Bernanke Defends QE3, Fiscal Cliff Means a Tax Hike for Most Americans, Fast and Furious Guns Linked to Murders: P.M. Links
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Printing money is good, and will save us all, says Ben Bernanke. So, why stop? Ever?
- That "fiscal cliff" that everybody keeps talking about … Among other things, it means a tax hike for 90 percent of Americans, to the tune of half a trillion dollars, if Congress doesn't make some much-needed tweaks.
- Eurozone unemployment is mired at a record 11.4 percent while the continental economy drifts in a recession-ish direction. Well … Less "drifting" and more "plummeting."
- Fifty-seven weapons run by the ATF into Mexico were linked by Univision to specific murder victims.
- A British man spent several months in custody after a DNA sample contaminated by lousy lab procedures linked him to a rape he didn't commit.
- That California man who made an anti-Islamic film has a new bounty on his head, this one placed by a Pakistani former lawmaker. Ummm … Pakistan's legal code seems to have a few holes.
- One of those weird Simon-Says-everybody-freeze drills the TSA has been conducting in airports was captured on video and posted to YouTube where it went viral. People now have even more reason to enjoy air travel.
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Printing money is good, and will save us all, says Ben Bernanke.
People refuse to break windows fast enough.
Keep calm, and print more money.
The broken window parable might seem to make intuitive sense, but the history of the world suggests it isn’t true. (The aftermaths of natural disasters and wars often see improved short- and long-term economic growth.)
And the parable could only apply if resources are being fully utilized. If people are saving instead of spending, then ‘forcing’ them to spend would increase economic activity relative to where it would have been without the broken window.
What use was it, in terms of economic activity?
Well for starters, morally you have no right to tell me or otherwise coerce me into using my resources to your benefit. That’s called extortion.
Secondly, the resources that aren’t being spent still have value, after all, people will always need things like food, shelter, and a desire for comfort. The Keyensians greatly overstate their case of an apocalyptic deflationary spira.
I thought we were talking about the broken window parable. Is economic demand extortion?
As I said, the parable may apply if people would otherwise use their money for productive purposes. If they are excessively saving, then breaking a few windows might be productive.
Re: Tony,
A Serious Man was responding to your proposition: “If people are saving instead of spending, then ‘forcing‘ them to spend would increase economic activity.”
So don’t play games, Tony.
If they are excessively saving, then breaking a few windows might be productive.
How do you “excessively save”? I know that we are purely in the hypothetical scenarios now, since the government’s excessive taxation prevents me from excessively saving.
I know that we are purely in the hypothetical scenarios now, since the government’s excessive taxation prevents me from excessively saving much anything at all.
FIFY
gB, it is impossible to have excessive savings. Tony knows this, but couches his statist fellating arguements in language that appears to cast the saver in a negative light in order to justify the confiscation of that private property by the state.
“Is economic demand extortion?”
If you are going to intentionally create a “broken window” scenario, yes it is. Such demand is artificially created and to the economic detriment of the purchaser, who had to purchase something he did want and should not have needed, and therefore is less capital he could have used for something he did want which would have been economically productve. All “broken windows” does is destroy wealth and misallocate capital away from real productivity.
I GOT it! Everyone on public assistance should have a quota of windows to break!
You want your Unemployment this month? Forget about looking for a job, go knock down a few street signs! Throw some rocks through some glass doors! It’s pure genius!
Well, it’s gathering interest and probably being used by the bank to invest in something else. Further, it’s potential future economic activity that you’ve destroyed.
Good point. A lot of people seem to think that keeping money in a bank or invested is like putting it in your mattress. Even if a person does nothing with their money personally, the money is still doing something.
More future economic activity than is being wasted by maintaining high unemployment?
Re: Tony,
The consumption of savings would lead to even higher unemployment in the future. Capital comes from savings – kids learn this from the experiences of Robinson Crusoe.
Except for the total lack of empirical evidence for your side, it makes sense.
And where is the empirical evidence for your side of this discussion?
Re: Tony,
What the hell are you talking about? In which world are you living?
The reason for this economic debacle is precisely the consumption of savings by people and government. There’s your empirical evidence – the current crisis!
The reason for this economic debacle is precisely the consumption of savings by people and government. There’s your empirical evidence – the current crisis!
It’s not just the consumption of savings in the present–it’s the consumption of future earnings via debt and deficit spending in both the public and private sector.
What Tony never acknowledges (because it would destroy his arguments) is that total debt is really about 350% of GDP in this country. By arguing that savings prevents economic recovery, he is arguing to continue the “extend and pretend” game, rather than acknowledging that our society is over-leveraged and that these debts need to be either paid down or defaulted on.
The premise of Tony, Obama, and others of the progressive ilk the last four years has been the insistence that this depression is driven by liquidity rather than debt. They’re completely wrong, of course, but that doesn’t prevent them from arguing against basic math all the same.
And another thing! Why must we arrest shoplifters? Where would store detectives be without shoplifters? All those people manufacturing and selling surveillance equipment would be out of jobs! All the psychologists who treat addictions would be similarly displaced.
It’s kinetic activity, dumbfuck.
false stimulous. its utilizing resources now that won’t be there later. its a kick the can down the road exercise. it works…until it doesn’t. even keynes would have said “dude, its too late, you’re fucked”
by now.
Leaving resources underutilized and unemployment high is a choice with negative consequences for future growth. The point is to stimulate self-sustaining growth, making up for the alleged problem of not having the resources for the future.
Hey Tony. Give away everything you own and then buy all new stuff. Do it monthly forever. Thanks in advance.
The problem is the assumption that there is always more resources. Sometimes all you’re doing is increasing the burn rate.
Shorter Tony:
“Ending is better than mending”
Did they spike your bottle with too much alcohol before they decanted you, Tony?
The point is to stimulate self-sustaining growth, making up for the alleged problem of not having the resources for the future.
