (aka beach house). This is the surest way to make sure it misses us completely.

[A Serious Man]

The NYPD injured more people than the shooter. Top quality police work there.

[Episiarch]

Very few NYPD officers go to the range other than to "qualify". Since they are the overlords who get to carry guns, they think it gives them magical shooting skills at the same time. Seriously, the NYPD cops I knew literally felt that way, and actually assumed that those of us who owned guns and went to the range frequently were still terrible shots who would...probably shoot bystanders if we were ever allowed to protect ourselves with a gun.

[General Butt Naked]

What's the qualifying test like?

[Episiarch]

From what I was told, a fucking piece of cake and even then some cops fail it one or more times. If you fail it, you just take it again until you pass. It's meaningless.

[General Butt Naked]

Not nypd but informative nonetheless:

an instructor tells of his experience

Failure at 7 yds with a shotgun!!!

Wow, it is fucking scary that these guys got murder licenses.

[Christina]

I once worked with a guy who was former Coast Guard. He would frequent a range that DC cops used. He said they were awful, awful, awful shots. But of course, as he put it, he was used to shooting people all the time in the Coast Guard.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Someone shouted, "He's in the grey suit!" so the coppers logically shot anyone in a grey suit.

[A Serious Man]

Obviously the solution is more 'stop and frisk".

[Fist of Etiquette]

A key Miami Beach official tasked with restoring trust in a tainted code compliance division may first need to restore his bosses' faith.

Do people generally have faith in code compliance officers? Since he's apparently not being terminated, I guess faith isn't really all that high on Miami Beach's priority list.

[Ted S.]

My dad was a code enforcement officer for a small town (pop. less than 1000) here in the Catskills. The town board was far more corrupt, although I heard stories about other town's code enforcement officers who were arbitrary (or possibly just lax) in their enforcement: contractors would bitch to my father that other CEOs weren't expecting them to do such-and-such that Dad pointed to in the building code, so why should he be requiring them to do it?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer, apparently considers himself an underachiever. He apologized for not killing more people. This is what evil looks like, folks.
The guy brought in to clean up Miami's Code

Question is, now that he's sentenced, how does he find time to post in these fora as "Chris Mallory"?

[Scarcity]

You haven't heard? He's got sweet digs. They estimate $1M/year to hold him.

Chris is free to regale us with tales of the evils of immigrants from now til eternity.

[Scarcity]

You didn't hear? He's got sweet digs somehow are expected to cost over $1M a year to house him. So he can regale us with tales of the evils of immigration 24/7 for the rest of his life!

[Chris Mallory]

Got any evidence to back that up or are you just talking out of your ass?

[Chris Mallory]

I do have the guts to post under my real name, something you obviously are too chickenshit to do.

[Calidissident]

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/i...../BRTky.jpg

[Anacreon]

Bah, you just made up a moniker using the name of your first crush, the Justine Bateman character on Family Ties.

[Scarcity]

We've got tuff guy and not scared to post under real name covered. Can we get a lawsuit threat? Cmon, cmon, cmon...

[sticks]

Who's Chris Mallory?

[The Hammer]

Just some whiny racist cunt. Don't worry about it.

[Scarcity]

Don't worry, as long as you're a real 'merican you're safe.

[R C Dean]

I love the "temporary" break from the Euro for Greece.

Doesn't that mean that Greece still has to go back on the drachma, with all the disruption that entails?

And once they're out, even for a little while, how do they get back in?

Very clever, these Germans. "We're not breaking up, sweetie. I think we just need some time to really figure things out."

[Tulpa Doom]

Well, no one is saying how long the break is going to be. Greece might be able to balance its budget in the year 3154.

[Tulpa Doom]

The guy brought in to clean up Miami's Code Compliance division has been paying for parties on his city account, taking freebies from restaurants, dating staff and generally not cleaning up the division.

Looks like he was cleaning up all right.

[A Serious Man]

Appellate court rules that tobacco companies do not need to comply with Federal laws mandating graphic images on packages.

This contradicts another court ruling, so this will likely be going to the Supreme Court.

