U.S. Gets Censor-y on Public Records, Soda Ban Blocked, Veterans Screwed: P.M. Links

• 

  National Archives

  Citing "national security," the federal government is growing increasingly censor-y. Last year, it completely rejected more than one-third of freedom of information requests, and partially redacted others.

• Describing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on large sodas as "arbitrary and capricious," a state judge permanently enjoined the law's enforcement. That same "arbitrary and capricious" standard would seem to be a nice starting point for gutting most laws …
• The United Nations announced that the armistice halting the Korean War is still in place, no matter what North Korea, a party to that war, says. Ummm … Logically, that would seem— Never mind. It's the U.N.
• Afghanistan's President Karzai accused the United States of having a shared interest with the Taliban in destabilizing his country. We're still there because …?
• Donald Trump found a way back into the headlines by offering to personally fund White House tours. No word on whether he gets to hang a portrait of himself on the wall as a condition.
• You know who wanted a total ban on handguns? Richard Nixon. Which is, obviously, an endorsement of the policy.
• Veterans of America's various and sundry military conflicts are having a hell of a time getting their benefits, and face long waits that can stretch to well over a year, with the situation getting worse.

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Comments

[Virginian]

First

[Virginian]

Fuck you Fist! Fuck you! Your throne is mine!

[Archduke Pantsfan]

You have to make a joke about one of the links for it to count.
/RULES IS RULES

[Fist of Etiquette]

I could forgive breaking that rule, but no punctuation? Come on.

[Tonio]

Now, now, Vag, the only thing worse than a sore loser is an ungracious winner.

[Virginian]

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my giant throbbing erection.

[Mickey Rat]

Whom the gods destroy...

[sydneyrechard]

Charlotte. if you think Clara`s postlng is unimaginable... last monday I bought a top of the range Toyota since getting a cheque for $4588 this-past/5 weeks and-a little over, ten thousand last-munth. this is actually the most rewarding Ive ever done. I started this three months/ago and almost straight away began to bring home minimum $84... per-hour. I follow the details here,
http://jump30.com

[Richard Caverly]

what Rebecca responded I'm surprised that some people able to make $4929 in one month on the computer. have you seen this web site... http://www.youtube.com.qr.net/kdnc

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Sorry Richard, too little too late. I got an offer for $7920 a month from the anonbot on the other thread. You wants the talent you gots to pay.

[sloopyinca]

Show Dick some respect!

[Zeb]

Is that what they call it nowadays.

[sloopyinca]

It's what John Bender would have said.

[C. Anacreon]

"I'm not putting anything into that hole," said Dick, caverly.

[Enough About Palin]

"I'm surprised that some people able to make $4929 in one month on the computer."

That's not really all that much. I make more than that just reading HyR all day.

[Bobarian]

You must be employed by the Federal Government...

[Jerryskids]

He said HyR. That's Mexican for H&R.

He makes a fortune being an anchor baby and collecting welfare checks and committing voter fraud, obviously.

[R C Dean]

The Kochtopus pays well. Very well.

Bwahahaha!

[Rich]

Nice, EAP! *I* can't top $3K unless there's a day with especially long threads. 8-(

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Look, Richard, I think you are being played by Rebecca. Seriously. I don't know what your relationship to Rebecca is, but I'm pretty sure she made that money doing German scheisse videos. Hate to break it to you, but here is a link to her "work".

http://bit.ly/4kb77v

[Atanarjuat]

I'm not even hovering my mouse over that link. Ew.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Describing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on large sodas as "arbitrary and capricious," a state judge permanently enjoined the law's enforcement.

Anyone want to maybe look into stop and frisk while they're at it?

[Archduke Pantsfan]

HAHAHA

[Fist of Etiquette]

You know who wanted a total ban on handguns?

Hitl- Oh, Nixon. Well, only he could go to China.

[A Serious Man]

I'm told that's an old Vulcan proverb.

[Pro Libertate]

With two pistols. And he defeated hundreds of millions of Chinese, freeing Taiwan and the Dalai Lama as well.

[Killazontherun]

Sure Nixon, arm the Khmer Rouge with firearms (and he did when they were part of a coalition against North Vietnam), but oppose red blooded Americans from having them. Alger Hiss should have been trying you.

[A Serious Man]

Donald Trump found a way back into the headlines by offering to personally fund White House tours. No word on whether he gets to hang a portrait of himself on the wall as a condition.

That's actually not a bad move from The Donald as far as exposing the bullshit the Obama administration is trying to pull in making the cuts newsworthy.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

I don't get the Donald hate.
He's an entertainer, and he can't affect policy.

[Tonio]

He can very much affect policy by buying media time; what he can't do is make policy as can government.

[Episiarch]

First making Brett Michaels cry, and now this? The Donald's on a roll!

[Hyperion]

You know, the most curious thing about the Donald is, is it really impossible for someone with that much money to do something about their crappy hair?

Don't we have the technology to create better hair for the Donald?

[Archduke Pantsfan]

He asked last night if he should change it and nobody had the courage to say yes.

[Killazontherun]

He looks like Lex Luthor with a bald cap on, so I say go for it Trump!

[Coeus]

You know, the most curious thing about the Donald is, is it really impossible for someone with that much money to do something about their crappy hair?

I honestly don't think he knows. He would discount out of hand anything a critic says, and I get the impression that Donald is the kinda guy who doesn't take friendly criticsm very well. I'm sure his friends/nut-hangers know this.

[R C Dean]

Its part of his brand now.

[Agammamon]

Yeah, its really depressing the rest of us who are losing ours - if a man with that much money can't get it fixed, then what hope is there for me?

And I know he's vain about it - if he didn't care then he wouldn't have the muskrat living on top of his head.

[C. Anacreon]

Propecia. One pill a day really grows your hair back, saves the hair you've got, and keeps you from getting prostate problems as a nice extra!

[Coeus]

Depends on the type of baldness.

[rac3rx]

Don't we have the technology to create better hair for the Donald?

Yes.
See: Elton John

[Aresen]

No word on whether he gets to hang a portrait of himself on the wall as a condition.

How about he just hangs himself?

[NeonCat]

If Donald Trump immolated himself outside the White House he'd definitely make the news that night.

"Trump tries to embarrass the President, contributes to climate change."

[Archduke Pantsfan]

A judge is expected to reveal on Tuesday whether the media and the public will be barred from Luka Magnotta's preliminary hearing.

Magnotta is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jun Lin, a 33-year-old Chinese-born student who was studying engineering at Concordia University in Montreal.

Magnotta is also accused of committing indignities to a human corpse, mailing obscene materials, publishing obscene materials and threatening public officials.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

His lawyers put forward a motion today to keep the preliminary hearing closed to the media and the public.

[Pro Libertate]

Look, Nancy Grace's livelihood depends on these cases being open to the public. Don't oppress her.

[$park?]

So I take it he killed the woman and then made a video of himself fucking her corpse that he then posted on the Internet?

[Archduke Pantsfan]

It was a dude.
He killed his gay lover.

[$park?]

Alrighty then.

[R C Dean]

I think he mutilated the corpse.

Your reflexive attraction to necrophilia is noted, though.

[Chris Mallory]

If you believe the cops, homosexual domestic violence is usually very gruesome.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Magnotta is also accused of committing indignities to a human corpse, mailing obscene materials, publishing obscene materials and threatening public officials.

I can maybe accept the taking of human life, but to mail obscene materials??? Burn him!

