Support for Legal Pot Referendum Gaining Bipartisan Support in Maine, Restaurant Owners Defy Minimum Wage Hike, Huntsman Supports Gay Marriage, Nevada Legalizes Online Gambling: P.M. Links

Credit:Jaypeg21/flickr

• Mainers could soon be enjoying legal recreational marijuana. A newly proposed bill that is gathering bipartisan support would put the issue to the public in a referendum. In other pot-related news, lawmakers in Maryland are considering legislation that would legalize marijuana, making it subject to taxes and regulations similar to those imposed on alcohol. 

• The owners of a restaurant in Albuquerque, N.M are defying the city's new minimum wage hike, saying that the increase will put them out of business. 

• Former Utah Governor and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has said that he supports gay marriage, calling it a "conservative cause."

• Matthew Taby is facing a 3,000 year jail sentence for possession of child pornography in Florida. Assistant state attorney Vicki Nichols says each of the images possessed by Taby should be considered its own individual crime. When you're found with more than 1,000 indecent images potential time in the clink quickly adds up. 

• According to Titan CEO Maurice Taylor France may have "beautiful women and fantastic wine," but the French have "no idea how to run a business." This is the latest pronouncement on the French from Taylor, who earlier this week told a French factory that it could "keep your so-called workers."

• Nevada has legalized online gambling in an emergency measure. Local lawmakers didn't want to come second to New Jersey, where legalizing online gambling is also being considered. 

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Comments

[TeamBarstool]

Probably not first

[jesse.in.mb]

Way to hedge on that.

[C. Anacreon]

only counts as first if you actually say something, too

[A Serious Man]

Fist!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Embarrassing.

[A Serious Man]

Matthew Taby is facing a 3,000 year jail sentence for possession of child pornography in Florida. Assistant state attorney Vicki Nichols says each of the images possessed by Taby should be considered its own individual crime. When you're found with more than 1,000 indecent images potential time in the clink quickly adds up.

You know you're a monster when you get more time than Jerry Sandusky.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Hell, make each dollar in a theft or robbery its own individual crime. That'll add up way faster than any plain ol' felony.

[NeonCat]

For goodness' sakes, don't take the change tray.

[Andrew S.]

Legitimate yet sickening question is that if you're going to give somebody that long for images on a computer screen, what's the impetus not to go out and actually, actively harm a child? I mean, it's not like they could do any worse to you than that kind of a sentence, is it?

[A Serious Man]

I suppose. I mean possession is different from creating the images themselves by sexually exploiting a child.

This dude is sick, but 3,000 years symbolically doesn't make much sense to me as a matter of the punishment fitting the crime.

[Episiarch]

Because it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with a grandstanding prosecutor.

[jesse.in.mb]

Silly Epi, nobody in our honorable criminal justice system would try to make a name for themselves in such a manner.

[Episiarch]

3000 years has symbolic meaning. It's...for the children?

[gaijin]

for the children...of the children...of the children x 12

[Night Elf Mohawk]

I wish someone would ask the prosecutor what sentence she'd seek if the guy had killed a child.

[Cyto]

The prosecutor is a piker. The article says there were videos. Videos... A video is a stream of separate images displayed in rapid sequence creating the illusion of motion.

A real prosecutor would have charged each frame of the video as a separate crime. Effin' amateur. Coulda gotten a hundred thousand years. That'll send a real message.

[T]

Kind of similar to how the feds have provided everyone with a perverse incentive to never talk to them. If you never say anything to the feds, they can't bust you for perjury.

[Bam!]

"Nevada has legalized online gambling in an emergency measure. Local lawmakers didn't want to come second to New Jersey, where legalizing online gambling is also being considered. "

So when can I play on Full Tilt again?

[NeonCat]

Is the US planning to attack the Norks or is it just more effective saber-rattling?

Interesting article.

http://oilprice.com/Geopolitic.....r-War.html

[$park?]

Yesterday we got a story about the Compton mayor.
Today, I give you a story about the Bell, CA mayor.

The unschooled and illiterate former mayor of the scandal-ridden suburban city of Bell had no training that would have alerted him that his huge salary was illegal, his lawyer told a jury in closing arguments.

Former Mayor Oscar Hernandez didn't have a college or high school degree and didn't even finish elementary school, defense attorney Stanley Friedman said at the corruption trial. . . .

Friedman argued Thursday that financial advisers hired by the city could have informed Hernandez that salaries being paid to council members were illegal, but no one did that.

[The DerpRider]

Detroit calls. And raised you.

[Generic Stranger]

Top. Men.

[TeamBarstool]

Los Pollos Hermanos Arizona style

[NeonCat]

They should have yelled "Those sons of bitches screwed up our order!"

[A Serious Man]

Washington cops save town from scourge of lingerie-wearing barristas.

Three baristas have been arrested for offering more than extra froth to customers at a drive-thru coffee shop.
The women are alleged to have staged peep shows for customers by stripping off their clothes.
Police staged a two month undercover operation at the two Grab-N-Go coffee shops and videotaped the women stripping off.

Yeah, I'll be those two months undercover was just to observe.

[Bam!]

"Grab-N-Go" huh? That should've been a tip off.

[Calidissident]

Dunphy?

[Dunphy (the real one)]

sadly, i did not get that choice duty assignment.

oh, and it wasn't the lingerie clad baristas they were "saving" the town from - it was the stripped down nekkid baristas.

i'm all for nudity. i used to lifeguard at a nude beach in college, spent a lot of time at "little beach" surfing in maui (which is a nude beach even though it's technically illegal), etc.

the soccer moms, etc. who have the politicians (and thus the cops') ears HATE bikini baristas. partly out of jealousy of their nice bodies, imo, and partly out of "for the children" protection of their darling little ones. at the community meetings i've gone to, there was a lot of um... unhapiness from a vocal group of citizens about one of our local bikini barista businesses. as long as they keep the bikini ON, it's legal.

generally speaking, when you see some sort of investigation like this, there is a high probability it was done because of community pressure. i've seen it time and time again.

we see a lot of naked people in law enforcement, and on occasion even have to go "hands on" with them 🙂 and the GENERAL rule is that the people you see naked in the job are not the ones you want to see nekkid.

if these baristas are like the ones i've seen around wheree i work , they were probably smokin' hot.

baristas are often, ime, cop groupies too - which is a bonus.

