A.M. Links: Some Say Romney Deserves More Credit for bin Laden Killing, Pro-Terror Rally Outside U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, Ron Paul's Odds of Being Next Fed Chairman
News on the 11th anniversary of 9/11
-
6 percent of respondents in an Ohio PPP poll said Mitt Romney deserves more credit for the death of Osama bin Laden than does Barack Obama.
- New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie finally arrived at a deal on the 9/11 museum late last night. It was supposed to be open today, but it won't be open for at least another year. The dispute was over the bill, which could reach $1.4 billion.
- Islamic extremists held a 9/11 rally outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.
- An Afghan police commander and four civilians died in a suicide bomb attack close to the border with Turkmenistan.
- Morgan Stanley places the odds of Ron Paul being the next Fed chairman at 4 percent.
- There were Occupy protests as far as Hong Kong. That one, outside the headquarters of HSBC, is being evicted.
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Happy 9/11 everybody!
Goddammit. Can't this ever be just a normal day ever again?
If you want to have fun on September 11 again, just do what my roommate and I do: any time you see a 9 followed by an 11 (on a clock, the score of a sporting event, etc.) mute everything around you and point accusingly at anyone who continues to talk until the 9/11 moment of silence passes. Then, accuse anyone who continued to make noise of aiding terrorists (or being a terrorist themselves).
It will make people get over the 9/11 reverence pretty quick.
I have a good friend whose birthday is today and he's always down about it because so many people around him remember the terrorist attacks before his birthday.
Some friends of mine got married on 9/11 last year when it fell on a Sunday. Cutthroat rates
Someone's fucked if they forget their anniversary.
Same here. It allowed them to have a giant wedding they wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford.
My parents were celebrating their 25th anniversary on the day. Worse for them, they had gone on vacation out of town, leaving my brother and me. The worrying was off the charts.
My grandfather's birthday is today. For 78 years or so it was a perfectly normal day, but every since then it's been sorta fucked up.
Why? Is it Alzheimers?
You insensitive jerk. OK I laughed
December 7 is pretty normal. Give it time.
Yeah, a day that will live in infamy. My mom was born on December 7.
Those were different times, though, before the Oprahfication of America, the growth in a political class which loves to go poncing about demonstrating how much it cares.
And, of course, events followed Pearl Harbor in rapid succession which put it in perspective. We lost 2500 killed on D-Day, and the air war leading up to D-Day totalled over 10,000 casualties.
So, my prediction is that mawkish and self-serving observances of 9/11 will be with us for quite awhile yet.
Unfortunately, we've got another 11.3 years before we can make jokes about it. I don't think I can wait that long.
"Our relationship is working as well as the elevators in the World Trade Center."
"There was a bomb on the plane - the inflight movie!"
"Honey, you poor thing, did someone explode your Twin Towers?"
at least we appear to be past the original effort to turn it into "a day of service." No, it won't be normal. Not sure it should be.
What better way to encourage murderous psychopaths than memorialize and celebrate a day of mass murder.
The bakers at Publix weren't too keen on my idea of a 9/11 cake. I had to get donuts instead.
I gots to know. What are 9/11 donuts?
Whatever they are, I bet they don't come with candles.
"A day of servitude" sounds far worse than 9/11.
I expect it to get worse, not better.
50 years from now it will be like Christmas or Thanksgiving. We'll all put up 9/11 trees and have the day off to get together with our families to eat turkey. The NFL will have the giants play the Redskins every year at 8:45 AM and we'll all watch it on TV. The President-for-life will send out his annual 9/11 message by satellite to the PermanentSocializingMedia implants in our brains, and upon receipt of that message we will kneel and praise him.
the bigger question is: will the NFL as we know it still exist in 50 years? The safety nannies are in full throat having recently discovered that football can be a violent sport.
The NFL will play all its games electronically. The players will control avatars in a 3 dimensional simulated space by mind interface. When I said "TV", I didn't mean "television". By 2061 the abbreviation "TV" will stand for "The Vortex", which is the simulated 3D space where games take place and where each citizen also communes with his Assigned Bureaucrat and his Life Monitor.
The turkey will also be simulated. All living turkeys were freed following the Singer Wars of 2027. By 2028, all the freed turkeys were dead.
As long as The Vortex has a porn interface, I'm in.
Fuck that, I'm getting my SIN removed and running the shadows, muling novacoke in my cyberleg for a Chinese dragon.
For once, the safety nannies may have a point. It's one thing to say football is a violent sport. It's another to say we should accept people giving themselves and each other brain damage for our entertainment.
OTOH, I do enjoy me some Joe Biden, so I guess I can't say much about brain damage as entertainment.
t,
football has always been violent and participants have always played voluntarily. Plenty of guys who have long since left the game without being brain-damaged; in fact, they are the vast majority.
True, but as players have gotten larger and faster the protective gear surrounding the brain, including the skull, has not kept pace.
I foresee weight limitations in the future of the NFL. If not, expect a trial lawyer led lawsuit to eviscerate the sport sometime in the next 5-10 years.
Easist fix would be single squad football. Everyone plays both ways. If you sub out, you cant come back in until the next quarter.
All the studies I have seen recently are trending to 'no, they're all brain damaged to some extent'. How significant it is, I dunno. I think it changes the risk calculus considerably if the effect is as significant and provable as some people are claiming.
But hell, cheerleading is still more dangerous at the high school and college level. So we're willing to cripple and kill a few cute coeds every year, what's a little brain damage?
...or at least any more brain-damaged than they were, to start with.
They're doing it quite voluntarily and are extremely well-compensated for the risk.
According to a study Ive seen, professional football players have a lower mortality rate than american men in general.
And, amusingly, much lower than professional baseball players.
Not to be a dick, but don't all groups have a 100% mortality rate?