Classic question-begging. No growth is self-sustaining–if it was, there would be no recessions.
What do you think banks do with savings, you moron?
Swim in a pool of it.
Was the original Tony this dumb?
Re: Tony,
The point of the parable was that the economic activity arising from the broken window is more than offset by the destruction of capital that the broken window represents.
That would suggest that if Houston was fire-bombed, it would improve the economy.
The parable was meant for people like YOU.
This statement is meaningless, economically speaking.
Forcing them to CONSUME their savings would only lead to raising prices and wasted resources. You also totally ignore the Law of Opportunity Cost.
Re: Tony,
I suddenly understood what you meant, but it means that your interpretation of “fully utilized” is incoherent.
For starters, resources are always fully utilized. If I have a pot of gold which I keep in a save, I am utilizin the gold as savings. If I am keeping farm land fallow, I am fully utilizing it – I’m keeping it fallow.
Just because by YOUR interpretation a resource does not seem “fully utilized” does not mean it is not being fully utilized. Again, you’re totally oblivious to the Law of Opportunity Cost.
(As example of the LOC, the opportunity cost of using my land instead of keeping it fallow is a more fertile land that I could have if I waited. Thus the importance of savings and delayed consumption.)
If the money is not bound for any productive use but is sitting in a mattress, does it still apply?
Assuming it’s any of your fucking business what the owner of the money is doing with it, how do you know it’s not bound for a productive use as soon as the owner has accumulated a certain amount?
Jesus, you’re a malignant fuck, aren’t you?
You see the problem with you guys is you confuse moral precepts with economic reality.
No, we have moral clarity and you are a malignant utilitarian fuck that believes theft is OK as long as the proceeds of the theft go to the solutions you support.
You’re no better than the Germans that thought it was OK for the Nazis to steal the Jews money and businesses because it would help the nation recover.
Sloop, don’t forget Stalin and the kulaks. I’m sure Tony thinks what Stalin did in the Ukraine was justified.
You just can’t help yourself with the godwinning, can you? Your morality is completely murky because it ignores the reality that the biggest parasites, assuming you think it’s possible for people acting in their own self-interest to be parasitic, are always the rich, yet your morality focuses on the more obvious redistributionist methods used to make the exploited whole.
My morality is murky? Mine, that says people should be entitled to keep their property and use as they see fit is murky, while yours that says the government should be able to confiscate it at their leisure for some nebulous “greater good” is crystal clear?
OK, maybe I Godwinned, but is it wrong to Godwin when it’s a perfect parallel to the course of action you support our government taking? I’ll try again: You’re no better that the Italians that stood by while Mussolini confiscated the wealth of people to build his fascist state and war machine.
Feel better now?
Tony, it apparently completely escapes you that the window is an asset on somebody’s balance sheet.
If you destroy it, that person is poorer. That is true whether there’s increased economic growth or not.
Saying that you favor destroying windows because it will increase economic activity is like saying that you favor destroying the savings of all elderly people because that would force them back to work, which would increase aggregate labor productivity.
What if the new window is better technology and the old obsolete?
Re: Tony,
Well, let’s destroy your house and I bet the new one will be better!
What if the new window is better technology and the old obsolete?
Dumbest argument ever. By that logic, it would be fine to demand people buy a new car every year for economic growth. Or a new house, new clothes, new computer, new appliances, new fleshlight, etc.
That seems to be part of the point of “green energy” mandates. Tony beliefs my be stupid but they are consistant with a lot of government policy.
What if the new window is better technology and the old obsolete?
If it’s not worth it to replace the old window unless it gets broken, then the old window is ipso facto not obsolete.
Jesus Christ. What if it’s made of kryptonite? SOMEBODY is paying for it.
Re: Tony,
You’ve got to be kidding me. When talking about the consequences of destruction of capital, nobody is making a moral argument, but an economic argument. A moral argument would be that willingly destroying property is evil, but that is not what is being argued.
Re: Tony,
Yes, it still applies – Law of Opportunity Cost. Money saved can later be put to work on expanding the shop or capitalizing a big catering order (assuming a baker’s shop).
Again, you’re only taking into account the obvious while ignoring the previous destruction of capital and assets. Unless you want to tell me that you’re better off if your house is destroyed – because now you have a full time job at rebuilding it – then you should reconsider what you’re saying.
No, what I’m doing is debunking your OWN version of macroeconomics.
“If the money is not bound for any productive use but is sitting in a mattress, does it still apply?”
So you make that person spend his nest egg on something he does not want or need because you think his future use is not sufficiently productive? That is arrogant of you. At the very least the person is out his capital in exchange for stuff that is of marginal utility to him, so when he needs hi his money for buying a home, car, medicine, retirement, whatever, it is unavailable for his use. Your short term “productivity” made the guy and the economy poorer over the long term, dummkopf.
“If the money is not bound for any productive use but is sitting in a mattress, does it still apply?”
Money isn’t a resource, it’s just a claim on a resource. When money leaves circulation for long enough, eventually prices correct for it.
I thought the negative consequence was the negating of a more productive use of the money needed to fix the window. If the money is not bound for any productive use but is sitting in a mattress, does it still apply?
Money that is kept sitting for a long time in a mattress increases the value of the rest of the money in the economy. It has absolutely no effect on the wealth of the economy.
I should clarify, it has no effect on the allocation of resources in the economy.
The parable was meant for people like YOU
YES!
This statement makes me want to drive by Tony’s house throwing bricks with a note saying “Economic Growth!” tied to them through all of his windows. I wonder if he’d be ok with that, given this idiotic post?
“The broken window parable might seem to make intuitive sense, but the history of the world suggests it isn’t true. (The aftermaths of natural disasters and wars often see improved short- and long-term economic growth.)”
Sure, if you measure starting after the breakage. You also see healing after you cut yourself, so why bother with modern medicine when a straight razor can keep you in fighting shape?
