Mitt's Make or Break Moment, Bradley Manning's Trial Set, Businesses Flee U.S. Taxes: P.M. Links

• Not to put you on the spot, Mitt, but tonight's your big make-or-break moment.

• Meanwhile, Microsoft and Google employees are busy sending donations to what's-his-name in the White House.
• Britain and France up the Syria rhetoric, saying that all options are on the table. It might be time to buy some stock in a body-bag manufacturer.
• In February, Bradley Manning will go to trial, facing a potential life sentence for, essentially, embarrassing the U.S. government.
• Don't tell Chuck Schumer, but American firms are reincorporating overseas to escape Uncle Sam's sticky paws.
• California is poised to order police to refuse cooperation to the feds on immigration issues, but Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says he'ss stick with D.C.
• Break out the extra-dark! Chocolate reduces stroke risk, say researchers.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

...American firms are reincorporating overseas to escape Uncle Sam's sticky paws.

There was no predicting that.

[BakedPenguin]

It was as unexpected as the last jobs numbers were.

[Pro Libertate]

I wonder if all of our wunderkind understand that there's a point where all of this may be irreversible? Maybe they should take their hands off of the Golden Goose's throat?

[Joe M]

If it's still squawking, squeeze harder.

[Pro Libertate]

That seems to be the strategy.

[Count Anacreon]

b-b-b-b fair share!!!

[Pro Libertate]

Look, Goose or no Goose. That's the option right now.

[Mad Scientist]

If it moves, tax it...

[Dr. Frankenstein]

'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This goose is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e
rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the
bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-GOLDEN GOOSE!!

[Loki]

Stanley Goodspeed: You've been around a lot of corpses. Is that normal?
John Mason: What, the feet thing?
Stanley Goodspeed: Yeah, the feet thing.
John Mason: Yeah, it happens.
Stanley Goodspeed: Well I'm having a hard time concentrating. Can you do something about it?
John Mason: Like what, kill him again?

[sage]

I think that was the most horrible thing I've ever seen.

[Generic Stranger]

What, "The Rock"? It wasn't THAT bad...

[Pro Libertate]

It sucked long, and it sucked hard.

[Generic Stranger]

I'll admit that I kind of liked it the first time I saw it. Of course, I was 12.

[Pound. Head. On. Desk.]

...American firms are reincorporating overseas to escape Uncle Sam's sticky paws.

There was no predicting that.

See that business? You didn't move that!

[Loki]

Yeah. Here's my shocked face.

[R C Dean]

There was no predicting that.

You mean, capital flight is an unintended consequence of confiscatory taxation and regulatory overreach?!?

[Pro Libertate]

What's truly shocking about all of this is that the U.S. has decades of experience being the beneficiary of other countries' foolish ways in running off their best. It's like we don't even know why we were successful. Oh, right, we don't.

[db]

We may have reached an unstable equilibrium in the world. It used to be the case that people who were oppressed and threatened by states and other majorities could move outward towards the periphery of the known world to escape the tyrannies, large and small, of their homelands. Now, states lay claim to all lands and in most cases have the ability to defend those claims. They effectively have created a world without frontiers, a world where the creative and dissident among us must conform to societal norms designed to promote stasis.

Until a new frontier is opened in space, independently of state action, the world will continue to stagnate. Humanity will lose the true benefits of those with a powerful urge to be different. No matter how many pay lip service to the marketing slogan, "Think Different," it remains hollow as long as it is implicitly subtitled: "As long as you play by our rules."

[R C Dean]

Thanks, db. Most depressing thing I've read in ages.

[Atanarjuat]

Not really; space isn't that far away. SpaceX will be ferrying people to Bigelow modules within 5 years.

[Generic Stranger]

Sea-steading may help solve this problem, at least short term. The problem is figuring out a way to do it without being interfered with by other nations.

[Pro Libertate]

We need to get cheap space flight soon to inject some vigor into the species.

[Xenocles]

You of all people should know better than that, RC.