I don't know about NFL, but I bet we will see highschool football change a lot in the near future and probably lower tier college too.
I don't know about NFL, but I bet we will see highschool football change a lot in the near future and probably lower tier college too
I could definitely see them instituting weight limits at the high school level--they already have precedent for this with the Pee-Wee leagues for safety reasons, so it's not like they'd have to stretch much to apply it to high schools. The colleges will just make the scholarship players bulk up later on anyway (for example, former Steelers DE Aaron Smith, who played at 290 pounds in the pros, weighed about 215 his senior year of high school).
To be fair, though, you'd have to mandate weight minimums as well. I could see weight limits of 120-260 pounds at the JV/varsity level being instituted without it really impacting the integrity of the game. Most kids who weigh less than that minimum typically don't go out for football in high school anyway because they tend to get the shit kicked out of them in practice on a daily basis.
If they impose weight limits, you'll have ADA suits all over the country from fatsos that want to be able to have a normal childhood and all that bullshit.
Sorry, but schools will just kill football off before risking lawsuits from 400 lb tubbos that want 300 lb Junior to play football like his daddy did. Besides, it's not the superfat that hurt people, it's the ultrafit ones (think dunphy and his workout pals) that do. If anything, they need to institute minimum body fat composition to play high school sports. I'd say 22% would be about right.
If they impose weight limits, you'll have ADA suits all over the country from fatsos that want to be able to have a normal childhood and all that bullshit.
There was an article recently that talked about exactly this--the kid is a 6th grader and weights about 300 pounds, and the Pop Warner league told him "Sorry, you're too heavy." His fatass mom was the one crying to the press about it, saying the usual bullshit--"It's not fair, playing helps Billy's self-esteem"-- but the league administrators are holding firm.
I think the Safety Nannies would ultimately win out over the Self-Esteem Nannies in this fight.
My guess is they both "win" and football is made softer by many degrees.
Hell, if they really wanted to make it safer, they'd eliminate shoulder pads or at least go to much smaller ones (like the kickers wear). It would improve tackling and dramatically decrease injuries after a year or two.
The NFL needs to take a role similar to what NASCAR has done. Work with engineers and other professionals to come up with appropriate equipment to keep them as safe as possible, rather than than try and legislate the game in to irrelevance.
This, pretty much. I argued in yesterday's NFL thread that it won't be the brain-damaged pros that kill the sport; it'll be studies that show that kids who play, suffer cognitive deficits over those that don't. No kids, no pipeline of new players, no sport. Look at boxing as a model.
I'm still holding out hope that Obama will bring back gladiatorial style "games."
Drones=Lions
Muslims=Christians
Who says he hasn't?
Detroit Lions?
We don't get to watch, though.
Are you sure it wouldn't be the Jets and the Patriots playing on 9/11 Day?
Having the Jets play might not be the best PR move.
It's about right for Goodell's NFL, though.
It would be funny if they had special 9/11 uniforms where the jets on their helmets were crashing into buildings.
The Jets can play the part of the Washington Generals and always lose to the Patriots.
The last time that happened, the Jets won 2,996 to 19.
To be fair, the Pats rallied over Pennsylvania, and closed the 4th out on a strong note.
J.G. Ballard, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Interestingly, the first Superbowl after 9/11 was the Eagles and the Patriots.
Actually, it was the Patriots over the St. Louis Rams, and the Patriots had probably been stealing the Rams' signals.
One time we all got the day off, but ever since then they've made me work on 9/11. Shouldn't we at least be staying home today to remember the fallen or something?
^THIS! I have so much sadness over today that I don't think we should have to work... or something
AS an aviation geek, I can look forward to one or two decent documentaries on TV this week. Grounded on 9/11 is my favorite.
The hero worship stuff, though? Meh.
Live for yourself
There's no one else more worth living for
Begging hands and bleeding hearts
Will only cry out for more
+1 Rush reference. Won't be played on this tour unfortunately.
Going to see them tonight.
Enjoy! I'm going 10/12 and 10/20 - can't wait!
have fun, both of you!
Oh man. Alex sporting thick blond bangs, and Neil with a first-class Canadian Passport.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF7U8F2aars
If only we could all pay our debts this way:
the sharp Germans will look at the size of the loan they floated and say "consider yourselves reparated."
I think that's the point.
nah, the Greeks will be looking at extra money. You can't get folks who got used to a system of 'free money' to change on a dime. If my dad were alive to see this, he might well kill himself.
you know who else demanded reparations?
Lloyd George?
Jesse Jackson?
Prince?
Jiffy Lube?
Los Angeles, CA?
Prince Friedrich Karl?
Chris Benoit?
As du Volant?
The Limeys and the Frogs?
Elizabeth Warren.
A lot of that German guilt has died off by now. I'd be surprised if the political will to reparate anything exists in that country.
Exactly. The Greeks are as likely to get the Germans to pay up as they are the Turks for slaughtering a hell of a lot more of them.
Besides, the Italians invaded Greece. The Germans only came in after they stumbled, which is actually the reason the Germans didn't get to the Black Sea before the rains and defeat the Russians.
Given that Germany finally paid off the last of their World War I debt two years ago, I think the odds of them signing on for more reparations are pretty damned low.
Good luck, Greekers. I suspect the whole war guilt thing for what happened two generations ago has pretty much run its course.
You know who else stirred up shit that happened two generations earlier?
Rightway Septic Tank Pumping?
Jesse Jackson.
Doesn't the Bible say, "To the Jew first, and also to the Greek?"
The Greeks might be waiting a while.
Islamic extremists held a 9/11 rally outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.
Don't they understand it's Patriot Day?
Yes, but they disagree on who the "patriots" were.
I suppose technically extremists were some of the very first to die in the WTC attacks.
This was actually their public service.