Tony it’s quite simple: By destroying a window, and then paying for a new window, all you have left is the window. If you don’t destroy the window, you still have a window, plus the money that you would have spent on the new window. It’s quite obvious that you’re better off in the second scenario
The glazier gets paid though. He can spend that income on other productive activity.
The net productivity to the economy of that exercise is, at best, zero.
It’s like you didn’t even read Tulpa’s post right below this.
Alright that was too complex. Let me simplify it for you: In scenarios A and B, there is the same amount of product in the economy, except in one scenario, you’ve used up extra resources just to get to that same amount of product. That’s why it’s a fallacy to say that the economy is strong after destructive events: sure, nominal GDP growth percentages might be high, but that’s because you’re trying to catch up and get back to the level you were at before the destruction. And at the end of it, you’ve got the same stuff you started with, but you’ve used up lots of resources in the process
It shifts resources away from economic activity people would engage in by choice to economic activity repairing the damage caused by the window-breaking policy.
The central problem with the broken windows fallacy, and much of Keynesian thought, is that economic activity is not always a good thing. Quality of life is a good thing, and normally you need economic activity to sustain it, but window-breaking destroys quality of life to produce economic activity. it’s like Pavlov’s dog trying to hit the bell with its nose.
Forcing people to spend rather than save cripples your capital formation. Guess how well a capitalist society does when capital formation is impaired?
Eurozone unemployment is mired at a record 11.4 percent while the continental economy drifts in a recession-ish direction.
A pangaea of misery on the way.
Fifty-seven weapons run by the ATF into Mexico were linked by Univision to specific murder victims.
What an indictment that Univision is pretty much the only media outlet doing any sort of, you know, journalism on this.
+ cincuenta y siete
Fifty-seven weapons run by the ATF into Mexico were linked by Univision to specific murder victims.
Univision joins the rightwing witch hunt.
I’m sure only the WHITE Hispanics are investigating this.
That “fiscal cliff” that everybody keeps talking about … Among other things, it means a tax hike for 90 percent of Americans, to the tune of half a trillion dollars, if Congress doesn’t make some much-needed tweaks.
Well they did, or at least a majority of them, vote for the people who ran up the debt in their name. I guess they are going to have to pay up. I am not that exercised about the fiscal cliff. We have a trillion and a half dollar deficit. Isn’t raising taxes and cutting spending kind of a necessity?
You let me know when that ‘cutting spending’ thing happens.
It happens automatically if nothing is done. That is why they are all panicking.
they’re panicking over a change in slope, not an actual significant change in funding.
Only if you consider a miniscule decrease in the rate of accelerating increases in spending a ‘spending cut.’
Only if you consider a miniscule decrease in the rate of accelerating increases in spending a ‘spending cut.’
Say, I’m not sure I’m willing to take on an additional 90% in tax liability.
Remember, our government is almost completely run by Kenynesians, and the Keynesians have told me over and over again that raising taxes in a depressed economy is a horrible idea.
And, oh yeah, there’s an election coming up, and there are still five weeks left for them to get a “miraculous” last minute deal done.
“Keynesians have told me over and over again that raising taxes in a depressed economy is a horrible idea”
Do you have to be a Keynesian to think this?
Q:Who says this is a depressed economy?
A:None of those Keynesians. Or Kenyans.
right, we’re not depressed, just recessed.
or repressed
“Graham and other Republicans were livid after the Obama administration issued the guidance on Friday telling contractors that their legal costs would be covered due to canceled contracts under sequestration, but only if they did not issue layoff notices before sequestration occurs ? and before the November election.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/defco…..tice-fight
Is that true? How is that legal?
“The Obama administration has doubled down on its plea to defense contractors not to warn employees about possible layoffs due to looming budget cuts — going so far as to offer to cover legal fees in compensation challenges.
The move drew a stern rebuke Friday from South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune, since federal law requires employers to give notice if mass layoffs are likely.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politic…..z285AEqzL9
Looks to be true and I don’t know how it can be legal.
Everyone I know in the defense industry knows the layoff are coming. Who the hell are they kidding?
How many defense goldbrickers are really going to vote for Obama, anyway? I would imagine that industry’s as TEAM RED as it gets.
I would think so. But there are some independents and such I would guess.
one other thought — they could shut down a plant or a line in a swing state somewhere. there’s stuff everywhere. i was thinking all the DC metro workers — but the assembly line stuff is everywhere.
The defense contractor I work for is unionized. Guess who they are all voting for?
best I can figure is that they didn’t want the press coverage. but that’s laughable too.
I know Kaine and Allen have been finger pointing over this. so maybe that?
As far as I’m concerned, anyone who is fucking stupid enough to vote for Obama after the last four years, it would totally serve him right to get laid off the day after the election.
You mean the Republicans won’t get the human misery they were expecting would help their election prospects?
You mean the Republicans won’t get the
You mean the Republicans won’t get the human misery honesty they were expecting would help their election prospects?
FIFY, Blue John.
So what you’re saying is that you FAVOR having the administration instruct citizens to break the law, and FAVOR the administration promising them that if anyone sues them for breaking the law, they’ll just cut them a check (from what fucking appropriation, BTW?) to cover their legal costs?
You’re really PRO this activity?
No, but I know Republicans don’t care about honest governance as much as making sure as many people as possible are miserable pre-Nov. 6.
Judging by the policies of the current administration, neither does Obama or his Democrats.
You prefer they be miserable after Nov 6, because it helps your guy to win? Even if it means they have less time to plan their affairs and are harder hit by the layoff as as a consequence?
You realize you’re scum, right? You’ve got no right to ever criticize libertarians on grounds of empathy or caring.
No, they’ll just get it after the election. The Obama regime is offering to help the employers defend themselves against lawsuits for not giving their employees fair warning, they’re not offering to help anyone keep his job.
