A.M. Links: Sequester Hurting Obama's Approval Ratings, Charter Schools Outperforming Public Schools in Florida, EU Considering Cyprus Bailout

Credit: Pete Souza/Wikicommons

• The sequester is hurting Obama's approval ratings. Back in December when people were asked who they trusted more with the economy the president enjoyed an 18-point advantage over congressional Republicans. The president is still more trusted, but only by 44 to 40. 

• The Florida Department of Education has found that charter school students outperform public school students in math, science, and reading. 

• The European Union is considering a $13 billion bailout for Cyprus. 

• The Obama administration, the "most transparent administration in history," has been given a C- for FOIA compliance by watchdog group Cause of Action. 

• Xi Jinping is now officially China's new president. 

• Scientists are confident that they have detected the Higgs boson, popularly referred to as the "God Particle." 

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

NO REPLIES??? It’s like that TV show, Revolution.

[Rich]

This is a reply to FoE.

[Bee Tagger]

You should have typed “this is going to look dumb no matter what.”

[Rich]

Oh, that goes without saying.

[Bee Tagger]

This is a terrible episode of Wilder Valderrama’s Yo Mama

[PS]

I second this reply, sir.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The joke’s on you guys. I never watched the TV show Revolution.

[Rich]

Yo Mama!

[wareagle]

when’s Revolution coming back? It’s no Sons of Anarchy but it is an interesting concept. And one noteworthy aspect is how “the authority” has banned private ownership of firearms. Gee, can’t imagine why.

[Counterfly]

Because it’s fiction, that could never happen in real life.

[wareagle]

interesting thing is a guy in NC wrote a book called “One Second After”, also based on the premise of an EMP blowing out everything that was computerized. Hilarity and a national session of kumbaya ensued.

[Rich]

I recommend the book “War Day”. The nuclear exchange is over in half an hour due to “EMP blowing out everything that was computerized”. Not so much kumbaya, but interesting.

[Rich]

Sorry, *Warday*.

[LTC(ret) John]

Warty?

[Counterfly]

It said the exchange was over in half an hour, not half a second.

[AlexInCT]

I hear the half a second thing is Warty’s effort to please womenz…

[Drake]

Just read S.M. Striling’s “Dies the Fire” series. Same concept (except guns don’t work either).

[Killazontherun]

Jericho was a bunch of authoritarian left wing swill as well.

[Rasilio]

I just saw an ad for it last night, I think it said next week.

That said while the concept was interesting the execution was seriously flawed and they studiously ignored the most interesting facets of the concept (how people changed and adapted in the face of this sudden change) in favor of following Charlie’s quest to get her family back. Especially since the girl they have playing Charlie hasn’t got anywhere near the charisma or talent to pull off a lead role like that.

Honestly if they built the show around Miles instead of Charlie it would have been a hell of a lot better.

[Mickey Rat]

But it would be sexist!

[Ted S.]

I’m surprised you’re not just crowing about being 1th to this thread. 🙂

[Fist of Etiquette]

And second.

[Capt Ace Rimmer]

and fifth

[Fist of Etiquette]

Scientists are confident that they have detected the Higgs boson, popularly referred to as the “God Particle.”

It was in Francis I’s pocket.

[Way Of The Crane]

I bet that’s what he tells all the altar boys.

[Rich]

Is it a particle or a wave?

[Way Of The Crane]

“Give me your hand, my son. I want to teach you the Catholic version of the string theory.”

[Kaptious Kristen]

Is that a Higgs boson in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

[Counterfly]

I’m just happy to see you, obviouisly. The Higgs is undetectable to the naked eye.

And don’t even think about saying what you’re thinking about saying.

[Ted S.]

Francis, the Talking Pope.

[Killazontherun]

Scientists are confident that they have detected the Higgs boson, popularly referred to renamed by double digit moronic graduates of J-School as the “God Particle.”

Seriously, stop doing that.

[CatoTheElder]

Seconded.

Seriously, calling Higgs boson the “God particle” is just stupid.

It subtracts from understanding.

[sarcasmic]

Olivia Wilde fears a Belieber is going to throw acid in her face.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs…..es-on.html
I wish I was making this up.

[Drax the Destroyer]

I’ll throw something in her face!

HIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOO

[Ted S.]

Why am I supposed to give a shit about either Mx. Wilde or Mr. Bieber?

[sarcasmic]

Because Wilde is totally hot and Bieber needs a good ass kicking.

Or something.

[MJGreen]

Because acid in Ms. Wilde’s face would be a crime against humanity.