[Pip]

According to CNN, the Empire State Building shooter killed his ex-coworker and then walked away. Then someone pointed him out to the police, who took of after him. The man saw the cops and pointed his gun at them. The cops shot 14 rounds. The article says the gunman may not even have fired his weapon, raising the possibility that all eight of the wounded were shot by the cops.

[tarran]

There was another shooting a while back in Brooklyn where the cops put a bullet into a woman standing hundreds of yards away from the guy they were shooting at.

[John]

Funking monkeys. Just monkeys with guns.

[Episiarch]

Aggressive, "we own this city" monkeys with guns.

[John]

It is a wonder they don't eat people's faces off.

[db]

Yeah, so far I haven't read anything to indicate that this guy fired at anyone other then his ex boss. One article mentioned a possible "crossfire" but it wasn't clear whether this was him shooting at cops or cops bracketing his position and then firing on different bearings to him. Sounds more like murder-suicide-by-cop to me.

[ant1sthenes]

We had a random bystander hit by cops recently in Columbus. The actual target didn't even have a gun, he was a drunk getting in a car and the cops felt like he was trying to hit them. "He's coming right for us!" works better than "Stop resisting." for some cops, I guess.

[OldMexican]

The GOP may give Mitt Romney the official nod a tad early in order to avoid the twin threat of Tropical Storm Isaac and Ron Paul supporters.

"Fear is the mind killer."

[Pro Libertate]

Are you suggesting that Ron Paul will crash into the convention while riding a sandworm? During the storm?

[Tulpa Doom]

No way. The Fremen were total economic interventionists.

[BakedPenguin]

That would actually get me to watch the coverage.

[Pro Libertate]

Hell, yeah. Especially if he uses the family atomics to blow a hole in the Ice Palace.

[Atanarjuat]

I'll be in the Ice Palace the night of the convention, doing the balloon drop. So I hope that no atomics are used.

[John]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/a.....ggers.html

Niall Ferguson destroys his critics. Lefty bloggers have actually demanded he be fired from Harvard for daring to question the obamasiah. God what a bunch of fascist twits.

[Archduke PantsFan]

I posted that yesterday.
We decided liberals are dum

[John]

I don't always agree with Ferguson. But he is a wickedly smart guy. I love this bit

First prize goes to Berkeley professor Brad DeLong, whose blog opened with the headline "Fire-His-Ass-Now." "He lied," rants DeLong. "Convene a committee at Harvard to examine whether he has the moral character to teach at a university." My own counter-suggestion would be to convene a committee at Berkeley to examine whether or not Professor DeLong is spending too much of his time blogging when he really should be conducting serious research or teaching his students. For example, why hasn't Professor DeLong published that economic history of the 20th century he's been promising for the past six years? It can't be writer's block, that's for sure.

Burn

[The Hammer]

Jesus, the fucking comments. They're like HuffPo-lite.

"Stick THIS, Niall, you're nothing but a Koch sucker and a useful idiot for the oligarchy."

How wonderfully reasonable and substantial.

"Anyone wanna bet that Ferguson is trolling the comments to his own post?

I'll take the bet.

Given his comfy little sinecure and undeserved acclaim for a clutch of shitty books (The War of the World, anyone? -- yes, I've read him), he's not used to this kind of scrutiny and accountability.

You're a big suck, Niall. Take the punishment and walk away.

Again, it's not just "liberals" who are grinding him: check out his friend Andrew Sullivan's analysis at The Dish. Must reading."

Good Lord, the left really is completely intellectually bankrupt.

[AuH2O]

So, Jezeebel has a new commenting format, replacing now the old-new one.

It probably has something to do with the fact that the last format allowed "trolls" (ie anyone who disagreed with the Jez orthodoxy) on and people bitched like crazy about it. But still... I was getting to like that one!

[AuH2O]

Wow, called it:

And we're still emphasizing ownership of your discussion threads. When people reply to you, you have to power to accept or dismiss them from any conversation you have started. This new layout will allow you to see the array of responses and immediately dismiss any posts that aren't worthy. If you comment and an MRA troll responds, just dismiss 'em. Now you're a superhero who's saved your community from eye-vomit.