Issuing the notices on Nov. 7 doesn’t reduce the human misery compared to issuing them Nov. 5.
it’s true.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/….._blog.html
fuck you, that’s why?
More importantly, who’s going to say its not legal? Who’s going to stop the administration from cutting the checks?
Justice Roberts: “It’s not injunction. It’s a tax.”
More importantly, would you trust these guys to keep that promise? I wouldn’t bet my business on it.
Ben Bernanke, chairman of the totally non-partisan Federal Reserve sent thank you notes to Democratic lawmakers that blocked the Audit the Fed bill.
According to the article, it was the House Dems who unsuccessfully tried to block it who got the okthxbyes from Chairman Weimar.
I find it hilarious that the independence of the Fed — intended to prevent Congress from ordering them to do exactly what they are doing right now — is being used to beat back the forces of fiscal sanity.
http://twitchy.com/2012/10/01/…..a-hospice/
Washington Post buys a hospice. Do they need somewhere to store their senile opinion writers?
They’ve seen the future of ObamaCare and plan to make a buck off it, any way that they can.
A British man spent several months in custody after a DNA sample contaminated by lousy lab procedures linked him to a rape he didn’t commit.
Hold on to your DNA like it’s your PIN, social security number and virginity all rolled into one, boys.
“Virginity”
So, you mean give it away to whoever is willing to take it as soon as possible?
You slut.
Patrick Caddell has something interesting to say about media bias.
The fundamental danger is this: I talked about the defense of the First Amendment. The press’s job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of all of us from a government and from organized governmental power. When they desert those ramparts and decide that they will now become active participants, that their job is not simply to tell you who you may vote for, and who you may not, but, worse?and this is the danger of the last two weeks?what truth that you may know, as an American, and what truth you are not allowed to know, they have, then, made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves the enemy of the American people.
It’s occurred to me that even making endorsements, ever, was a bad idea.
Well, back when most newspapers were openly partisan, it made sense. Not sure why they kept making endorsements after they started to pretend to be neutral and impartial.
If you’ve ever worked for a newspaper, which I have, you’d know that the news section and the editorial/op-ed pages were run by different people and have completely different roles. News reporting by the vast majority of reputable newspapers is legit (except that Moonie one). In the modern era it is indisputably the right that has pioneered ways of turning news into propaganda.
Hahahahahahahahaha.
I’m sure Walter Duranty agrees with you.
Bullshit. What lies are questioned, what stories are followed up on, what stories are presented (and how prominently) are all ways of sweeping inconvenient truths under the rug while pretending at objectivity.
Even choice in language (for example, the oft-mocked-herein use of “unexpected” to reflect shitty economic stats) can subtly (and dishonestly) frame news in a desired fashion.
Hey, Tony had a paper route. Don’t question his expertise in the world of newspaper politics.
Of course it’s only the right that engages in propaganda
No shit, you STILL work for a newspaper now! Many of us here know exactly who you are, you sockpuppeting asshole.
Vancouver sets record for driest September
Surprisingly the article didn’t blame climate change.
Shouldn’t global warming make things wetter?
Well, it would cause more water to evaporate and be in the atmosphere, but that doesn’t necessarily make it wetter everywhere.
Wetter, drier, colder, hotter, windless, windier, climate change does it all, baby.
Water water everywhere and the boards did shrink. Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink.
Fun Fact: With a little fudging, that classic poem can be sung to the tune of “The Wabash Cannonball.”
We now return you to your regularly scheduled comment thread.
Fucking albatross
Yes, except where it doesn’t in which case it is still global warming.
http://twitchy.com/2012/10/01/…..ry-racist/
Eric Holder participated in an armed takeover of the Columbia ROTC offices. Wow.
Wonder if he retains any ties to the NBPP. Could there be a new scandal in the works?
Some cheery news you have here today. No genocides or plagues to make the apocalypse complete?
Dear Prudence: My boss pressured me into having sex with him for a promotion, now he’s running for office. What should I do?
While I think it’s fine if she exposes their arrangment to the press, I’m also totally unsympathetic to her since no one forced her to have sex with him, she willing did so for a promotion, therefore she’s no victim.
Give me a fucking break. How about “Dear Prudence, years ago a got a promotion and a raise by whoring myself out to my boss…” Forced my ass.
Sorry, John, you’ve been prePWND.
Q. Re: pressured by one of my superiors: Well, here’s the problem. You didn’t HAVE to sleep with him. You did it to get a promotion and a substantial raise.
A: It’s all very nice to say that young, vulnerable subordinates should quit, or report the boss, or otherwise stand up for themselves. But master manipulators use their power over others to get what they want. This guy holds the threat of unemployment over the women he pressures into bed. He’s a creep and the voters should know it.
Well you see, women are totally in control of their body…except when they’re not because they’re stupid. Got to love the double standards and contradictions of feminism.
It is all very nice to say that male supervisors should never be affected by the charms of their female subordinates. But master whores use their looks and charm to get what they want. This woman got ahead of other ethical women by using her sexual charms and selling sexual favors. She is a creep and her coworkers should know about it.
Fixed it for them.
But master manipulators use their power over others to get what they want.
I’d just like to point out that this in no way addresses the questioner’s point. In fact, it addresses nothing whatsoever.
So can I squeeze any more out of this?
Is there really a suggestion for etiquette in this situation. If I was Prudence, I’d say something along the lines of “WTF are you asking me, I don’t cover the Robert’s Rules of Prostitution circuit, you’ll want to speak to Vogue”
Eliot Spitzer does write a column for Slate, she should consult him about this issue.
Does Heidi Fleiss write for anyone?
The one about the wife conducting random sweeps to make sure her husband isn’t pissing in the shower is my favorite.
I thought the story about the man without a penis being able to please his wife with toys was very touching.
Yeah, I didn’t even know Episiarch was married.
The Catholic wedding one is my least favorite.
“I do not agree with a lot of the teachings of the Catholic church, I do not appreciate that I cannot take Communion…”
WTF? Why would she want to take communion?
