A.M. Links: Last Full Day of Campaigning, Nor'easter Could Be Sandy's Followup, OECD Chief Wants G20 to Pressure U.S., Elizabeth Warren Feeling Optimistic, Asteroids Could Be Key to Life, Chinese Premier Wants Plan For Euro Crisis
- Obama and Romney are spending their last full day of campaigning in swing states. It'll be over soon, Abbey. We know how you feel.
- A nor'easter could bring more disruption to the region already hit by Sandy. Nearly one million are without power in New Jersey as temperatures drop.
- OECD Chief José Ángel Gurría wants G20 nations to pressure the U.S. into addressing the looming fiscal cliff. Hasn't anyone told him Congress is already aware of the issue?
- Elizabeth Warren is feeling optimistic about tomorrow. Massachusetts could soon be celebrating its first female/Cherokee senator.
- If we want to find life outside of the solar system we would do well to look for star systems with asteroid belts, according to astronomers at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Looks like evolution goes quicker in environments with rapid and abrupt changes.
- Wen Jiabao has told a summit of Asian and European leaders that a clear and reliable plan is needed to solve the European debt crisis. Evidently some don't think endless bailouts and borrowing constitute a clear and reliable plan.
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VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE
Oh, wait, that’s tomorrow.
Third Party voters vote on Tuesday, Republican and Democrat voters vote on Wednesday.
No, it was yesterday and the day before in many states…
I live in Florida, we have early voting. I already voted – for Gary Johnson.
DON’T TELL US YOUR VOTE! It negates it.
It’s like a birthday wish.
A vote is a wish your finger makes.
Great! Now Gary Johnson won’t win, just because of QoA. 🙁
I thought Rick Scott was suppressing your vote. [confused]
I have this thing called a photo ID. He is only suppressing the votes of people who cannot prove who they are or who are dead.
Me, too, last Wednesday morning. No wait for me.
clearly if you were able to vote without problem, you were not doing it correctly.
As they say in Philadelphia, “Vote early and vote often”……
They also say “water ice.”
DON’T VOTE DON’T VOTE DON’T VOTE DON’T VOTE
“In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave.” Lysander Spooner
Two immigrants who are not citizens — and thus not eligible to vote — have accused a Nevada Culinary Union of registering them to vote and then threatening them with deportation if they did not go to the polls. Even worse, the immigrants say there are more like them who are illicitly registered and may be casting ballots in one of the most critical swing states in the 2012 election due to Nevada’s lax voter identification laws that do not require voters to provide photo IDs or prove citizenship.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-G…..g-To-Polls
[Chia Gary tortures Chia Welch in a makeshift comfy chair]
Chia Johnson: You know, we used to outsource this kind of thing. But what we found was that the countries we outsourced to had unreliable power grids – very third world. Sometimes you’d turn on a switch and the power wouldn’t come on for hours. Then tempers would get short. People would resort to things like pulling fingernails… acid drops on bare skin… the whole exercise would become counterproductive. But here, the power is stable. Here you get a nice, even flow… here you can throw a switch and the power stays on all day. Where is she?
[Chia Welch spit, Chia Johnson gags him and plays a post-1989 Rush Album for 10 seconds]
Chia Johnson: I don’t have any more time to waste, Welch from Reasonia! You either give me what I need or this switch will stay on until they turn the power off for lack of payment on the bill. Where is Lucy?
Chia Welch: We don’t keep virgins… we sell them. She was virgin… lot of money…
Chia Johnson: You sold our Lucy? You sold her? To who?
Chia Welch: You mean “To Whom”
[Chia Johnson reaches for the switch, Chia Welch winces and reveals to whom (who talks like that?!) he sold Lucy]
Chia Johnson: Where can I find him?
Chia Welch: I don’t know. [Chia Johnson moves towards the light switch] I don’t know! Please! Please! I don’t know! I DON’T KNOW! NO! PLEASE! Please… not that… please…I don’t even like Power Windows?much less?
Chia Johnson: I believe you…I don’t even know how Mystic Rhythms became a thing?
Chia Welch: [whimpering]Oh god, not anything off of Counterparts?
Chia Johnson: I believe you…but it’s not gonna save you. [throws the switch, Stick it Out begins to play?loudly?he walks out]
Awesome.
Get a life.
It only takes like 5 minutes to do one of these.
Well not counting all the hours I lie awake in bed thinking about them.
I always pegged you for fapping while lying in bed.
How else does one come up with Taken/LP/reason/music critic crossover fiction?
I always pegged you for fapping while lying in bed.
Kind of a rough punishment for masturbation, but maybe he’s into it.
All that effort and you still lost, to some retard saying “VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE” no less. The moral of this story is, as always, don’t try.
All caps means it’s yelling, not saying.
But then if I said:
wouldn’t that imply double yelling?
I actually like Mystic Rhythms. But how did Counterparts become worse torture then Presto?
Presto doesn’t count as a Rush album because they got that chick to sing all the songs.
Hikers take flight when what they thought was a bear resembles Bigfoot
http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor…..s+bigfoot/
They have heeded my warnings.
Draw down on the fucker, he’ll pull his bigfoot mask off right fast.
Beard Card? Sorry, I’m calling bullshit just based on that name.
If he can haz naym “Neck Beard”, tehn myt bleev
“This is one of the more realistic Bigfoot escapades in some time.”
*facepalm*
That should read “This is one of the more realistic Bigfoot hoaxes in some time.”
The Blair Bigfoot Project.
Did they cross a stream three times and still manage to stay lost?
Also,
Goony Goo Goo!
“Man wearing Bigoot found shot dead in woods. Police searching for an angry rationalist.”
Last undecided voter found hiding in bear costume in Utah.
win
Yeah because bears never stand up. Also, if it’s a bear it’s totally safe to be near it, even though they have been known to tear people limb from limb. Mythical beasts that have never harmed anyone are much more dangerous.
Assuming it’s a bear, running from it is about the stupidest thing you can do. Running = Bear Food, to the bear anyway. I guess if it’s already trying to swat you (and not just bluff charging.), there’s nothing to lose by trying to run, but you won’t get very far. IIRC, a grizzly is faster than Usain Bolt over a hundred yards or so. Doubt a black bear is that much slower. Good luck.
So there’s a free tent in Provo Canyon?
I got a robocall yesterday asking me to vote for Tommy Thompson for Senate. I live in Ohio.
Now, *that’s* gerrymandering!
Thankfully, I’m quick enough on the button to hang up on robocalls before I find out which candidate they want me to vote for.
I never answer my land line. But robocalling technology has progressed to the point that they can leave their full spiel on the answering machine.
I can hit delete on the answering machine faster than they can tell me whom to vote for.
The last robocall, I cut off after three or four words: “[Hi,] I’m George Pataki”. Presumably trying to get me to vote for somebody in Team Red, but I have no idea which one. And frankly, I don’t give a shit which one.
Massachusetts could soon be celebrating its first female/Cherokee senator.
If only these states suffered their decisions alone, but we all get to enjoy Warren and her business-enabling roads.
If she is in the minority, she won’t be able to do much except embarass every Dem except those who have gone full retard, which is most of them granted.
Rather than the disclaimer, it would be quicker to list the non-retard Democrats.
Bill Clinton, as much as I dislike him Rahm Emmanuel (there is a reason why he left the White House), Doug Wilder, Bill Richardson, help me out here.
When Doug Wilder was mayor, he came and spoke at my high school. Some idiot hippie asked him why he was backing this big new development along the James River. Because obviously the river, which is in the middle of the fucking city, should be kept pristine and “natural”. He looked at her like she was retarded, and explained that economic growth is a good thing and he was in favor of people building more businesses and housing in Richmond.
Basically, a lot of the older Dems realize that if they want to skim off the wealth others create, they need to let them create it. There’s a limit to how much regulation and taxation the goose will accept. The scary thing about the young progs is that they really seem to believe this bullshit that the government is the driver of prosperity and wealth, and that the more government we have, the better off we’ll all be. These are the people who believe that Northern Virginia is a successful economic powerhouse, and not just one vast expanse of parasites and rent seekers.
the best thing about young progs is that they get older and they learn that it is their money being used to fuel utopian dreams. It’s not that conservatives are dying out; it’s more like the new crop has not reached the age threshhold.