[sarcasmic]

Taylor Swift continues to shed her “good girl” image.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs…..raska.html
Seriously though. What’s the point of going to a show where the performer wears a different outfit for every song? Is it a pop thing? I don’t get it.

[WTF]

It’s because the music sucks ass so there has to be alot of other shit going on to entertain the crowd.

[sarcasmic]

That makes sense.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

My theory is that since all her songs are essentially the same song, she has to do something to let her fans know the song has changed.

I think Nickelback experimented with this, too, but their fans still couldn’t tell one song from another.

[Cdr Lytton]

Maybe her fans are finally picking up on that. Ticket prices on the scalping sites dropped below face value last week.

I find it immensely funny that she’s become the relationship predator that she used to whine write songs about. How long to rehab?

[some guy]

It’s the same reason KISS dressed in drag and wore makeup.

[Kool]

Axl Rose did the same thing during their tour in the 90’s with Metallica. It made no sense then either. Perhaps even less sense.

[sarcasmic]

I missed that show. A few of my friends saw it at Mile High Stadium and they said it sucked. Ass. Hard.

[Counterfly]

At least his audience was stoned out of its mind, so they got something out of it. Swift doesn’t have that excuse.

Although that’s the only way I’d sit through one of her shows.

Either that of if I was promised a night with 10 of the audience.

[Bobarian]

“Either that of if I was promised a night with 10 of the audience.”

From what I know about Taylor Swift (which is not much), that would make you a pedophile.

[Brett L]

My gf’s friends are a rabid pack of 23-28 year old Taylor Swift fans. Thankfully, the gf is not.

[Virginian]

Nah, there are definitely girls of age. Check ID though. Nothing worse then sealing the deal and then she balks because shes actually sixteen.

[Bobarian]

The only Taylor Swift fan I actually know is my 3 yr old grand-daughter.

I figure 10 randomly picked from the audience would get you quite a few under-age girls, and maybe a young boy, too.

[AlmightyJB]

I saw GnR. Was not really a fan but a free ticket was available so a tagged along. Slash kicked ass in concert.

[Drake]

He had to do something to hide the fact that Metallica was 100 times better.

[Killazontherun]

On That Metal Show, Lars was a guest while Mike Portnoy sat in as the house musician. Portnoy showed his supreme chops by doing Lars’ signature rift from One with one hand. Lars took it with good humor though, but I wonder if he still paid for the after show drinks after that.

[sarcasmic]

Lars sucks.

[Drake]

I wasn’t trying to compare the musical talents of individuals in each band. As a band, Metallica shows up on time and plays like hell for the crowd.

Axl would show up hours late, act like a bitch, and fuck the fans without a second thought.

[sarcasmic]

I mean that Lars sucks as a person. Remember Napster? Yeah. Lars sucks.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I’ll just leave this here.

[jesse.in.mb]

American pop stars are just trying to reach clothing parity with Europop stars where they have multiple outfit changes per son. Watch some Albanian music videos and culture yourself.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Florida Department of Education has found that charter school students outperform public school students in math, science, and reading.

Yeah, but where do they rank in indoctrination?

[Counterfly]

That’s just because they ‘teach to the test’. They’re not rounding out students with life skills like they learn at union approved public schools.

[AlmightyJB]

I bet the 1st graders can’t even put a condom on a banana.

[generic Brand]

Haha. That is the main brunt of their argument too… pathetic.

[VG Zaytsev]

Like how to deal with irrational vindictive bureaucrats.

[Bobarian]

I’m not getting your point.

[VG Zaytsev]

Like how to deal with irrational vindictive bureaucrats.

[Bobarian]

Oh, now I get it!

[carol]

I don’t know about the rest of Florida but the schools here in Hillsborough County are terrible. The grandkids all attend magnet programs (which means they have to leave home at 5:45 a.m.). The oldest is enrolled in the robotics program which is located at Middleton High School. Only 10 percent of the students at Middleton read at or above grade level. Sounds pretty bad, huh? The kicker is that the magnet program makes up 10 percent of the student population. If it weren’t for the magnet program nobody at that school would read at grade level.

[Stormy Dragon]

I’m shocked that the educational system is substandard in a state primarily known for being the home of retired seniors.

[thom]

The only way to achieve those kind of results is to mercilessly exploit teachers.

[sarcasmic]

Kelsey Grammar has lost tons of money on windmills.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs…..mills.html
Ha ha! Your shows all sucked anyway!