Throw like a girl? You can do better.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ml?hpid=z4
jeezus - superior upper body strength? longer arms?
It's obviously the counter-balance provided by the penis.
More practice at throwing?
Bullying over "throwing like a boy"?
The difference is the necessity to throw a spear or other projectile to either provide food for the family/tribe/clan or protect said societal organization unit from other unfriendly societal organization units.
Not. Fucking. Difficult.
But wouldn't it be even more advantageous if women could throw as well as men?
jeezus - superior upper body strength? longer arms?
Evolutionary predisposition to being good at flinging shit?
Around the world, at all ages, boys throw better ? a lot better ? than girls. Studies of overhand ball throwing across different cultures have found that pre-pubescent girls throw 51 to 69 percent of the distance that boys do, at 51 to 78 percent of the velocity. As they get older, the differences increase; one U.S. study found that girls age 14 to 18 threw only 39 percent as far as boys (an average of about 75 feet vs. about 192 feet). The question is why.
Fucking biology, how does it work?
On a related note, it would be interesting to see how many females would end up being in the armed forces if they had the same PT standards for both genders.
I've never understood differing requirements for men and women. In battle, bullets do not move slower for women, cliffs to climb do not become shorter for women, gear does not become lighter for women, distances do not become less for women.
Why is it appropriate for a women who can run time X to serve, yet a man who can run the same distance at time X is disqualified? In battle, either one can do it, or one cannot.
McDonald's 'made married couple sit apart' in Pakistan restaurant
McDonald's is at the centre of a row over Islamic values in Pakistan after a customer complained he was told not to sit beside his wife because managers feared it would damage the restaurant's family reputation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....urant.html
Fuck Pakistan.
There has never been such a hive of wretched scum and villainy.
What about the US Capitol building?
As they are the ones that pay to support Pakistan, they're part and parcel.
That's "wretched hive of scum and villainy". If you're going to reference the Wars, at least get the quote right.
It's a paraphrase.
Why is Ichiro protesting against Obama and the war? (from picture)
Definitely looks like an Afrocentric asian.
Because Ichiro pursues excellence in all things.
There were Occupy protests as far as Hong Kong. That one, outside the headquarters of HSBC, is being evicted.
They're so far behind western trends.
The Hong Kong Occupy protestors all smoked cigarettes and listened to 80's dance hits during the entire protest.
The fuck are the Chinese participating in occupy?
Happy Deficit Day, America! (Sept 10th)
http://www.realclearmarkets.co.....99871.html
This is more depressing than a thousand 9/11's.
Well, the fiscal year starts 1 October, not 1 January. So if it was September 10th, that wouldn't be so bad. It would just mean they would have 20 days worth of debt, much better than 3 1/2 months.
But alas, that is not the case.
Argentina's dubious poverty line: The six-peso diet
http://www.economist.com/node/.....ixpesodiet
Declaring that a problem doesn't exist is a tried-and-true government solution to a problem.
Well, $1/day is considered to be the absolute poverty rate worldwide, but they should at least adjust for purchasing power and future devaluation from inflation.
As someone who visited Argentina in May, the idea that someone can get by on 6 pesos a day for food is absurd. A burger at McDonalds costs like 10 US dollars
Via Radley Balko's Twitter feed, the simple tale of a Canadian singer who puts a penny on his album cover. A fan who works for the Mint suggests to management that the Mint sell it in the shop. It goes one better - it sues his ass
http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat.....penny.html
How long before the gubmint charges a royalty every time someone uses cash.
It's called inflation, and it happens anythime you use fiat currency.
American Ambassador: *clears throat* Fuck Canada!
Canadian Ambassador: Hey, fuck you, buddy!
Not even Jezebellians think much of NYC soda-size ban. Sorry, token male that was hired to make Jezebel look gender-balanced, but is really just a leftist twit.
Yes, but the writer certainly likes other people being told what to do and that they're wrong
Some of the commenters are retarded as hell and support the ban.
Some of the commenters are retarded as hell
Umm, hello? Jezebel.
What is this, the slow class?
Some of the commenters are retarded as hell and support the ban.
Shocked face.
Gun pointed at Rep. Trey Gowdy in S.C. parking lot, police say
http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....-confirms/
whacky liberal? paranoid person? church gunrunner?
Irritated stalkee?
"I see dead people."*
*And write them tickets to meet my nonexistent quota.
Why is Obama skipping more than half of his daily intelligence meetings?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
He's so much smarter than them, he doesn't need no stinkin' intelligence
this is where the Bob Woodward book gains credibility. All through it, Obama is painted as unwilling to make decisions. Missing meetings is a way of avoiding decisions. Besides, icky meetings get in the way of campaigning.
And who wants to talk to those unpleasant people in uniform? They keep saying nasty things about misunderstood Muslims and freedom fighters. Yuck.
The fun is in the journey. Being President is bo-ring.
Besides, icky meetings get in the way of campaigning golf, basketball, and bowling practice.
Has he gotten good enough at bowling to beat a special olympian yet? If not, then he has to practice. We can't have a "leader of the free world" who's incapable of beating a retard at something. It makes us look weak, mumble mumble, something about terrorists... american exceptionalism, mumble mumble.
not cool Loki. Special Olympians have it tough enough without being compared to Obama, even favourably
In a sane and just world, this would be grounds for impeachment.
Alas, our world is neither sane nor just.
I think of the scene in "American Gods" where he had to chose between "the way of hard truths or the way of fine lies". Obama will always chose the Fine Lies from his lackeys, preferably during a nice round of golf.
600 hours of golf so far for this President. If he were doing something useful, he'd be a third of the way to a homebuilt airplane.
Really? 150 rounds of golf over the last four years? He gets to play a little less than once a week? I can't remember the last time I had an afternoon free to step onto the course.