[Alack]

This seems awfully similar to your grammar joke from earlier. I'm watching you, FoE.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Are you a narc? You have to tell me if you are. That's the law.

[sloopyinca]

It's Canada, man. The hearing is gonne end up like this anyway.

[A Serious Man]

DNC is reportedly reluctant to endorse Ashley Judd for Senate in Kentucky.

Well gosh, you mean a carpetbagging Hollywood liberal that hates coal won't be a big sell in Kentucky?

[John]

She isn't even that hot anymore.

[Fluffy]

I'd still hit it.

She's the most likely hot chick for Senate unless Florida's attorney general runs.

[Pro Libertate]

If I know Kentucky at all, they won't go for a not-really resident. Not to mention that I doubt her politics align very well with the typical Kentuckian's.

[robc]

She was never going to run for exactly those reasons.

[Hyperion]

Judging by one of their Senators and one of their guys in the HOR, KY could be the most libertarian state in the union.

[robc]

She has exactly as much chance as Nick Clooney had when he ran for congress. He was wasnt a carpet bagger.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Maybe she hopes the low-infos will think she's one of The Judds.

[robc]

Technically...but I think the low-info voters actually know details of country music.

[mad libertarian guy]

She won't even get through the primaries.

[robc]

She is still welcome to attend UK games.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Feminists are really excited about the possibility of a carpet-bagging white Hollywood millionaire getting elected.

In unrelated news, feminism is still an ideology of mostly white, upper class women with very few hindrances in life.

[John]

http://online.wsj.com/article/.....85142.html

Great book review about the essays of Leszek Kolakowski. It includes this gem

Totalitarianism and the Virtue of the Lie," for instance, Kolakowski explained why a society can't survive by basing itself on disinformation. "Even in the best of conditions the massive process of forgery cannot be completed: it requires a large number of forgers who must understand the distinction between what is genuine and what is faked." A simple example is "an officer in a military office of cartography, who must have unfalsified maps at his disposal in order to falsify the maps. . . . The power of words over reality cannot be unlimited since, fortunately, reality imposes its own unalterable conditions." Kolakowski also recalled hearing a guide at the Hermitage in Leningrad dismiss the art of Matisse and C?zanne as bourgeois degeneracy in 1950. In 1957, he heard the same guide praise them as masters. The party's needs had changed, but the guide wasn't stupid?he knew the truth.

[VG Zaytsev]

Someone posted this quote from 1984 which expresses the same point more succinctly

But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version.

[rts]

Rookie mistake leads to [RCMP] cruiser in Nanaimo yard

Witnesses say that around 2 p.m. PT, the constable was chasing two speeding motorcyclists.

He hit the curb, lost control, hit a tree and crashed into a fence.

"He's a junior member and, unfortunately, this is a junior-member error. We've all made those types of errors in our career," Smith said.

Uh, really now?

[John]

Who hasn't lost control of their vehicle and wrapped it around a tree?

[Fist of Etiquette]

And that's one less tree Snidely Whiplash will tie Nell to on the way through the ripsaw.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm surprised Dudley Do-Right was never prime minister.

[Professional Target]

Me. My family. Everybody I know.

[Aresen]

Oh he is, he is.

Have you ever seen Dudley and Steven Harper in the same room at the same time?

[Xenocles]

[raises hand sheepishly]

[Pro Libertate]

What, they aren't all on horseback?

[NeonCat]

They are, the horses are driving the cars. Flatbed trucks, really. The memorials to RCMP officers who have run into bridges is quite moving.

[BlogimiDei]

giggle...

[John]

http://pjmedia.com/blog/witnes.....-to-trial/

Key witness in Treyvon Martin case found to have lied. Question, do they quietly drop this case knowing it is a loser and had served its purpose of getting the Dem base all hyped up over the culture war or do they bring it hoping for an acquittal and a resulting race riot that could be exploited?

[Rich]

Ima say the latter. It'll help in the large.

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on the make-up of the jury.

[Coeus]

A feminist article about why it's so horrible to take your husband's last name.

And ends with this paragraph:

The suggestion that men change their names may sound unfair given everything I just wrote about the value of your name and identity, and the psychological impact of growing up in a world where your own name for yourself is impermanent. But men don't grow up with that sense of psychological impermanence. They don't grow up under the shadow of several thousand years of gender-based discrimination.

It's different because...history. Yeah, that's the ticket. History.

[NeonCat]

Yeah, women should totally stick with their Dad's last name, that's not literally Patriarchal at all.

[Rich]

What's *worse* is that a male probably had, um, input into your determining your *first* name.

[Rich]

your determining

It's the DST.

[Proprietist]

The only solution is for married couples to start selecting completely new surnames. Make sure they don't have "son" in them, because that would be sexist.

[Zeb]

I actually like this idea.

Of course, everyone should just do what they want to. There is certainly no requirement anymore that a woman take her husband's name.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

We should be like the Binars and just bitwise-XOR the surnames.

[VG Zaytsev]

But then what do you do when you get divorced?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Villaraigosa

[Professional Target]

The suggestion that men change their names

I have a friend who did this. A very masculine and strong-headed guy, too.

[R C Dean]

What did he change it to? McManlypecs?

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

O. J. Rifkin.

[Rich]

I have a friend who did this, because his GF refused to marry him unless he did.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Not seeing where he benefits.

[Art Vandelay]

Sounds like a real catch.

[BuSab Agent]

I had a friend whose name was Max Blaszkiewicz . He took his wife's surname: Stone. Now he sounds like an porn star or a super hero secret identity.

[a better weapon]

This. Unless it makes you sound bad ass, I can't think of any reason to do it.

[Mickey Rat]

I knew a guy who did that too, because his own name was Boring.

[rac3rx]

Someone I know did this also. And, he wasn't some Beta male either. I never even knew that he had taken his wife's surname until I attended his funeral. Apparently he was 1 of 4 or 5 siblings and she was an only child (the last of her line), so he decided that he would take her name and that's the name they would pass to their children.

Interesting concept.

[Professional Target]

Same thing with my old friend, except he's living.

[Killazontherun]

Like most else that has come out of feminism in the last thirty years, this doesn't even qualify as a First World Problem. Modrons in Nirvana have more things to be duly anxious about than these idiots.

[Mickey Rat]

"That is fundamentally why I oppose changing your name (and why I look forward to the wider legalization of same-sex marriage, which in addition to just being good and right, will challenge the idea that there are naturally different roles for men and women within the marital unit)."

Hmmm.

[R C Dean]

How does a marital unit that does not include a man and a woman challenge the idea that, when there is, they have different roles?

[Mickey Rat]

I don't know, ask Jill Filipovic. I'm just find it interesting about what her agenda is on that issue.

[Mickey Rat]

"Fortunately, feminists succeeded in shifting the law and the culture of marriage. Today marriages are typically based on love instead of economics."

If the thing that gets touted about how 50% of marriages end in divorce is changing the culture of marriage during that time something to be proud of?

[Mickey Rat]

One of the reasons the family name was carried through the man was a bit of reinforcement that the children actually were the husband's. A woman always knows who her children are, a man has to trust what his wife tells him.

Lastly, Filipovic is not required to take her potential husband's name if she does not want to, nor is any woman legally required to, but most do, for whatever reasons. Yet everyone should change their traditions on this whether they agree with Filipovic so she can feel better about her own neuroses on the subject?

[sloopyinca]

Hey Feminists: Who. Gives. A. Fuck.?

[Tonio]

What about everyone keep their birth name?

Name changes are a major headache for IT depts, particularly for "frequent flyers". Which is no better or worse an argument than anything else, but something nobody considers.