[John]

Well bless their poor little hearts. They won't have to be othered anymore.

[Pro Libertate]

The community is eye-vomit. What are they doing about that?

[Tulpa Doom]

It does smack of looks-ism.

[AuH2O]

Sizist!

[Tulpa Doom]

Dare I ask what MRA stands for?

[Tulpa Doom]

Unless statisticians have suddenly become uniquely hostile to feminists, it's probably not multiple regression analysis.

[SugarFree]

Men's Rights Activist, but it is generally used as a stand-in for "Anyone who dare oppose us."

Where as we have a whole rainbow of things to call those that dare oppose us.

[AuH2O]

Yeah, I decided to let SF field that one.

MRA's basically are pissed about shit like the courts tendency to award custody to women, etc. They have a whole thread on reddit, and to be fair on reddit some of them are dicks (then again... reddit).

But what seems to really piss Jez off is that MRAs don't tend to yell "TEH PATRIARCHY!" at every gender inequality problem like Jez does. Oh, they also sometimes don't believe rape reports, which of course makes them evil.

[Archduke PantsFan]

I think something they call a "Men's Rights Anthem"
Like I have a clue what that is.

[Pro Libertate]

Men
Rape
Always

[Warty]

NO MA'AM

I saw a dude wearing one of those shirts a while ago. At an Unknown Hinson concert, obviously.

[Coeus]

NO MA'AM

I saw a dude wearing one of those shirts a while ago.

I have an ex who used to wear one of those. Love me a good libertarian woman.

[Fluffy]

I prefer the term MANSPLAINER.

In fact, that sounds like an awesome t-shirt idea.

A light bulb wearing a pair of glasses and MANSPLAINER in big block letters.

[Warty]

They use that word over there all the time, but I still haven't figure out what it's supposed to mean. As far as I can tell, it means a man who tries to explain to them that men aren't evil. Am I close?

[Emmerson Biggins]

I thought it was more like how logic and clear thinking, when a marxist doesn't like the results are mere "bourgeoisie contructs" invented to further their class interests.

If a man engages in clear and logical thinking, and they don't have an response, then they can just dismiss by filing it under "mansplaining", which he is only engaged in for the furtherance of the patriarchy.

[Fluffy]

This is pretty much it.

Apparently the theory is that if you aren't a woman, you can't know what sexism is.

So if a man hears someone complain about how mothers can't get promoted in corporate America because they refuse to work 70-hour weeks, and says, "That's not sexism. Why shouldn't the person who puts in the 70 hour weeks get the promotion?" that's "mansplaining" because it offers a simple and straightforward response to a complaint that doesn't acknowledge the fundamental privilege of maleness or what have you.

[The Hammer]

What's an MRA troll?

[The Hammer]

NM, I see it's been covered.

[Eduard van Haalen]

A guy in a bar hit the plaintiff with a beer bottle. Plaintiff of course sues Anheuser-Busch, which made the bottle, for his injuries in the bar fight. Appeals court sides with Anheuser-Busch.

http://overlawyered.com/2012/0.....m-assault/

[Mad Scientist]

Swiiiing and a miss.

[Coeus]

A cop has a run-in with an open-carry advocate and acted professionally. This seemed to infuriate a good number of cops in the comments.

[Karl Hungus]

A cop has a run-in with an open-carry advocate and acted professionally. This seemed to infuriate a good number of cops in the comments.

I wish Police One was an open forum that didn't require verification that you're a sworn LEO before you're allowed to post. Beacuse then, it wouldn't be the authoritarian circle jerk that it is now.

[The Hammer]

It seems like most of the comments are actually well thought out and supportive, at least on the first page.

[Karl Hungus]

It seems like most of the comments are actually well thought out and supportive, at least on the first page.

I sensed a good bit of affront, like hese guys feel like carrying openly should be the exclusive province of the police. Generally though, there were lots of general pro-2A comments. One guy though said something to the effect of, "I'm glad I work in NJ where this isn't an issue."