It's shit all the way down with this President.
A bit of libertarian porn: Queensland sacks 14,000 public servants.
Well it made me a bit tingly
mmm...yeah...get it..
No! Not the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and Multicultural Affairs department!
(seriously though, this dept still retains 363 employees)
I'll be in my bunk.
Oh yes...their tears are yummy and sweet.
Lifeguards in El Monte, CA fired for making music video during off-hours.
Among likely voters, Obama-Romney close
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
and there is some professor who has been right, down to the state by state level, on all elections since '80. His worst outing was '92; he got 41 of 50 states due to the Perot effect. His system has Romney in a landslide.
I'd like to think that O is going down, but Romney's battleground state performance is not getting any better.
His 48 percent isn't in the right places.
Do you have a link for this, wareagle?
I am still not voting Republican, but a thoughtful post the other day slightly moved me in the "sympathetic to Republicans" just for this election.
here it is...if the squirrels eat it, it is from the U of Colorado. If you Google "study says romney to win", it pops up. Hopefully, the linky will worky.
http://www.colorado.edu/news/r.....study-says
I think he's talking about this: http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_21373080
Part of me would be fine with a republican loss, because it would keep the horrific liberal monsters that insist on surrounding me from blaming me for all the damage Romney and co will do. If the coin was the other way, and monstrous "conservative" horrors surrounded me, I'd be just as anxious of an Obama win. Fuck them all.
the liberals will blame you regardless. It's like the scorpion and the frog. That's what scorpions do.
I suspected as much. But the Republican Tarantula doesn't look like a better option. Both end in death.
The problem with models like this is that there's a small sample size. Every election since 1980 is still only 8 election. So even a pure coin flip model has a 1 in 256 chance of being right every time. There are more than 256 individuals publishing models. Eventually, just out of pure chance, someone's model will be accurate 8 times in a row even if it's no better than a coin toss. I'd also be curious how their model did when backdated to prior elections.
For example, Moody's has a model that has picked every election since 1984 accurately and it predicts Obama winning with 300 EVs. Obviously, both Moody's and this prof can't both be right, but in 2016, one of them will still have their perfect record.
http://www.economy.com/dismal/.....F7D505D457
that has a 33D/23R/37I sample. D+10?
33D/23R/37I
Wow, that's a big ass. Is the study done just on Latinos?
Maybe if she's 5'3".
The recent CNN poll showing O with an 8 point lead was so grotesquely distorted on its sampling that when it was corrected to match reality, it showed Romney with an 8 point lead.
Link's at Drudge.
One of the "interests" of one of my PlentyOfFish chemistry matches is listed as "Elizabeth Warren rocks". While I knew, as a libertarian, I was doomed to die alone having never felt the touch of a woman, now I don't feel so bad about it.
Use OKCupid instead. It's a lot better than POF.
I use that too. My matches there are all Xian religious fanatics.
You might want to rethink the answers to your questions (or you're just in a really really weird area).
Obligatory reference.
That's just bringing me to the home page for some reason.
Are you talking about the, "My Dick", eharmony answer?
I liked Salon's personals, many years ago. Of course you're going to run into a lot more Fauxcahontas fans that way, but that's what filters are for.
It's the screencap of the best answer ever to E-Harmony's question 'What do you like most in a woman?'
All my OK Cupid matches were gun-totin' tough guys. I'm dating one of them now. The libertarian chicks are out there. You might need to tweak your answers to the quiz (or answer more questions - I answered about 300 or 400 over the course of a few months). Or change your age preferences to skew a bit older.
Mine were all pretty apolitical, which is what I really want. Despite the amount of time I spend here, I don't talk about politics much with others in real life (I certainly don't bring it up).
A lof the questions on OK Cupid are political, though. I skip most of them (and the ones about the minutae of people's sexual preferences - I don't need to get into specifics until I get to know someone), but I still answer enough to make sure my matches aren't complete fuckheads.
I mark those as low importance and then mark the ones about whether or not you enjoy talking about politics/etc as high/mandatory. It seems to have worked for me. My answers screen out people that care about it, and if they say they love talking politics it screens them out for me.
you will never feel the supple caress as she screeches in your ear.
My match.com dates tend to wind up pregant, and not by me.
I suppose that's better than the alternative.
any time I think "is this marriage working out?", I'll remember this post.
Longtorso, if you want to meet a woman and marry her, you probably just need to wait for the Reason HandR College Football Bowl Pick-Em Extravaganza.
If it worked for me, it can work for anybody!?
"Here boy! Here boy! That's a good boy! Lookie here! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Sorry, Scout. There's a leash law in this town and the penalty for breaking it is death.
Fucking sociopaths.
FUCK
That lab puppy had it coming. Everyone knows they are the most dangerous and vicious creatuers around, especially the puppies!
Did you start his website?
http://www.dogmurderers.com/
Should be *this* website.
This one made me sick to my stomach. The cop from this story should be drawn and quartered. Preferably after being forced to watch every living member of his family tree beaten to death in front of him. People like that should be eradicated from the gene pool.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go throw up now.
FTA: Police officials told the Daily Sun last week that they would not elaborate on how the animal was killed, other than that a firearm was not used.
"This case is under both an administrative and criminal investigation," Treadway said when asked today about the witness' account. "A police officer or any other member of this community is entitled to due process and I'm prohibited by law from releasing information while this investigation is under way."
Yeah, they always withhold information about non-cops when they are investigating them, right?
Fucking animals.
The comments on that story are quite gratifying, at least.
The following comment hits it on the head:
But there's no double standard, right? If I shoot my neighbor's year-old Golden Retriever in its yard, I'm just going to be told not to do it again and that'll be it? Who the fuck shoots a Golden, anyway? Conan O'Brien used one for his Evil Puppy sketch because the idea was so ridiculous.