[Coeus]

Name changes are a major headache for IT depts

True. I have to deal with that shit constantly.

[A Serious Man]

Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick convicted of corruption charges.

But don't suggest the Democratic Party and the unions are responsible for the shithole that is Detroit being what it is today.

[T]

Kwame was always great entertainment. Sucked if you lived in Detroit, but hilarious to watch from a safe distance outside.

[NeonCat]

Thinking about the NK situation, I think Rodman is to blame. See, here's KJ Un hanging out, laughing and smiling with an American imperialist, it doesn't look good to the serious Juche crowd, much less the starving populace who may ask why exactly they need to continue to suffer for the war. KJ Un is at least supposed to act like he believes in the ideology, you know?
So I think a lot of the sabre-rattling is KJU trying to show that he is too a proper revolutionary and worthy inheritor of grand-dad's totally-not-a-throne.

[Proprietist]

I have to admit, I enjoy KJU. He just looks like he belongs on an animated propoganda poster, even in photographs. The other dictators just don't look as cool and dictator-y as him.

[Zeb]

I think it should be "Kim JU" not "KJ Un" (you didn't call Rodman "Denis R").

[Tonio]

Kim is the family name.

[Generic Stranger]

Yeah; Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and Japanese put their family name first, and their given name last. Hence Kim Sung-il, Kim Jung-il, Kim Jung-un, etc.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Few presidents in modern times have been as interested in gun control as Richard Nixon, of all people. He proposed ridding the market of Saturday night specials, contemplated banning handguns altogether and refused to pander to gun owners by feigning interest in their weapons.

Support for gun control seems perfectly natural for a statist like Nixon. I guess the author of this piece assumes that Nixon is the epitome of the Republican Party and therefore logically should be for legalizing machine guns for "civilians".

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Nixon == Republican Party == Conservatives

It's the transference property for retards.

[Episiarch]

"I am not a crook's head!"

[BlogimiDei]

Pazuzu!

[Anonymous Coward]

He proposed ridding the market of Saturday night specials

We can't allow poor people (and certainly not poor black people) to be able to afford firearms (which was the point of outlawing the so-called Saturday Night Special firearm).

contemplated banning handguns altogether

As if he could.

and refused to pander to gun owners by feigning interest in their weapons.

I find it amazing that in Democrat mythology, Nixon was the worst president to ever rest his glueteals in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because some of his goons broke into the Watergate hotel. Except when it comes to disarming the populace and closing the gold window. Then he was a model of presidential leadership.

[tarran]

Don't forget his price & wage controls.

[VG Zaytsev]

And creating affirmative action.

And the EPA

And the CWA

And the ESA

[Jerryskids]

Between the wage-and-price controls, going completely off gold and recognizing Red China, wasn't Nixon the father of the Libertarian Party? In the sense of causing it to come into existence, not the intellectual sense.

[Mickey Rat]

That was because the Left hated Nixon for being a staunch anti-communist before Watergate, the fact that there was not much room between Nixon and the Left on every other issue does not seem to register.

[VG Zaytsev]

Well he did lie the US into a war against the Commies in Vietnam.

[Mickey Rat]

You mean Johnson?

[Zeb]

Seems right in character for Nixon. Nixon was paranoid and mean and a massive statist. It's funny that so many imagine him as like a contemporary conservative.

[Jerryskids]

It's funny that so many imagine him as like a contemporary conservative.

Yes, that is both funny/odd and funny/hilarious that some would think of him as the sort of person who would increase taxes and spending, enlarge the welfare state, expand the power of the government, create whole new agencies, etc. You know, the way contemporary conservatives like the Bushes, Dole, Romney, McCain, et al.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Gun Industry Profits Will Not Stop Rape

Zerlina Maxwell has the right's number on this whole push to sell guns by offering them as effective rape prevention: It's a form of rape apology and denialism. As I noted before, it's telling that the organization spearheading the "guns prevent rape" campaign is IWF, an organization that is devoted to rape apology and denialism, including minimizing the number of acquaintance rapes, exaggerating the existence of false accusations,* crying bloody murder every time feminists organize anti-rape initiatives like campus productions of "The Vagina Monologues", and opposing anti-rape legislation like the Violence Against Women Act.

Who knew that terrible plays count as "anti-rape initiatives"?

[John]

It's a form of rape apology and denialism.

So encouraging women to shoot and kill their attackers is "rape apology". See the Kolakowski quote above.

[Alack]

Nah, the "rape apology" isn't the killing of an attacker, it's asserting that violent, anonymous incidents are the only kind of rape. By down-playing types of rape where carrying a gun is not as effective at preventing, you are denying that those other types of rape are rape.

Patriarch.

[robc]

A gun wont prevent date rape?

Sure, a gun wont help if you are passed out drunk, but otherwise, I think it would be useful.

[robc]

I guess a gun also isnt useful if you dont repeal your consent until the next morning.

[Alack]

What about rape founded in emotional extortion, such as saying that "if you really loved me, we would be having sex"? That's rape, RobC. Stop hating women.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Date rape usually takes the form of, er, stealing a base when the rappist is already on base. So it's unlikely the victim will have access to her gun when it happens.

[robc]

So it's unlikely the victim will have access to her gun when it happens.

Maybe you are doing it wrong then.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Barring a bra holster I don't see a way around that problem.

A lot of women carry a gun in their purse, which will be handy if accosted on the street but worthless during a make-out session gone bad.

[robc]

rappist

R Kelly joke?

[John]

Oh yeah. Silly me, I always thought buyers remorse didn't mean the woman hadn't consented at the time.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

This is kind of a sickening viewpoint, John.

Date rape DOES happen and doesn't deserve to be dismissed with a buyer's remorse joke.

[21044]

Buyers remorse DOES happen and doesn't deserve to be dismissed either.

[Virginian]

I am willing to bet almost any amount of money that there is a lot more buyer's remorse then there is date rape.

It's analogous to the way they fold in 19 year olds sleeping with their 17 year old girlfriends "pedophiles". Or the way that gun control groups count teenage gang members shot in turf wars as "children killed by guns".

[Professional Target]

anonymous

Really? You can't shoot "Uncle Fred" when he tries to force your knees open?

[John]

Why would a play no straight man wants to watch prevent rape?

[NeonCat]

Maybe they think that if they make vaginas icky or boring men won't want to put their penises into them?

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

That may create unintended consequences.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

It's funny, I haven't seen a single gun-related ad outside of NRA's magazine (preaching to the choir, methinks) and yet the gazillions of people buying guns are doing so because of a "push" by the industry. Maybe they're inserting subliminal messages into Subway commercials?

[robc]

Pop Tart commercials.

[Bobarian]

That evil shape is built right in the side of the Assault Pastry.

[Mickey Rat]

Is it not bad enough that Pop-Tart commercials are currently about tricking sentient anthropomorphic pastries into getting themselves roasted alive?

[OldMexican]

Re: The Immaculate Trouser,

It's a form of rape apology and denialism.

Just like wearing flame-retardant clothing is the same as NASCAR car-crash apology and denialism.

Or using fall protection is a form of skull-cracking apology and denialism.

[John]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/.....le/2523869

The kochtopus!!

[mad libertarian guy]

The kochtopus!!

That is sooooooooooooo Summer 2012.

[Rich]

[The federal government] fully rejected more than one-third of requests, ... including cases when ... the request was determined to be improper.

"Improper". You mean, like "arbitrary and capricious"?