[Enough About Palin]

"i'm all for nudity. i used to lifeguard at a nude beach in college"

GO FUCK YOUR LYING ASS WITH A 12" RASP, YOU LYING SACK OF SHIT.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

lucy vincent beach in chilmark ma. town owned beach, and part of the beach is clothing optional.

good surf, too

check it out. gotta be a town resident (whether summer rental or year round) to access the beach in the summer months though. beautiful beach. cliffs, etc. suffered some recent erosion, which is sad.

oh, and smooches for the kind words.

[Enough About Palin]

You just don't get it, do you?

[Dunphy (the real one)]

no, i don't. let me rely on your superior intellect to school me.

fwiw, you can disagree with me, but it's ridiculous to call me a liar. it's simply not true. fuck, i still have my lucy vincent beach lifeguard jacket.

and after losing 25-30 lbs of muscle mass to encephalitis (and now being weak as fuck), it fits again.

[jesse.in.mb]

I will say, Little Beach is an awesome place. I wouldn't mind getting back there.

Our local nude beach was shuttered thanks to a local busybody in 1994 (well before I would've visited) who trotted out her daughter to make a THINK OF THE CHILDREN! argument.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

you never know who you'll see at little beach. i was surfing the left there once and i saw some totally tattooed up rock star looking guys hanging out on the beach. turned out to be red hot chili peppers.

that sucks about your beach being shut down. friend of mine from college was from that area. i got to surf lunada bay once and it was choice, if not the most heavily localized surf spot in southern california

[NeonCat]

Hey, that guy in Florida thought of the naked children and now he's facing 3000 years.

Don't think of the naked children!

[Apatheist ?_??]

Is there a group of people who aren't cop groupies? Because you seem to throw that in every time.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

every time? i never even mentioned cop groupies before my post on them a few days ago.

it's one of those things cops take for granted, but those who aren't on the job probably have never thought about.

if it sounds like bragging, i guess i can live with that. i played in a band through high school and college, and band groupies are well known as a cultural thing.

i just love my job, and for a single cop, cop groupies and the general availability of women in general is a huge perk of the job. married now, so it's all just memories

a substantial %age of stuff men do (go to gym, grooming, etc.) is to get pussy. let's be honest. being a cop is definitely a + (like playing in a band) in that category.

in college, i got to be little sister chair of my fraternity for a year, and that was a similarly choice assignment

[Apatheist ?_??]

Every time is obviously hyperbole but I've definitely seen you throw that in when discussing women before. Then again it may have been band groupie references. I wasn't criticizing btw.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

no problem. i just figured it's something we (cops) know about, but the general public doesn't.

it may HAVE been band groupie stuff since i never mentioned cop groupies that i can recall ever before that recent post.

i play guitar and the guitarist definitely doesn't do as well groupie-wise as the singer, but they do ok. going to UCSB, which is full of hot wimmins, AND playing in a band was a very good thing. waxing nostalgic i guess.

[C. Anacreon]

The easiest place to meet women I've ever been in my life was at UCSB during something called ISVT -- Inter-Sorority Volleyball Tournament. Hot chicks from all over the West partying all along Isla Vista, with plentiful free kegs and other intoxicants in every back yard. Only was there once, way back in 1986, but man oh man.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

it was an amazing place. "bringing a girlfriend to UCSB is like bringing sand to the beach".

i was on the program board which meant i got a nice tab to drink beers and eat nachos while running the sound board (or having a minion do it) at the pub. that was an AWESOME way to meet wimmins. i was there from 1985 to 1990 when they still allowed open containers in isla vista. it was awesome. no way i would graduate in 4 yrs

the isla vista party scene was choice. if you go there, you HAVE to live on del playa (oceanside) at least one year. you can sleep on the couch on the deck and fall asleep to the sound of the breaking waves.

[H. Reardon]

Dumphy should star in a Dos Equis commercial.

[Redmanfms]

Dumphy should star in a Dos Equis commercial.

He's every bit as real as "The Most Interesting Man in the World."

Harvard outed him as not an actual cop a couple weeks ago.

[NeonCat]

I did not know that the Chinese have been developing a ballistic missile defense system.

http://idsa.in/idsacomments/Im.....mar_220213

[C. Anacreon]

Well, now that you know, don't go all ballistic about it.

[NeonCat]

Look, we only nuke because we love. Why won't China let us reserve the option of loving them?

[Brett L]

Welcome to the money pit. Did the Chinese learn nothing from the Russians and Star Wars?

[Enough About Palin]

Earlier this week in his State of the Union address President Obama made some observations on climate change so brimming with falsehoods I'm surprised his nose didn't fall off.
It really doesn't matter where he himself was deliberately lying or whether he was merely lending the gravitas of his office to the deliberate lies of others. The point is that the President of the USA has access to any number of fact checkers and advisers and if he stands up and addresses the nation with a farrago of complete untruths then the buck stops with him. This dissembling and mendacity becomes all the more culpable when it forms the basis of major public policy decisions which will have a serious impact on people's lives in the US and beyond.
So why this snake-oil salesman being allowed to get away with it?

[Brandon]

Excellent comment, but why the block quotes?

[Drake]

Veterans Receive Letters From VA Prohibiting Ownership or Purchase of Firearms.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.co.....-firearms/

[Virginian]

I bet these went out to the guys who claimed PTSD. If that is true, then fuck 'em. One of things that really disillusioned me away from mindless support of the military is seeing just how many of them pull a four year stretch and then leech off the system for the rest of their lives. Last time I moved one of the guys who helped me was getting PTSD money, despite the fact that he'd been a Blackhawk crief chief and had never been shot at or done any medevac flights. Along with medical for his "bad back", and education benefits for his two classes at the local community college.