Take away their qualified immunity, start holding officers personally liable for their conduct, and you might start seeing some caution and restraint return to law enforcement.
Thanks for the nut-kick, sloopy.
What. The. Fuck.
Someone please, please shoot that fucking pig in the face.
Quote from a Facebook friend (who managed to get herself hidden from my feed):
"I am voting tomorrow! A republican told me today that 'I need to get my head out of the jungle' in reference to my respect for Obama! We need to keep this racism and bigotry out of office people! GO MAKE AN EDUCATED VOTE!!!"
Another instance of "Anti-Obama? Racist!"?
the capability to hide people or unsubscribe from them is, bar none, the single best feature of FB.
Don't bring that Facebook shit in here. At least our crazies are semi-coherent; Facebook has no such privilege.
A majority of whites won't vote for Barack Obama, that's racist. A supermajority of black people and other minorities will vote fro him, that's not. Makes sense.
".... minorities will vote fro him...."
Well played sir.
You should have posted "Welcome to the Jungle"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1tj2zJ2Wvg
+1000
Voting tomorrow? For what?
Iunno. She lives in NH now, so probably some local election there.
State primaries are today in NH.
Why the hell are primaries this late? And why not the same time as the national primaries...when they already have all the infrastructure set up?
I don't know. Why are the presidential primaries so early?
The whole government of NH is up for election every two years, so that might have something to do with the lack of coordination with the national primaries.
Obama. It takes a while to fill out 100 absentee ballots.
"Democrat withdraws from 1st District congressional race after allegations she voted in two states"
More of that non-existent voter fraud
http://www.baltimoresun.com/ne.....4352.story
Cops steal shit from suspects. City suspends officers* (but of course the DA found no reason to prosecute them). Union thinks it's wrong to air the dirty laundry in public.
*They won't serve their suspensions at the same time because of staffing issues. I guess they can't have all of their thieves not working at the same time. It might get the "civilians" used to not being shaken down.
The dispute was over the bill, which could reach $1.4 billion.
But what the heck, since Iraq is picking up the tab.
Morgan Stanley places the odds of Ron Paul being the next Fed chairman at 4 percent.
As if we needed more confirmation that Financial Services companies have become little more than gambling enterprises.
Well? What do you think, Valentine?
Sounds to me like you guys a couple of bookies.
[chuckling, patting Billy Ray on the back] I told you he'd understand.
We need more Trading Places references on here. Nicely done.
Yes, Jamie Lee Curtis made a permanent memory for me in that one.
Best-looking hermaphrodite of all time.
If your "memory" lasts for more than four hours, call your physician and seek immediate medical help.
Then there's this classic, which nicely sums up the last four years.
Is there anything Denholm Elliott is in that he doesn't make better? Seriously, the man was a fucking great supporting actor.
He worked for a very long time. Hard to believe he died all the way back in 1992. And even harder for me to believe that the last Indiana Jones movie was in 1989...
Damn, I feel old.
Don't forget Crystal Skull.
Assuming you're serious, I'll just leave this here.
Week 1 of the NFL season is over, which means FFL is under way. And for those of you that care but don't know, here are the results of the Reason HandR JsubD Memorial FFL:
Armstrong's Corpse
116.35
Kochtopussys
96.45
#89
90.45
Not That John
82.80
LeaveTimTebowAlone!!
61.45
Hershey Fudgepackers
104.15
PantsFans
81.55
Ghost's Boasts
126.35
Occupy End Zone
51.25
STEVE SMITH RAPE YOU
118.35
Apatheists
76.20
LBCheeseburgers
77.75
Mr. Peanut
105.55
Go Pack Go
91.50
ConfederacyOfHunches
88.15
Clich? Bandits
101.25
As you can see, not too many close games. And for the record, the lowest scoring team was last year's regular season champion, Tulpa. I bet he feels just like the Packers this morning.
I was going to tell you not to post that shit in here, but the team names are so funny that I now demand you post fantasy football updates here every week.
I particularly like "Occupy End Zone."
STEVE SMITH wasn't kidding when he said he'd rape you. Jeez, almost 70 points??
Tulpa is incredibly butthurt.
Don't bring the FFL shit onto here. No wait, do I have that backward?
If only rectal were here to set us straight...
But seriously, people need to grow some thicker skin. It's only week 1 and the whining has begun.
(Also, my trade offers were still better, heller)
Speaking of Packers feeling bad
Rodgers asked Boyz II Men to sing the national anthem before the opener at Lambeau Field. Nathan Morris of the group laid a bet on the table. If the Packers lost the game, Morris proposed, Rodgers would have to wear a 49ers jersey through this entire week
Another instance of "Anti-Obama? Racist!"?
Nothing anti-Obama is not racist.
It is INCONCEIVABLE that anyone might be opposed to 0 for any reason other than racism.
I'm tempted to point this out to her, but she'll probably just think I'm being racist.
http://www.americanthinker.com.....lypse.html
Bob Woodward reports on the coming economic apocalypse and doesn't even realize it. The money quote
Another possible outcome, Geithner said, was perhaps worse. "Suppose we have an auction and no one shows up?"
The cascading impact would be unknowable. The world could decide to dump U.S. Treasuries. Prices would plummet, interest rates would skyrocket. The one pillar of stability, the United States, the rock in the global economy, could collapse.
"So," the president said, "if we give $1.2 trillion now in spending cuts" - the amount in the House bill to get the first increase in the debt ceiling for about six to nine months - "what happens next time?" The Republicans would then come back next year, in the middle of the presidential campaign, and impose more conditions on the next debt ceiling increase. He could not give the Republicans that kind of leverage, that kind of weapon. It was hostage taking. It was blackmail. "This will forever change the relationship between the presidency and the Congress.