[Archduke Pantsfan]

Meanwhile, in Russia

A Russian bus driver has risen to international fame as "The Punisher" for YouTube videos that show him slamming his bus into vehicles that cut him off on the road.
...
Volkov said none of his passengers have been hurt when he's run his bus into the backs of other vehicles and management doesn't seem to take issue with his acts of vengeance.

"If there is no fault of mine, the management doesn't care," he said. "The bus usually gets only minor damage. If the damage is more serious, they just wait for the insurance payments and then repair [it]."

[John]

I posted that a few days ago. That guy is awesome. In Russia, bus rides you.

[Pro Libertate]

See? Another example of evil Russian libertarianism!

[Juice]

So the insurance company has never seen the videos? And passengers may not have been hurt, but surely their schedule is now ruined for the day.

[$park?]

Has anyone read Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi? If so, is it any good? If it's not any good, any suggestions on something that might be better in the same vein?

[Enough About Palin]

I have read it and have given copies to family and friends. It is a fascinating book. It may be the best book I have ever read. Polanyi was good friends with Friedrich August Hayek.

[$park?]

Excellent, thanks for the tip. I may pick up The Tacit Dimension too as that looks somewhat interesting as well.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Liz Warren attacks bank corruption in Senate banking committee.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.....hp?ref=fpa

That is your issue, John. Send her a donation if you haven't yet.

[OldMexican]

What does she mean by "bank corruption"?

[John]

She means bankers who haven't given enough money to Obama. They call it crony capitalism and fascism for a reason OM.

[Tonio]

Silly OM, it's when banks accept payment only in hard currency and make payouts only in scrip.

[John]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjL5aAMk1xE

And fauxcohantus knows that the Wall Street owns the President. He was elected to make sure no one went to jail after the 08 collapse. And sure enough not a single person has.

How does it feel to support the President who helped commit and then cover up for the biggest theft of wealth in world history?

[Palin's Buttplug]

You should take that to Daily Kos with the bank griefers there. They say the same lame shit.

[John]

Worst bank collapse since the 1920s and DOJ didn't prosecute a single person. A hundred years from now, that will be Obama's legacy. And you know it Shreek. That is why you won't talk about it and just scream and throw shit like the little pet monkey you are.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Not quite a hundred years yet, but FDR's legacy is a bit divergent from the reality of his deeds. I'm sure history will give BO a B+.

[John]

That is just because they are racists grading on the curve. Most historians are white and don't consider Obama to be a real human being worthy of being held to standards other people are.

And FDR only got a good grade because of WWII. Had WWII not happened, he would have been considered a failure. He second term was so bad Arther Schelsenger never wrote the volume of his FDR biography covering it.

If World War III breaks out and Obama wins it, he will be saved. Short of that, he is getting a D and that three grades above the F- he will deserve.

[Agammamon]

Uh, you know its entirely possible for bankers to make bad decisions that *aren't* illegal.

[Palin's Buttplug]

John is completely ignorant on financial matters.

That said I am not sure what, if anything, he does know.

[Enough About Palin]

Well he knows that you fling your poo.

[Tonio]

I've heard that he also flings poo which is not his own. Nuff said.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Sure, it's possible, but packaging trash mortgages into securities and selling them as AAA-rated should, theoretically at least, warrant prosecutions for fraud under the Securities Act.

I point out to liberals screaming for more government regulation and the return of Glass-Steagall, that an executive branch which won't enforce laws for fraud that are already on the books, won't enforce whatever new banking regulation that gets liberals hard.

[Palin's Buttplug]

The rating agencies put the absurd AAA on those bonds. And they hide behind the First Amendment and their "opinion" as a citizen. The SCOTUS agrees.

So, no fraud. Except in civil court where suits are common.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

The rating agencies put the absurd AAA on those bonds. And they hide behind the First Amendment and their "opinion" as a citizen. The SCOTUS agrees.

Banks selling AAA-rated securities that are, in fact, loaded with trash constitutes fraud.

Just because the Mocha Messiah won't get Holder to prosecute because he doesn't want Dimon pulling his funding doesn't mean that it wasn't illegal.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Bank collapses are not illegal unless you steal from the till, you idiot. Plus, Bush TARPed them about $40 billion each.

Banks fail all the time. I live in Georgia where more fail than anywhere else.

[Alack]

"...if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night"

Doesn't the entire concept of corporate personhood require that this be the case? Otherwise, safety-based product recalls in manufacturing would require jailing people on the assembly line for negligence.

[John]

Yes it does. But corporations are evil and can't be people. Don't bother Lizzie with facts and logic. She is on a roll here.

[Enough About Palin]

Plus she's the SENIOR Senator from Mass.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Corporate personhood does not preclude prosecuting the corporation. Corporations used to frequently get the "death penalty" (ie, forcible dissolution) when they misbehaved, not so much anymore.

Also, doesn't SarbOx make it so that officers can be held criminally liable for fraud?

[robc]

Corporate personhood also doesnt preclude prosecuting the officers, it just makes it harder.

[Alack]

I don't mean that the corporation couldn't be prosecuted or dissolved, only that the corporation itself, and not its employees, bears responsibility for crimes. I'm not that familiar with Sarbanes-Oxley, but I believe that it makes execs responsible for financial reports' accuracy; if the actual books in the lead-up to the bail-outs were accurate, they wouldn't be able to be jailed.

[VG Zaytsev]

I don't mean that the corporation couldn't be prosecuted or dissolved, only that the corporation itself, and not its employees, bears responsibility for crimes.

Wrong.

Incorporation protects the investors that own the corporation. Not the employees that work for it and have committed criminal acts.

[Agammamon]

And coporate officers *can* be held criminally liable for criminal acts committed by corporate employees.

[robc]

Or, you know, they pierce the corporate veil and prosecute anyway. Money laundering sounds like an easy case to make that happen.

[R C Dean]

Doesn't the entire concept of corporate personhood require that this be the case?

No. Corporations can only act through agents, actual, jailable, people.

You can prosecute both. In fact, its done all the time.

[Alack]

Huh. I'd assumed that, for charges of money laundering, only the agents who are directly involved in the activity could be jailed (ie, not the CEOs, unless they could be proven to be party to it).

[robc]

I think you would have to prove the CEO as party to it. Or at least aware of it.

[R C Dean]

Criminal responsibility traditionally requires some level of intent, or at least recklessness (with knowledge).

If the CEO genuinely had no idea, and couldn't really be said to be recklessly ignorant, why would you hold him criminally responsible?

[Tonio]

Social Justice(tm), RC. Also, tha Clasz Worfer. Duh.

[Stormy Dragon]

The United Nations announced that the armistice halting the Korean War is still in place, no matter what North Korea, a party to that war, says. Ummm ... Logically, that would seem? Never mind. It's the U.N.

You could argue it's in place as long as no one has actually started shooting.

[John]

I am frankly surprised to see Reason admit that a truce only holds as long as BOTH sides want it to. The party line is generally that peace can always be achieved if the US just wants it badly enough.

[Calidissident]

Well if the US didn't have troops in South Korea, what North Korea wants doesn't really matter at least as far as the US is concerned

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Not entirely true. In the 90s Korea shot a test missile right off the coast of Alaska.

You are right that it would be less of a problem for the US than it is currently.

[Calidissident]

I think the scenario of a Second Korean War with US troops stationed in the peninsula is a lot more likely than North Korea randomly deciding to fire missiles at Alaska if there weren't any US troops in Korea (or even if there were), which was the only point I was making.