A sense of entitlement, apparently. She seems to have taken her cousin’s decision to marry in a Catholic church as a personal affront.
Plus who’s gonna STOP her? Like the priests have x-ray vision to her soul or something.
Well, it depends what office. If it’s a major ine, and he’s a Democrat, it’s likely you’ll ha e your reputation dragged throught the mud in the press such that you’ll be the constant target of derogatory comments. Also, either way, people eill know that you’re a craven prostitute who’s willing to use her sex appeal to get a leg up on the competition. Why not run for office yourself?
I’ve been watching the kitten cam all day. I’m not ashamed. I REGRET NOTHING.
I have a kitten right now. You get like three weeks of real kittenhood. I got her she was 12 weeks old and a total kitten. Now she is 15 weeks and a regular cat, although she is not nearly as graceful as a grown cat. My old cat would jump off the bed or a table and barely make a sound when she landed. This think sounds like an elephant when she lands.
You got a defective kitten. Send it back to the factory. They should give you at least 6 months of annoying kitten time.
She is still an annoying kitten. She doesn’t look like one anymore. More gawky than anything else. Her idea of entertainment is attacking people’s feet from under the bed and letting you pet her so she can roll over on her back and bite and kick your hand.
So, typical cat behavior. Cats are pretty funny at that gangly stage.
You didn’t fuck up and get a calico, did you?
Yes I did. She was so cute. My wife loved her. I knew she was destined to be the spawn of Satan. I wanted the big lazy male tabby. But my wife just had to have the calico.
You idiot. Go get the tabby for her to torture. You don’t want to be her only target for the next 15 years.
I have a retriever for her to torture. My wife was wondering which one of use she will pick as her person. I told her, we are not that cat’s owners. We are her captors.
“I have a retriever for her to torture.”
That’s cold, John.
Fuck up? You haven’t experienced true insanity until you’ve had a calico live with you. Best. Cats. Ever.
I have one. Obnoxious little adorable hellion.
The best part about calicoes is that you can tell that they are, at all times, actively planning your death. Other breeds will still plot your downfall, they just do it quietly behind your back. Calicoes are right out in the open about it.
I have an unsnipped male cat. He’s too busy running the neighborhood to plot my death. When he’s getting laid and fed regularly, he could give a fuck about trying to kill the helper ape.
The females are the crazy neurotic ones. The tom cats just want a good meal and to fornicate. The females make better mousers though.
My poor eunuch is the biggest coward who has ever lived. I wish that poor bastard had just been vasectomied or something.
Mine brought home a live duck through the cat door twice. I learned that (a)ducks shit everywhere when they are scared and (b)pellet guns are amazingly effective on them at close range (in the same room).
You were smart enough to eat the ducks, right?
I was raised to eat what I shoot.
Did you at least give a wing to the cat?
Yeah, I know. It’s not cool to steal his gift.
Kitty got his bounty. Neck and guts. He was happy enough. Although, that was while he was still growing, nowadays, he doesn’t bring anything home. I always hoped he’d go after the Canadian geese that come down for the winter, but so far he’s not shared if he did.
Tortoiseshells are like calicos’ evil twins.
This is how it starts, first you watch kitten cam, next you are hanging out all day at the pet store, finally you are on the news with them talking about how police raided you home and remove 148 cats.
If that Capitol building was the litterbox, I’d buy one.
“ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) — The findings of a new study indicate that looking at pictures of images universally agreed upon as cute can help improve one’s ability to focus”
http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/20…..entration/
That California man who made an anti-Islamic film has a new bounty on his head, this one placed by a Pakistani former lawmaker.
Exactly how much are they paying their politicians over there? If he can afford a frivolous bounty then Pakistan doesn’t need U.S. aid.
Two sheep and one goat is the going assasination rate. I don’t know the conversion to dollars. By the end of QE3, maybe a brazillion?
Didn’t you hear. They’re paying the reward with a signed over US Government Aid check.
One of those weird Simon-Says-everybody-freeze drills the TSA has been conducting in airports was captured on video…
I always hope it’s going to break out into Jacko’s “Thriller” choreography.
More likely to be “Beat It.”
Thissounds like a really great idea… in vitro. I will not be taking it internally.
The internet has revolutionized global communications and now researchers at Standford [sic] University are looking to provide a similar boost to bioengineering with a new process dubbed “Bi-Fi.” The technology uses an innocuous virus called M13 to increase the complexity and amount of information that can be sent from cell to cell. The researchers say the Bi-Fi could help bioengineers create complex, multicellular communities that work together to carry out important biological functions.
Goddam, I thought I already was a complex, multicellular community that works together to carry out important biological functions.
And that, right there, is why I don’t want some fucking bio-med grad student’s shitty code fucking up my network which is pretty much already optimized by genetic algorithms.
Apparently, whoever came up with my code was a sloppy programmer, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t comment.
I await our smart germ overlords and their conduit to the Thought Universe.
Philly woman accuses cops of killing her unborn child when they taze her.
Their reason for tazing her? Disorderly conduct for telling an officer out of uniform to get away from her car while her children were waiting inside on her Contempt of cop.
New Professionalism? Probably not even by Philly standards.
“In July, the Fed chairman sent letters of gratitude to five Democratic members of Congress after they delivered speeches on the House floor urging fellow lawmakers to reject the ‘Audit the Fed’ bill authored by retiring Texas Republican Ron Paul, the central bank’s chief antagonist.”
http://www.politico.com/news/s…..z285Ax8h1e
Pwned.
I’m sure someone besides me is into Phil and the Anselmos.
Meh. I gave up on them after Down II. I miss Pantera.
DON’T TALK SHIT ABOUT DOWN II
I was browsing through a forum the other day where someone made a decent point that Phil Anselmo was overrated as a singer but way underrated as a writer. I just think the end of Pantera was the end of their glory. I didn’t get much out of Damageplan either.