[Coeus]

Keep reading. Start at page 5 and work your way to 1. Here
's a choice one:

Posted by SemperVigilans on Thursday, August 23, 2012 02:29 PM Pacific Report Abuse
I understand the officer's restraint being filmed in liberal Oregon. However, it's not a game out there and our job is not to appease a couple wannabe activists, but serve and protect the many (speaking of the community as a whole). This obviously came in as a citizen complaint and other people were alarmed enough to call 911. As another poster commented, the two jamokes should have been proned out, gun seized and safety checked, and...if camera boy kept running his mouth, cited or arrested for obstructing.

[The Hammer]

How sweet that he's willing to sacrifice someone else's life to "protect" the "many." What a hero.

[Karl Hungus]

Deputy shoots Navy rescue-swimmer chick in her own back yard, says "I'm sorry, you startled me."

[Mad Scientist]

Orey and Deputy Luke Berhalter came in contact and the officer's firearm discharged at point-blank range

Those pesky things just go off all by themselves. Deputy Luke Berhalter had nothing to do with it.

[db]

I think it's more likely he negligently had his finger on the trigger when not pointed at an identifiable, legitimate target, and, when startled, negligently discharged his firearm into another human being. Which would be enough to put any non-cop in serious, serious trouble.

[Mad Scientist]

Impossible. I've been assured that cops these days are totally professional and would never do something stupid like wander around with their fingers on the trigger before identifying their target. No, the only reasonable answer is that Deputy Luke Berhalter's gun just discharged all by itself.

[Francisco d Anconia]

The hatch just blew.

[Coeus]

dammit, beat me to it.

[Karl Hungus]

dammit, beat me to it.

Stories like this aren't online long before one of us bloodthirsty, cop-hating anarchists gets ahold of it.

[SugarFree]

How about... get a fucking warrant before going into someone's backyard?

I guess civilians don't have property rights. The occupying army can go where ever it likes.

RTFA, if you haven't. The dipshit shot her in the nipple and it came out her pinkie.

[Karl Hungus]

RTFA, if you haven't. The dipshit shot her in the nipple and it came out her pinkie.

That had to fucking HURT. Both those things are just big bundles of nerve endings. Just . . . ouch.

[JW]

*That* is one magic bullet.

[JW]

I see they gave Barney his one bullet and he went and wasted it.

[Ted S.]

Nothing else happened.

[Joshua]

Well it's a damn shame guns are so hard to get hold of in NYC and so easy to carry.

[Coeus]

Woman shot in the back in her own yard by deputy looking for a fleeing suspect accused of wearing a mask.

[The Hammer]

I feel like I've seen this somewhere before...

[Dr. Frankenstein]

If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns ... and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws.

-- Edward Abbey, "Abbey's Road", 1979

[Fluffy]

If Ben Cherrington did in fact unload the Beckett, Gonzalez and Crawford salaries on the Dodgers, he's the executive of the century.

I don't care if they got nothing back. Not even a bag of balls.

Who takes on those contracts? I was expecting the Red Sox to have to pay Beckett and Crawford's salaries wherever they sent them. But a fucking waiver deal? Holy shit.

[The Hammer]

Dammit. Those contracts should've kept those arrogant fucksticks out of contention for the next 3 years at least.

[Fluffy]

NESN just showed the Red Sox taking down tonight's line up card in the dugout to put up a new one...with no Gonzalez.

The deal is done.

And Daisuke's contract expires at the end of September.

If they release Lackey, then all the dead wood is gone.

[The Hammer]

Fuck. I was looking forward to them sucking for a few years. I don't know why, but arrogant Red Sox fans bug me a lot more than arrogant Yankee fans. I think Yankee fans are less obnoxious because they're used to being the champs, and Sox fans are just trying to cram the smug all in before another 90 year slump. Or maybe it's just because Bill Simmons is an asshole. Although I might just be more forgiving because a Yankee fan gave me road head.

[Fluffy]

BTW, this is a weird thing to say two days after the fact, but the other day I was kind of a dick for no reason to the poster who goes by nicole.

My bad.

[The Hammer]

That's ok, I don't remember denouncing you at the time, so it's really as much my fault as it is yours. But now that I'm thinking about it, I denounce Fluffy next time he is a dick to nicole for no reason.