[Drax the Destroyer]

Looks like Sideshow Bob will be featured heavily on The Simpsons for the next 20 seasons.

[WTF]

I bet he lost even more money to his ex-wives.

[BakedPenguin]

Funny, he’s conservative politically. You’d think he’d know wind was a boondoggle.

[sarcasmic]

My favorite Victoria’s Secret model is still hot!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs…..ation.html

[WTF]

Yup

[sarcasmic]

Mila Jovovich has a new haircut!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs…..shoot.html

[Bobarian]

LeeLoo Dallas Mooltipass is still incredibly hot. And getting close to 40.

[wareagle]

The Florida Department of Education has found that charter school students outperform public school students in math, science, and reading.

from today’s ‘no shit’ file. Kids in charter schools tend to have parents who give a damn and that sentiment to learn the material is transferred to the kiddies.

[Counterfly]

Which is exactly why parents have no place in education. It makes it unfair.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

I don’t know how you correct for something like that, but seems unlikely to be the only factor.

[Brett L]

No, it pretty much shows up everywhere. Correlate performance of student with parents who show up to teacher conferences and school meeting and you’ll find that it fits better than race, ethnicity, or parental income.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Showing up everywhere doesn’t mean it’s the only factor in the differences, does it?

Yeah, involved parents are key but does that necessarily explain all the differences between charter and government schools?

[Brett L]

Showing up everywhere in multiple cultures? Let’s call it a primary variable. Not the only, but one you must address to provide systemic performance improvement.

[CatoTheElder]

There’s probably some genetic component as well as parents’ giving a damn.

[Brett L]

Anyone within one distribution from the median can pass high school. The government requires that it be so. You can teach algebra and geometry to person with an 85 IQ. It just takes longer and is far more example oriented.

[Teaching Student]

I Student Taught at a Charter School; there is a clear difference in the Students, for the most part. The “slackers” are far outweighed by students who want to learn and succeed.

[mad libertarian guy]

When I taught at UK, I could easily tell apart the students (who were ALL incoming freshmen) who had gone to government schools and private schools.

[Drax the Destroyer]

Scientists are confident that they have detected the Higgs boson, popularly referred to as the “God Particle.”

So will I be able to teleport to work any time soon?

[DJF]

No, but if you live in the EU you will probably be getting a bigger tax bill to pay for even more experiments to see what kind of Higgs Bosim it is.

[sarcasmic]

Welfare for physicists!

[Counterfly]

Not just the EU. We fund most of ATLAS and a bunch of the other detector experiments.

Although with the sequester, I’m surprised they could find anything.

[Zeb]

I think they are still analyzing data from last summer.

I also think it is fucking awesome, so I’m going to be a bad libertarian and not care about the “welfare for physicists” aspect.

[Counterfly]

Yeah, if I’m honest about it, I’m totally OK with using tax $$ for physics. I mean especially since they’d blow it on something else anyway.

I mean perfect world, no taxes. Next best would be all tax money used on high energy physics. I mean the LHC was only $9B anyway, which is freaking peanuts.

[Atanarjuat]

all tax money used on high energy physics and its connection to climate change

Also with a bunch of unqualified, but filling diversity requirement, physicists. Government money poisons everything.

[LTC(ret) John]

Quite so – and I want a tricorder, STAT!

[Counterfly]

You know you don’t get pr0n on those, right?

[LTC(ret) John]

Sez you!

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

That’s what the holodeck is for anyway.

[Restoras]

Seriously. There is no way anything is getting done on any ship equipped with a holodeck.

[Bobarian]

Dennis Miller talked about this…

When an unemployed iron worker can fuck Claudia Shiffer with a beer in one hand and sitting in a recliner, VR will make crack look like Sanka

[Drake]

“The Unincorporated Man” explored that problem.

[Mickey Rat]

If the number of crewmen per holodeck is high enough, there will be.

[Rasilio]

Actually this one is probably not that far off but it’ll be developed by Apple or Google or some similar company, not the Government.

Of course it won’t be an actual tricorder from Star Trek but it will provide a reasonable fascimilie of it’s abilities and be just as portable, they already have apps and accessories to smart phones giving them some quite impressive diagnostic abilities

[mad libertarian guy]

The Obama administration, the “most transparent administration in history,” has been given a C- for FOIA compliance by watchdog group Cause of Action.

They’re just too RACIST to see how transparent Obama really is.

[Rich]

Exactly. With the affirmative action, he really gets an “A”.

[WTF]

Hell, even a C- is grading on a curve.