There have been numerous articles in the last couple of years in both Slate and the NYT talking about how the DC area shows how a modern economy can work. The small fact that DC gets to take a couple of trillion a year from the rest of the country by force of law is never mentioned or even thought about. They really think Cleveland and Detroit can be just like DC.
How about putting the three branches of government in different regions of the country? (It’d be easy enough these days for the president to get from the Topeka White House to Congress in a couple hours if need be.)
Why not move a bunch of federal bureaucracy to Detroit/Cleveland/St. Louis/Buffalo/other depopulating old cities? Atomizing it away from DC might not be such a bad thing.
(I’ll admit it may have the same effect as having 858427658286705 branches of a state university or designing defense projects so that at least one piece of the newest weapons system is built in every district in the country.)
A lot of them are corrupt instead of retarded. Diane Fienstein, Chucky Schumer and the Jersey whoremonger for example.
Then there are the corrupt and retarded ones like Reid and Pelosi.
Corruption and retardation aren’t mutually exclusive.
No, Schumer is pretty damn retarded. Have you ever heard him talk about anything?
If Warren wins, its almost certain she will be in the majority.
She;s not just a fake Indian.
She’s a socialist plagiarist that practices law without a license in defend of big corporations too!
Is she a fake lesbian, too?
What’s this “she” business? That’s not a woman. That’s a man, man.
I’ll take that as a “yes”.
Leadership failure
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/o…..IsiyThkevL
uh, maybe one shouldn’t count on any leaders…
Jesus H. MotherFUCKING Christ -this. Heard a woman this AM on the Mike Church show on teh Seriously Raydio: “Oh PLEASE send your trucks here, Mr. Obama! We’re DYING! We have NOTHING! IT’s been THREE DAYS!!!111one!”
Three fucking DAYS and you’re done? Fuck – we lost power for a week when it was below zero a couple years ago and managed to survive without ANY gummint help.
“Count on leaders” – this is why “self” government will never work – people are sheep. And pussies.
The yard hasn’t been weeded in a while.
Seriously. 8 days without power in our last ice storm without a dime of government money.
6 weeks without power after Andrew, and the only government assistance I received was a police shotgun pointed at my head.
Gotta’ expound on that one.
Some of my wife’s relatives were contemplating bugging out to a hotel. I guess the nearest with electricity were in Newark. They didn’t want to be in a bad neighborhood so they stayed.
Warmed you up a bit, though, I’ll wager.
Same 6 weeks without power after my namesake hurricane, with regular visits from military humvees. Unfortunately back then I was still in my neocon phase, so I thought that was an awesome thing.
I went 17 days without power or transportation during the ice storm of 09 here in Arkansas.
Sudoku by the space heater like a boss.
Wait till Yellowstone erupts or the tsunami hits. We’ll get some real chlorine in the gene pool.
Yellowstone is some scary shit. It’s overdue, too.
he seemed shaken and in need of a president’s reassurance.
Jeebus, what a nancy.
Professional cuddler? Really?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..-York.html
STEVE SMITH APPLY FOR JOB! FOREST LAWYER NEED NEW LINE OF WORK! STEVE SMITH TIRED OF SUING TREES!
If this catches on “Cuddle” businesses will be fronts for prostitution.
Seriously though, this is actually a good idea for some. Human beings need physical contact.
What do you mean, will be? I’m pretty sure it already is.
You know who else liked to cuddle?
Your mom?
no – that’s how I became an inhuman monster with a metal mask.
Your uncle?
Teddy Ruxpin?
FTW!
$260/day in the NYC isn’t very much.
Bar Refaeli is still hot!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs…..line-.html
You really have to wonder why Leo dumped her. It makes me think that she must be dump as a post.
Joe’z Law?
Because he could.
Why settle down with one model/actress when you can have a different one every month?
CORRECT. Oh, and thanks for making me hate my life… wait, don’t tell my wife I said that!
She probably already knows … and has secret plans to end it.
Secret? I fully expect a sign on dinner saying “THIS IS POISONED, SUCKER”.
He really has taken George Clooney’s mentorship to heart.
I’m going to go with, Bar wouldn’t do the things in the sack that Leo can get from someone else who is just as hot, just not famous.
That has to be it because that body is rockin’. There is no other acceptable explanation.
Maybe she didn’t like being treated like the piece of meat that she is.
Eh, there are thousands of girls just like that, or even hotter, in Los Angeles. Plus, the non-famous ones are desperate.
Maybe he didn’t like her morning face.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs…..-York.html
“a little makeup and paint will make a girl look like she jolly well ain’t”
Well, he just broke up with another one, so I’m going to go with he just likes to drive a new model every few years.
Headline
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..women.html
Judging from the pictures I dispute the use of the word “gorgeous”.
You need to drink more champagne and eat more caviar. Here I will help, just give me your credit card number and I will supply you.
Isn’t that called running a strip club?
or Hooters.
That Valeria is a babe, there is one however that looks like Tammy Faye Bakker I can’t see her having a lot of luck. This scam is played out in strip clubs everywhere, many men are just gullible shitheads who bring it on themselves, not me though. Way too fuckin cheap for that.
If we want to find life outside of the solar system we would do well to look for star systems with asteroid belts
Well, duh.
Or even rocky planets.
+Arrakis
Or even rocky sandy planets.
If we want to find life outside of the solar system we would do well to look for star systems with asteroid belts
One of the first things I think about when I hear “asteroid belt”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM4kqL13jGM (around 3:00)
It’s Obama’s World
People outside the U.S. would vote for Obama if they could. There’s a reason for that.
http://www.slate.com/articles/…..could.html
Don’t worry, world. Most people here don’t have any influence on it either.
There was some nonsense overseas in the press about it being unfair that other countries don’t have a vote in presidential elections.
Romney has not really distanced himself from the Bush administration’s policies.
They spelled ‘Obama’ wrong.
I feel like I’m in an unpublished Kafka novel about politics. Obama is almost everything bad that Bush was, plus extra badness. Yet his supporters, who hated Bush, act like he’s just dreamy. That’s especially weird given that Romney is almost a typical Democratic candidate from not very long ago.
The label is all that matters.
Party before people.
This reminds me of the dihydrogen monoxide hoax that Penn & Teller pulled on Bullshit.
“A man’s flesh is his own, but the water belongs to the tribe.”
Dune?
Scams within scams within scams.
It’s surreal. These Euros who are quoted seem to think that Romney’s been the President for the last four years. Who do they think’s been continuing all of the policies they’ve hated?
The thing is, I’m not so sure that it’s the party that blinds them, so much as the race/ethnicity. Make Barack Obama into “Barry Oberlin”, white law school professor from Chicago, and I doubt Barry gets more than 30% approval, from either the U.S. populace or from foreigners.
My favorite one of those hoaxes, ProL, is the Ban Women’s Suffrage petition that Corrola and Kimmel did some years ago.
There are times I’d like to stop women’s suffrage. But it’s not all their fault.
many in his party are “climate deniers.”
Not that most Republicans give two shits about science, but being a “climate denier” could also be described as being “a fan of the scientific method”.
People who want to have a say in something that doesn’t effect them tend to choose the worst option. That’s why “the world” always seems to want to make the USA a stinking socialist hellhole.
French female justice minister Rachida Dati ‘had eight boyfriends when she fell pregnant with love child’
She needs to go on the Jerry Springer show.
No, no, when the French do it, its wordly. When rednecks do it, its trashy.
When a poor man looses on a horse
He’s a gambler, he’s a spender
He’s a low life, he’s a reason for divorce!
When a rich man chases after dames
He’s a man about town,
A man about town.
But when a poor man chases after dames
He’s a bounder, he’s a rounder
He’s a rotter, and a lot of dirty names!
http://www.metrolyrics.com/whe…..ics-a.html
When a rich man looses on a horse
Oh, isn’t it disport!
Company-
French gotta be French.
I’d give her a hate child.
Revelations about Rachida Dati’s extraordinarily busy love life have emerged in a bitter row about the paternity of the 47-year-old’s daughter.