[SugarFree]

Don't tell Chuck Schumer, but American firms are reincorporating overseas to escape Uncle Sam's sticky paws.

His moobs quiver with rage. THAT'S HIS MONEY!

[Archduke PantsFan]

I hit on my girlfriends friend. What should she do?

[SugarFree]

You me'd that.

[Archduke PantsFan]

grumble
http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....le4501336/

[Fist of Etiquette]

Did he? Or is there just some mysterious disconnect between you and hyperlinking?

[SugarFree]

When I click it, goes to general health and wellness page. Which is a mal-linking event.

[SugarFree]

It will be PD'd soon, so link directly.

[Fist of Etiquette]

That counts as a sugarfree? It looks like someone is trying to widen his brand. And how is the drive to spread ones seed not a general health and wellness concern?

[Episiarch]

Hey, buddy, you aren't the arbiter of what "NutraSweeted" mean. I AM.

[SugarFree]

Widen my brand? It's that Fisting's job?

[Joe M]

Trying to widen your brand to include general problems with grammar as well? That's John's job.

[Episiarch]

Well, he's been wanting to expand out from typos for a while now.

[SugarFree]

*isn't* dammit. I need to stop typing like a lackwit fuckbag...

[Fist of Etiquette]

HA! I love it when typos invalidate a whole comment.

[Xenocles]

Does that make you a malinkerer?

[Pro Libertate]

Go to the Himalayas and contemplate how she became such an awful person. For ten years. After that, she can come back, ritually purified by a decade of Yeti-raping.

[Loki]

Is that Yeti-raping as in being raped by Yeties, or Yeti-raping as in raping Yeties?

[The Hammer]

Little from column A, little from column B.

[Pro Libertate]

Does it matter?

[Joe M]

STEVE SMITH HELP EXPLAIN.

[Episiarch]

A threesome, obviously. How can she not reach such a simple conclusion?

[SugarFree]

The guy's a sleaze. She should just have sex with her friend and resolve the tornado of sexual tension that has always swirled around them--the longing glances, the lingering gazes, crowding into the same dressing room, swapping tampons mid-flow to become blood-sisters, bosoms heaving with laughter and sweaty with whorish lust... you know, typical girl stuff.

[Episiarch]

When's the paperback coming out? Will there be a Kindle edition?

[Pro Libertate]

It'll be a straight-to-Kindle release.

[Joe M]

More like straight to kindling.

[SugarFree]

I'm publishing the whole thing 140 characters a day on twitter:

#meganandmeghanthefingerbangsisters

[Episiarch]

There's no way I'm following you on Twitter, that would be like following behind a sewage truck that's sprung a leak. I demand you do it in mobi format and give it to me for free.

[rac3rx]

How the hell is it that some crap like 50 shades of pr0n can sell a scrillion copies, but we don't even have the opportunity to purchase a fine tome of such quality narrative?

[AlmightyJB]

There should definately be a video diary started as well, posted here so we can support them. Cause we're all about providing emotional support to women here.

[rts]

Gun swap aims to show long-gun registry was 'useless'

Bernardo said the data in the registry identifies a gun with a particular person. Now that the registration requirement doesn't exist that connection is broken. Bernardo said the idea of the shuffle is to ensure that "any data that is left inside the registry is completely garbage."

[Generic Stranger]

The problem with registries and swapping is while the government doesn't know WHICH gun you own, they still know you own A gun. It prevents the purported reason for the registry (solving crime), while doing nothing about the actual, unstated reason for the registry (giving the government a handy list of people to visit when guns are completely banned).

[Fist of Etiquette]

Chocolate reduces stroke risk, say researchers.

Because you're already dead from being too fat.

[Pro Libertate]

Young people eat more chocolate. Young people don't have strokes. Did they account for that? I assume they did, but I have to ask before I guzzle this gallon of chocolate syrup.

[Episiarch]

Your intellect and logic are truly dazzling. But I clearly cannot take the chocolate bat in front of me.

[Pro Libertate]

Here, have a chocolate treat the size of an army trying to fight a land war in Asia.