His own Treasury Secretary tells him that the country is about to collapse and his first worry is having to give up power to Congress.
This obviously is pretty pessimistic. There is one bright spot. This is Timmy Geitner talking. To creatures like him, the country is the government. So if the government goes bust, it is the end of the world. Maybe the opposite is true. Maybe if the government goes bust, it would get its foot off of the rest of the country's throat.
That's what I'm hoping for. A decade as a farmhand in the "post-apocalyptic wasteland" could do me some good. I'm not being sarcastic. No really.
One of my big hobbies is medieval English history. Literally about every 100 years they had a civil war and burned half the country down. Yet, England survived and emerged in the 16th Century as a world power. So, even the worst calamities do not last forever. Also, in the day and age of the internet, there is a greater possibility of alternative currency arising and the effects of hyperinflation to be mitigated.
hey John, did you see that those archaeologists digging up the carpark in Leicester now claim to be "tantalisingly close" to finding Richard III?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/his.....-body.html
No I did not. Interesting. Finally settle whether he was really a hunch back.
They tore the whole friary down. They really did go bananas during the English reformation. I was reading the other day where the tomb that Edward I built for what was claimed to be the remains of King Arthur was totally destroyed during the reformation. Man they really did hate the monks.
I was reading the other day where the tomb that Edward I built for what was claimed to be the remains of King Arthur was totally destroyed during the reformation. Man they really did hate the monks.
Apparently Henry VIII went so overboard with sacking monasteries that the shrine of Thomas Becket was completely destroyed and his grave desecrated.
Henry didn't like Becket at all. Becket defied an earlier King Henry. Can't have that.
I'll be looking for farmhands come the apocalypse, Drax. Be sure to put in your application early.
Just need room and board once money loses it's meaning.
Extreme economic duress would probably lead to more jackbootery, not less.
There will be blood.
You have to have money to pay the jackboots. And the US still has a strong federal system. Imperial Russia didn't have a federal system. One of the first things Hitler did upon assuming power was destroy Germany's federal system. Difficult to imagine a broke federal government doing much jackbooting over still fiscally solvent states.
North Dakota: Stronghold of Freedom.
Seriously. Places like Texas, North Dakota and other places in the plains that are having oil booms would probably come through okay.
Rick Perry wasn't really joking, you know.
This is where I renew my call for the states comprising the Louisiana Purchase to secede from the union.
What fiscally solvent states are you referring to? Besides, if the government is printing the money they can just give their jackboots more worthless script than everyone else gets. And let's not forget who has all the heavy weaponry.
Pretty much the entire planes and South. the only states that are certainly going to go broke are NY, California, Illinois, and few NE states.
And the states have a lot of heavy weaponry themselves. It is called the National Guard. And the military would never turn on the US population. They would stand down. It would not happen. So the feds would be left with their LEOs, whom they couldn't pay anymore.
And hyper inflation doesn't kill everyone. If you still are producing something, you still will have something.
Actually, if my SWAG serves, most states are fiscally solvent, more or less.
Well, once they dump their pubsec pensions, anyway.
RC
The inflation will solve the pension problem.
Lots of pensions are indexed to inflation, John.
They won't be forever RC.
Geithner or not, this is the sort of stuff that gives support to the D'Souza documentary that Obama's key aim is whittling America down to size. And, I wouldn't put too much of the onus on Timmy. It's not like Obama did not know who he was appointing.
"Suppose we have an auction and no one shows up?"
(1) The fed will always show up. Hell, the fed has been taking between 30% and 70% of the auctions for a couple of years now.
(2) At $1TT a year as far as the eye can see, it is flat out guaranteed that there will be an auction where nobody but the fed shows up.
Of course, as the fed monetizes debt at this rate, it locks in inflation, and finally a hyperinflationary collapse. Likely combined with a deleveraging/deflationary depression. Yes, you can have both at the same time.
Simon Says "freeze". Would you?
I might freeze, inconveniently, while flipping them the bird.
What's next? Walkies? Sit?
They have to find some way to have fun in between gropings.
Not if they don't say Simon Says. I know the rules.
"Conservative Groups Push for End to Wind Energy Tax Credit"
"'If a new technology truly has worthwhile benefits for American consumers such as lower cost, higher efficiency, or environmental benefits, then that technology will demonstrate its value by competing in the open market for consumers' dollars ? not by living off of special provisions in the tax code,' the letter said.
Groups signing the letter include the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks."
http://insideclimatenews.org/t.....tax-credit
Expect green energy to compete on its own? Never.
Not to be neglected, the Reason HandR You Didn't Built That FFL also got underway. And here's how we all did in that one:
Sloopys Barnyard Fun
110.02
MR's Guard Ducks
72.62
Rhythmic Gymnasts
93.34
Turd Burglars
102.06
Analrapists
98.70
JD's Seceders
115.72
Faith +1
104.46
Decepticons
103.48
PeytonsTimeMachine
65.22
Black Leather Jacket
98.68
The reason staffers are 1-1 so far this year, with the Decepticons losing a squeaker but JD's Seceders beating Banjos by a country mile.
I can't decide if Occupy End Zone or Black Leather Jacket is the best team name.
Occupy End Zone.
STEVE SMITH RAPE YOU
In the Reason H*amp*R Bigorati pick 'em Graham Gano's Avengers is in the lead with 13, helped by getting both the Washington and SF upsets.
Full results:
Graham Gano's Avengers: 13
Banjos Big Bouncy Bazoombas: 12
Translucent Chum Will Suh You: 12
Jumbie :12
Falling Dutchmen:11
Broncos over Steelers:11
calidissident:11
Citizen Nothing:11
Auric Demonocles:10
Mike M.:10
Sloopy Super #1 Football Picks:10
Rub Me Wrong Time:10
Brett's coin flips:10
Fingerbang!:9
Proegg Antichicken:9
Ghost's Boasts:9
The Whiterun Guards:9
Indiano Bianco:8
Stalker:6
I'm amazed jumbie is in second after throwing away 2 points on the Colts and Rams.
sloopy:
When do these weekly tiebreakers even get used? Just at the end of season? If so, how?