Put Andrew Suliivan on the case.
Claim it is really a Palin child?
“Dominique, vous n’?tes pas le p?re!”
19 Cities, One Cause: National Dance For Obama Flash Mobs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VScc5Mn0uY
I wonder if T O N Y showed up.
A Dance to …
When you have lost Doug Wilder…
http://www.nationalreview.com/…..-john-fund
Miley Cyrus parties with porn star Jessie Andrews, has a cake fight in ‘Decisions’ music video
The former Disney alum can be seen gyrating to lyrics like, ‘b—s love cake’ decked in a black cleavage-baring top and tight leather skirt.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ent…..-1.1195608
Is anyone surprised the most famous mullet in history produced a trashy daughter?
Is a cake fight a euphemism for something more interesting than what I think a cake fight entails? If so, there needs to be an Urban Dictionary entry.
I await SugarFree to provide us with the answer.
You horrible, sick, twisted….genius.
“Cake fight” is not a fetish subset I’ve heard of, but it could be considered a more interactive form of cake sitting.
For the brave: Messy vs. Birthday Cake
I’ve always been a fan of the talented Ms. Andrews. It’s good to see she’s helping sweet Miley tramp it up.
Bitches do love cake.
They all want cake.
The cake is a lie.
Looks like evolution goes quicker in environments with rapid and abrupt changes.
What about systems with regular and inconsequential changes? Can’t you break this news Wednesday and let pundits have one last year of fun?
Gnargh!
That broken window fallacy keeps showing up over and over again, don’t it?
Nicely done, that which you did there.
Forseeable consequences are not unintended.
We got our benefits enroll a few weeks ago. Remember the line about keeping your health insurance? Yeah, now my company is only offering high-deductible plans. Guess if you were on the PPO plan, fuck you.
How anyone can look at Obamnacare and see a net positive is beyond my grasp.
“Look at Obamacare”?
What a concept!
High deductible plans were in vogue years ago. Your insurer is just behind the curve.
Mine is $1000 and I consider that just about right.
That is why they call it INSURANCE, pal.
The problem is, the savings for having a high deductible, are often fairly minimal. You’d think that insurance, with a high deductible, that the average person, in the average year, wouldn’t use any insurance money, would cost little. It doesn’t.
Well, I get to hide another $2800/year from the IRS in a HSA. Also, it’s like car insurance. I have a $5000/year deductible. I pay about half of what someone with a $1000/year deductible does. And BCBS is laughing all the way to the bank because I haven’t had $5000 worth of medical expenses over the lifetime of the policy. That’s not why I have medical insurance. I have medical insurance so I don’t have to declare bankruptcy if I have a $60000 or $600000 medical bill.
Exactly. Insurance is for unforessen and unexpected bills, not routine and regular care. I can cover my annual physical, thanks.
I get that for some, me included, it’s still a good deal. But like you say, the insurance company is pretty much just able to pocket the cash, and will quite possibly never have to pay much of it back. I do need the insurance, in case I ever end up with 10s or 100s of thousand in medical bills.
I much prefer the concept of HD health insurance, and HSA. I just think they’re more expensive than they should be, and that insurance companies would be able to get more people on them, if the prices weren’t so close to regular insurance prices.
Im paying $135/month for mine.
High? Low? I dont know, but it seems reasonable. Its basically free money for the insurance company, but Im good with it.
HSAs are about the closest thing that exists to an actual health insurance policy these days. Unfortunately, people are hardwired now to think that “insurance” means “cover everything under the sun” instead of “catastrophic events only.” Having a normal, healthy baby, for example, should not cost 40 times what it did in the 1950s, and that cost is tied directly to using insurance for most pre-natal procedures AND the actual birth.
^^^THIS^^^
My wife and I had our first kid without having insurance at the time.
We were able to get the same pre-natal stuff at a very cheap price because we got in a program that used student doctors/nurses etc. So every visit had a med student and a real doctor.
Our total cost was still under what we would have paid if we had had insurance.
The only thing that went wrong was that we ended up needed a cesarean instead of natural child birth. Still we negotiated and worked out a decent payment plan and everything was cool.
Yes! It took me a couple years to understand the concept after I got my “real” job, but now I swear by the high deductible w/ HSA plan. We also get discounts for being in good health. Next year, I’ll be paying $9/paycheck for our health insurance for a family of four with a $5500 annual deductible. And I put a couple thousand into the HSA. It’s a win/win since I still get that money if I don’t spend it this year, unlike flushing the low deductible money down the toilet forever.
You really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, do you?
So I’m assuming you are opposed to Obamacare? The entire structure of the “reform” is designed to eliminate HDHPs, you imbecile.
But Obama cares! It’s there in the name “Obamacare”? Why can’t you see that?
I think I’m going to start referring to Obamacare as Obamacares. Now to go find some progressives to engage in debate and show off my cleverness.
Greece flirts with tyranny and Europe looks away
http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/g…..mentisfree
Sounds like a EuroZone civil war in the making.
It’s been ahwile since the last big euro civil war – they’re overdue.
Couldn’t happen to a worse continent.
The Brits need to remove the beam from their own eye before they start talking about Greece. The UK is little better than an open air prison.
We spent most of last week in MA waiting for the power to come back to NJ. The political ads were oppressive. My son asked “who is old lady who looks like the devil” after a Warren ad.
I would be surprised if Brown doesn’t beat her.
Republicans think Brown can’t lose. Democrats think Warren can’t lose. Guess which there are more of in Mass.
Brown fucked up when he lied about the asbestos claimant.
Brown Warren fucked up when she lied about the asbestos claimant her Indian heritage.
In other words, fucking up has not been a real factor in this election.
You have no idea how elections are run in MA.
She can only refute his claims by:
1. Reminding people she represented a giant firm against its harmed employees.
2. Admitting she was practicing law without a license.
3. Confusing the hell out of anyone so stupid they are still undecided.
Independents.
Wen Jiabao has told a summit of Asian and European leaders that a clear and reliable plan is needed to solve the European debt crisis.
Can I change my vote for president? We need someone who can explain what we need to do regarding what we need to do.
Jiabao, who is China’s top economic official, [said] nations need to balance reform, stability of financial markets and economic recovery.
You call *that* “economic leadership”? Krugman kicks Jiabao’s ass!
“Krugman kicks Jiabao’s ass!”
Wouldn’t that be kisses?
“Krugnuts kicks Jiabao’s KISSES”? Huh?
Hey, as long as you don’t go foot to ass, you are OK.
some don’t think endless bailouts and borrowing constitute a clear and reliable plan
I don’t see what he’s bitching about. This is a plan, albeit a rather shitty one.
The horrors afflicting Jersey would shake anyone
Give me a fucking break.
Well, to be fair, those horrors include the cast of Jersey Shore.
Plus – Jersey
The horror. The horror….
As a New Jersey resident I am legally obliged to remind you that all the Guidos on “Jersey Shore” are New Yorkers.
Nothing makes shore residents (who don’t own bars) happier than the end of summer and the departure of the New Yorkers – except maybe electricity.
As a New Jersey resident
Uh, which exit? 😉
Exit 19, Route 80.
We’re practically neighbors. I’m up in Vernon.
I’ve met and talked to Scott Garrett. He is the one guy I will actually enjoy voting for tomorrow.
Two possible corrections:
The inherent horrors of Jersey would shake anyone.
Or
The whores of Jersey would shake anyone.
Either of those sound more accurate to me.
While watching news programs this morning, I learned something very important. I bet you all didn’t know that today is the last day before tomorrow.
Plus, today is only yesterday’s tomorrow, too, also.
Additionally, I feel more like I do now than I did when I first got here.
“PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one ? the knowledge and the dream.”
— The late, great Ambrose Bierce
Tomorrow’s just your future yesterday.
George Carlin – There Is No Time
It was a new day yesterday, but it’s an old day now.