[jesse.in.mb]

The US has already played an outsized role in Korean history. Even if we left (which we should) the Norks would still see us as a prestige target.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Exactly. The Norks would be crazy as hell to start anything on the Korean peninsula or to attack the US at home.

We should still leave, but IMO it would have been smart if we'd maintained SDI so that we'd be closer to a missile defense shield to protect against that kind of insanity (just think: we could have avoided OIF altogether if we'd had an operational missile defense apparatus by 2000).

[Enough About Palin]

I think they should evacuate Seoul. That little bitch would shit his pants.

[Tonio]

^This.

[Chris Mallory]

Until another nation gets a navy that can actually attack the US, I will say we just need to want it badly enough.

[Tonio]

Awww...quaint cold war institution desperately clinging to delusions of relevance and power.

[BlogimiDei]

There is shooting all the time. It just never fully escalates.

[A Serious Man]

'Predictive policing' technology is spreading across the West Coast after being lauded by LAPD as effective.

The Fourth Amendment is old, let's move onto to pre-crime!

[Rich]

A spokesperson from SPD went as far as to say that using the predictive software would help eliminate institutional bias about crimes, who commits them and where

"The *computer* says 'Spread 'em, mofo!'"

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Since I post a fair amount of feminist stupidity, it's only fair that I point out when they have it partly correct:

When political analyst Zerlina Maxwell appeared on Fox's Hannity this week, she suggested that preventing rape in America might have to do less with informing women to get guns/learn self-defense/dress different/drink less/what have you than it does with... teaching men, from a young age, not to rape. Jesus Christmas, how would you ever come to that conclusion?! She's obviously totally sane UTTERLY MAD, I TELL YOU.

The quote:

"The reality is that we need to be changing how we train and teach young men. We need to teach them to see women as human beings and respect their bodily autonomy. We need to teach them about consent and to hold themselves accountable."

The part about guns is idiotic, but IMO there's a deficit in teaching both genders about the morality of consent.

[John]

The part about guns is idiotic, but IMO there's a deficit in teaching both genders about the morality of consent.

That is difficult to do and also follow feminist doctrine that every woman is a special little snowflake who should never be responsible for her actions. Gee, when feminists degrade women in the name tribal privileged, it has an effect on how said women are viewed. Who knew?

[A Serious Man]

Girls in their late teens and early 20s are just as horny and eager to explore their sexuality as guys are. That's just a fact of biology and culture.

That being said, guys need to be mindful that it's just plain sleazy and wrong to take advantage of drunk girls. If she's passed out or barely able to walk don't try it.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

I thought women had their sexual peak many years later.

[Enough About Palin]

Yeah, and it's one hell of a peak. But as a former women's gymnastic coach, college girls are as horny as fuck.

[robc]

That being said, guys need to be mindful that it's just plain sleazy and wrong to take advantage of drunk girls. If she's passed out or barely able to walk don't try it.

While 100% true, as you have worded it, it is incredibly sexist.

[Virginian]

What do they have partly correct? It's the same old bullshit.

[Episiarch]

The reality is that we need to be changing how we train and teach young men

Like one "trains and teaches" dogs? I didn't need to be "trained" to see women as human beings or to understand consent.

[John]

I didn't need to be "trained" to see women as human beings or to understand consent.

Really? I bet if you had grown up in a society where rape was accepted, you would be accepting of rape. You were too trained.

[Episiarch]

Really, John? I know that you would be a murdering rapist if the government wasn't here to control you--you've told us that many times--but I am actually capable of seeing that rape is horrible experience and empathizing that it'snot ok, even if my "society" accepted it. You see, I have actual, internal morals, and they are not governed by the society around me. Fuck, most people in the society around me believe stealing from other people through the government is just fine, yet I don't. I wonder how I was able to do that?

[robc]

Its like when people say that slavery was accepted at the time. That is bullshit, at least in the last 500 years, there hasnt been a time or place when abolitionists didnt exist.

If even one person can see the true morality, then no one else has an excuse.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

No one has an excuse, but that's probably little comfort to the millions of slaves that were trafficked while there was not a general understanding of the fundamental immorality of slavery.

I'd rather stimulate an epiphany regarding consent than wait for it to come, since that might never happen naturally.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

at least in the last 500 years, there hasnt been a time or place when abolitionists didnt exist.

not really true or relevant, particularly with the 500 years disclaimer (human nature is that recent?).

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

So, the vast majority of societies where rape was either common or treated as a mere property dispute between the rapist and the father/brothers of the victim is explained ... how?

Sorry, if something's inherent human nature, either it or taboos against it had damn well better be visible in most human societies.

[Episiarch]

What part of the first person pronoun I used is too hard for you to fucking understand?

Once again, your eagerness to be contrary causes you to be a fool instead. You should think about that.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

So you are one of the select few who have been born with inherent empathy for others?

And I'm supposed to be the one with egotistic delusions of grandeur?

It seems more likely that ALL of us are born with an inherent animalistic nature that seeks reproduction above all else (thx evolution), and the task of civilization is to rein in or redirect that nature. You have largely been civilized (though not to the point where your empathy extends to politicians and judges shot in the head by a madman) and attribute this to some inherent empathic nature, quite convenient for your anarchist beliefs.

[Episiarch]

You are so stupid it's amazing. I was speaking for myself, not implying that I'm the only one who had inherent empathy, you fucking imbecile. I can't speak for anyone else because I'm not them.

You are really trying to reach PEAK RETARD today, aren't you, autistic trollbot.

*BEEP* *WHIR* TULPATRON NOT COMPUTE

[Tonio]

^First para.

[Stormy Dragon]

The problem is that your personality is the end result of the various experiences you've had up until now. You're maybe right that you have empathy, but that's because you grew up in a society that encourages people to develop empathy, not because it's an intrinsic part of the Platonic Episiarch. Had you grown up in a society that punished empathy, you'd be a completely different person than you are now.

[Virginian]

Yeah, look at that guy who was born in an NK prison camp. He ratted out his mother and brother to the guards for some reason or another.

[Libertymike]

Tulpa, speak for yourself as reproduction is not that which I seek beyond all else.

ABOVE ALL, I WANT TO BE THE POPE OF ANARCHY.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

We already have two queens of anarchy and now we have to find room for a pope too?!?

[jesse.in.mb]

He just wants Georg G?nswein as his personal assistant, mark him down as a third queen of anarchy.

[Enough About Palin]

Think India, Epi. Not everyone in India is rapist, but damn, they sure do a lot of it.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

When you were a kid, you needed to either self-educate or have someone educate you about the wrongness of violating someone else's consent. While it's exaggerated by many feminists, both males and females in the US have little apparent understanding of consent or why it is wrong to violate it.

[Virginian]

While it's exaggerated by many feminists, both males and females in the US have little apparent understanding of consent or why it is wrong to violate it.

Citation fucking needed.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Just about any election in the US, for starters.

[Virginian]

Uh consent in general, or sexual consent?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Yes. Things might have changed since I was there, but I remember hearing guys in college justify date rape by saying "you buy a ticket, you take the whole ride" or offering up similar stupidities as justification. Lots of guys don't clearly differentiate between date rape and being insistent or stubborn in wearing down a girl. Plenty of girls (especially feminists) thought that the Duke lacrosse team members were rapists even after all the facts were in and it was clear that there was no reason to believe they were.

Look at any K-12 school and you'll see that while some students have a good idea of personal boundaries and consent, a whole lot don't and aren't given anything but an argument from authority ("teacher says so") as a reason to respect boundaries and consent.