[Episiarch]

ProL, I spent years building up an immunity to that much chocolate.

[Mad Scientist]

Inconceivable!

[Pro Libertate]

I concede defeat. Here, have my life-size chocolate Andr? the Giant. My doctor won't let me eat it.

[Killazontherun]

You're doctor is only trying to kill you off so he'll never have to accept Medicare co-payments after you turning 65. Keep the chocolate, and partake. PARTAKE!

[sage]

I would not say such things if i were you.

[Pro Libertate]

Reese's of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.

[Fatty Bolger]

Au contraire.

[Pro Libertate]

Mein Gott!

[Killazontherun]

Sizzling prime rib covered in a sauce of dark chocolate and bourbon once a day will keep your heart strong and your veins pumping clean for a thousand years.

[AlmightyJB]

Sounds intersting. I've had a chocolate stout with my steak before, and of course mole chicken and various bourbon sauces but nothing like that.

[db]

What color was the mole chicken?

[AlmightyJB]

I'm sure that's some lame attemp at mole humor but anyway's, Mole' sauce is typically dark brown similar to chocolate. It's conceptually the same idea as a BBQ sauce. Sweet and heat and smoky. I've had in restaurants, made it myself which was kind of a pain in the ass, and I've bought Dona Maria which I have to admit was actually pretty good and a hell of a lot easier. I could see myself possibly aquiring a taste for it.

[db]

I was hoping you would say "taupe."

[AlmightyJB]

I figured:)

[db]

It's just that taupe is trending.

[Archduke PantsFan]

If we drove faster we'd crash less
http://fullcomment.nationalpos.....st-argues/

[BakedPenguin]

It's not the speed limits - it's just that Canada's so boring drivers fall asleep at the wheel.

[Paleo-ConAvenger]

This is about the only area where I go full blown statist. Im about tired of having soccer moms and teenagers alike swerving into my lane...just to send a text message.

Its only logical that when cars become better and safer at higher speeds, the speed limit should increase as well. The only problem is that our roads here in Ohio are shit.

[The Hammer]

Fits with Hans Monderman's theories:

http://wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?aid=1234

[Fist of Etiquette]

It might be time to buy some stock in a body-bag manufacturer.

I think Tuccy my just have stumbled onto something here. Moriarty Body Bags, Inc.!

[wingnutx]

I wish I'd had the foresight to buy stock in a Cyalume before Iraq kicked off.

[Marshall Gill]

Oh, please, we are talking about Britain and France. Their entire combined armed forces probably don't add up to 10,000 and of those, only a few dozen even know how to shoot.

[Archduke PantsFan]

GRUMBLE
It worked well
http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....le4501336/

[Nondescript]

I don't want to be a naive complainer, but why do the P.M. Links take me to another area of this site and not to the source of the story?

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Who are you who are so unwise in the ways of (computer) science?

[Nondescript]

Science? I suspect it has something to do with page views. Regardless, I'd like to get to the source with one click, not two. Am I a dreamer, a cockeyed optimist, or hopelessly naive?

[Loki]

All of the above? Dreamers and optimists usually are naive, and only optimists have dreams. Us pessimists used to, but the world crushed our dreams so completely that we don't bother anymore. Which also explains us pessimists lack of naivety.

[Nondescript]

Regardless--and the story of your shattered dreams is, I am sure, totally enthralling--I'd like to get to a linked story with one click, instead of being redirected to another area of the site like a billy-goat who, with the promise of horny and willing ewes, gets his nuts clipped by the bored son of a lousy goatherd.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Your use of metaphor is equal to that of any considered a 'literary giant'.

More please.

[Nondescript]

Reason.com's cynical manipulation of automatonistic link-clickers for an ephemeral boost in page-views is akin to the serial commentator who spews opinions and links like a Bourbon Street hooker pouring rubbing alcohol on the festering penises of middle-American shemales, bless their deep-dish-loving hearts.

[AlmightyJB]

Actually I think it's worse than that.

[Nondescript]

It is.
I was trying to be nice.