I got a new App: Korg iMS-20
It’s a complex bit of software with a built in drum machine, sequencer, and song pattern. Everything can be manipulated and there are even virtual plugs that can be moved.
http://www.korg.com/ims20
Anyhoo – a first stab at making something with it. One three tracks recorded here.
http://soundcloud.com/projectc…..ue-command
GOP Senate candidate endorses Obama/McMahon for CT.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo……-obama.php
A heel turn at the last second! If Sports Guy wrote about politics, he’d probably punch out a 10,000 word masterpiece on this story alone.
Actually it is a smart ploy. “Hey, Obama must like that white woman!”
http://shine.yahoo.com/financi…..00123.html
Julia stiffs a waitress. “Single Mom Sorry” in the tip line. That is just fucking sorry.
“Is it ever OK to leave an excuse instead of a tip?”
Unless the excuse is “you fucking suck at your job”, no.
Seriously, if you’re so strapped you can’t afford a tip, you shouldn’t be eating out anyway.
Yeah, that’s a shitty thing to do. What kills me, though, is the instant tribalism. The waiters/waitresses all jump in and whine about how hard they work for little money:
“I wish everyone could work one week as a server and then try to tell me it’s not hard… Mentally and physically exhausting.”
(If you don’t think it’s worth the money then find another job.)
Then the single moms jump in and say it must be a fake because everyone hates single moms and no one they know would do this. (I read comments like this in an earlier post of this, and I’m not going to reddit to find them.)
It is a false flag operation done by those who hate single moms.
“I wish everyone could work one week as a server and then try to tell me it’s not hard… Mentally and physically exhausting.”
Yeah, well, I worked for several years as a waiter. It’s a soul-crushing job–not because of the mental or physical demands, which are negligible. A chimp could do the job, which is why so many soft, idiot college students of the libarts persuasion end up working there. And for the money you make, depending on the restaurant, the hours can’t be beat (I think I worked over 40 hours a week just 1-2 times in four years total waiting tables, and could still pay my bills).
What it DOES do is give you a good, hard look at how shitty people can be. Waiting tables is almost guaranteed to turn you into a misanthrope to some degree.
I think the idea that waiters are “entitled” to a tip is bullshit. I have always gone by the idea that TIP = To Insure Promptness. If you’re a shitty waiter who took my order, put it in wrong, someone else brought my food out and had to refill my drinks, and then you come by with the check I don’t see how you can think you should get at least 15%.
I refuse to eat at places that add in a guaranteed 18% (usually from big groups) unless I know that the service is typically good. And I have no qualms about leaving no tip and telling them to do their job better next time.
That being said, a $120 meal and no tip under the excuse of being a single mom is fucked up.
Aren’t waiters and waitresses taxed on the expectation that they’ll get a certain percentage in tips?
Yes. Also, many restaurant chains observe “TIP pooling” (very Soviet, IMO) and emphasize “team service” philosophy as opposed to “My Table, My TIP” sectional schemes, and TIP out bussers and bar staff at the end of the evening.
What’s wrong with this? I expect the bartenders, busboys, food staff, etc. to share in the tip I left. Quite frankly, the bartender can do a lot more to ruin my meal than the waitress can.
Funny that people think $140 will get you two weeks of groceries. I guess that’s why their waiters.
*their they’re
Meh. It’s not far off for me. Usually $75-$80 a week for my wife, my daughter and myself.
look at the receipt. single mom had a $140 meal.
I’d love to try that with “Single Dad: Paying too much in child support, sorry!” and see how that plays out.
Isn’t the fact we still observe Day-Light Savings Time an indication that we’re already living 100 years in the past?
I ask myself; ” What’s the constituency for this thing?”
Other government nonsense usually has a culprit: sugar subsidies, ethanol manf=dates, etc. WHo makes money off of DST?
Melatonin manufacturers
Doesn’t DST sound like the same crazy logic that Keynesians use?
Golf courses, farmers, amusement parks, government employees who control time and space.
Actually, farmers have traditionally opposed DST. Whenever there was an attempt to make DST national farm states fought it.
By the time Nixon made it national in the 70s the farm lobby had lost most of its pull. That hasn’t stopped them from getting all those subsidies for some reason.
Right. Cows dont shift to DST and so dairy farmers have to adjust their schedules by not adjusting their schedules.
To be honest, I like having the daylight be after dinner during the summer. (I live next to a state forest preserve with a bunch of mountain bike/hiking trails and can go for walks after dinner until about the end of August. Unfortunately, it’s hunting season now, so I can’t even go out on weekend days.)
You know who else used Daylight Savings Time…
Canada?
Nobody, because it’s Daylight Saving Time.
/pedant
EInstein proved Daylight can neither be created or destroyed.
after the time change this weekend, isn’t it Daylight Wasting Time?
The Freemasons?
We recognize it, yes.
I wish I were a Mason, so I could go to the secret Mason Moonbase.
Think I’m kidding? Do you know what one of the most popular toys was for boys in the late 60s/early 70s? Major Matt Mason, an astronaut.
I like not driving home from work in the fucking dark.
Wouldn’t it just be simpler as a society to adjust to the time be getting up an hour later in the fall or an hour earlier in the spring instead of obeying an government mandate to engage in the laziest version of time travel possible?
What’s easier getting society to change long term living patterns.
or trick them by changing clocks?
And now adays alot of the clocks change themselves.
When did the clocks become sentient?!?!!! THIS IS SCARY!
Yeah, but if the darkness didn’t really bother you, and you thought you could work more efficiently by not changing your clock, you’re pretty much stuck with now accepted social standard based upon the century-old Progressive Era gimmick.
out of all gimmicks from the Progressive Era, I’d have to say it’s my favorite. I’d be for DST +2 and just keep it on all the time.
It has nothing to do with people not getting up, it has to do with the set times we do things as a society not being realistic to the actual constantly shifting length of the days.
I don’t think there is a solution. I agree that we should stop moving it around, but given a preference, I’d rather have daylight at the end of the day rather than the beginning.
Clearly what “we need” is a new Bureau of Time and Temporal Svaings”, with a Director, Assistant Director, Deputy Assistant Director, Advisor, Assistant Advisor, and some other people to study this.
Forever.
A Regis Chronitis chair?
I say we change time on a daily basis. Determined by the Czar of Temporal Affairs in the U.S., the Time Lord in the UK.
Who?
I dunno, some guy with a long scarf.
Yes.
We need Obama to make all days have an equal amount of daylight.
I don’t like getting up in the dark!
I know it’s not about getting up. I’m just saying that you could make that choice individual by adjusting your day on your own.
How about setting it at 30 minutes in between and leaving it there?
I’m with SF–more nighttime daylight!
Pro Libertate Johnson is right about SF Johnson’s desire for more nightime daylight. I much prefer cold dark mornings to cold dark evenings. It’s not like people generally do anything in the mornging besides get ready for the day.
Then make them walk there in the dark. Get ’em a day glo vest and it’s cool, right?
Start school later. Kid prison doesn’t need all day as is.
“Won’t somebody think of the children” isn’t a good argument round these parts.
Look, I don’t give a crap when the sun goes up or down, but let’s just keep it the same all year. Shit, just keep us an hour ahead permanently and be done with it, but this back and forth is just nonsense.
Asteroids: good for evolution. Polls show most dinosaurs disagree.
And these dinosaurs are none to happy about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtMZKYnLg5c
http://blogs.discovermagazine……ur-clocks/
Sorry, I meant to link to this.
Woman convicted for murder. Man later confesses to killing. Cop tells Innocence Project about confession. Cop demoted. Woman denied retrial.
But there’s no culture of corruption.
The system works just like Tulpa says it does!
Dunphy is probably too busy powerlifting to respond.
A Spencer County judge denied King’s motion last week on the grounds that she had originally pleaded guilty and that the standards for winning a new trial based on newly discovered evidence didn’t apply.
What kind of anarchy do you want to bring down upon us, with a retrial of an innocent person?
Rules is rules!
Well, there has to be some sort of disruption, either in the genotype or the environment, right? Otherwise there’s no driver for change.
Not necessarily. Just because a species is surviving in an environment, that doesn’t mean a mutation couldn’t cause it to be much more successful in that same, unchanged environment.