[Spartacus]

Now there’s some grade inflation for you.

[CatoTheElder]

Can you imagine how bad an Administration would have to be to get an F on transparency?

Mao and the Argentine military junta would get an F; Stalin D+; and Hitler D-. Say what you will about Marxists and National Socialist, at least they were fairly transparent about their ethos.

[Bee Tagger]

The Obama administration, the “most transparent administration in history,” has been given a C- for FOIA compliance by watchdog group Cause of Action.

Oh here we go again, the Republican House is somehow left completely off the hook for not allowing the administration to respond to these FOIA requests.

[John]

The sequester is hurting Obama’s approval ratings.

You mean people actually expect the President to be able to make deals with the other party and occasionally do hold him responsible for things that turn out badly?

[wareagle]

only marginally. More people still think it’s the Repubs’ fault and that core 40% will never see flaws in The Obama. Stupid and delusional are tough to fix.

[mad libertarian guy]

You mean people actually expect the President to be able to make deals with the other party and occasionally do hold him responsible for things that turn out badly?

The people? Yes. The media who surely is looking for a way to blame Republicans? Unlikely.

[Drax the Destroyer]

I’m waiting for some ardent socialist foe of the sequester to pop up, so we can start calling him the Sequester Molester.

[John]

The people I know who are most pissed off at Obama right now are liberal government employees. They are just so angry he didn’t vanquish the evil Republicans and save them from 20 days of furlough.

[Drax the Destroyer]

They are mainly mad, whether they know it or not, because those 20 days of furlough will not impact the public in any measurable amount. Once that cat is out of the bag, maybe another 20 days need to be furloughed.

[sarcasmic]

As a contractor I giggle at the prospect of my stupid customers getting furloughed.

Ha ha!

[John]

My favorite is the liberals who work in the defense industry, and there are many of those. Dude, you voted for Obama, what did you think was going to happen to your budget?

[gaijin]

careful with the schadenfreud…once upon a time, the Clinton Administration instituted pay freezes for contractors working at certain facilities. Karma gets the last laugh.

[sarcasmic]

Karma doesn’t exist. If it did, bad cops would all die in house fires.

[Counterfly]

Maybe all bad cops were really good and loyal dogs in previous lives and now they have to make up for that to balance it out.

[generic Brand]

Damn your quick Liberian-residing fingers Counterfly!

[generic Brand]

I think you mean “bad cops would all be shot by dogs”.

[Ted S.]

But then we wouldn’t have any cops left.

[sarcasmic]

But then we wouldn’t have any cops left.

That’s not true. I met the mythical “good cop” once. I was walking home from a bar in a snow storm, and he pulled up beside me. He got out of his car and told me he was giving me a ride home. He patted me down to check for weapons, then gave me a ride home. He never asked for my name, didn’t run me for warrants, didn’t go through my pockets, didn’t ask me where I was coming from, he just gave me a ride home. I was in shock. Seriously. After he dropped me off and drove away I think I must have stood there bewildered for at least ten minutes trying to sort out what had happened.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Obviously someone spiked your drink with a hallucinogenic drug.

What REALLY happened to you was that you picked Warty up at the bar and took him home. Your mind, traumatized by the experience and under the influence of LSD rationalized it by making up this fairy tale about a “good cop”.

Only explanation.

[John]

My pay has been froze for two years. But I hate these people so much, I am happy to watch them suffer even if I have to suffer with them.

[sarcasmic]

My pay has been froze for two years.

Same here.

[Counterfly]

Do you both bank with William J Jefferson or something?

[LTC(ret) John]

*narrows gaze*

[Spoonman.]

I finally got the William J Jefferson joke.

[wareagle]

please say you are reminding that elections have consequences and that they are getting exactly what they voted for.

[mad libertarian guy]

Yep.

The chickens are starting to come home to roost for Obama. Despite vowing to raise taxes, people voted for Obama thinking that inly those eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevul 1%ers would get a tax hike, and were TOTALLY SURPRISED when their payroll tax went up significantly this year. People thought that he had the power to fend off the eeeeeeeeeeeeeevul Republicans and stave off fiscal reality and simply implement more tax hikes in a deal to bypass the sequester, and now are being furloughed because he’s not really a Black Jesus. On and on . . .

[Zeb]

Goverment employees can suck it. It’s about time they got a taste of what the private sector has been dealing with for 4 or 5 years now.

[mad libertarian guy]

And they’re not even getting a legitimate taste.

They will get back every cent in back pay, not a single one will lose his job, and at the end of the year they will get yet another cost of living raise.