[Virginian]

I don't know where you learned that consent was not a thing. Because I distinctly remember talking about it in both middle and high school sex ed.

Here's my issue with the feminists. They want rape redefined to include drunkenness, emotional "pressure", etc. The issue with that is obvious.

Was texting this chick, about a year ago, and it was flirty. So I finally I texted her "roommate's gone for the weekend, come over." she texts back "oh no, I have a boyfriend" I text back "don't matter, come over". She does. We start making out, and she stops after a solid ten minutes of serious action and says "I shouldn't do this, I have a boyfriend." I rolled my eyes and said "You said that already. I'm going to brush my teeth and then I'm going to lock up for the night. Either go home, or go to my bedroom." She choose the latter. Next week, she starts texting me about calling the cops, telling her boyfriend I raped her, etc. So I very carefully saved those texts, and told her so. She stopped making that threat. But see, to her idiot little brain, my refusing to bow down to her boyfriend was morally equivalent to putting a knife to her throat and forcing her. She had a clear, unequivocal, exit strategy. She choose to stay, but then in the morning's light she wished she had gone the other way, so she must have been raped. And if the Jezbellians had their way, I'd be in a jail cell right now.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Sounds to me like you understood consent and she didn't -- or she did and pretended like she didn't for her convenience, neither of which would have been a problem if people in general understood consent, no?

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Either go home, or go to my bedroom.

Not saying you did anything wrong here by any means, Virginian, but isn't this kind of...a turnoff? I mean, I don't know, if she was acting that way I don't feel like I'd so much want to get it on anymore. Though I guess it could seem like she was playing hard to get or whatever. But it also makes her sound...a little crazy.

[Virginian]

Well, it's the conflict between her natural urges and her social programming, laid out in a stark and contrasting manner. Look, if she comes over, that's just the fish striking the bait. There's a lot of thrashing and reeling left to do, but the issue is never in doubt. The hook was set the moment she decided to drive over to my house to "hang out" after three hours of increasingly risque texts.

It wasn't a turn off, it was the moment you dip the net and work the hook out of the fish's mouth.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Yeah, I could see that. She does evidently suck though.

[Virginian]

Eh, she's crazy, but most of your gender is. The hamster looms large.

[Libertymike]

Which is why, in a free society, no person should be charged, let alone tried and convicted, with rape unless there are at least two witnesses to corroborate the alleged victim's allegations.

If a person falesly accuses another of rape, the former should receive twice the maximum penalty the latter could have received if found guilty.

[Virginian]

Now, that's silly. How many rapes have two witnesses

The problem is there are women who want to file reports weeks after something happens. After all the physical evidence is gone, after injuries have healed, after the perp has gotten an alibi or concocted a story, after witnesses who might have seen him leaving the scene or heard something have forgotten or dispersed. That's why it's so important to fight back. Hurt the bastard, and yes, he'll hit you back. But there's no way to explain away DNA evidence plus injuries. I know it's demeaning and degrading and traumatic to call the cops and get poked and prodded and questioned. But it has to be done.

You show up three hours after it happened, with bloody nose, black eye, ripped clothing, trace DNA all over you that can be collected, his skin under your fingernails, etc. that bastard is going to jail.

You go three weeks after, after three dozen showers, after his scratch marks have healed and his story is polished and practiced, after your injuries have healed, then he probably isn't. Because it's all about reasonable doubt.

[Libertymike]

Forgive me, I erred by not fully completing my thoughts.

In cases where there is no physical evidence to support the accusation of rape, there should be another witness to corroborate the allegation.

As for the physical evidence, count me as one who does not accept what a state crime lab has to say about it.

[Episiarch]

To some of us, the ideas of consent, aggression, and force, and their corresponding morality, are very clear naturally. They probably were for you too.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Sure. As far as I can remember, I've had a clear understanding of consent from since I was a kid, but I'm not sure how much I had to do with that. In any case, those who don't intuitively grasp consent aren't irredeemable, and a good moral education can help with that deficiency, IMO.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Clarity of the ideas does not make them accurate.

I'm sure Nazis and KKKers had very clear ideas about those concepts, too.

[Libertymike]

So did generals Custer, Miles, Sheridan, Sherman and other belligerent blue bellied bolzheviks.

[Coeus]

While it's exaggerated by many feminists,

The push isn't for education on consent. It's for education about their fucked up views of it. What they really, really want is this:

"Rape is sex without consent. Consent cannot be freely given if your (female) partner has had any intoxicating substances, or decides to have sex because you wanted it. It is rape when you beg for sex, when you become emotionally withholding when you don't get any, or if you threaten to break up with the person because you aren't getting enough. Your (male) desires don't factor into this."

Plastered in every school hallway and on every billboard on the interstate. And they want you to pay for it.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I'm not sure if the woman being quoted by the OP has that exact view. I'll give a rape survivor the benefit of the doubt that she has a solid view of what rape is -- though if her definition is the one that you provided, then I agree that it's unsatisfactory.

[Coeus]

Just try to find another definition on a feminist website.

[Virginian]

They don't define anything. Words have no meaning, everything depends on the context.

[A Serious Man]

Gotta love spring training: Hooters ball girl tosses fair ball into the stands.

[Episiarch]

Jesus, that writer needs to lighten the fuck up.

[Virginian]

Seriously. It's spring fucking training. The dumb blonde chick did something dumb and blonde. Laugh about it, and move on.

[Mickey Rat]

"Oh, spring training. When baseball teams try out young players, we let games end in ties..."

Oh, the humanity!

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The sequester might help African security.

The good news is that the budget crunch may force African countries to work with each other, turning some exercises and training into multinational efforts that save money.

Since AFRICOM was established nearly five years ago, one of its top declared missions has been to build up forces in African countries, one at a time. But the cost of that mission has always raised eyebrows, as most of that "building partner capacity" work is done via bilateral engagements between U.S. and local forces, one at a time, rather than in larger, multinational exercises commonly underway with allies in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world.

[...]

[Gen. Ham] continued, "I think it will drive us to [an] increased multinational approach to 'building partner capacity' as opposed to our exclusive -- almost exclusively bilateral 'building partner capacity' activities to date."

[Agammamon]

"The United Nations announced that the armistice halting the Korean War is still in place, no matter what North Korea, a party to that war, says. Ummm ... Logically, that would seem? Never mind. It's the U.N."

Well, obviously if there's a law against it won't happen. Right?

[Coeus]

More from that wacky Gloria Steinem.

GS: No, no, no, what I'm saying is that the root of democracy outside the home is democracy inside the home, so it's even more important. The root of violence elsewhere is the normalization of violence in an intimate way in the home.

SS: Sorry to interrupt, but when you put it like that it just makes me wonder whether most women these days in Western, developed societies would feel the same way that you do. Because when you talk about the importance of democracy in the home, wouldn't most women in the developed world today feel that?

GS: No. Of course not.

SS: ?they have democracy in the home.

GS: Of course not. Are you kidding? Do men raise children as much as women? No.

SS: But do women feel oppressed today in the way that they did in the '60s and '70s?

GS: Yes, more so because now, for instance, when we started we didn't have a word for "domestic violence." It was just called "life." People would constantly say, "Why didn't she leave?" "What did she do?" Now we understand that domestic violence is original violence.

[Killazontherun]

There is a journolist like effort going on amongst Hollywood screenwriters to rehabilitate her failed life and recast her as the girl MLK.