Unless, the driver for rapid evolution is genetic bottlenecks caused by episodic rapid death of the overwhelming majority of the individual’s within a specie’s.
the overwhelming majority of the individual’s within a specie’s
You’re just doing this to piss people off, aren’t you?
You’re just doing this to piss people off, aren’t you?
I’ve embraced John’s grammar.
I would have thought John’s grammar was too fat to embrace.
I’ll bet VG says “shhpeshhie”, too.
VG is Sean Connery?
+translit
You mean such as where a small minority has a mutation that isn’t effective in the original environment, but proves useful in the new one? That makes sense, but the faster and further part is what bugs me. Faster and further by what measure?
A near extinction event could advantage a genetic mutation by giving the individuals a survival advantage, or it could be entirely random. The 10% of species X that survived coincidentally had mutation y. As the population expands to fill the previously occupied space all of the individuals in the species have mutation y.
Unless, the driver for rapid evolution is genetic bottlenecks caused by episodic rapid death of the overwhelming majority of the individuals within a species.
Bingo. Mass die-off of the marginally less fit clears the decks for the more fit variation.
Punctuated equilibrium does not rely on increases in mutations, but a long build-up of mutations that can provide competitive advantages when sudden changes produce new environmental niches. The mutation rate of DNA is remarkably stable over hundreds of millions of years. Punctuated equilibrium has been controversial and largely debunked.
I gave up watching CNBC The MSNBC Business Channel quite some time ago, but I was wandering up and down the dial this morning.
Did anybody else see the bizarre exchange between the little dweeb Andrew Ross Sorkin and Joe Kernen about guns? I believe Kernen said he had begun the application process for a carry permit (as a “legitimate celebrity” he likely will have no trouble, unlike actual normal humans). Sorkin looked like he was going to have some sort of panic attack. I was waiting for somebody to come rushing in with a paper bag for him to breathe into.
They need to give Sorkin his own talk show. As someone said earilier this year, Sorkin is a walking example of why people hate liberals. He can’t be help up as an example of that enough.
Mark Haines was the only worthwhile host CNBC ever had.
Joe Kernen is reason enough to watch CNBC.
He’s the best thing on that channel. I loved Squawk Box about ten years ago when he and Mark Haines were both on it.
You never know, them guns can leap out of a holster and cavorte around, blazin’ away!
I’m reliably informed that in the presence of high fructose corn syrup, the slightest bump can fire a hand-gun.
http://nymag.com/thecut/2012/1…..exism.html
The scourge of hipster sexism.
Classic Sexism? Vintage Hustler: un-ironic, explicit, violent, banal. Or Alfred Hitchcock letting real birds peck at the face of actress Tippi Hedren because he hates women he desires but who won’t sleep with him that much. (You can watch it in the new biopic The Girl on HBO.)
On the other hand, Hipster Sexism flatters us by letting us feel like we are beyond low-level, obvious humiliation of women and now we can enjoy snickering at it. Beautiful young chicks in little bikinis, urinating on the street, are funny! Girls do it in the new Harmony Korine movie, Spring Breakers, with Disney-girls-gone-wild Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez.
The scourge of hipster navel-gazing
Nothing you quoted makes any sense to me whatsoever, and for that I am thankful.
I caught “Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez”.
/creeper
“Some people think some VERY SERIOUS THINGS are funny. They are wrong and they wear scarfs in the summer. VERY SERIOUS THINGS must remain VERY SERIOUS or they won’t be useful as a weapon against people we hate.”
Note to hipsters: Stop giving a shit about what I think. I’m not going to agree with you and it’s OK. You can handle it, I know you can.
The scourge of hipsterism is why I want a .308 AR.
The scourge of hipsterism
You mean artisanal mayonnaise, right? Apparently they’re still fucking at it with that idiotic shit.
Get this fucking shit from their main fucking page:
We’ve got great news! We have switched entirely to Non-GMO canola oil in our mayonnaise. The health of you and your family is our first priority, and we are really excited to be able to offer this to you.
We’ve also switched to a single farm supplier for our eggs – Cascun Farms. This is a huge benefit to us, as we are able to monitor the health and happiness of our eggs as closely as possible, and maintain the highest possible quality.
As a result however, our ingredients cost has gone up substantially, and we will be forced to raise our prices. We believe this will be good value for you, as we will be the finest and most sustainable mayo available.
Many thanks for your continued patronage. 🙂 Also, screw you Monsanto.
Sam & Elizabeth
Motherfucking fuck! Now I want to do permanent bodily harm to the next fucking bastard I see riding a fixie.
Hahahahaha, oh man, that’s amazing.
Imma break this bullshit down bit by bit.
We’ve got great news! We have switched entirely to Non-GMO canola oil in our mayonnaise. The health of you and your family is our first priority, and we are really excited to be able to offer this to you.
For almost a decade, the overwhelming majority of rapeseed in America was from GMO crops. And from that, Canola has been exclusively made from those GMO crops. Yet there have been zero cases of fucked up shit happening from these more robust and pesticide-free crops. If they were serious about the health of their consumers, they’d switch to peanut oil or an animal-based fat.
Fucking assholes
We’ve also switched to a single farm supplier for our eggs – Cascun Farms. This is a huge benefit to us, as we are able to monitor the health and happiness of our eggs as closely as possible, and maintain the highest possible quality.
A happy egg is a tasty egg, I guess? Whatever, assholes. All I know is that healthy eggs are pretty easy to determine, and they can come from any number of farms, be they production or free-range. You just feed your hens good layer formula and supplement their diet with oyster shell if the eggs are this-shelled. You don’t have to be a hipster farmer to do that. As a matter of fact, free range hens are more likely to lay unhealthy eggs because they are not as closely monitored as production hens. That said, if done right and on a small scale, they can be closely watched and can produce delicious eggs that are yolk-heavy.
And again, what the fuck is a happy egg? The one that is pulled from under a hen and sent to Brooklyn so assholes can use it to make the simplest condiment in the world and sell it to assholes? I think not.
“We’ve also switched to a single farm supplier for our eggs”
As a risk management professional, I can only laugh in derision.
What are you saying? That having no redundancy in a system can increase risk.
Damn these businesses providing products consumers want! HOW DARE PEOPLE LIKE DIFFERENT THINGS THAN ME!!!!!!
And they are so not pretentious doing so!
Oh yeah, and sloopinca is never EVER at all pretentious.
Tu quoque much?
No, no. He/she(?) is correct in that assertion. I’ll freely admit to being pretentious on occasion.
But I can’t help it when something like this comes up. These fucks might as well be marketing gourmet salt. I liken mayonnaise manufacture to learning to dress one’s self. It is merely the first step on the road to culinary creation. As a matter of fact, if I were to start mass producing mayonnaise, I would be hard-pressed whether to get hipsters to make it or to employ mongoloids from the state mental hospital’s “super-mongoloid” ward. I honestly don’t think it is beyond the grasp of either group’s skill set.
You should have placed a comma between never and EVER.
Oh, I love mayo. I especially love a good aioli. That’s not the point. It’s that these shitheads think they’re re-inventing the culinary wheel by making the simplest of all condiments and selling it ironically to dumbasses that can’t even make a meatball.
I still think you should be applauding these hucksters for separating pretentious Brooklyn dipshits from their parent’s hard earned cash.
Look just below here. That’s the only redeeming part of the story. I hope these assholes get rich peddling their wares.
As a result however, our ingredients cost has gone up substantially, and we will be forced to raise our prices. We believe this will be good value for you, as we will be the finest and most sustainable mayo available.
OK, I’m fine with this…except for the whole “sustainable” claim. You want sustainable mayonnaise? Stick the jar in the fridge after opening, et voila!, your mayonnaise is now sustained…like every other perishable item in your house shithead.
Many thanks for your continued patronage. 🙂 Also, screw you Monsanto.
Ah, yes. Monsanto, which has done more to feed the world than you beanpole-skinny pasty-skinned assmunches will ever do if you live to be 1000 years old. Go die in a fucking fire.
Sam & Elizabeth
You two assholes just made the list.
*Rises and gives thunderous applause*
Actually, you don’t have to refrigerate mayonnaise. The vinegar keeps it from going bad, although the flavor is better preserved if refrigerated.