[T]

No reason you can't be all three if you just try harder!

[Palin's Buttplug]

Meanwhile, Microsoft and Google employees are busy sending donations to what's-his-name in the White House.

Obama is turning out to be a very pro-business POTUS. Even big bank execs now like Financial Reform 2010 with some tweaks.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/.....genda.html

Corporate profits are at an all-time high. Drilling is up 300% (Baker-Hughes). Inflation is contained and interest rates are at lows. Stocks are up 80%. And he signed a crowdfunding bill (JOBS Act) for raising capital investors love.

I know - this does not compute to Fat Rush fans.

[Pro Libertate]

Yep, it's boom times, people! Just make sure you ignore all of the negatives, like unemployment.

[Episiarch]

Don't forget incredibly low interest rates! That's great for people with debt, but for people with actual savings, like me...

[SugarFree]

And ignore food prices...

[Pro Libertate]

And gas.

[Pro Libertate]

I like earning interest at rates a place or two to the right of the decimal point.

The market, incidentally, is only up in comparison to the most recent downturn. I've been investing in an SP index fund since 2000, which has increased very little beyond what I've invested. That's what we call bad in financial services (historically, before these boom times, the market as a whole had something like a 10% annual return on investment on average (with obvious up and down times)).

[Palin's Buttplug]

So you're complaining about 2000-2009. I fully concur on that.

[Paleo-ConAvenger]

Dude, us savers have been sacrificed at the altar of the spenders for years now...

[Palin's Buttplug]

Presidents don't create jobs.

The Government is not your provider and counselor.

[The Hammer]

Of course not. We'd settle for it not trying to be our feudal lord, demanding tribute from us in order to reward its friends. And it'd be nice if the lapdogs like you would stop cheering it on the entire time.

[califernian]

Good god, you just contradicted every other fucking post you have ever made here.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Obama is turning out to be a very pro-business POTUS.

I hope he never becomes very pro-me.

[The Hammer]

He's not pro-business, he's pro-quid-pro-quo. Obama rewards those who support him, and if you step out of line, he will destroy you.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Other than the habitat destroyers at BP, who has he tried to destroy?

Even the health insurers support Obamacare.

OK- and tanning salons too. (I know this shit)

[Joe M]

"Even" health insurers? Hahahahahaha...

[Brutus]

I bet Obama could get AEI and Heritage to back him if he backed legislation mandating that everyone in America subscribe to their newsletters.

[Mad Scientist]

Not to put you on the spot, Mitt, but tonight's your big make-or-break moment.

Make or break my ass. I know you political news junkies will be surprised by this, so I'm sorry to break the bad news to you. The ONLY people who care about political conventions are people who already know whom they're voting for. No undecided voters will be hanging on Mitt's platitudes this evening.

[Pro Libertate]

Agreed. He could bore us all to tears, but his key position of not being Obama won't change one bit. Unless he has the power to switch bodies like in that Star Trek episode or in multiple Disney movies.

[Mad Scientist]

If he had that power, even I would vote for him.

[Episiarch]

I always suspected Freaky Friday was your favorite film, ProL.

[Pro Libertate]

Which one?

[Episiarch]

All of them.

[Pro Libertate]

I saw one when I was a kid with Jodie Foster as the daughter. It occurs to me that some difficult possibilities could arise if the switch went on long enough, assuming her mom was married or dating.

[Count Anacreon]

Her mom in that one was the sex-crazed medium/Bruce Dern's girlfriend in Hitchcock's last movie, Family Plot.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, that doesn't bode well for Jodie's character.

[AlmightyJB]

Seeing how Jodie had already played a 14 year old hooker by then prolly wouldn't have been that big of deal.

[Ted S.]

Bruce Dern also has a key sequence at the end of Hitchcock's Marnie.

[Ted S.]

You might enjoy Akira Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Romney is going to go for a likeable personal story tonight according to reports.

He will stress his Mormon faith and general good-guy cred.

Worse than platitudes.

[T o n y]

Oh I take back my comment below then. There's no way he can convincingly sell that he's likable.