[Scarcity]

If it wasn't a chick you never would've apologized. MRA! Or whatever that acronym was up there.

[Fluffy]

No, she got me with the whole, "Hey, I'm just putting an idea out there, I know it's kind of a strange one."

I pretty much power my outrage with self-righteousness and that is defused when someone takes the tactic that a discussion is just an exploration.

Sometimes I feel bad about being a dick to people here. robc, for example. He's a good guy but I occasionally forget that and Hulk out on him.

Even John. I occasionally feel bad about being a dick to John. I probably need to do an Ape Week again one of these months.

And the funny thing is that I actually found myself turning her crazy idea around in my head since then, realizing that while I still think it's crazy it's hard for me to directly explain what's wrong with it. So that means it was the GOOD kind of provocative idea, so it was really kind of a dick move for me to be a douche about it. It's not like it was one of Tony's ideas or something.

[Coeus]

More completely uninformed gun control propaganda from feminists, libertarian's "natural allies".

[Karl Hungus]

I got a new Motorola Razr Maxx a couple days ago, upgrading from an HTC Thunderbolt.

The Thunderbolt was a great phone, but after about 5 hours, with its 1,620mA battery, the indicator would be in the yellow; at 6 hours, it would be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Hunting for a wall outlet was a constant concern with that phone. The Razr, though, with its 3,300mA battery, changes that completely. It's been off the charger for over 10 hours now, and the battery indicator is still showing 80%. I know you people couldn't give two shits less, but I felt like sharing anyway.

[The Hammer]

I've actually been curious about this. My 2 year old blackberry is starting to crap out and finally giving me a legitimate excuse to shitcan it beyond 'this thing ssssuuuuuuuuuucccckkks." I want a touchscreen phone that has good battery life. What'd you pay for the Razr?

[Karl Hungus]

What'd you pay for the Razr?

I paid $200 with a 2-year renewal.

I walked into the Verizon store with the firm intention of buying the device at retail ($650) so that I could simply activate it on my current contract, thus preserving my unlimited data. By signing a new 2-year agreement, I gave up unlimited. But, it turns out I wasn't going over 2GB a month under unlimited, and for roughly the same price I was paying before, I get a 4GB monthly allowance, plus I now have unlimited talk.

It did sting a little to walk away from unlimited data, but saving $450 on the spot eased that pain considerably.

This is simply an awesome phone, and I'm certain that there's no other smartphone out there right now with better batery life. It'll be a change going from Blackberry to Android, but I seriously doubt you'd regret it.

[Coeus]

Time for yet another Fark reaction to a Reason article.

First comment:

Lurking Fear
2012-08-24 11:12:44 AM
She was really a dude.

/Won't give "reason" a click because it is named opposite of reality.

[Warty]

There's no group of people, no matter how clearly idiotic, that doesn't think it's smarter than everyone else. That should be an Iron Law.

[Coeus]

Holy shit this is retarded. Fear of a black president caused people to be sympathetic to George Zimmerman.

[Christina]

Here's one that I enjoyed, in The Atlantic of all places. The moral of the story is that college girls are increasingly pragmatic about their relationships with boys (read: they're down for just a hookup, or ten), and are more focused on themselves and their careers. Result: young women are more successful than young men.

http://www.theatlantic.com/mag...../309062/1/

[Coeus]

I tend to get annoyed by these articles that purport to analyze hook-up culture and ignore that it is the natural expression of female sexuality, i.e. hypergamy. Any analysis that doesn't take into account the demographic factors at play in mate choice is destined to be shallow at best and flat-out wrong the majority of the time. At least this one gets that it primarily benefits women, so it's going in the right direction.

[Christina]

I'll repeat for emphasis...young women are more successful than young men.

Now that young women dominate in colleges and make more money on aggregate, the new stereotype is the deadbeat, perpetual-adolescent young man mooching off his girlfriend. Who wants to be tied to that? Women are practicing hypergamy in that they are more likely to be using random men for affection and sex while they wait to find someone who isn't a fuckup.