Well, that depends on the pH level attained, which can be adjusted with the % of vinegar in the mixture. It’s still a safe move to refrigerate any perishable item to prolong its life. It also keeps the temperature more consistent, making breakdown less likely due to fluctuations in room temperature having different effects on the individual ingredients.
It’s always safer to refrigerate or keep a mixed liquid at a consistent temperature since not all ingredients react to high or low temperatures the same way.
I am in awe of you sloop.
Actually, some of those flavors sound awesome, I think I may buy some.
OK, now I know you are just baiting slopy!
Tell me which flavors and I’ll explain to you how to make it in about three minutes. Hell, I’ll do it for you and send it at half the price…using my own farm fresh eggs and using the olive oil my neighbor pressed last fall.
That’s the other thing. What kind of cretin uses canola oil when olive oil is available? It would be akin to smearing shit on a hamburger when there was mustard on hand.
Idiots.
Yeah yeah, I ate at Red Robin last night instead of making a burger myself too. There are lots of things I could do for myself that I’d rather just pay someone else to do for me.
1) Canola oil has less saturated fat and more polyunsaturated fat than olive oil and is healthier
2) Canola oil is cheaper
3) Olive oil has a much stronger flavor and would end up making the mayo all taste like olive oil
1) We’re talking about a condiment here, and the amount you would ingest i so negligible as to be irrelevant.
2) So fucking what? Are we concerned with quality or cost? Glen Morangie costs more than Costco brand scotch. Which would you rather have?
3) Have you ever spent time in a kitchen? Some olive oils are stronger, but that’s not always the case. And more flavorful =/= overpowering.
I’m gonna be pretentious again right now: You need to learn about ingredients and spend some time in a professional kitchen before you have this argument with me. I don’t want to be a dick, but I’m in my element here and obviously you’re not.
1) Canola oil has less saturated fat and more polyunsaturated fat than olive oil and is healthier
A)Canola oil has less saturated fat and more polyunsaturated fat than olive oil does not imply B)and is healthier
Some people prefer the canola to the olive for mayo, sloopy. Strange, but true.
But then, I’m lazy and buy my mayo in a jar that says Giant Conglomerated Food Co. on the front. If I want to get fancy, then I’ll mix something in the mayo myself.
Actually, Stormy Dragon is correct.
For a perfect mayonaise, a fruity, golden olive oil is ideal. But those are difficult to find – most of the olive oils I find are on the greenish side, which can make a mayonaise too bitter. So most of the best chefs in the world (Keller, Bertoli) use canola, either by itself or to temper the harshness of green olive oil.
Having said that, I often do half olive and half canola.
Maybe you’re right for mass production on a large scale. And I do sometimes forget not everybody lives where I do, with 30 olive trees on their property and a neighbor with a press so you can get the oil juuuuuuust right.
I guess I should be happy they’re using oil at all in Brooklyn as opposed to sewer water.
It’s not that hard to get decent olive oil. I make my mayo from scratch with it. It does help having a few Middle Eastern markets to choose from, though.
Thing is, once you make it, it’s really hard to go back to store-bought. And since I’m the one who does the cooking…it just means more work for me.
I recall reading somewhere that canola oil is less twitchy than olive oil and is therefore less difficult to work with when making mayo.
Is anyone else seeing a lot of Ryuho Okawa web ads? Apparently it is an Asian based religion that is encouraging Americans to vote for Romney. It is run by “Master Ryuho Okawa, founder and president of Happy Science”.
mmm… happy science? Is that a code word for Japanese masturbation tools?
I keep thinking somebody should remake the old Parliament tune Flash Light except redo the lyrics and make it Flesh Light. I don’t know why this thought keeps occurring to me, but it does.
That’s what I thought at first. Apparently it is a religion. In our country religions are only allowed to endorse political candidates if A.) It is a majority black church and B.) They endorse far left Democrats. Otherwise the IRS will withdraw their non-profit status.
No, but I visit a lot of places with only cached images set to load.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2…..-your.html
the Obama campaign knows who your facebook friends are and wants to call them.
I’ve received two calls from the Johnson campaign thanking me for my support, and not asking for more money.
The best part is, people are still stupid enough to use Facebook.
If any of these folks’ numbers are saved in your phone
They are quite efficiently ruining any warmth, friendliness, or charm that was once associated with the use of “folks”
Everybody’s a “folks” to Obama. Our diplomats in Libya, the attackers who killed them – all “folks.”
“What happened in Benghazi is a tragedy. We’re investigating exactly what happened. I take full responsibility for that fact. I send these folks in harm’s way, I want to make sure they’re always safe and when that doesn’t happen, that we figure out what happened and make sure that doesn’t happen again.
But my biggest priority now is bringing those folks to justice and I think the American people have seen that’s a commitment I’ll always keep.”
Bush used “folks” when describing the perpetrators of 9/11. I just can’t get my panties in a bunch over these kinds of semantics.
Bush also overused it, but you could see that as part of his redneck “charm.” Why would Obama do it, though? It’s strange. Is “folks” somehow a safer word than the alternatives? Less likely to get you into trouble with the PC brigade?
You know who else ruined whatever warmth, friendliness, or charm was once associated with the use of “volks”?
I don’t have any Facebook friends. And I like it that way.
I don’t have any Facebook friends. And I like it that way.
Don’t worry, Lord Humungus. I like you.
He’s not your friend, pal!
Start running.
this election cycle has done a good job of whittling down my list. It’s not the disagreements; it’s the ones fueled by nuclear levels of stupid.
I got nothin’
A new poll in Michigan has Mitt Romney leading by 1 point in a state that’s considered leaning toward President Obama.
The poll, conducted by Democratic polling firm Baydoun-Foster for Fox 2 News Detroit, has Romney up 47-46 on Obama. The same polling firm pegged the race in Michigan a tie in a survey late October.
The poll is the first in Michigan since August to give Romney a lead, however, while Obama holds a 3.8 percent lead in the Real Clear Politics polling average.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo…..omney-up-1
Maybe it is an outlier. But wouldn’t it be funny as shit if Obama lost Michigan after the auto bailout?
I’m Almanian, and I approve the salty ham tears of this message
I’d say if Romney wins Michigan it’s a done deal. I’m trying to think if there would be enough remaining battleground states left in the evening to move it the other way in theory. Nevada, Iowa, and Colorado, maybe.
If Romney had a big enough turnout to win Michigan, it is pretty much unthinkable that he wouldn’t also win Ohio and PA. And that would finish it.
Well if he wins PA that’s a super deluxe slam dunk done deal. Seeing that go red would mean an earlier bedtime for America.
I can hope – I want to watch a few liberals cry then go to bed early tomorrow.
I Obama loses I am listening to NPR and MSNBC for the next week. All Things Considered on the morning after an ordinary Dem loss is wonderful. After the black Jesus gonig down it will be epic. I bet they have some kind of a group cry or something.
Considering FOX News is already doing their equivalent–letting the occasional mote of electoral math truth slip through, you may not have to go through it.
I’m thinking it’s an early night because Obama wins Virginia.
Comedy gold Tony.
NPR after an O! loss would be liek Radio M oscow after a Soviet leader died.
NPR is rigorously nonpolitical. Do you ever listen to it? The only times political opinions are expressed are when politicians are interviewed or during the weekly 10-minute political discussion with EJ Dionne and David Brooks.
Hahahahahahaha!
They would like you to think they are non-partisan. But just listen to the adjectives they use for the different candidates and their programs someday.
I listen to NPR every day, and I have never, ever detected a partisan slant.
You idiots have the rest of radio so stop whining.
I also listen to NPR about an hour every day. I admire their in-depth stories and some of the offbeat stuff. But if you don’t detect the partisan slant, then you are even dumber than everyone here says you are.
And I listen to the Beeb occasionally. That really hurts.
He needs to recalibrate his partisan slant detector.
Sounds like its perfectly attuned to his own personal partisan slant. Why would he recalibrate?
LOL. I love NPR, but pleeassseee. They ooze partisan slant from their very pores.
After the black Jesus gonig down
Your Freudian racism is showing.