They go into effect if there's a tie at the top in any given week. And they go in order. TB 1 is used and if it's a tie after that, TB 2.
Don't worry, there'll be a tie soon.
Why does a tie in a given week matter?
Usually everybody throws money in a pot and the weekly winner gets a cut of it. I'm in another pick-em and it's $10/week per player and the winners get 90% of the money each week with the overall winner for the season getting the remainder of the money paid in. (weekly winners usually win around $200 with the year-end winner getting somewhere around $300 or so due to attrition at the end of the season)
But since there's no money in this one...
It doesn't?
It matters for bragging rights from week to week. And let's face it, that's about as long an attention span as you typically find around here.
Hmm... I guess it's true that's all you win over the whole season too. I just wasn't considering anything other than the running total to be important. I suppose the per week value will still keep some people interested later on even if they're behind.
But for Philly squeaking out a win over the Browns, I would have been 0fer in the NFC East. Fuckers.
Happy to be just beneath Banjo's Bazoombas.
::narrows eyes::
I'm sad to literally be worse than Nothing.
highest scoring loser, story of my life
Well, the world needs ditchdiggers, to.
Obama and Romney in 49-48 statistical dead heat among likely voters. Virtually the same numbers as before the conventions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
But in a poll whose sample includes only 23% of self identified Republicans.
which may be why the Colorado professor with a history of being right says Mitt in a big way.
I always assume conservative voters are underrepresented by at least 5 to 10% in these polls. Conservatives just don't want to answer the phone from unknown callers, or they are actually at work, the big city reporters / pollsters can't be bothered to ask anyone more than 5 miles away.
already posted, amigo. I know it's hard to see amongst the normal flippant snark that populates H-ampersand-R.
Sorry to walk over you.
I'll live. *sniff*
Well Republicans are mostly going to be too busy being racist or attacking women to vote, so it makes sense.
Voting Day = Burning Cross Day!
Even the site of a police car scares liberals away from voting.
That's why I early vote. What if my servants haven't polished my monocle well enough on election day? I'd have to spend the day thrashing them all, and I'd never get to the polls. Early voting frees up my schedule for oppressing minorities and exploiting the working class.
/Libertarian Early Voting PSA
Really? How very... humble of you. One doesn't want to make a fuss, but those dear little people running the polling booth simply insist on closing it so I have the place to myself and can vote at leisure. Luckily they choose to have it in a local school gym with lovely wide doors so I don't even have to get off my palanquin. One of the boys carrying it hands up the papers and a pencil, i write "none of the above little statist bitches" and we're done
http://www.forexlive.com/blog/.....gdp-ratio/
Moodies expects to cut the US debt rating.
more rethuglican chicanery!
It's a fun story, but it's amazing to me that after 2008 those ratings agency fuckers still have any credibility. And to still have the US at AAA? Really?
We'll see if they have the balls to go through with it.
I keep reminding the Team Blue fellators that visit here that we can't keep spending 8-12% of GDP in deficits to get a 1-2% growth rating. All Moody's did with their press release was confirm that I'm right.
From the UK
Colour me sad
Kind of like the anti-drug ads that oddly make you want to do drugs.
Or Food Inc. and Super Size Me. Just thinking about them now, makes me want a shitty McDonald's hamburger.
Yeah. I went to McDonalds for lunch the day after watching Super Size Me. I never do that. But it just sounded so good.
The worst thing on their menu is the soda/pop/coke(for you Southerners). Seriously, hamburgers aren't giving people diabeeetttttuuuss.
Popeyes is my fast food joint of choice whenever I feel like abusing my health.
I don't think it is possible for U.K. to do anything noteworthy or successful.
has this been posted here yet?
In a Mass Knife Fight to the Death Between Every American President, Who Would Win and Why?
Probably the bloodthirsty Teddy Bear.
There was a whole thread on it yesterday. The general consensus was Jackson in a walk, with Teddy Roosevelt and the civil war veteran presidents of the late 19th Century being dark horses.
Dammit, I missed this thread?
I still think James Buchanan goes deep into the fight, because he was not opposed to plunging his dagger into another man.
+ "Lifelong bachelor."
no LBJ?
Andrew Jackson would win, maybe with Washington being his last kill.
I still think you're selling Lincoln short.
The finalists would be Jackson, Washington, Lincoln. Grant was a frickin' general, and as far as I know never got into the scrum. Other than Washington, Jackson, and Roosevelt, I'm not sure which Presidents had actual bloody-knuckles combat experience. And for some reason Teddy just doesn't strike me as a knife fighter.
Grant had combat experience in the Mexican war, which was quite a nasty affair.
Other than Washington, Jackson, and Roosevelt, I'm not sure which Presidents had actual bloody-knuckles combat experience.
William Henry Harrison fought Indians at Fallen Timbers, Tippecanoe, and the Thames, Zachary Taylor fought in the War of 1812 in addition to commanding during the Mexican War, and as pointed out above, several of the post Civil War presidents up through McKinley had combat experience (Cleveland hired a substitute and Arthur was a quartermaster). Truman fought in World War 1, and Bush Sr. was a combat pilot in World War 2.
I think Jackson takes it hands down, though. Washington was too much of a gentleman to stoop to prole nonsense like knife fights, and Lincoln was better with a quip. I don't think we've had any other President that personally relished in combat the way Jackson did.
I stand corrected.
Lincoln was quite the brawler in his youth. I've still got him in at least the top 4.