He makes a lot of mediocre material work by sheer force of personality. That’s more or less the definition of a good frontman, I think.
Haha, you like System of a Down.
YOU TAKE THAT BACK
Sons of Anarchy, Florida style.
The gunfire happened after a fight Sunday morning in the VFW’s parking lot as a motorcycle club gathered for a charity ride. Police have not said whether the men arrested or the shooting victims were VFW members or with the motorcycle club, known as the Warlocks.
When my brother lived in PA, his neighbors were a motorcycle gang. Their mailbox read “Sons of Satan Inc.”
Inc.? At least they were thoughtful enough to protect their investors from liability.
Police department frowns on officer sending explicitly sexual text messages to underage girl he got phone number from while pulling her over.
And by “frowns on,” I mean they keep him on the job and don’t charge him with any criminal activity.
Well, yeah, how hard is it to frown? Unless you’ve had botox.
Fifty-seven weapons run by the ATF into Mexico were linked by Univision to specific murder victims.
The system worked.
Interesting study of various fuels and their eco-effects. Most importantly, just look at the chart and know that red and pink squares are WORSE than gasoline.
The top two fuels are “Rape”. Steve Smith makes gasoline now?
They just hooked up a generator to his hips.
Rape seed, aka canola oil.
Officer convicted for choking a man that was handcuffed.
Just in case any of you are planning on cuffing and choking someone, the going penalty apparently doesn’t include jail time, as this guy got three years probation and there’s no double standard.
Raises haven’t been spectacular the last few years. So falling off the fiscal cliff will take many of us back to 2010 or earlier.
What use was it, in terms of economic activity?
Admit it, T o n y, what you’d really like to see is a government program which entails digging holes and filling them back in with dead bodies.
It would be a Great Leap Forward, or a Cultural Revolution, or something, and you could do it for five years at a time.
The failure of the consumption-function theory is not only the failure of a specific theory. It is a profound epistemological failure as well. For the concept of a consumption function has no place in economics at all. Economics is praxeolo
gical. The idea of the consumption function is not only wrong on many counts; it is irrelevant to economics. The very term “function” is inappropriate in a study of human action. Function implies a quantitative, determined relationship, whereas no such quantitative determinism exists. People act and can change their actions at any time; no causal, constant, external determinants of action can exist. The term “function” is appropriate only to the unmotivated, repeatable motion of inorganic matter.
–Murray N Rothbard. Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market
Well that’s a whole bunch of nonsense. You can’t just dismiss all of macroeconomics (since lots of it is empirical), and certainly not by appealing to a Romantic (and nonscientific) conception of the way homo sapiens behaves.
It may be partially empirical, but it sure as hell isn’t a science because it doesn’t stand up to the scientific method where you can run controlled experiments. And you certainly aren’t justified using half-baked theories in screwing with people’s rights and property in the name of some Romantic utilitarian notion as to how to ‘run’ a society.
The idea that utilitarianism can be Romantic is intriguing. The notion that moral tautologies about rights and property have anything to do with macroeconomic facts, not so much.
Empirical? Well, yes I guess you are technically right, however that empiricism you are so enthrall to comes at the expense of reality since it requires the suspension of reality in order to actually be empiricial.
Here is some interesting reading for you. Some Ivy-leaguer, you’d like him.
http://www.amazon.com/Origin-W…..157851777X
since lots of it is empirical
Show it.
What I’d really like to see is government-as-rights-enforcer to take back the resources that have been stolen by the wealthy elite and redistribute it to its rightful owners, which would have the happy consequence of increasing aggregate demand in an attempt to return to full employment.
Re: Tony,
This is satire, right?
It has to be.
While you acknowledge that the wealthy and wealthy entities like corporations can rent-seek and otherwise game government for their purposes, any method of correcting for any such behavior is immediately and eternally labelled as evil redistribution and totally unacceptable to you.
While redistribution from poor grandmothers to said wealthy interests is just correcting for a wrong. You simply lack the imagination necessary to realize that the rich are much better at being parasitic because they can do it through tax policy.
“…any method of correcting for any such behavior is immediately and eternally labelled as evil redistribution and totally unacceptable to you.”
Well, for one thing, your “corrections” don’t discriminate between wealth gained by rent-seeking and legitimately acquired wealth. You would presume guilt and punish based on that presumption, that is not just.
So when do Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the Kennedy clan get put into the dock?
Navy plans to ‘go green’ spurs controversy at Pearl Harbor where Navy plans to install solar panels at memorial.
I thought the headline was talking about the Arizona memorial, which seemed like a controversy that could be solved by putting the panels nearby or something. But the airfield? I mean, like it or not Pearl Harbor is still an active base. I hardly think we can afford to set aside an airfield’s worth of space as fallow forever. Are we supposed to never do anything with any land that ever saw a battle, or is that only for battles where the US was involved?
Next up,
The Navy disturbs the U.S.S. Arizona in order to fix the oil leak that bubbles up to the surface to this day.
Tony likes the broken window approach because people who own lots of windows are probably Republican, and people who work on window repair crews are probably Democrat.
If those damn Republicans won’t create enough jobs, we’ll just destroy their assets until they have to create more jobs.
People who work on window repair crews are probably Republican.
Members of the United League of Glaizer
Yeomen are probably Democrats.
People who sit on their ass and throw rocks at windows are definitely Democrat.
Doesn’t Paul Ryan remind you of every frat guy you regret sleeping with?
Now wait, I thought feminists only slept with caring, emotive guys who were big into social justice and never interrupt them in conversation?
It would be Jezebel and the women there didn’t sleep with frat guys…atleast not ones that weren’t trying to win a bet.
They mean every frat guy that retroactively raped them but they couldn’t report it because of the Patriarchy.
I had a bad coke habit at the time and I was always the pitcher. That makes it okay, right?
Sleeping with frat guys creates feminists. Sorry for the truth, bro.