[benji]

reason launches a left-wing pro-socialism attack on the only candidate supporting free markets who can possibly win:
http://reason.com/archives/1996/10/01/the-choice

[Mickey Rat]

"And Dole represents a sort of unprincipled, technocratic Republicanism that must be destroyed before we have any chance of seriously rolling back government."

How's that plan been working lately?

[A Serious Man]

Guilty, I guess: Sexist men like big boobs.

[Irish]

It's always funny when an article about how sexist those boob loving guys are has a picture of big ol' titties right above the headline.

[A Serious Man]

+ 2 areolas

[Episiarch]

If only they'd do this test but with asses instead. And make me the only subject.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Great ass (*greater than character*) great boobs

[Episiarch]

You're a man after my own heart, TIT.

[Irish]

"According to our research, anyone who goes by the internet name Episiarch is an unbelievable misogynist with repressed Oedipal tendencies."

[Episiarch]

No, no, dude, it's your mom that I'm banging, not my own. Sheesh. I haven't had sex with my mom for years now. That's Warty's job.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Also, knowing that some guys may associate your big boobs with weakness is NOT a reason to have a breast reduction.

Well thank you for that permission, HuffPo. Jeez.

[sloopyinca]

Pederast cop appears in court.

I'm actually mildly sympathetic to him in this case. He's yet to be convicted but the state won't even allow him to see his children on supervised visits.

[sloopyinca]

Bribery and extortion? That sounds bad. You could use a paid vacation.

[hamilton]

Crap on a stick. The Niners just picked up Boldin.

[sloopyinca]

PoliceOne commentators quick to react positively when plainclothes cops kill 16 year old who allegedly pulled a gun on them.

Funny how these people always get the drop on the cops yet the cops are able to get shots off before they do.

[Libertymike]

Funny, isn't it?

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Must be that intense police training we've been hearing about.

[sloopyinca]

Choking the fuck out of somebody on video with several witnesses also nearby is cause for serious concern in Milwaukee. Hell, it'll get you put on administrative duty.

Also FTA (no emphasis because it's all absurd): A Journal Sentinel investigation published in October 2011 found that 93 Milwaukee police officers - from street cop to captain - had been disciplined for violating laws and ordinances they were sworn to uphold. The offenses ranged from sexual assault and domestic violence to drunken driving and shoplifting. Some officers had suffered no legal or career consequences. Others got breaks from prosecutors that allowed them to keep their badges and their guns. Still others were convicted of crimes but did not lose their jobs; one was a sergeant by day and an inmate by night.

[Libertymike]

I am sure you are aware of the nefarious police el jefe in Brewtown? His name is Flynn, I believe.

Recently, Will Grigg wrote a piece on him.

Wouldn't you just love to see Mr. Grigg do battle with dunphy?

[sloopyinca]

Personally, I'd like to see Flynn square off against the Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, Jr.

Flynn is as corrupt as they get, and the only thing keeping him in hos position is his gun-grabbing bullshit propaganda.

Here is the Grigg piece, in case anybody else out there wants to read it.

[Libertymike]

Mr. Grigg, "YOU DA MAN!"

[A Serious Man]

Dear Prudence: The neutering of men edition.

Yesterday, my girlfriend and I were engaged in a mix of fun, an argument, and horseplay. She did something that upset me, and without thinking I hit her on her back with the palm of my hand much harder than I intended to. I immediately apologized but she broke up with me later that day. I think she was right to do so. I'm writing to you not for advice on how to win her back (I have to assume she's gone for good) but how to begin to regain my self-esteem. I feel awful about what I did, and I want to be both introspective and proactive. I am going to use my school's counseling service and am considering volunteering for a domestic violence center. Are there any other resources I should be aware of?

Obviously it is wrong to strike a woman, but if the letter is accurate it seems like this guy just get a bit carried away with the horseplay. And now he's convinced he's some kind of monster that needs to penance by volunteering?

[Pro Libertate]

I'd say that he should cut his penis off, but apparently he already did it.

[Irish]

This is absurd. Considering that she broke up with him, there are one of two possibilities:

1. The story happened exactly like he said and she overreacted. He's better off without her.

2. He's inexplicably lying to a national advice columnist about the fact that he's a terrible person who beat the crap out of his girlfriend.

[Hyperion]

He's better off without her

This is the best advice. Choose your women carefully.

All of the mangina shit that this guy is attempting to put himself through is completely useless bullshit, and that way of thinking is going to get him into a much worse situation.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Can't help but wonder whether he's ever been in a long term relationship or not.

My wife and I both have boundaries that we respect, but damn there were a fair amount of thrown kitchen appliances between then and now.

[Virginian]

Seriously? On her back? Like...slapped her on the back....like you'd slap your buddy on the back? WTF?

Uh, you're problem isn't the hitting, it's where you're hitting her. If you're going to hit your woman, bend her over your knee. There's a reason half the housewives in the country were reading that book last year.

Seriously, I think the reason she dumped him is she had a sudden moment of clarity and realized that her boyfriend just treated her like the dude on his softball team.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Reading the OP is against my religion.

My bad.

[Hyperion]

My wife is always hitting me, in play, and will sometimes try to coax me into play wrestling with her. There have been a couple of times she got hurt, I mean not seriously hurt, but like hurt her finger, and I think her back once. She never got angry with me and just laughed it off. She also poked me in the eye once and I had a slight black eye for a few days.

When you're play wrestling, someone can always wind up getting injured, no matter how careful you think you are being, so if you can't accept that, you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Yeah, and that's super normal, and super not domestic violence.

[jesse.in.mb]

Hey, he just walked into a door named Ms. Hyperion. There's nothing to see here.

[Hyperion]

Hey, he just walked into a door named Ms. Hyperion. There's nothing to see here

At least my friends got a laugh out of it.

[jesse.in.mb]

At least my friends got a laugh out of it.

Oh god, that could've been fun to ham up, really big glasses, make oblique excuses, look like a beaten dog anytime your wife walked into the room.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Yeah, my wife likes that kind of stuff too -- it happens. If you're play wrestling and you don't allow for the possibility that you might get hurt by accident... then you're kind of an idiot.

[Hyperion]

Exactly, especially when you are laughing and clowning around like that, you're not being as careful as you think.

[Bobarian]

"I hit her on her back with the palm of my hand much harder than I intended to."

As described, it sounds like a slap that got out of hand, but could have just as easily been an open-handed punch. I know I could knock the air out of someone's chest with an open handed jab.

[Killazontherun]

I want to be both introspective and proactive. I am going to use my school's counseling service and am considering volunteering for a domestic violence center.

That's a showboater shitheal way of doing penance. All you can do from here is tell her how awful you feel about it, and you respect her decision to leave you. That's it. You did the crime there is no shaking it with theatric gesticulations like volunteering at a DVC. Learn to live with yourself as you are because you is all you got.

[R C Dean]

Or, you could just say you got a little carried away and feel bad about it and won't let it happen again, and if she doesn't trust you when you say that, then sayonara.

[Libertymike]

Can you imagine if she delivered a parting shot such as, "you bastrd, you are hypocrite violating the NAP"?

[Hyperion]

^THIS^

What it sounds like, is he's saying it was an accident, and then he's acting like he's guilty of something terrible at the same time, that requires extraordinary convolutions of repentance. What sort of a fucked up signal is that?

Dude needs some relationship 101, badly.

[Warty]

the federal government is growing increasingly censor-y.

THE WORD IS CENSORIOUS

[sloopyinca]

I'm absolutely sure that a non-cop convicted for striking a handcuffed person multiple times would get a $2 fine.