[Rich]

Kid eats used condom found at McDonald’s; mother sues

Not a word about any soda he drank.

[Way Of The Crane]

In Chicago of all places… are we sure that it didn’t fall out of the mom’s purse?

[Rich]

“Here, honey, eat this. Mommy needs the money.”

[mad libertarian guy]

In Chicago of all places… are we sure that it didn’t fall out of the mom’s purse?

But Chicago has some of the strictest health regulations in America. There’s no way this could happen. There are LAWS!

[Counterfly]

At least he didn’t Supersize it.

[Sudden]

Might’ve been a Magnum.

[John]

http://thehill.com/homenews/ca…..s-on-obama

White House tour move backfires. White House tours are one of the few things about government that Obama’s low information, low IQ supporters understand.

[mad libertarian guy]

While I agree that the vast majority of Obama voters are low information folk, it’s painfully obvious that most Republican voters are too.

[John]

According to the polls, the segment of the population considered “low information” broke for Obama by over 20 points and was the difference in the election. So while some low information voters are Republican, the majority of them voted for Obama.

[mad libertarian guy]

I have no doubt that most people who voted for Black Jesus is low information.

But then again, we have to explain that Santorum and Gingrich won quite a few states initially in last year’s primaries, and that can only be due to low information voters. Especially when they claimed that federal spending was a large factor in how they voted.

[John]

and that can only be due to low information voters.

First, I don’t think Santorum only won one binding primary, Louisiana. The rest were unbinding and caucuses which is more of a result of his organization than anyone actually liking him. And Ginrich only won his home state and South Carolina.

Regardless, Gingrich got the support he did because he was the only one willing to attack Obama. Santorum got what he did because he was the only SOCON running. Neither one were ever a threat to win.

[mad libertarian guy]

Regardless, Gingrich got the support he did because he was the only one willing to attack Obama.

Uh, Ron Paul? He attacked Obama plenty.

Santorum got what he did because he was the only SOCON running. Neither one were ever a threat to win.

And instead Republicans ended up choosing a limp dick to try and ride.

[John]

Paul pissed away his chance by his blowback comments. Libertarians don’t like to hear that. But it is true. As soon as he said that, his ceiling was set at about 30%.

And they nominated Romney because he had the most money, the best organization and every other contender either did something stupid like Paul and Perry or was never a serious threat to begin with like Gingrich and Santorum.

[mad libertarian guy]

Paul pissed away his chance by his blowback comments. Libertarians don’t like to hear that. But it is true. As soon as he said that, his ceiling was set at about 30%.

And you said that Republican voters aren’t low information.

[John]

And you said that Republican voters aren’t low information.

And Paul ran a great campaign by telling the country it got what was coming to it on 9-11. Paul couldn’t help himself but to say something stupid, untrue and offensive. The 9-11 attackers were Egyptians and Saudis. Whatever their beefs were, US imperialism wasn’t one of them.

[mad libertarian guy]

Except that isn’t what he said.

What he did say, and something which can’t really be denied, is that US foreign policy played a role in creating an environment where 9-11 was possible.

And though the attackers were Egyptians or Saudis, they identify as Muslim before any of that.

[John]

is that US foreign policy played a role in creating an environment where 9-11 was possible.

Which is just another way of saying we did it to ourselves. And that can totally be denied. And even if it were true so what? Does Paul think that we should base US policy on not offending the sensibilities of lunatics who fly planes into buildings? If he doesn’t, why the hell does he care so much if US policy caused said lunatics to do what they did?

[VG Zaytsev]

And even if it were true so what?

That’s the part that Ronulons don’t get.

They want a presidential campaign to be some kind of ritual purification ritual instead of a sales pitch to skeptics.

[robc]

I vote for politicians who are willing to face the truth.

Be it blowback or deficit spending or the federal reserve or the drug war or, well, you get the idea.

I dont expect politicians to not lie about what they are going to do in office, Im a realist, they lie. But they can at least be lying about truthful situations, instead of lying about fantasy land.

And people say libertarians dont live in the real world.

There wouldnt be low-information voters if politicians described the world as it is.

[robc]

Which is just another way of saying we did it to ourselves.

No it isnt.

Blowback != dessert.

[Cavpitalist]

We didn’t do it to ourselves. Our grandparents did it to us. Just like we’re doing to our grandchildren now.

[Mickey Rat]

“What he did say, and something which can’t really be denied, is that US foreign policy played a role in creating an environment where 9-11 was possible.”