PTSD claims have skyrocketed not because it's more prevalent, but because it's an easy way to get more government money. I have little sympathy for people who stick their hands in the cuffs and then complain they're too tight.

[wareagle]

why do you hate our heroes?

/fox derp

[In Time Of War]

Since I served during peace time (remember that?) I can't speak for PTSD, but at my first duty station my roomie got out on a medical discharge and constantly bragged about how he would be getting x% disability for the rest of his life. He was in his early twenties, and whatever was wrong with him didn't prevent his sorry ass dragging whores back to our room to bang while I tried to sleep. God, I hated that guy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Former soldiers can't own TEH ASS-SALT WEAPONS OF MASS SLAUGHTER-KILL-DEATH.

Ex-cops on the other hand is a-okay peachy keen(per Dianne Feinstein's AWB Bill).

Disconnect? I like to think so.

[The DerpRider]

I'm sure this was covered this morning, but thanks, Mr. Musburger.

[$park?]

Don't fuck with this landlord.

Ron Kronenberger, 53, was charged with assault for the Jan. 22 encounter in his office, police in the village of Waynesville said. He was due in court Thursday in Warren County.
...
The Dayton Daily News reported that Kronenberger is a former chamber of commerce president who was Waynesville's "Citizen of the Year" for 2006. His home phone wasn't accepting messages Thursday.

[$park?]

And the mother of the decade awards goes to:

Stockton originally was questioned in Baby Crystal's death in 2004 after the newborn's frozen remains were discovered in a plastic bag along a dead-end road near her parents' home. Prosecutors said that when detectives interviewed Stockton hours after the discovery, she lifted her shirt and asked if she looked like she had just given.
...
After Stockton's 2009 arrest in Baby Crystal's death, investigators discovered her car had been sitting in an impound lot for a year. They towed it to a sheriff's department facility to search for more clues in that case.

Instead, they found the remains of two other infants wrapped in cloth and stuffed in separate plastic bags.

[Virginian]

One of those cases you're ok with the death penalty.

[Suthenboy]

Actually no. Spending the rest of her life in a mental institution, yes. The woman is clearly insane.

[BakedPenguin]

Why the fuck would you kill a baby, when there are so many wonderful couples willing to pay large sums of money for one?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Excellent question.

[Bam!]

Why the fuck would you kill a baby when you could have aborted it legally before hand?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Aborting it doesn't kill it?

[Tonio]

Awwww...an "unborn baby" sentimentalist. How quaint. Can I get a picture of you with the hubby?

[Eduard van Haalen]

It's hard to be insulted when I don't even know WTF you're trying to say.

[Redmanfms]

Awwww...an "unborn baby" sentimentalist. How quaint. Can I get a picture of you with the hubby?

This is rich coming from the guy who wants to ban "cruelty to animals" without any clear definition of what constitutes "cruelty" and then use government guns to enforce it.

[BakedPenguin]

Because there are lots of wonderful couples willing to pay large sums of money for one?

Hibbert: Well, you know a healthy baby can bring upwards of $60,000.
Marge: What?!
Hibbert: Well, of course, that was just a test. Er, had you reacted differently, you'd be in jail right now. Simply a test.
[laughs uncomfortably]

[Stormy Dragon]

Should this be a crime, or (as per Mises) was the mother just exercising her right to obligated to continue caring for the infants?

[Tonio]

Practically, it's outside of peak commenting hours so don't expect a response.

But this oppo will arise again and I'd really like to see some of the folks here defend that.

And big thanks for that LvM quote. Libertarians are going to have to distance themselves from that if they ever expect to be electable for anything above small-town local office.

[BakedPenguin]

This and shit like Mary Ruwart's courting the Nambla vote. It's one thing to mock the dumb "for the children" BS, it's another to have complete disregard for long established societal norms.

[Cyto]

How long is long? The Greeks accepted post-birth abortions, practiced through the procedure of 'hobbling'. Remember Antigone? That makes sewing the ankles of an infant together and tossing him on a remote hillside "long accepted" by a bigger definition of "long" than the history of the United States.

[BakedPenguin]

Yeah, that was a crappy argument on my part. Let me take that one back.

[A Serious Man]

Report: Pope resigned in wake of gay priest sex scandal within the Vatican.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Even if it's true it only reinforces his I'm too old for this shit reason for resigning. It sounds like he really is getting too frail to handle something big like that.

[Enough About Palin]

Here's the offending part of Obama's speech.

Now, it's true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods, all are now more frequent and more intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science and act before it's too late.

And here's Marc Morano's unanswerable point by point rebuttal.

Obama's war on climate change is a war against a chimera. He is enlarging the state, holding back the economic recovery, restricting freedoms, driving up the price of energy and killing jobs in order to deal with a problem which only exists in the discredited computer projections of a shameless cabal of grant-troughing activist scientists increasingly out of touch with real world data.

So why, outside the internet, has no one called him on it

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/n.....re-doomed/

[NeonCat]

Only racists, wreckers, and racist wreckers would.

Who are you going to believe, him, or the facts?

[C. Anacreon]

So I have been in arguments with my two most liberal friends the past week about this. Both continually go back to "there are thousands of peer reviewed scholarly articles that support AGW, as does 98% of the scientific community -- so when are you going to realize the truth?"

I respond about scientific method, Feynman, skepticism, but would like some more ammo. Ideas?

[NeonCat]

Did you see the article earlier this week on Reason about geoscientists and engineers who don't necessarily believe in AGW?

That would be a good place to start.

[C. Anacreon]

Was it "A Reverse Climategate for "Deniers"?" I'm not finding another article, maybe I'm missing the one you mean.

[Longtorso]

Global Warming Consensus Looking More Like A Myth
Environment: The global warming alarmists repeat the line endlessly. They claim that there is a consensus among scientists that man is causing climate change. Fact is, they're not even close.