That's right. Two fucking dollars.

BTW, he got an 11-month paid vacation out of the deal. This incident was not the first where the department thought of terminating him.

[sloopyinca]

Looks like his buddy was just gonna let it go until the video came out.

Also, the same officer was suspended for 30 days a few years back after pleading guilty to third degree criminal mischief.

Oh, and he had his girlfriend with him doing "a ride-along".

[Libertymike]

She gives new meaning to cop fellator.

[Killazontherun]

Nineteen year old Martha Stewart was about as good as it gets.

http://cdn.wwtdd.com/wp-conten.....50x337.jpg

[Killazontherun]

And another . . .

http://cdn.wwtdd.com/wp-conten.....art-05.jpg

[Bam!]

So she was cute and could make house. Why'd she ever need a career?

[GILMORE]

Now this is Rich

"DERP TEH EVIL CORPORASHUNS AND BANKS MADE THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND AR LIERS AND THE 99% AND UNIONS ARE GOOD AND...

uhm...

SEC charges Illinois with securities fraud

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/86fc.....z2NGqlhvZJ

US federal regulators have charged Illinois with securities fraud for misleading municipal bond investors on the health of its woefully under-funded public pension system.

The state failed to keep investors informed of problems with its pension funding schedule as it sold more than $2.2bn worth of bonds from 2005 to 2009, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission....

[Libertymike]

Too funny and too rich, though I shed nary a tear for the bond investors for being so stupid.

[Coeus]

More Krugman being Krugman.

Anyone who is serious (as opposed to Serious) about matters fiscal knows that it's highly misleading just to focus on the raw deficit numbers (ONE TRILLION DOLLARS), for two reasons.

First, fluctuations in the deficit tend to be driven by the business cycle; when the economy slumps, revenues fall and some kinds of expenditure, like unemployment benefits, rise. You want to take out these "automatic stabilizers" when assessing the underlying state of the budget.

Second, we don't have to balance the budget to have a sustainable fiscal position; all we need is to ensure that debt grows more slowly than GDP.

He left out the third reason: If you look at the real numbers, you'll find that revenues are no longer taking a hit, didn't really take that much on one before, and all of our problems are spending.

to wit:

2004 1,880,114 2,292,841 -412,727
2005 2,153,611 2,471,957 -318,346
2006 2,406,869 2,655,050 -248,181
2007 2,567,985 2,728,686 -160,701
2008 2,523,991 2,982,544 -458,553
2009 2,104,989 3,517,677 -1,412,688
2010 2,162,724 3,456,213 -1,293,489
2011 2,303,466 3,603,061 -1,299,595
2012 estimate 2,468,599 3,795,547 -1,326,948

[R C Dean]

First, fluctuations in the deficit tend to be driven by the business cycle;

Is it just me, or did he just admit that the current "recovery" is terrible, and that year after year of Keynesian deficit-funded stimulus isn't working worth shit?

[Libertymike]

The recovery is real and it is good except when it is not it is Bush's fault.

[SumpTump]

That dude jsut loosk liek a corrupt pompous windbag lol.
http://www.EliteAnon.tk

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

The anti-preneur manifesto:

I don't want to be a designer, a marketer, an illustrator, a brander, a social media consultant, a multi-platform guru, an interface wizard, a writer of copy, a technological assistant, an applicator, an aesthetic king, a notable user, a profit-maximizer, a bottom-line analyzer, a meme generator, a hit tracker, a re-poster, a sponsored blogger, a starred commentator, an online retailer, a viral relayer, a handle, a font or a page. I don't want to be linked in, tuned in, 'liked', incorporated, listed or programmed. ?I don't want to be a brand, a representative, an ambassador, a bestseller or a chart-topper. I don't want to be a human resource or part of your human capital.

I don't want to be an entrepreneur of myself.

It gets...better...

[jesse.in.mb]

I want to be a community center, a piece of art, a wonky cursive script and an old-growth tree!

It's beautiful, this is my heart's desires given words!

Wait, no it's just cray-cray.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Don't listen to Michel Foucault or your haughty brother in finance! You can be a licker of ice cream!

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Michel Foucault is quite the inclusion. Isn't he a post-modernist French intellectual?

[jesse.in.mb]

Yes, I knew some devoted Foucauldians in college, but I don't remember much about him besides his history of madness.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I want to be a lover, a teacher, a wanderer, an assembler of words, a sculptor of immaterial, a maker of instruments, a Socratic philosopher? and an erratic muse. I want to be a community center, a piece of art, a wonky cursive script and an old-growth tree! I want to be a renegade agitator! ?A licker of ice cream!

Flows better in its original beat poetry form.

[jesse.in.mb]

I bet philosopher pie is delicious, and probably a better use of philosopher than just listening to it drone on.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Philosopher Pie

2 Tbsp Erratic Muse
1/4 Cup Renegade Agitator
2 lines of Wonky Cursive Script
1/2 Cup mixed nuts

Place the erratic muse in a saucepan and mix with the existential alienation of consumer culture and modern society. Stir in renegade agitator slowly; bring to boil and add wonky cursive script. Sculpt the immaterial into a pie crust, and pour mixture into crust. Sprinkle liberally with nuts.

Best served posthumously with a personal interpretation of Nietzsche.

[Killazontherun]

I'll just quote myself from earlier today as a response:

The significant difference is you rarely have to explain basic concepts to a republican even if you find yourself disagreeing vehemently with one. Democrats believe knowledge taints them and wont allow you to soil their child like innocence and their sense of wonder with crass, ugly and depressingbased ideas about how society functions through commerce.

Reality untouched by community.

[Virginian]

Yep. See their reaction to gun safety classes for children. Guns are evil to them, pure and simple. It's as primitive a mindset as any medieval peasant or Stone Age trbe.

[Coeus]

I finally got a progressive coworker to look at those budget numbers I keep posting. Been trying for months. He was astonished and immediately began grasping at any straw he could find.

"The wars were off the budget"
"Nope, not this one, this is totals. No tricks."

"Are you sure? Where'd you get these numbers?"
"Yes I'm sure. And they came straight from the Leviathian itself."

Then he made me show him the link (which was good, he's learning to think for himself.) Not sure where he landed. I should ask him today.

[Virginian]

http://dailycaller.com/2013/03.....z2NGfpwmpJ

Oh god I hope she runs for Senate. I know Mitch McConnell does too. What a nutjob.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

She also called Bill Clinton a "great romantic" and "devoted husband" in the 2008 campaign, like the feminist she is.

[Killazontherun]

Apple is known for the clean lines of their products, the alluring simplicity of their designs," Judd wrote in the article. "Dare I?.go so far?.as to suggest?this signature cleanness is stained by the shit and urine of raped women's leaking fistulas?

I had no idea how far her head was up her perky little shithole. Run, Ashley, run! And if there is a God, you'll win because that's the kind of crazy that has been lacking for some time. Sure, you have Pelosi and Wasserman Schultz but what comes out of their mouths is entirely predictable depending on circumstance.

[Virginian]

I like how she mixes up the vulgar and the proper terms. Adds a certain je na sais quoi. I mean you could write "shit and piss". Or you could write "feces and urine". But mixing it up, that's the kind of bold thinking we need in Washington.

[Paul.]

You know who wanted a total ban on handguns? Richard Nixon. Which is, obviously, an endorsement of the policy.

*sigh*

"You know who else wanted a total ban of handguns?"

That's how the game is played.

Welcome to hit and run, Tuccile. Don't get me killed, new guy.