We may have a chicken and egg scenario, here. If all men are seen as douchey and rapey, then only the douchey and rapey guys are seen as men.
They want you to think they slept around with a lot of guys because you would also assume they are hot. Jezebel are a bunch of bitter fatties who no one would touch in college.
Supreme Court reportedly skeptical of human rights law that would permit corporations who are complicit in human rights abuses in foreign countries to be sued in the US.
Fox News talking head says something funny. How long before MSNBC goes berzerk?
Maxine Waters is less intelligent than my dog’s most recent pile of shit.
I feel stupider for living relatively close to her district.
I checked the map. I’ll be moving into Sheila Jackson Lee’s district if we get the house we want. I will cease checking congressional votes because any issues that matter, that dumb bitch will find a way to fuck up.
At least we won’t be around the corner from her, like one house we looked at.
Iranian news agency apologizes for presenting a news story from The Onion as fact. The partially state-run agency claimed that a Gallup polled showed that rural Americans overwhelmingly preferred Ahmandinejad as president to Obama.
They’re not very good at understanding the workings of a free society.
You know, I post three good cop stories and not a peep, yet you fuckers can go on ad nauseum about cats.
Fuck you all.
What about kitties? Do you have kitty pictures to share?
Do you have any stories of cops beating on kittens? That’ll start a shitstorm that rivals a circumcision thread.
What were you looking for again?
Not. Clicking.
Save the nutpunches for Cutler and Romon tonight.
Cop leaves K9 in car for three days and the dog dies. Cop buries the dog in his back yard and the police make no statement until the media starts asking questions 10 days later. The cop is never charged.
BTW, it’s a felony to harm or kill a police dog…for “civilians”.
The smell in the car was probably punishment enough.
WSJ has got around to noticing the psychological survey that reported how awesome we libertarian types are. Unfortunately, in the comment section I came across this spec of human drool:
Biffle French Replied:
And liberals would rather enslave the populace to make sure the child is treated “fairly” no matter how unquestionably destructive that policy has been ever since the bloodthirsty fascist Lyndon Johnson came up with the “Great Society.” How long will it take you to figure out that that hasn’t worked?
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Kathleen Duke Replied:
“the bloodthirsty fascist Lyndon Johnson”.
Just curious: did you type that with a straight face?
Kathleen you piece of shit, do you see anybody laughing?
How warped does your mind have to be that you would defend LBJ from the charge of being a fascist?
Like with Obama, free shit for them is more important than the lives of dirty brown skinned people in some third world shithole.
Not every evil statist is a fascist. I mean, an evil absolutist monarch isn’t a fascist.
1) bloodthirsty? Check.
2) enriched an industry through profits built through pursuing a war that had nothing to do with defending the nation? Double check.
There you go, blood thirsty fascist. Not a shred of hyperbole.
Nearly 90 percent of Americans would face higher taxes next year if Congress permits the nation to hurtle over the “fiscal cliff”
That 90% had jolly well better not include the 47%.
Oh, wait, never mind — the election will probably be decided *this* year.
Women are not being unreasonable about wanting a sensitive, dominant, emotionally available, emotionally stalwart, manly man who makes them feel safe when taking them out on a date to look at flowers at the botanical garden after fixing their car and doing the dishes. Why? Because. But that’s not the best part of this article. This is:
What makes it perverse? See if you can guess.
Not gay, but damn if I don’t understand it. It has to be easier than putting up with that crap. I hope she is not representative of what young guys have to put up with. It was pretty easy just to walk away from the high strung flakes (and all she is doing is weaponizing her shitty attitude into a political issue) and find a woman who wasn’t all that different from your own social norms when I was on the dating scene.
A dude wrote that article.
Yes but it’s Swychzer. He’s basically admitted to being attracted solely to butch lesbians. So the original characterization is correct.
Oh, and Killa?
I have found exactly 1 woman like that in the last few years. You gotta shift through a -lot- of chaff, and for a guy, that is not a passive process. A hunt like that can turn into a full time job for a guy. Sometimes it’s easier to just go with a parade of high-strung flakes.
Married now (and for the second time) so my dating advice is probably not that practical. Things to look for when sorting out the flakes: loves classical languages, or the literature of a foreign language (if French, you are almost assured a first rate woman), has a science or medical degree. All of those things means she is likely smart without being hysteria prone. They take too much discipline for your average drama queen to go through.
In spite of how it may appear on Gray’s Anatomy.
Yeah, my RN wife loves it, but she tells me it is really a love for hating it.
Why is it always worse than I thought?
I’m not exactly an optimist, after all.
I should start looking for dates at Jezebel. My fetish for overweight harpies who constantly shriek at me for my shortcomings will finally be an advantage.
Why don’t you just pick up women who friend sandra fluke on facebook, then?
EVEN STEVE SMITH NOT HAVE THAT LOW STANDARD.
Even HoneyBooBoo’s mom has a boyfriend.
Think about that
I’d really rather not. I would like to be able to eat again sometime in the future.
Thank Cthulhu my only exposure to whatever that is are random quips on the internet and Conan O’Brien who I wished would shut up about it. The name alone has the potential of making my fingers twitchy around the Doomsday Device.
OT: Does anybody else subscribe to the theory that the BoSox have sandbagged their series against the Orioles but will go balls out against the Yankees to ensure Baltimore wins the AL East?
I’m praying for a Boston series win and a Baltimore win in Tampa. I want to see the sweet salty tears of Yankee fans as they lose their 1 game playoff to the Athletics.
Nope – they really suck and are just playing out the string. The just laid down to the Yankees 9-3.
You would think all the scrubs would be playing their balls off to stay in the major league, but it isn’t happening.
Speaking of Jezebel, this is a goldmine.
All, what, fifty million Republicans? All Nazis?
Fucking morons.
TEAMism is a tragic disease.