Yes, many climate scientists believe that emissions of greenhouse gases are heating the earth. Of course there are some who don't.

But when confining the question to geoscientists and engineers, it turns out that only 36% believe that human activities are causing Earth's climate to warm....

[Brandon]

90% of sociologists believe in global warming, and consider themselves scientists.

[Marshall Gill]

Only 90%?

[C. Anacreon]

Ooh, this article rocks! Thanks!! I'm sending it to my whiny friends right now.

[Apatheist ?_??]

They are lying about the consensus in both the literature and the scientific community. They aren't going to believe you though so I wouldn't bother. I believe the 98% number included pretty much any professor who wanted to answer whether they knew jack shit about it or not.

[NeonCat]

Are you suggesting that the opinion of PhD in English Lit (for instance) about AGW could be incorrect?

[Killazontherun]

There is a 98% chance that the opinion of a PhD in English on anything will be incorrect. That percentage goes sharply up when the opinion is on the subject of English Lit.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

If we didn't have climatologists to measure it, we wouldn't have noticed at all.

I think this sums up the Climate Change industry in a nutshell.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

No link handy, but read today that the 7th Circuit denied an en bank re-hearing of the IL carry case. We will get carry in IL!

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

En banc. Fuck my autocorrect.

[NeonCat]

Writing spell checks that banc can't cash?

[Enough About Palin]

Link

[Virginian]

The best part about it? If the legislature doesn't pass a shall issue law, they default to constitutional carry, just like VT, AK, AZ, and I think WY.

If the state house GOP has any balls, they'll stonewall and let people carry without a permit. Then we get to watch the Chicago crime rate decline rather quickly.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I know. I'm pretty psyched, tbh.

[Episiarch]

Your new handle is appropriate.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I found a middle ground that I thought could work for both myself and SF.

[Episiarch]

Never kowtow to NutraSweet, he'll never stop with his demands.

[Anonymous Coward]

I got your back, nicole.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/sto.....id=9002745

"Sporting events, farmers markets, street fairs, there are so many places that people gather. We want to make sure that people can't carry at those," Colleen Daley, Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said.

Thanks for calling everyone a potential murderer, Colleen. We love you, too.

"Are you going to deny a single black woman in Englewood the same rights as someone downstate?" Dr. Paula Bradich, 2nd Amendment Sisters, said.

Yes, they are. You don't need a weapon. You have the police to protect you. And they do such a good job.

[Thane of Whiterun]

So, with the disclaimer that Psychology Today is full of shit, this missed connections map is pretty funny.

[jesse.in.mb]

That thing is awesome. Walmart and McDonald's as options makes me sad.

[Warty]

OHIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I love my home state so much. Can't wait to leave.

[C. Anacreon]

Surprised that my gym 24hr Fitness is such a hotspot for CA

[lap83]

My favorite: "at home"

lots of lonely door to door salesmen or lovelorn burglars?

[jesse.in.mb]

Pizza boys and plumbers...bow chica bow wow

[Brett L]

You'd think that would be Arkansas and Kentucky. Maybe, "Family Reunion".

[Brandon]

Gas Stations? WTF, Colorado?

[Ice Nine]

According to Titan CEO Maurice Taylor France may have "beautiful women and fantastic wine,"
Fixed it. Where in hell does that idea come from?

[Virginian]

http://www.wallpapergate.com/d.....ee_009.jpg

[Apatheist ?_??]

She's Corsican.

[Virginian]

France is to Corsica as USA is to Puerto Rico.

[Gladstone]

Except for Napoleon.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Yeah... that's why it's cheating to use her as an example.

[Virginian]

I'll use her any way I damn well please!

[Bam!]

Melissa Theuriau

[Episiarch]

Uh...Eva Green?

[Trespassers W]

Checkmate.

[Killazontherun]

Interface on that page crashed my browser settings.

When I link to hot chicks, I like to take out all the frills. For example, I link to WWTDDdotcom a lot. If the dumb Cajun fuck who runs the site has nothing particularly funny to say, I bypass his link and go straight to the page he is hosting it on.

This:

http://cdn.wwtdd.com/wp-conten.....lcandy.gif

Instead of this:

http://www.wwtdd.com/2013/02/k.....od-dancer/

And, no that fatty does little for me. Everything else he had except Lohan pics for the past two weeks looked much worse, or were the under aged daughter of stars with no choice about her fame.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Kate Upton is fat? come on man

[Killazontherun]

She could stand to skip a meal or two.

[Killazontherun]

And really, it's more about her just being out of her teens. I don't like the baby fat in young women, it makes them appear too young.

[Episiarch]

Are you retarded?

[Ice Nine]

Actually, no. I of course didn't mean that France has no beautiful women. I was just commenting on the not uncommon notion that French women are more beautiful than the average. They are not. I've spent a lot of time there; it simply is not true. We talk about this every time we go to France.

[NeonCat]

http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Deneuve, Catherine/Annex/Annex - Deneuve, Catherine_04.jpg

[NeonCat]

Argh. How does the damn link work for Google but you can't copy and paste it?

[jesse.in.mb]

Reason interprets the percenttwenty in the filename as html for a space.

[Ice Nine]

One of the most beautiful women ever.

[A Serious Man]

Eva Green?

[Episiarch]

LINKPWN'D

[rts]

The Department Of Homeland Security Stole My Boat Today

What struck me the most about the situation is how excited she got about seizing the boat. Like she was just itching for something like this to happen. This was a very happy day for her.

[Bam!]

After reading that, I had the following conclusion: Who the hell would be dumb enough to buy TechCrunch for enough money that the founder would have enough left over, after taxes, to buy a boat?

[rts]

Buy a boat and hire a lawyer.

[Virginian]

Apparently he got 30 million for the site....from AOL.

A sucker born every minute.

[Bam!]

Okay, new question: How the hell does AOL have $30 million?

[itsnotmeitsyou]

New new question. WHY the hell is AOL even still around?

[Andrew S.]