[Palin's Buttplug]

I plan to watch his speech.

It will be like watching a David Lynch film. All syrupy goodness on the surface and lying twisted sickness in reality.

[rac3rx]

Well it's just a communist fap-fest up in this sub-thread, isn't it?

COCK BLOCK!

Now, go away.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Right, Warren Buffett and the Google guys (and Jobs, RIP) are "conmmies" - among others.

Go back to sucking Fat Rush off, idiot.

[Marshall Gill]

Buffett? You mean the guy who uses government lobbying to enrich himself? Yeah, nothing more capitalist than that.

[Palin's Buttplug]

No, you are thinking of the Kochs.

Google it. I am right again. Kochs lobby 100-1 over Buffett.

[Brutus]

I already debunked this, Shriek. It's not true.

[T o n y]

The Koch brothers who founded the entire outfit we're inhabiting are second to none in getting government goodies.

[Brutus]

You excitable types get yourselves all wound up to the point that you say the stupidest things.

[Fatty Bolger]

Yeah, I laughed a little when I read that.

The main significance of tonight is that Obama will no longer have near total control over the airwaves, and those of us in battlefield states will be deluged with commercials from BOTH campaigns. It's at times like this that I get on my knees and thank Al Gore for inventing Netflix.

[Episiarch]

I haven't seen a single ad. Netflix and TiVo are the greatest thing since spiral ham.

[Fist of Etiquette]

California is poised to order police to refuse cooperation to the feds on immigration issues, but Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says he'ss stick with D.C.

Strange contraction aside, I'd say he's betting on the right horse here.

[Count Anacreon]

No doubt because the Sheriff's brother Chew is an alien.

[rts]

It's good to be king

In 1996, the NDP provincial government implemented a pension plan where, for every $1 the MLA [Member of the Legislative Assembly] put in, taxpayers would put $1 in as well.

But in 2007, the ruling B.C. Liberals brought in a pension plan where for every $1 an MLA contributes, taxpayers contribute $4.

I wish I could just rob people of $4 for every $1 in my pocket.

[Archduke PantsFan]

And here we thought Quebec was the corrupt province

[Ted S.]

And that the New Dictators were more leftist than the Liberals.

[Pip]

"ritain and France up the Syria rhetoric, saying that all options are on the table. It might be time to buy some stock in a body-bag manufacturer."

Go ahead, be flippant. Feeeeeeel the superiority.

Russia is disengaging from Syria: Arms shipments stopped, warships exit Tartus

Russian naval vessels have unexpectedly departed the Syrian Mediterranean port of Tartus and Russian arms shipments to Syria have been suddenly discontinued. DEBKAfile's military sources reveal that those and other steps indicate that the Russians are rapidly drawing away from the Syrian arena to avoid getting caught up in the escalating hostilities expected to arise from military intervention by the US, Europe and a number of Arab states. Russian intelligence appears to have decided that this outside intervention is imminent and Moscow looks anxious to keep its distance for now.
According to our military and Russian sources, these drastic steps must have been personally ordered by President Vladimir Putin. He is believed to have acted over the objections of some of his army and naval chiefs. This would explain the mixed statements issuing from Moscow in recent days about the disposition of Russian personnel at the naval base in Tartus and Russian military personnel in Syria.

http://www.debka.com/article/2.....xit-Tartus

[DJF]

That is from Debka which is wrong about almost everything.

[DJF]

""""Britain and France up the Syria rhetoric""

And then hope that the USA helps them since they ran out of bombs during the Libya war and the US had to give them some and they don't have enough refueling tankers to keep their planes over Syria. And who is going to take out the Syrian air defenses since the US had to do that during the first days of the Libya war?

[Fist of Etiquette]

In February, Bradley Manning will go to trial, facing a potential life sentence for, essentially, embarrassing the U.S. government.

People get less time for violent crimes. However, my sympathy for his situation is somewhat muted by the fact that he violated a agreement with his employer by removing documents, the sheer volume of which virtually guarantees he didn't read and discriminate among the various things he was disseminating.