Even if true, it is a largely meaningless observation, and not helpful as a response.

[robc]

And Paul ran a great campaign by telling the country it got what was coming to it on 9-11.

I was going to quote your previous post and congratulate you for stopping lying about what Paul said, but then you did it here.

HE DID NOT SAY THAT.

And you have admitted in the past that he didnt say it, so why do you keep lying about it?

[Emmerson Biggins]

Paul didn’t have a Toby Keith song playing in the back ground while saluting the flag with a visible erection. Therefore he just isn’t patriotic enough. Just admit it man.

[CatoTheElder]

Paul didn’t say the country “got what was coming to it on 9-11”.

He said that foreign interventions create enemies and sometimes those enemies lash back. He clearly explained the concept of “blowback” to his audience. Unfortunately, many in the audience had IQs below room temperature and were unable the comprehend the difference between blowback and “getting what was coming to them”.

[Mickey Rat]

“He said that foreign interventions create enemies and sometimes those enemies lash back.”

Doing stuff creates enemies. Great. It does not say anything about whether or not the stuff done was objectively wrong. It just says somebody did not like it and was willing to do something about it. It is a worthless observation.

[robc]

Paul is also a socon, in any real sense of the word.

[Bobarian]

Romney, like Mcain before him, was the media selected ‘best republican’ that they loved in the primaries and ass-raped in the general election.

[Azathoth!!]

^^
This.

[VG Zaytsev]

White House tour move backfires. White House tours are one of the few things about government that Obama’s low information, low IQ supporters understand.

Does anyone outside of the beltway give a shit about white house tours?

[Cdr Lytton]

School groups visiting DC?

[Kaptious Kristen]

I would ask “does anyone inside the Beltway give a shit about White House tours?” People who live here don’t go on White House tours unless they have relatives visiting. It affects flyover country way more than DC folks.

[mad libertarian guy]

flyover country

Seriously?

Ugh.

[some guy]

http://www.dailymail.com

There, sarcasmic. You can take the rest of the morning off.

[sarcasmic]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!

/some guy

[LTC(ret) John]

I rely on sarcasmic to wade through the Daily Fail and select the best and worst for us. Better than me doing it…

[Way Of The Crane]

I rely on sarcasmic to wade through the Daily Fail and select the best and worst for us. Better than me doing it…

I tried to do it myself once. I got lost and missed all the fun with the Morning Links.

[sarcasmic]

That’s why you wade through the Mail an hour before the MLs.

[Ted S.]

And, of course, look who fucking beats me to commenting. 😐

[Way Of The Crane]

[Way Of The Crane]

That’s why you wade through the Mail an hour before the MLs.

I tried that once too. It made my commute into work too dangerous for pedestrians and other drivers so I had to give it up.

[sarcasmic]

Maybe you need to start your shift a little earlier.

[Ted S.]

I’d presume Sarca Smic does it before the Morning Links are posted and can just copy/paste his comments.

[sarcasmic]

If you insist on capitalizing my name, it’s Sarcas Mic, the sarcastic Irish ginger.

[some guy]

Good point. I’ll shut up now.

[WTF]

Ditto

[Ted S.]

He’s not the only one who doesn’t get all the “Ooh, ooh! I masturbate to all these people on some bloated tabloid website!” hoohawing that goes one.

[sarcasmic]

Some people consider what I do to be a public service. If you don’t like it, don’t click on the links.

[some guy]

Most of this stuff is so inane I don’t even want to read your commentary on it. But I will admit it is sometimes fun to guess what the article is about based solely on the URL.

[sarcasmic]

Of course it’s inane. It’s a tabloid. That’s the point.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I bet Ted and some guy are a hoot at parties!

[Ted S.]

I am, but only once I get drunk. 🙁

[Lord Humungus]

Credit Scores Relaxed Under Obama Pressure
http://news.investors.com/prin…..ators.aspx

The campaign began in 2011 when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau investigated scoring models used by the consumer credit-reporting agencies. They include the VantageScore owned by the three biggest credit bureaus ? Experian, Equifax and TransUnion ? which provide scores and reports to underwriters.

Then last summer, the administration fed a front-page story to the Washington Post lamenting how “credit scores of black Americans have been systematically damaged” by subprime foreclosures, “haunting their financial futures.” A week later, CFPB announced in Detroit that it would start policing Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.

“These companies have never before been subject to any federal supervision program,” CFPB chief Richard Cordray said in July. “Now, they will be monitored just as big banks are monitored.”