Plus, he's got a long reach. And skinny guys fight 'til they're burger.
In Washington's corner, prior to match.
FLUFFY: (speaking in Burgess Meredith voice)
All right, Rock, I want you to get in there and give it to these bastards real good!
WASHINGTON:
Who's 'Rock'?
FLUFFY:
You are, kid!
Fluffy points to Woodrow Wilson.
FLUFFY: (cont'd)
You see that guy, Rock? That's the French ambassador.
WASHINGTON:
A Frenchie, you say?
Close up of Washington fingering knife in anticipation.
FLUFFY:
Yeah, Rock, a no-good Frenchie. And you know what? The other day I heard him saying that he hates whiskey. And that anybody who distills whiskey is a yellow dog coward. Can you believe that, Rock?
He's coming.
Memos show US hushed up Soviet crime
WARSAW, Poland (AP) ? The American POWs sent secret coded messages to Washington with news of a Soviet atrocity: In 1943 they saw rows of corpses in an advanced state of decay in the Katyn forest, on the western edge of Russia, proof that the killers could not have been the Nazis who had only recently occupied the area.
The testimony about the infamous massacre of Polish officers might have lessened the tragic fate that befell Poland under the Soviets, some scholars believe. Instead, it mysteriously vanished into the heart of American power. The long-held suspicion is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't want to anger Josef Stalin, an ally whom the Americans were counting on to defeat Germany and Japan during World War II.
Documents released Monday and seen in advance by The Associated Press lend weight to the belief that suppression within the highest levels of the U.S. government helped cover up Soviet guilt in the killing of some 22,000 Polish officers and other prisoners in the Katyn forest and other locations in 1940.
Too bad all of the guilty parties are in comfortable graves. What a bunch of cock-suckers.
If you ever read Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, you'll find yourself very depressed. The one small bit of happiness in the book is how Stalin periodically has all the old mass murderers executed by the new mass murderers. It's not much, but it's nice reading that the NKVD who organized the Ukranian famine were killed by the NKVD who did the Katyn Forest killings.
That sounds like my bachelor bath tub. The new scum consumes to the old.
Yezhov, Yagoda, Beria, Blokhin: very few of them died peacefully in bed. Yezhov dying in his own death chamber was a nice touch.
Still nowhere near enough to pay for what they did, but that's something else's problem.
The long-held suspicion is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't want to anger Josef Stalin, an ally whom the Americans were counting on to defeat Germany and Japan during World War II.
What a piece of shit that crypto-commie FDR was. Fuck him and the people who worship him.
Read "The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia" for more rage-inducing details on American complicity. As if you needed more proof that FDR was a totalitarian piece of shit.
There has been a pretty good documentary shown on PBS a few times focusing on the interactions of Churchill, Stalin and FDR which goes into this quite a bit.
I'm open to the idea that it was necessary in some sense to ally with the USSR, but it's pretty hard to argue that Stalin was any less evil than Hitler.
Indeed. Especially after the Nazis invaded, there was never going to be a separate peace. That's the threat Stalin used to keep FDR supporting him, and it was a bogus one. Sometime during Stalingrad that war become a war to the knife, and there wasn't going to be any peace until one of those evil bastards was dead. There was no need for us to tolerate all the shit Stalin pulled that hurt American interests.
The stupidity and incompetence of FDR is hard to overstate. The fact that he is lionized infuriates me, because by any objective standard he was a truly terrible President.
He did get elected four times. And he did---for bad, mostly---get much of his domestic agenda accomplished. The U.S. Federal Government underwent a revolutionary change under his Administration.
Success is its own standard of quality.
Re: the Nazis v the Communists, and whether the U.S. needed to get into WW2, it really wasn't not going to happen, once the U.S. committed to Lend-Lease and the Germans insisted on torpedoing U.S. ships. But WW2 was a question of "which totalitarian fuckbag would you like running Europe?" Because you're going to have to pick one. And at least by choosing the Soviets, you had the chance of eventually freeing the French and the Low Countries, and keeping the Brits free, which is what eventually happened.
It is interesting to wonder what a Nazi dominated Europe would have been like, and how it, and the Cold War that would have arose to contain it, would have differed from how the 1945-1990 period turned out.
It is interesting to wonder what a Nazi dominated Europe would have been like
We may yet get to find that out if Germany decides to quit bailing out its insolvent neighbors.
The stupidity and incompetence of FDR is hard to overstate. The fact that he is lionized infuriates me, because by any objective standard he was a truly terrible President.
FDR suffered from the same conceit as Obama--being spoiled and worshipped made them believe that their personal magnetism was so powerful that they could talk anyone into anything. FDR never understood that Stalin was a gangster with far more experience and sophistication in political machinations, in a world where losing got you killed, not just sent back to Hyde Park. Stalin played him like a fiddle.
There's also the suspicion that FDR was just too old and sick by that time period, and didn't have all of his mental faculties in place. Maybe the 1932 FDR could have better protected American's interests from Stalin (I personally doubt it, but it's possible), but not the 1943 version.
I'm open to the idea that it was necessary in some sense to ally with the USSR, but it's pretty hard to argue that Stalin was any less evil than Hitler.
It was "necessary" if you subscribe to the opinion that the USSR was the least of the two evils. But in retrospect it's not entirely clear that was the case.
Soros: "Germany needs to keep bailing out insolvent countries."
And then Soros downed a goblet of baby's blood, restoring the color to his face.
Dammit. Link:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/.....AB20120908
I'm sure that blood and the knowledge of where it came from infused his long-Al-Bundy-esque flaccid dong as well.
I guess Soros went long on the upcoming Deutschmark, and wants to devalue its position so it enters the market as low as possible.
Moody's to America's insane politicians: cut your debt to GDP ratio or we'll follow SP and cut America's credit rating.