[Coeus]

Women are practicing hypergamy in that they are more likely to be using random men for affection and sex while they wait to find someone who isn't a fuckup.

Selecting "random" men would be the opposite of hypergamy. They are selecting the top 20 percent or so of social pecking order (or, in a larger group where social mobility is more readily available, those who mimic the habits of that group). The criteria established to determine the pecking order is unimportant to this discussion (i.e., this ain't a dating website).

Now, due to the lack of social stigma associated with having a large number of sexual partners (directly related to the availability of reliable birth control), these 20% of men are in no rush to settle down. This results in what appears to be lots of young women taking a lot of shit from guys, but the majority of them prefer it that way. It allows them to select the highest 20% with minimal effort on their part (oh, he doesn't care about me, he must be popular and highly desirable).

Those women in the minority who dislike all of this actually have a much larger pool of available men than they would have in previous generations. So the end result is that most of the women get exactly what they want. Hook-up culture has definitely been good for women (until they're about 40, but that's another discussion).

[Christina]

Selecting "random" men would be the opposite of hypergamy. They are selecting the top 20 percent or so of social pecking order (or, in a larger group where social mobility is more readily available, those who mimic the habits of that group).

Random is a bit of a stretch. They aren't gay men. But still, women don't need to marry-up any more. The trend now is assortive mating. This is logical, like marries like. But of course it means that poorer, uneducated women can't expect that they will be seen as marriage material for richer, educated men, which is explicitly what hypergamy is.

Another byproduct is that those pretty-but-uneducated women aren't capturing for their children the genetic advantages that higher status men posses. So then you get into the Charles Murray talk of an increasing gulf between the richer and poorer.

[Coeus]

This is logical, like marries like. But of course it means that poorer, uneducated women can't expect that they will be seen as marriage material for richer, educated men, which is explicitly what hypergamy is.

You keep ascribing traditional mate selection values onto hypergamy, as well as conflating mating with marriage. Think of it as more of a sorting system. You can put whatever criteria you want into the system, and it will sort out the results in the same manner.

Lets look at a more traditional mate criteria. Sporting ability. Many women who have never been to a single college football game would gladly bend over for the star quarterback. It's not because they personally value sporting ability, it's because the other males do, and this puts the quarterback at the top of the pecking order. This was the traditional view, and it still holds somewhat true today.

Now, as women have become more empowered and less reliant upon men, the sorting criteria they run their hypergamous selection process has changed. They begin to value in a mate what other women value. Indeed it is probable that this has been the case all along, and only women's liberation allowed them to extricate their desires from the male default.

[Coeus]

...cont.

The result of this is that there are now two distinct social pyramids. The males pecking order is only tangentially related to the female mate selection process. They are the most closely correlated in college, as no one has much life experience and how much one gets laid is the default. This means that the popular guys in college are popular precisely because the women like them and want them to be. This is a tremendous amount of power. Of course it's good for women.

The proof of this theory can be seen in the social pecking order which establishes itself after college. It used to be that men who were respected by other men would be the most desired by women. This is now demonstrably false. A high ranking official in the armed forces, a person who can command thousands of men to die on his word alone, can easily have much fewer mate choices than one of the guys on Jersey Shore. Career criminals often have far more mate choices (and children) than Nobel laureates.

[Coeus]

A final thought which I may have not made explicit:

Hypergamy is the urge to mate up, but the criteria as to what is up can change. It turns out, that with the advent of birth control, women prefer to stick with the top 20% or so. It was apparently always like this, but social and physical constraints (need for a provider and husband) have been working against that in the past, causing far more women to settle for less than they desired. Any talk of hypergamy needs to acknowledge the fact that that the upper percentage is the median view women have of themselves. In other words, that they still want to mate up, but the average woman considers herself higher in social status than approx. 80 percent of males.

[Brett L]

Umm. Keep waiting. Men will be fuckups as long as they can eat, sleep indoors and get laid while doing so. Its a feedback loop.

[Tommy_Grand]

"One of the team's unofficial spokesMEN, Shirley Babashoff..."

Maybe she was a secret Press sister

[Nike Free 3.0 Slovakia]

Funny things..

[virsea]

great