[T o n y]

Mitt should be able to give a good speech. When he's got a teleprompter, he is capable of it.

Not that any of the rightwing fire-breathers are going to imply that to be a signifier of his intelligence.

[DJF]

So you agree that he is Obama's twin brother separated at birth and raised by Mormons.

[Nondescript]

The Angel Moroni--who serves a great Filetto di Sogliola al Limone, BTW--assured me that his paisan, Mitto, is no Obama.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Obama is not allowed into Mormon Heaven. And the Jews founded America as native Americans. And the Garden of Eden is in Missouri.

Mormonism is fucking retarded.

[Nondescript]

That's OK. All concepts of heaven are, shall we say, less than rational? Mormons have no monopoly on afterlife fairy tales.

[Pro Libertate]

You know, our sockpuppet has stumbled on to a good question: Is Romney intelligent? He must have something going for him, as he was a successful businessman, but I've known some successful morons in business, too.

I'd say he's likely brighter than his opponent, but who knows? I definitely think the standard "Republicans are idiots!" claim won't work with him. But I really don't know. Can we force him to submit to some IQ testing or something?

[Mad Scientist]

I'm not sure I want to know. It's bad enough to think politicians do what they do because they're morons. If it turns out they have functioning brain cells, we'll be forced to conclude they're actively evil.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, they're evil. Why would politics and power attract the stupid in particular? The evil and the venal, sure. But the stupid? They have other opportunities.

Intelligence appears to be irrelevant to politics.

[Mad Scientist]

Courtesy of Umberto Eco:

There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics. Cretins don't even talk; they sort of slobber and stumble. Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation. Fools don't claim that cats bark, but they talk about cats when everyone else is talking about dogs. They offend all the rules of conversation, and when they really offend, they're magnificent. Morons never do the wrong thing. They get their reasoning wrong. Like the fellow who says that all dogs are pets and all dogs bark, and cats are pets, too, therefore cats bark. Morons will occasionally say something that's right, but they say it for the wrong reason. A lunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn't know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has logic, however twisted it may be. The lunatic on the other hand, doesn't concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all id?e fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars. There are lunatics who don't bring up the Templars, but those who do are the most insidious. At first they seem normal, then all of a sudden..."

[PapayaSF]

Speaking of an id?e fixe, a Facebook friend is currently arguing that the Republican slogan "Take back our country" is proof of their flagrant racism. As if that isn't an ancient, bog-standard political slogan that Democrats also use when it suits them.

[Mad Scientist]

The racist trope is just hilarious. Apparently, all Republicans are racists, but they keep denying it because they don't want the democrats to find out.

[db]

That's from Foucault's Pendulum, right? I loved that book.

[Mad Scientist]

Yep! I've thought for a while that politicians were generally morons, but upon re-reading the passage I see they're clearly lunatics.

[Episiarch]

I'm going with evil.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Romney defends no position or ideology so you will never know about his intelligence.

I watched the Buckley-Chomsky debates. They are both intelligent despite different ideologies.

Romney won't even defend his proposed tax cuts.

[OldMexican]

Re: Pro Libertate,

You know, our sockpuppet has stumbled on to a good question: Is Romney intelligent?

He was smart enough to avoid combat by going overseas for missionary work.

"But the Great One wrote two books! Himself!"

Ron Paul: "Yeah, who hasn't?"

[Pro Libertate]

I think Clinton was reasonably intelligent, though obviously screwed up. Other than him and maybe Old Man Bush, it's been a long time since we've had a bright candidate, let along president.

[Pro Libertate]

Let alone.

[Heroic Mulatto]

James A. Garfield knew both Latin and Ancient Greek. As the first ambidextrous president, Garfield entertained his friends by having them ask him questions, and then writing the answer in Latin with one hand while simultaneously answering in Greek with the other.

Jus' sayin'

[Pro Libertate]

Well, we've lowered our standards in the intervening years. Can't just leave the office open, now can we?