AOL has a ton of cash in the bank. Over a billion, IIRC.

Do you realize how many people still use AOL dialup? Or at least how many people don't pay attention to their credit card bills and don't realize their old subscriptions never ended.

[Thane of Whiterun]

The same company that would buy HuffPo for $315 million?

[A Serious Man]

Salon attempts to proscribe mental pathology to Republicans by citing a study that suggests Republicans think with a less mature portion of their brain.

[NeonCat]

The progressive faith requires believing that if you believe differently you must be evil, stupid or insane.

[Episiarch]

Plus they just love, love, love using junk "science" to reinforce their groupthink.

[C. Anacreon]

There seems to be a very poorly designed "study" every month now that shows some brain or psychological superiority for liberals over conservatives.

How about a study to look at why someone needs to do research to justify their belief in their self-perceived superior political views? Is this a remnant of the self-esteem movement?

[Episiarch]

We don't need a study to tell us they're retarded. That "science" is certainly settled.

[gaijin]

I wonder if this is what O had in mind when he called for more 'brain research' in his state of the union address?

[lap83]

My favorite counterpoint to the "liberals are superior" research is one academic study which involved participants of varying political stripes having to guess the most likely answers from those with opposing viewpoints. They found that conservatives and moderates were great at guessing what liberals would answer, while liberals consistently sucked at guessing conservative answers.

Of course, any non-liberal when seeing that research would say "Yeah, I've known that liberals are that clueless for years" whereas a liberal brain, upon viewing that study, would probably explode or invent some outlandish conspiracy theory like the University professors were funded by Faux news.

[Brandon]

Link?

[lap83]

http://faculty.virginia.edu/ha.....pub601.pdf

[Virginian]

I saw that one too. It's one of those classic things that shows off the default cultural/political stance is soft leftwing....with the actual policies of the soft left trending more and more left. Leftists often (not always, but often) have never been exposed to conservative ideas. They've read Zinn's History of the United States, but never Paul Johnson's History of the United States. Conservatives, often, have read both.

[lap83]

Exactly. Most conservatives have at least entertained liberal ideas, if not gone through full-on liberal phases in youth. For me personally, my experience with liberalism in high school and my early 20s is largely what drove me away from it. I really sincerely tried to be a liberal for many years. They are good at demonizing anyone who doesn't fall in line. But eventually I grew a spine and realized there is no logic to the ideology and their morality is an illusion.

[Coeus]

whereas a liberal brain, upon viewing that study, would probably explode or invent some outlandish conspiracy theory like the University professors were funded by Faux news.

From what I've seen on fark, the most common response is "of course they can guess what we think. We're logical. The only reason it's difficult to determine what conservatives are thinking is because they're evil and crazy".

[lap83]

That is adorable.

[NeonCat]

It proves that they're not just emotionally driven, they gots SCIENCE.

[Ice Nine]

Why would Salon want to prohibit Republican mental pathology?

[A Serious Man]

Bleh, malapropism. I guess I meant project?

[Ice Nine]

You meant "ascribe'. I knew what you meant. Sorry, didn't mean to be a dick; just having a little fun with it.

[A Serious Man]

Nah, it's cool. I'd feel stupid if I kept using the wrong word.

[Longtorso]

Slashdot: Is "Left" Vs. "Right" Hard-coded Into Your Brain?

[Enyap]

From the Comments

SmallFurryCreature

"A thing to remember is that for instance the French LOVE big government, to them it means the system is working. Which it more or less is. The Germans KNOW what to much freedom can lead to, they know that some censorship is a price to pay for being the most evil country on the face of the earth, starting WW3 would not be appreciated by the world and so they ban certain books and parties. And it works so well that when they copied from the BBC the idea of Germany's greatest German they were so not worried about their citizens they excluded Hitler from the nominees... who could ONLY be included in the first place because they allowed Austrians in the list of greatest Germans... some people never learn."

[Killazontherun]

It's true; people love the crack.

[Virginian]

A thing to remember is that for instance the French LOVE big government, to them it means the system is working. Which it more or less is.

I think their economy grew by .01% last quarter. Which is entirely accounted for by government spending. Yeah, that system is really kicking ass.

[Enyap]

I was thinking more about this

"The Germans KNOW what to much freedom can lead to"

[Virginian]

Oh yeah the whole comment is derptastic. So much so that I wonder if it wasn't someone trolling.

[Brett L]

Never. I mean never, read the comments at /. Worse than a lovechild of Jezebel and NYT.

[Thane of Whiterun]

Some comments on the study after skimming it:

- They started with one set of smallish (5mm radius) ROIs, found no results, so used broader ROIs and then got results. This is undesirable but really a matter of course. It is not clear what if any statistical corrections they made to account for the multiple comparisons.*

- The sample is 60 Democrats and only 22 Republicans.

- They used two different scanners, of different strengths (3T and 1.5T). This is not a huge deal and there is no particular reason that comes to mind that it would cause them to find an effect where none exists, but it's still worth noting.

- The party affiliations are based on 2008 San Diego County voter registrations, which appear to be what they used to find the subjects. For an experiment comparing based on party rather than ideology, I wonder what effect using "San Diego Democrats/Republicans" might have on the results.

- The groups' ages differed: "Democratic mean age = 22.12 (SD 6.84); Republican mean age = 28.09 (SD 11.35)", though it was entered as a covariate.

* Note I am just talking about a correction for this specific circumstance, not about the multiple comparison correction across voxels. I assume that was taken care of by AFNI, though I'm not all that familiar with it (I use SPM).

[Thane of Whiterun]

Continued:

* The gambling task they used (a) is monetary, and it's not clear how well that would apply to the kind of risks relevant to politics and (b) is a bit oddball -- there's nothing particularly bad about it AFAICT but I usually read of tasks set up differently in other studies. It could just be that I haven't seen enough.

* The primary issue, as with most pop-press reports on neuroimaging studies -- especially but not limited to political ones -- is that the study doesn't really say much.