My race, gender, and sexual orientation IQ and education mean that were I to invite a Republican into my life, I would be inviting a sworn and active enemy into my home.
FTFY
If my child came home with Warty I would feel the same way.
There’s a whole lot of “I hate them because they’re bigots and racists.” as well as a lotta “they hate us because we’re not bigots and racists.”
Charming.
Not only does she not recognize her own alienation from the human race, but likely believes her set of beliefs makes her the epitome of it.
“I would wonder where I went wrong that s/he could associate with a member of a hate group.”
S/he could associate with you, wouldn’t s/he?
Boo hoo you’re breaking my heart
Hey, look: half sack wasn’t on pcp. Amazing. It’s almost like cops are always wrong about this. That has got to be intentional. There’s no way they’d be wrong this often if they were just incompetent retards. Maybe someone should explain that schizophrenia exists when they go through the academy. Police in general seem to be in denial.
Its never PCP. Also, ever since Breaking Bad blew up, I’ve enjoyed reading what journalism majors write when trying to understand organic chemistry.
the amphetamine molecule contains a ring and a side chain. In the case of methamphetamine or crystal meth for example, amphetamine contains a “methyl” side chain. With 2C compounds, chemists make different substitutions on the rings and add a halogen (think back to a chemistry class periodic table: compounds like chlorine, fluorine, etc.), in this case [i]odine*.
*capitalized in original. For some reason iodine was more proper than chlorine or fluorine.
Now I have to expose my ignorance (well, not have to, I could pretend I didn’t see this comment, or pretend I’m in on the joke, but my hunger for information won’t abide an easily addressed knowledge deficit). It’s been a -long- time since I had chemistry, as I got the credits in AP in high school. But that seems (despite the incorrect terminology) like a fairly decent layman’s interpretation.
Would it be possible to set me straight here without too much effort? If not, I understand.
There’s a book PIHKAL: A Love Story (PIHKAL – Phenylamines I have known and loved) that describes hundreds of these molecules. Every time someone is amazed at a “meth-like” designer drug, chances are it is a substituted phenylamine with meth being the simplest substitution. So on the one hand the author of the piece is spot on, and on the other hand, its rather trivial.
Ahh. Gotcha. I actually own TIHKAL: The Continuation. Been years since I read it.
Acoustic Gagnam.
http://youtu.be/HmBByDQHJAA
Are you rugged enough for Campfire Cologne?
Off Topic: I live in the most bell weather part of Ohio, Columbus Metro. I have 60 Gary signs, which could influence thousands, but now Im reconsidering Romney. I will be majoring in Chemistry and really want a Petroleum job out of college. What makes the choice about whether or not to vote Libertarian harder for me than most here is that I actually live in a place where my vote and influence could change the election…
I need help, Reasonoids.
As said in the other thread, your vote is never going to influence the election, even in a swing state. The odds of one guy winning by 1 vote is zero percent. And even if it was that close in reality, there would be recounts that produced slightly different results, and in the end the courts would decide it
That handle is either another moronic sockpuppet or a TEAM RED HitUndRunpublican shill douchebag who will vote for Romney in the end anyway. I would suggest just ignoring it.
Ah, so you’re another one of those Saint “big L” ibertarians that have done so much in expanding the base by being the good little gatekeeper you are.
I just thought I would have a few more perspectives weigh in. Most of you are either from Texas or California(I feel sorry for you), and arent in the same electoral position as us libertarians in “swing states”.
Did you not read what I read? I’m in the exact same position you are. The chances of your vote swaying the elections is zero percent, same as mine. Yes, Romney and Obama both can win Ohio. But the outcome is going to be independent of your vote. On election day, one will win regardless of who you select. You have no control over it, same as I do
You can influence the political landscape more by voting for (and being outspoken in support of) Johnson, than by voting for a fourth Bush term.
Romney isn’t going to do the right thing on foreign policy — there’s no reason to expect anything other than more war, more aggression, in more places. He’ll probably amp up the drone war and complement it with more torture. Or maybe he’ll commission torture drones, I don’t know.
He isn’t going to do the right thing on domestic civil liberties — if anything he’ll step up the socon agenda, the war on drugs, the militarization of police, etc.
He isn’t going to do the right thing on spending — it might not go up as quickly as under Obama, but that might actually be worse. Obama’s stupid enough to create a crisis that someone else, not himself, is able to take advantage of to push reform. He’s drastically overestimating how much socialism Americans will tolerate, once they start to pay attention to what their government is doing.
Asking third partisans about this is like panning for gold in a Port-a-Pottie.
You really are terrible at analogies aren’t you?
How terrible is he?
Tulpy-Poo is terrible at a lot of things, including life.
I’m like Romney to your Obama.
No. And saying I am is like tenderizing meat with one of those accordion straw thingies.
You’re really in denial. Face it Tulpa; your vote won’t change anything. You’re not being pragmatic. Whether Romney or Obama will win is completely independent of what you decide to do. And Pennsylvania in particular is definitely going Obama. You’ve got your head in the sand if you can’t at least see that
Whole Foods shopping prank
That made my ribs hurt.
The aftermaths of natural disasters and wars often see improved short- and long-term economic growth.
The aftermath of no disasters and peace always see improved short and long term economic growth.
Tony you are describing the fucking history of the world for the past 500 years which has been improved short term and long term economic growth.
You always feel better after you throw up.
Re: Tony,
You must be confused. You certainly sound confused. Just because you pose a problem does not mean your solution is positive, nor that because I object to your solution it ipso facto means I am in favor of the status quo…
The reason for that redistribution towards the top is inflation. The wealthy can either reap the rewards of an inflationary monetary policy that robs value from the savings of the grandmother, or at least weather the effects more successfully. But the answer is NOT more redistribution – now towards the poor; it is sound money.
Nobody is parasitic through the tax system except for those that levy the taxes, Tony. By the way, what you’re saying totally contradicts your notion that taxation is not theft.