[Heroic Mulatto]

True. The Vatican was sede vacante for years, and they then ended up with this guy.

[Pro Libertate]

What we need is a warrior, libertarian pope to free all of us and forcibly convert us to Catholicism. Wait, strike that last part.

[Solanum]

C. of E. Films

In Association with the Sunday Schools Board Present...

[Pro Libertate]

THE BISHOP!

[db]

I like how Obama manages to get into a list of miltilingual Presidents with a mention of how embarrassed he is to speak only one language. While never having walked on the moon.

[Marshall Gill]

While I myself question Jimmy Carter's intelligence, he was a nuclear engineer when he was in the Navy.

[db]

I'm a chemical engineer an I'll be the first to admit that many engineers succumb to the fallacy that social systems and economies can be controlled like an industrial process.

[Brutus]

I'm a control systems engineer and I long ago realized the utter folly of trying to control people like my systems do the processes they're connected to. Without exception, the hardest part of any system of any significant size is where it interfaces with people. You very, very quickly realize the people are **nothing** like machines.

[R C Dean]

Obama and W both got good grades at Harvard, which grades anonymously. They're not stupid, either one. Hell, Obama got better grades than me, from the same professors (broadly speaking).

You can be smart, and wrong. In fact, the smarter you are (in some dimensions) the wronger you can go.

I've been around a lot of smart people, and I'll take decency and good instincts any day.

[Pro Libertate]

I hear you, but I'm talking more raw intellect than scholastic ability. I knew a valedictorian of a large, good high school who wasn't very bright in anything but school.

As a for example, Clinton strikes me as a lot more intelligent than Obama.

[Brutus]

I have yet to see Obama's grades.

[OldMexican]

Don't tell Chuck Schumer, but American firms are reincorporating overseas to escape Uncle Sam's sticky paws.

What is it about those greedy bastards, not wanting to have their property taken by greedy (and profligate) government.

(Why can't I incorporate overseas?)

[T]

Because there's no ocean between the US and Mexico is my guess.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

More hope and change incoming.

http://forfeiturereform.com/20.....ith-drugs/

Attorney General Eric Holder has granted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) authority, for a one-year trial period, to seize and administratively forfeit property allegedly involved in controlled substance offenses pursuant to United States Code Title 21 ? Chapter 13 ? Subchapter I ? Part E ? ? 881.

21 U.S.C. ? 881 is, among other things, often invoked to seize and forfeit bulk currency, where no drugs are found, on theories that the currency was furnished, or intended to be furnished, in exchange for a controlled substance.

AG Holder's rulemaking announcement declared that such changes are exempt from the general notice and comment requirements because the department determined that the change does not affect individual rights and obligations.

AG Holder also declared that this rule change lacks sufficient federalism implications to warrant the preparation of a federalism summary impact statement.

[Loki]

AG Holder's rulemaking announcement declared that such changes are exempt from the general notice and comment requirements because the department determined that the change does not affect individual rights and obligations.

So a rule change that basically, if I'm reading it right, allows the ATF to seize any money they come across by saying the magic word "drugs" doesn't "affect individual rights and obligations"? I've suspected for some time that Eric Holder doesn't know what individual rights are. This would seem to support my suspicion. Un-fucking-believable.

[Palin's Buttplug]

DEA precedent. They have long seized what the fuck they want to.

Yeah, Obama let us down on drugs like all other presidents before him.

Obama = POS on drugs.

[Sevo]

Palin's Buttplug| 8.30.12 @ 6:28PM |#
'Obama = POS'

Yep; no qualifier required.

[Heroic Mulatto]

In a sane and just world, Eric Holder would already be swinging from the gallows.

Alas, our world is neither sane nor just.

[Episiarch]

Holder makes Ashcroft look like a paragon of civil rights. Jeebus.

[Cdr Lytton]

I know. Can you see Holder saying no to an administration request from his hospital bed? Or anywhere else?

[The Hammer]

How incredibly fucking convenient.

[Warty]

AG Holder also declared that this rule change lacks sufficient federalism implications to warrant the preparation of a federalism summary impact statement.