Dude, don’t get too psyched for any of that. Like you and all, but just sayin’. I fear there will be no salty ham tears to feast on Wednesday morning, to my intense dismay.
You never know. But the fact that Romney is even close in places like Minnesota and Michigan and no one is talking about Republican states doesn’t bode well for Obama.
yeah, but don’t forget, “doing well” in this campaign is an extremely binary proposition.
After the Obamacare decision, I no longer think anything is a slam dunk in Washington. That said, the new polls are hilarious; both for the idea that Romney even has a shot in MI and PA (seriously, who thought that could be true, even a month ago?), and for the +8 to +10 D samplings the pollsters are using. If MI goes Romney, I think you might see a 350-ish to 190 ass-kicking by the GOP.
I saw the Beydoun-Foster poll for MI, and went, “Whaaa?” My best guess is still a 285-255 ish win for whomever manages to pull OH, but these latest polls mean I wouldn’t be surprised by a Romney beatdown.
And I agree, if Romney wins, one of the few things that will be great will be the schadenfreude.
I can’t find a single national poll, no matter how weighted towards Dem turnout (including this morning’s CNN D+11 poll) that has Obama over 50%. If you an incumbent and you can’t get over 50% in even absurdly weighted outlier polls, you are in a lot of trouble.
Agreed on the incumbent needing more than 50%.
I’d just like to see a beatdown one way or the other. If it does come down to OH, it’s going to be tied up in litigation that’ll make Bush v. Gore look mild. Any bets on this version of the Supreme Court deciding to sit Romney v. Obama out and defer to the OH Secretary of State? I mean, if Kagan cast a vote concerning a case she worked on…I’d say any notion of ethics or political questions staying the Court’s hand are out the window at this point.
Never mind the 1960-like electoral fraud that’s going to happen. I’d prefer a final result where the fraud wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other. I just think the sampling demographics (and how many pollsters hide them at the end of a 18-page pdf of their poll questions, assuming they even list the demographics in the first place.) are crazy. D+11? That didn’t even happen in 2008, for Chrissake.
I agree Ghost. I would rather see Obama win than some kind of fucked up Bush v. Gore 2. I want to see this thing end and end early tonight and be done with it. I don’t want either side claiming they were robbed.
Party Identification isn’t a demographic, it’s one of the variables being measured. The apparent inability of the right to grok this simple fact is part of what has made this whole “unskewed polls” fiasco so frustrating.
A poll which purports to sample the voting population of a state should try to mirror the voting population of that state, no? So then, why have a sample that in most polls skews in favor of the Democrats by, on average, 6-8 points, and occasionally 10-11? Since you’re saying that this is one of the variables that the pollster is attempting to measure, are you saying that there are 6-8 points more Dems in these states than Repubs?
This would be news for the Secretaries of State in these various states. Or at least their voter registration demographics are wrong. (Which for the swing states I’ve cared to look up, are usually are 1-2 points of difference between the two major parties.) Or is it that Democrats are going to have 6-8 points’ worth of greater turnout?
I’ve said it before, but, should there be a decisive Romney victory, some Poli Sci grad student is going to make their bones by going into this persistent D-oversampling and the reasons why so many polls have done so over this election season.
Of course, you could be right, and we’ll know rather quickly that Obama has won, and we can all be spared the spectre of months of election litigation. Not to mention any rioting. Though, judging by the World Series and Super Bowls lately, people seem to riot whether they win or lose. Good excuse to stay home.
Yes, the difference is that race, gender, etc. are pretty well definied and and static. There are also good independent measures of that data (from the US census).
Party Identification is fluid and doesn’t have any good independent estimates. So how do you know what the “correct” party split to “mirror” is? The people “unskewing” the polls are basically just pulling numbers out of their asses to get the poll results they want.
And to answer one specific question:
Yes, because a shit load of Republicans have switched to Independents over the last 12 years.
FEMA asks home schooled high schooler to map the coast hit by SUPERSTORM SANDY.
I just don’t understand how someone can accomplish so much without unionized government heroes teachers showing him the way. Being home schooled, he’s probably just a racist, religious fundamentalist anyways.
Holy shit! At 17, I was all concerned about getting my second varsity letter and who I was gonna dance with after the football game.
And Farrah Fawcett’s poster. And getting a car.
Good for this kid for…not being like I was at that age! Pretty amazing.
At 17, I was in basic training and asking myself why the fuck I joined the Army.
I can haz a sad 🙁
+1 Fort Benning School For Lost Boys.
C/9/2, BTW.
My brother did his basic at Fort Sill, OK. He HATED it. Loved Fort Campbell where he was stationed for the long haul. We visited there – I’ll never forget those young men and how impressive they were (are).
obviously an Aspie.
No, he just has “The Knack”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlJsPa6UwcM
Every kid I know who is homeschooled is three or four grades ahead of where they would be in public school.
Exactly.
BUT….SOCIALLY INEPT!!!1!
Uh, no – utterly well adjusted, polite, smart as hell – that’s been my experience.
An old friend from high school came to Washington with her three home schooled daughters that were like 9, 12 and 14. They were smarter, better adjusted and more interesting than the some of the college interns we get at work.
It’s amazing the bullshit that passes for part of the educational program in public schools, especially in the “good” ones.
The article last week about illiterate kids teaching themselves to use Android tablets, if true, proves a suspicion many have held: it takes a lot of teachers and a lot of effort to crush a child’s inherent ability to learn.
I do this with photos sometimes, but I didn’t write software for it. It’s fun to look at a pic, look for uniquely identifying features, and then visually search around in Google earth or maps to find the exact spot the pic was taken from. He’s right that horizons or skylines are very unique.
YOU KNOW, THIS SHIT DIDN’T HAPPEN WHEN LUCY STEIGERWALD WAS WRITING FOR REASON.
What happened to Lucy?
I believe our blatant sexism drove her away.
Lucy goes away and fucking Chapman writes on. Where is the justice? Where is the justice?
The Male Gaze, it burns!
That’s what Epi wants you to believe, LH.
This is the second time in a few days I’ve seen that question asked – and not answered. Could it mean something?
I kinda just assumed they traded her for the ampersands.
Which you have to admit is a reasonably fair deal.
As Pritt describes it, “The horizon is like a thumbprint. It’s distinctive enough to pinpoint the location” anywhere in the world.
[insert Kansas joke]
Or Central Illinois joke, for that matter.
“. . .Looks like evolution goes quicker in environments with rapid and abrupt changes. ”
What you’re missing is that
a. This is all modeling and there is only one real world datum to reference.
b. The models don’t just lean toward an asteroid belt, but a specific set of belts ie, not too big and not too small.
They need to be stable enough not to continually wreck a biosphere but toss a rock at your planet just often enough to change the environment.
“. . .Looks like evolution goes quicker in environments with rapid and abrupt changes”
Isn’t that pretty self evident? If the environment doesn’t change, chances are mutations won’t give an advantage. Being born with the freakish ability to survive in the cold, only matters if it gets cold.
Its not evident at all.
The “speed” of evolution is dependent upon how quickly a species reproduces and how mutagenic the environment is, and the strength of selective pressures.
You can have an unchanging environment that is high in radiation, causing a lot of mutation, “causing” a lot of evolution.
The environment doesn’t have to change for a mutation to to provide an advantage – not all mutations are freakish abilities that have little use in a species current environment.
Imagine a bird of prey with slightly better eyesight than the norm for its species, or a cow whose digestive system is conducive to a more beneficial mix of gut bacteria.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/wo…..-non-voter
Michael Moore lists all the ways Obama has failed, but concludes with 100% certainty using his pre-cog abilities that Romney will be worse.
The first few paragraphs are nearly Greenwaldian.
h/t to Lucy’s twitter feed which references another Stiegerwald’s twitter feed.
Moore IS a socialist and gun grabber – thus his hate for Obama.
(I know – that does not compute for wingnuts)
But he’s still going to vote for Obama, because he might fail less in the second term.
That’s basically what it comes down to for his cargo cult.
The first few paragraphs are nearly Greenwaldian.
You mean five-paragraph paragraphs?