Here's what the abstract says: "These results suggest that liberals and conservatives engage different cognitive processes when they think about risk, and they support recent evidence that conservatives show greater sensitivity to threatening stimuli."

Nothing crazy. This type of reverse difference (taking a neuroanatomical result and mapping it to a behavioral trait/process, rather than the other way around) is dangerous and the authors of the study know that. You can't make any strong claims based on one or two or even a handful of such studies.

[rts]

Quebec cops get paid vacation

Vadeboncoeur's defence lawyer Ren? Duval says he has practised law in every province in Canada and does not know of any other case where video footage shows police repeatedly hitting an individual without provocation.

[Ice Nine]

Oh can we ever help you out with that!

[rts]

OK for police to search cellphone if no password, says court

Ontario's highest court has signalled that the right of police officers to look through someone's phone depends on whether there's a password.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario says it's all right for police to have a cursory look through the phone upon arrest if it's not password protected, but if it is, investigators should get a search warrant.

[Auric Demonocles]

So they can look through your house as long as you didn't lock the door?

[NeonCat]

It's Canada, so they get to use infrared cameras to look through the whole damn house.

Thank you, US Supreme Court, for at least deciding that one in favor of liberty.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

yea, people can grumble about our search and seizure law, but ours is better than canada's.

also, canada is set almost exclusively at the federal level, whereas in the US, many states offer substantially more privacy protection than the federal standard - states like HI and WA.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Does that keep the feds from using their lower standards in those states?

[Dunphy (the real one)]

no, unfortunately. feds are only restrained by the federal standard, assuming they are charging into federal court.

of course a LOT of crimes that are crimes at the local level are not crimes at the federal level - like most homicides, for instance. however with creeping federal commerce clause bullshit, that is less true than it was

often, local cops work on "task forces" with both federal officers and officers from other agencies. they get sworn in as special special agents, so to speak.

in those cases, they can choose , if a federal crime has been committed to engage the federal standard.

for example, in my state, we can't search garbage at the curb, we can't use airplanes for overhead surveillance of pretty much any improved property (looking for a grow, for instance) and are much more restricted in use of infrared etc.

local officers making a federal case and working on a federal task force are not thus restrained.

[New West Republic]

What about things like searching cars at traffic stops where there are no drugs or guns visible through the driver's window? Or mandatory breath tests at Christmas when you're not smelling of booze and say you haven't been drinking? Stop and frisk of people out walking? Driving while Mexican?

You know, things that happen as people go about their daily business.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

im not sure im getting your question. WA is one of the few states that does not allow "search incident to arrest" of a motor vehicle (due to our constitution's right to privacy).

the only MANDATORY breath test we have is if you are involved in a collision and cause 'serious' bodily injury to another party (broken bones, etc.).

or via warrant.

stop and frisk etc. require RS. do some cops sometimes violate that standard? of course. but it is the standard.

[New West Republic]

I was just curious, really, and Canadian. Some of the things I mentioned are quite common in some states, and rare in the part of Canada where I live.

My point was mainly that some S/S laws or practices are better in the US (depending on where) and some are better in Canada. And I don't really give a rat's ass about some airplane looking for excess heat coming out of my house, since I'm not growing tho pot should be legal.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

yea, that;'s exactly it. i know a LITTLE bit about canada search and seizure law, but just a wee bit. i don't know anything about their miranda equivalent, but my understanding is they have a similar concept/procedure?

[New West Republic]

Yeah, it's pretty similar. Basically: you have a right to know what you're being charged with. You have a right to retain and instruct counsel (not at govt expense, although there's legal aid). And whatever you tell police will be used against you in court.

I've never been arrested or criminally charged, but I imagine results vary. The biggest difference is probably that improperly obtained evidence isn't necessarily excluded in Canadian proceedings.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

yea, we are pretty unique with our automatic exclusionary rule. england similar to canada does not AUTOMATICALLY exclude.

i wonder if canadian police agencies allow ridea-longs. i think it would be pretty cool to do one in vancouver, next time i'm up there. be nice to learn from them, since i'm sure some of the way they do stuff is very different, although i bet it is more similar than different - people are people and the job is all about people.

[Generic Stranger]

I read that as horse, and had a brief mental image of a Mountie with his hand jammed up Sarah Jessica Parker some poor horse's ass.

[Mickey Rat]

Oddly enough, those arbitrary imaginary lines called "borders" do have meaning. Who knew?

[Auric Demonocles]

See you guys all in 3 weeks. Don't scare away all the womenfolk with your sexism, mansplaining, and Star Trek talk.

[A Serious Man]

The Nu Project, an attempt to show what 'real' female bodies look like naked.

What's funny is that the project director notes that she's frustrated that only fair-skinned, attractive women seem to want to actually pose nude (as the photos show).

[NeonCat]

Maybe she should buy the rest some drinks first?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Yes, no, yes, yes, maybe, no, in dim light.

[A Serious Man]

Reminiscent of the legendary Madeline Khan.

[New West Republic]

The last two are the same woman.

[T]

Because there's a shortage of naked women of all shapes and sizes on the internet. It's so hard to find an example of every body type known to woman, from morbidly obese to concentration camp skinny, in every color of the rainbow.

Dumb bitch needs to go to voyeurweb, for starters. I'm sure they'll help you out.

[Killazontherun]

Hmm, Rosario Dawson ranks high in my cyberstalking, but to fair to the opinionator there, she is of light pigmentation in spite of her sweet ass Afro-Cuban looks.

[Longtorso]

Comcast yanks a Houston-area gun shop's machine gun commercials off the air

[Eduard van Haalen]

"A parent with a daughter attending Branford High School complained to the local school board that the pro-life club at the school "is a club that gets its directive from an extreme base of hate and intolerance. Their tactics of killing doctors, assaulting women, blowing up clinics is terroristic in nature and a total disregard for law and woman at large."...

" "A club that is so clearly divisive should not be permitted in the public school system. In the very least it is a topical club that is alienating. It is not a club of supported diversity," she said. "It is a distraction from what our children are really there for: an education."