[John]

We will just pretend people can pay back the money we lend them. What could possibly go wrong?

[mad libertarian guy]

We will just pretend HOPE people can pay back the money we lend them.

FIFY

Then after they fail to pay the money back, we’ll continue to call banks racist for not wanting to give loans to those can’t afford it. Rinse, repeat.

[some guy]

Didn’t banks just try this strategy a few years ago? Aren’t we still suffering from the consequences of that behavior? Are people’s memories really this short?

Yes.

[KDN]

Didn’t banks just try this strategy a few years ago? Aren’t we still suffering from the consequences of that behavior? Are people’s memories really this short?

Yes.

The lenders are just going in the other direction. Since they don’t want to be burned on mortgages and don’t want to be harassed by the Feds for disparate impact they’re just going to treat every potential borrower like they have a 450 credit score.

[robc]

This is like my comment above, politicians unwilling to face reality.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Affirmative action has worked so well in other contexts, it’s sure to work fabulously for credit scores.

[mad libertarian guy]

Affirmative action has worked so well in other contexts, it’s sure to work fabulously for credit scores.

What are you talking about? It already has worked fabulously. Or did the recent bubble not burst causing an ongoing recession in part because banks were extorted by government to give out bad loans in the name of fairness?

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Uhhh…. yeah? And if credit scores get worked over in the name of fairness, the problem spreads to even more areas.

If you have a point in there different from mine, I’m definitely not seeing it.

[LTC(ret) John]

report for recalibration of sarc meter.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Goddammit, this is already the second time this morning I couldn’t tell if someone was serious or not.

This is what I get for being too lazy to stop and get Dr Pepper last night and having to make do with milk.

[generic Brand]

This is what I get for being too lazy to stop and get Dr Pepper last night and having to make do with milk.

You make yourself throw up in the morning in order to wake up? Brilliant!

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Blasphemer.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

No offense, NEM, but why the heck would you put Dr. Pepper on your Cap’n Crunch? Stick with milk.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Cap’n Crunch is more for brunch. Dr Peppers are my coffee.

[CatoTheElder]

It not you.

Elite opinion is such that articles in The Onion now seem plausible.

Satire and sarcasm are no longer obviously such because both Progressive and Neocon opinions are so utterly batshit crazy.

[Rasilio]

While I am sure that this is an idiotic program by government to achieve some mythical “Social Justice” goal the idea that the credit reporting systems in this country even work fairly well is a joke.

I mean ultimately is is just another form of collectivism because it takes everyone, puts a few data points through a complex mathematical formula and then acts as if everyone who achieves any given score is exactly as much of a risk as everyone else who achieves the same score, a patently absurd idea.

Credit scores are a good idea in general as they make a nice additional piece of data to have in making a lending decision but the problem is that they have become effectively the only metric which really matters in lending decisions

[Emmerson Biggins]

They should all move offshore.

[John]

http://www.foxnews.com/science…..ggs-boson/

Has the Higgs Boson been found? Considering all of the other false alarms about this, I am still skeptical.

[DJF]

“””though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is,”””

Since they don’t know ‘what kind of Higgs Bosom it is” I am guessing that they are not sure what they have found. If there are different kinds then maybe what they found is not what they were looking for.

[gaijin]

“These aren’t the bosons you are looking for” –God

[John]

+1

[Zeb]

But if it is something new, it is still an important result. An experiment proving your hypothesis wrong is just as scientifically important as one that supports it.

Also, most science journalism is completely stupid, so they may be totally misrepresenting what the scientists are actually saying about it.

[Counterfly]

From what I understand, it has the mass and decay properties of Higgs’ predicted Higgs boson.

Lederman, Higgs himself, Sean Carroll and a bunch of others have seen everything they expected to see in a boson that sprouts from the field that provides the mechanism for giving mass to fermions. Anything beyond that is just math.

Of course that’s all whoop de shit, since figuring out how the hell gravity works seems much much more important to me, but what are you gonna do.

[Zeb]

Indeed, getting gravity into the standard model is still the biggest problem in Physics.
Maybe I’m off, but it seems to me that understanding how mass happens would help a bit.

[mad libertarian guy]

Of course that’s all whoop de shit, since figuring out how the hell gravity works seems much much more important to me, but what are you gonna do.

I’m no scientist, and have no formal scientific training, but this is my thought process as well. There is so much real-world science stuff that can be done, but instead theoretical physicists focus on shit that only matters to other theoretical physicists, and will never have any real-world application.