That's a neat trick there.

[Christina]

This just in: becoming a confidential informant in the Drug War can easily get you killed.

THE THROWAWAYS -- Police enlist young offenders as confidential informants. But the work is high-risk, largely unregulated, and sometimes fatal.

http://www.newyorker.com/repor.....ink=VZyHUf

[Dunphy (the real one)]

lol. there's some groundbreaking reporting there.

being a witness against drug dealers can be dangerous?

really?

[Nondescript]

NO SNITCHES!?

[Paleo-ConAvenger]

"Don't tell Chuck Schumer, but American firms are reincorporating overseas to escape Uncle Sam's sticky paws"

New Zealand, Anyone? About the closest country to a Libertarian paradise in the world..

[AlmightyJB]

Plus the chicks are easy

[Paleo-ConAvenger]

Indeed, indeed.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Chile's pretty decent, if you can speak Spanish. Right next door to Argentina, solid economic liberties, gorgeous babes and a fairly intelligent population -- they all add up.

[mr simple]

You mean the place where the students have been rioting for more free stuff?

I'm sure we all remember the last student leader.

[Calidissident]

Yeah, as someone who visited in May, Argentina's not so great on the economic liberties, but I agree with the second and third parts of your statement, especially the second part.

[Nondescript]

It's official. Pale Rider will be addressing the drones.

[Fluffy]

http://bostonherald.com/news/r.....position=7

Massachusetts drug crime lab was cheating to send people to jail.

Quelle surprise.

[David Emami]

"In February, Bradley Manning will go to trial, facing a potential life sentence for, essentially, embarrassing the U.S. government."

No, he's facing that sentence for violating the UCMJ and the Espionage Act, both of which he knowingly violated. Far from having too severe a punishment, he's getting off lightly. By rights, he should get the full Danny Deaver treatment if convicted.

[Drake]

No sympathy here - he damn well knew what he was doing.

[Les]

Oh, no! Are you saying he broke the law!

Holy shit, string him up already! The government and its laws shall not be defied!

Wait, I thought this was a libertarian site...?

[David Emami]

I know you're being facetious, but last I checked, libertarianism wasn't against enforcement of laws, it was against there being laws prohibiting people from doing things they have a right to do. Violating voluntarily-entered agreements is not one of those rights. By joining the military, Manning agreed to be subject to certain rules about distribution of information. He's accused of knowingly violating those rules. If found guilty, he should suffer the consequences that he knew about in advance. It's no less libertarian than saying that a programmer at Microsoft should get fired for sending copies of company source code to Oracle. The penalty is more severe, but as previously stated, Manning knew about it ahead of time, so the principle is unchanged.

[Fluffy]

I agree, within certain limits.

If the Town of Asshole promulgates a law that says that the penalty for smiling at a pretty girl is death, and I knowingly enter the Town of Asshole and smile at a pretty girl, neither the law nor the sentence is made "libertarian" by the fact that I voluntarily entered the town.

[David Emami]

Except that these are not laws applied to someone who just wanders into town. They were rules that Manning accepted as part of the terms of his employment. Anyway, since when do libertarians argue in favor of government employees who break the rules surrounding the resources they're entrusted with? Manning was given access to information. He (again, assuming he's found guilty) deliberately violated the rules under which he was given that access, with full knowledge of the consequences. Would you overlook it if a police officer used a patrol car for a vacation trip?

I don't see this as "government vs. my fellow private citizen Manning"; I see it as "government employee Manning who violated the trust he was given when I (indirectly) hired him."

[Fatty Bolger]

Our long national nightmare is almost over.

[mr simple]

Hopefully, we can look back at this as a low point.

[R C Dean]

Reminds me of an Iron Law. Under consideration:

Things are never as bad as they seem, but can always get worse.

[califernian]

In February, Bradley Manning will go to trial, facing a potential life sentence for, essentially, embarrassing the U.S. government.

This is BY FAR the most accurate take on the situation. I'm serious.