""Don't let hate groups infiltrate our educational system," the woman concluded."

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ne.....p-directed

[Virginian]

Wow a high school club is killing doctors, assaulting women, and blowing up clinics?

I would have thought there would be more in the news about this.

[Episiarch]

Megan: Hey, you're really hardcore, aren't you?

Mac: Oh, well, you know. I mean, if you really wanna see hardcore... (hands her a piece of paper)

Megan: What's this?

Mac: That's the list of doctors I'm gonna kill.

Megan: There's two already crossed out.

Mac: Yeah, I know.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I'm going way out on a limb and guessing that this high school club hasn't been assassinating any abortionists.

[Eduard van Haalen]

And correct me if I'm wrong, but your quote is from a sit-com where the "Mac" character only *pretends* to be a prolifer in order to get chicks. Have I missed something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wahhhh! Those mean kids are saying things I don't like! Make them stop!

[Dunphy (the real one)]

note: shooting up heroin in the subway (sandwich store) parking lot in full view of all and sundry as they go about their mundane chores is really fucking stupid.

[Coeus]

This is how Jezzies get their political information.

Not surprising.

[Warty]

Those comments were painful.

[Coeus]

Yup.

telepresence 1 of 3 replies @j_gardner an hour ago
The cuts are terrible because they disproportionately affect vulnerable populations: Children, the homeless, the poor. They also damage our emergency responders, our education system, and our ability to fund basic science research, all because of Republican's refusal to actually govern for the good of the country instead of being obstructionist n order to hurt Obama/please rich people/adhere to their irrational, cultlike hatred of increasing tax revenue.

[Gladstone]

So where is the left that libertarians can recruit? The "Republicans are evil tax cutters, spending cutters and deregulators" crowd doesn't exactly strike me as a group that will be easily converted. Certainly no amount of pro-gay, pro-immigration, pro-pot attitudes can overcome the fact that they love the state.

[Brandon]

It actually gets worse:

cepalg Reply
...uh, buddy
setting to side the mere factual issues with your argument, the manufactured anecdote on which you base your whole point is kinda missing any conclusion where it turns out the mayor was either lying or telling the truth

without that it looks like you're just cheering for the suffering of other people because they are paid by the government

not that I believe for a second that's not what you're doing, mind, but the illusion of not shrieking in orgasmic joy at the thought of the Other's pain is generally considered worth preserving even among your empathically challenged brotherhood.

[Virginian]

Wow. You know, it's basic philosophy, I forget which of the three big Greeks, but either Plato, Aristotle, or Socrates said, paraphrasing, that no one intentionally sets out to do evil. That everyone, no matter what they do, thinks they work to the good. Which is why intentions don't matter, because everyone has good intentions. There has to be another standard when evaluating the morality of action.

But these people...."everyone who disagrees with me is a mustache twirling racist defender of rape culture!" They seem to genuinely believe that.

[Joe M]

I do love Upton's final option, "There's always the direct seizure by the proletariat of the means of production." Pretty much gives away the game there, doesn't it?

[Coeus]

Their rationalization knows no bounds.

Men Are More Likely to Drop Out of College Than Women, Because They Can Afford It

Precisely because young men still benefit from an enduring wage gap, they are apparently more likely to deceive themselves into imagining that a college education may not be worth the price. Time to think long term, guys, and borrow more.

So, apparently the way to get more men into college is to pay them less. Genius.

[Apatheist ?_??]

That's a nice little feedback loop they've built themselves.

[Anonymous Coward]

Men who drop out face no financial penalty in their entry-level salaries.

In what field(s)? I'm pretty sure you don't enjoy any male privilege working at McDonald's.

Women, on the other hand, are financially penalized for dropping out right away, earning an average of $6,500 less in their starting salaries than women college grads," the study notes.

Penalized by whom? And again, in what field(s)? Is this study conducted among salaried employees only?

I'm ready to ring the "methodology error" bell.

[SIV]

I've talked to countless women who believe every woman in every job is earning that .$79 for every dollar a man makes. No accounting for different jobs, different hours,commission-based compensation or any of that. She, personally is earning $.79 and out there is some Man getting a buck for doing the exact same thing. Liberal, conservative, grad degrees, they ALL fucking believe it.

[Anonymous Coward]

A lie told often enough becomes truth.

Looks like Lenin was right.

[C. Anacreon]

Even my damned wife is "certain" that men in equivalent positions in her company are getting paid more than she is. She won't listen to the argument "then why don't they fire them and hire more women like you to take their place? They'll save 21% of their labor costs!" It's just men get paid more, and it sucks, and some day it won't be like that anymore.

[Mickey Rat]

A few years back, my step sister was telling me that her company was hiring a guy to work in the group she supervised. She was very agitated that he was going to be paid more than she was and that had to be because he was a man. When I asked her what his function in the company was going to be, she said that he was an expert on some obscure software the company wanted to use. Software my step sister had absolutely no experience with, but she insisted he would be paid more simply because he was a man.

[Thane of Whiterun]

uhoh, the first two authors on the study (out of three) are at The OSU. Don't tell sloop.

[Thane of Whiterun]

Interesting that Jez didn't see the need to mention

we examine these new realities by studying
gender differences in the role of debt in the pivotal event of graduating from college using
the 1997 cohort of the national longitudinal Survey of youth.

emphasis mine

[Thane of Whiterun]

One thing the study keeps harping on is that women have fewer opportunities for less pay in the low-skill job market. This actually rings true to me, but not because of some grand injustice -- a lot of the more highly paid low-skill jobs are risky and/or physically demanding, and hence typically more suited for men or viewed as such.

[Coeus]

They just keep kicking that pendulum using old stats. The old social contract is almost gone (which I'm fine with, but which they only claim to be, as they fight removal of protectionism and privilege every time it comes up).

And then they want to get rid of guns, which is the only way most women can play the violence game on an equal footing. Get rid of guns and the social contract, and things are gonna get really difficult for women. Especially those in the lower socio-economic clases.