Or Central Illinois joke
It was a toss-up.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012…..president/
I really don’t care what generals think and think they have no business in politics. But imagine the big deal the media would make of this if they had endorsed Obama. They would be on every talk show in America.
they’re running Powell endorsement ads in the DC market.
Obama is in serious trouble if DC is a battleground.
I would think VA is the target here.
Let me have my joke!
Sorry
QUESTION/OPINIONS wanted:
I assume this will get buried, but does anyone have any feelings about private investigation from an ideological standpoint?
I have been offered a job back in the US of A at a PI firm. Now most likely, I’ll just be doing what they’re actually hiring me for (physical security, threat assessment/nullification, desky stuff), but since it’s a small firm (about 14 non-admin types) there’s a chance I could be doing some snooping and such. Now, if this were a state job, I’d never do it, regardless of the pay. But considering it’s private, I shouldn’t be averse to it…but I still get a kind of disturbing feeling thinking about taking it.
Everything else is fairly equal…pay is a lot less than Liberia, but then again I won’t have to worry about a lot of the crap here. Weather is about identical. More access to somewhat-less-crazy women.
Frankly I’m leaning towards taking it, but even though it will probably never come down to it, I still think I might feel like a thug if I have to tail someone in a divorce proceeding (which is ironic considering how many people I monitor and, uh, stuff for safety and security of the people who pay me).
This was basically a no-brainer, I was going to take the job, then the guy was like, “We’ll need you to get your license, just in case we run out of security jobs, and only have regular stuff…” Anyway, thoughts much appreciated.
only if you wear a fedora and trench coat. Plus you have to use the words “dame” and “slug of whiskey” in every other sentence.
Is their client base mainly businesses? If so, snooping wouldn’t be bother me as much as if they have a lot of individual clients. Corporate espionage is part of the game, homie. Spying on people’s personal lives, not so much.
But it’s spying for money. Private money.
But the deal is basically right now they’re doing much more individual and small targeted clients, and they’re wanting to expand into a more business oriented model. Hence the dip into security rather than, uh, investigation.
I think they just don’t want me to be useless when there’s no security clients. And that’s the part I might have a problem with.
I say always do what The Animals recommend:
“It’s my life and I’ll do what I want
It’s my mind and I’ll think like I want”
Try it out. If it starts to feel dirty (or too dirty), quit and do something else. No harm in checking it out – it’s not inherently evil 🙂
I understand the qualms about possibly snooping on a wife or husband in a troubled marriage, but otherwise I say go for it. I mean as long as you’re not breaking into homes to tap their phones, I can’t see any harm in it. Like AET said, it’s worth looking into more and even trying out.
True. I can literally ALWAYS get another job just like this in West Africa somewhere.
Maybe start by investigating the company and its leaders.
Heh – think of it as practice?
Might set up the best salary negotiation, ever.
“Now, if this were a state job, I’d never do it, regardless of the pay. But considering it’s private, I shouldn’t be averse to it…but I still get a kind of disturbing feeling thinking about taking it.”
Why? Just because a libertarian doesn’t see the state as something that sanctifies an inherently unethical act doesn’t mean that it carries some sort of inverse sanction, apart from the tendency to be less consensual. But snooping is snooping, state or no. If you have a problem doing it with a badge and a uniform, you should probably have a problem doing it at all.
Seems to me you already know the answer, but the financial reward is enough to make you want to compromise your principles, so you’re asking us to help you rationalize away what your gut instincts are telling you.
I have a question:
Everybody keeps talking about Ohio auto workers, and how they will express their gratitude for the bailout at the voting booth, but there are also a lot of people in Ohio who work for auto and auto parts manufacturers other than Government Motors or Fiat. Are they really all that grateful?
How will they vote?
Also didn’t a lot of non union suppliers get fucked in the bailout? Arern’t a lot of those people in Ohio?
Yes, and there a lot of dealerships forced to close. Some of those guys are pretty wealthy and had lots of salespeople.
I know a guy who formerly worked for Delphi. His entire pension got flushed. He is in his mid 50s and probably will end up working till he dies. Not that there aren’t a lot of people in that situation, but it sucks when you’re told you have a fixed pension and it turns out to not be so, er, defined after all. He was nonunion his entire career, and now UAW members are essentially drawing his pension.
I work for an automotive supplier (we also make many other things). There isn’t much love for the bailout here but my department is pretty dern conservative.
We’ve been squeezed by the Big 3 for “cost savings” to the point where we sell some parts at a loss. We make up for it with other parts, but it’s a silly way to make money which is why that division is one of our least profitable.
On a broad economic front, our heavy truck division which makes parts for – Peterbilt, International, etc – is pulling back on production and reducing headcount. eg – less trucks are going to be made which is a possible sign that less goods are expected to be shipped in the future or shipping companies will push their aging fleet further and further.
It’s probably just a general assumption in every type of business that the economy is going to suck for a very long time.
Efficiency is the only place to find profit growth when revenue just isn’t going up.
We’ve been squeezed by the Big 3 for “cost savings” to the point where we sell some parts at a loss. We make up for it with other parts volume
Fixed it for you. 😉
Say, who are the “Big 3” these days?
Toyota, Honda, GM?
GM, Ford, Toyota.
I believe our blatant sexism drove her away.
Nice going, you cunts.
Exactly as I predicted, the cancelling of the marathon was entirely symbolic, as all the stuff for it just ended up sitting around Central Park unused over the weekend:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/l…..BLdYhMz9eJ
People are demanding the New York Road Runners Club give the stuff they paid for away for free (nevermind that since the race was cancelled they also now have a serious cashflow crunch), showing this was really all just about people coercing free handouts.
I would have thought trying to mass a bunch of runners on the Staten Island side of the Verrazano would have been a logistical problem.
They could have just rerouted part of the marathon without cancelling the whole thing. As it was, a bunch of people who’d already flown in when the thing got cancelled decided to just do laps around central park to make up the distance. And suprise, suprise, it didn’t impact the rescue efforts at all.
They’d still have to measure out the proper distance and have a mass staging area for the start.
Because it’s New York, I’d have suggested they run the marathon on a quarter mile track. Sorry – I’ve dated myslef – a 400 meter track.
“Only 202 more laps to go!! Good job!!”
It’d be like Bristol, except they couldn’t fit everyone on the track…
The embassy in Kuwait City holds a marathon every March. It is around a two mile track that goes around the compound. 13.5 laps. I kid you not. I ran the ten K there one year. It is an official marathon. You can use the time to qualify for the Boston or New York Marathon or to count towards running one in every continent.
Also didn’t a lot of non union suppliers get fucked in the bailout?
As I recall, non-union pensionholders at Delphi (mostly in Indiana, I think) got fucked good and hard.
You are correct. This is a big deal in The D as well (lots of Delphi salaried types there, too).
I am surprised and disappointed that Romney didn’t make more of the crooked nature of the GM and Chrysler bailouts. Cronyism at its worst.
Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler LLC was a lawsuit brought in United States federal court June 2009 by several pension funds against Chrysler LLC and the United States Department of the Treasury, to block the planned sale of Chrysler LLC assets to a “New Chrysler” entity in the Chrysler bankruptcy.
The case arose from the high-profile bankruptcy of Chrysler, in which the U.S. Treasury orchestrated a sale under Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code to avoid the debtors’ having to fully compensate a group of first lien priority creditors, which included roughly 100,000 retired teachers and police officers from Indiana. The United Auto Workers Union (UAW), which was closely allied with the Obama Administration, was a junior, unsecured creditor who stood to gain from the plan of sale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I……_Chrysler
Big time. I mentioned an acquaintance who’s in this situation above.
All your election are belong to us
it’s spying for money. Private money.
The problem I would have is the potential for information-gathering on personal matters not directly and specifically related to job performance.
Trying to find out if one of your client’s customers is shopping his contract around? That’s taking a reasonable precaution.
Trying to find out if one of your client’s employees smokes a little dope, or lives an “alternative lifestyle” in order to use it against him? I don’t think I could be a party to that.
Don’t let your kids watch campaign ads
Ready for the after-vote??
I am:
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure…..seriously/
There is something interesting that comes up if you google “fake indian”. Hint: it involves a black jacket