[Tonio]

OK, it's longitudinal study; one done over a period of time of the same group of people. A cohort is all people born in the same year, so 1997 is the year of birth of all members of the pool of subjects.

IOW, you know jack shit about social science research methodology.

[Thane of Whiterun]

IOW, I was reading hastily and missed "cohort".

My mistake.

Now chill the fuck out.

[Thane of Whiterun]

Acutally, fuck that. While yes, I misread and skipped cohort, born in 1997 would mean 16 at oldest.

The NLSY97 is an annually administered survey funded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that consists of two subsamples of young adults born between 1980 and 1984; the first subsample is a nationally representative sample of 6,748 young adults and the second subsample oversamples 2,236 Hispanic and Black individuals. The first year of data collection for this NLSY cohort was 1996, and the latest round of data available for our analysis was collected in 2010-2011. At the time of the latest available data, the young adults in our sample range in age from 25 to 31 years old, with a mean of 28 years. The NLSY97 is an optimal data set for our study because it has rich financial data on the cohort of young people who became adults following the democratization of credit in the 1990s.

[Brandon]

But the comments:

painterchick220 yesterday
Wait, better plan. The government significantly cuts the military budget (by at least half). We double the national minimum wage, halve the price of college tuition, and provide more grants to more people instead of loans. We spend more money on primary and secondary education so kids are prepared to go to school. And we change the school system to account for people with different learning styles, make college have more hands-on and visual components so that people actually enjoy learning. Men are statistically more likely to have ADHD and dyslexia as well as many other learning disorders (I think due to only having one X chromosome, not due to any gender/social issue, but I'd have to do more research to make absolutely sure of this), so they often have a harder time with traditional education. Then everyone learns more, everyone makes more money, and everyone goes to college and actually likes it.

Everyone goes to college! And everyone likes it! It's so simple!! All we have to do is throw more money at it!!! I wonder why no one has thought of this before?

[Apatheist ?_??]

I wonder if she would admit that the lack of a Y chromosome might make a positive difference just like a lack of a second X chromosome does.

[Coeus]

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Now I know you're not going to believe it, but Krugman is lying about austerity. Shocking, I know.

A primer for those not in the know.

[Coeus]

An even better resource.

[Marshall Gill]

The continued fable that money is in limited supply and must be miserly partitioned lest we turn into Weimar Germany/ Zimbabwe is actively harmful to progressive ideals.

Ok, fucker, you owe me for that. I already pine for the destruction of most of the human race, you had to go and link to an article in which the comments cemented that belief?

[Brandon]

WTF? He has a chart where on of the axes is "Austerity." Apparently austerity is something that is measured on a 0-12 scale. And Greece is 12 austerities. Good lord, he is completely unhinged.

[Brandon]

And now, the most long-winded Godwinning ever:

SteveHalifax
FLAG
For those people who do not know the history of Europe from the start of the WWI in 1912 until the End of WWII in 1945 .. they should look at it 'all'. And by 'all' ... I do not mean the Military History alone ... but the economic history of those 33 years as it related to the commencement of WWII in 1939.

They will be shocked to know the striking similarities of the advance of austerity policies by the wealthy elite at that time .. to the austerity policies of today.

Born in 1960 if I subtracted my 53 years - back to 1907 - to give us a sense of how fast time passes: people would do well to remember that approximately 60 Million people died in Europe in the 6 years of WWII.

For many readers those years were in the lifetime of your parents.
If people do NOT think it can happen again - They are dreaming in Technicolor. Not only can it happen - it did happen.

Austerity programs have led and can lead too social unrest the likes of which you and I have not seen. Ask any relative who grew up in Europe in the thirties .. the thought was that cooler heads would prevail and the wealthy would have too much to lose if a War actually started.

A war did start ... leading too social unrest the likes of which Europeans had never seen before.

Watch!

[Virginian]

That's right people, Hitler, of the National Socialist German Worker's Party, was an austerity loving man of the right.

We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions. --Adolf Hitler

[Gladstone]

I don't think the implication is that Hitler was a fan of "austerity" but that Weimar Germany was destroyed in part because of the unpopularity of the "austerity" measures designed to deal with the Depression and the inability of the democratic parties to deal with the Depression.

[Coeus]

Jesus, check out the comments on this coulter article that mentions libertatians.

A sample:

ramparts
FRIDAY, FEB 22, 2013 10:53 AM CST
How many libertarians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Answer: It takes one to hold the bulb and wait for the world to revolve around him (I've never met a female libertarian, they're always geeky young guys on their way to a Star Trek Convention).

tinwoman
FRIDAY, FEB 22, 2013 02:40 PM CST
There's like one woman for every twenty men in the crowd. It's clear that lack of empathy, being the selling point of Libertarianism, is not a winning way to get women on board.

Basically this is the politics of men who want prostitution to be legal because they prefer to buy a relationship with an inferior rather than work on one with an equal.

[MJGreen]

The world doesn't revolve around you, you dirty libertarian! Now give me your money so I can go to grad school!

[The Sherriff of Fistingham?]

"The world doesn't revolve around you, you dirty libertarian! Now give me your money so I can go to grad school!"

+1

Add to this:
"Basically this is the politics of men who want prostitution to be legal because they prefer to buy a relationship with an inferior rather than work on one with an equal."

Sandra Fluke sez "Pay me to keep having sex with...not you...or maybe you...whatever, because my birth controlreproductive rights are your responsibility..pay up fuckers!"

Paying to have sex = inferior whore
Paying for others to have sex = social responsibility

Their thought process is truly something to behold.

[YandMand]

OK wow so who comes up with all that crazy stuff.

http://www.GoAnon.da.bz

[Hyperion]

I commented on this yesterday, NR to the thread it was in.

Pot will be legal in MD when pigs fly, when it is legal in at least 40 other states, or when the Feds finally cave and it is legal nationally.

The bill proposed in MD is not going anywhere.