[Zeb]

Well, you never know. Did any people working on quantum mechanics in the 30’s imagine how incredibly useful and productive all that weird, incomprehensible stuff would be?

[mad libertarian guy]

No, but then again we were told for decades that we’d have flying cars by now.

[Counterfly]

By science journalists. If you believed anything they wrote, I wouldn’t trust you in a flying car anyway.

[robc]

I am perfectly happy to keep drivers in 2 dimensions.

[Rasilio]

We do have flying cars, the technology has been around since at least the 80’s.

The problems with flying cars are not technological but rather regulatory, no one has been able to get one licensed as anything but an airplane which means they are not street legal and require a pilots license to fly.

Realistically we will not be seeing flying cars until a decade or two past the fully autonomous ground cars because it will be much easier to license a personal flying vehicle if there is no human component to it’s operation.

[CatoTheElder]

“An experiment proving your hypothesis wrong is just as scientifically important as one that supports it.”

And, it’s often more interesting even if it’s also annoying.

[WTF]

Since they don’t know ‘what kind of Higgs Bosom it is…

You mean like it might be a DD?

[Rich]

*Mass*, Baby!

[Counterfly]

Ironically, the Higgs is a symmetry breaker so you’d need a custom fitted one…

[some guy]

Well it’s a new particle with properties consistent with what has been described by theorists as the “Higgs Boson”. They need more data to refine their estimates of those properties and work out exactly how this particle interacts with the rest of the Standard Model. But so far this particle fits into the Model well, which is kind of disappointing because proving theorists wrong is so much more enjoyable.

[Lord Humungus]

Toronto School Board sics police on sarcastic blogger
http://www.torontosun.com/2013…..ic-blogger

They presented “a photocopy of my post about the TDSB teaching children that the Black Panthers were a harmless social justice organization link” and specifically the “OISE and the TDSB need to be purged, or burnt to the ground” stinger.

It was almost laughable. He thought everybody would understand it was meant figuratively and obviously not literally.

“It was nothing but a rhetorical flourish. It’s the language of blogging,” said Lemaire.

[Rich]

This is actually a minor concern of mine.

“I plead *sarcasm*, Your Honor!”

[mad libertarian guy]

“I plead *sarcasm*, Your Honor!”

This is exactly what I’d want to say, but I’d bet that counsel would advise against it.

[Lord Humungus]

someday, the H&R commentators will be put in front of kangaroo courts people’s tribunals to answer some important questions regarding our sarcastic comments.

[Rich]

“The record clearly shows that the defendant on multiple occasions referred to the plaintiff as a ‘possible sheep fucker’.”

[SugarFree]

They’ll never take me alive.

[Clich? Bandit]

You were the very first person I thought of. You will be missed.

[gaijin]

If irony has it’s way, Sarcasmic will be the last one so charged

[PS]

You have the same speech impediment?

[Lord Humungus]

In Reality, Debt Matters. It Matters a Lot
http://www.humanevents.com/201…..ers-a-lot/

Right now, we’re spending more money to pay interest on debt than we’ll spend on education, homeland security, transportation and veterans’ benefits combined this year. Surely, there’s something better to spend that money on. And those interest payments are a significant tax on Americans ? a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. And just wait until interest rates rise, because at some point they will.

Hey, I didn’t even come up with the previous paragraph. I cribbed it from a speech given on the Senate floor in 2006 by an up-and-comer named Barack Obama. He’s so articulate I couldn’t resist. But those were the stormy days when debt mattered because Republicans were ? well, Republicans.

[some guy]

Obama’s opinion on this issue evolved a lot between 2006 and 2009. He’s a progressive, man. Progress means change.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

You know why the debt matters, regardless of what Krugman and other libshits say?

Because Bernanke can’t keep the interest rates down forever. The minute the blended rate goes to 3.5%, the interest on just the current debt rises to nearly $600 billion a year. Combine that with 9% annual increases in spending on healthcare, and you have a potential bomb on your hands.

Every year we add another trillion to the national debt is another step towards a potential fiscal meltdown. .Gov won’t be able to tax enough to cover all those obligations. It’s not politics, it’s mathematics.

[Bobarian]

Mathmatics are racist.

[CatoTheElder]

Are you sure you want to go there?

[CatoTheElder]

“Every year we add another trillion to the national debt is another step towards a potential fiscal meltdown.”

And every trillion that Bernanke adds to the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is another step towards a certain monetary meltdown.

[John]

http://thehill.com/blogs/globa…..-survivors

GOP threatens to Subpoena Bengazi survivors. Nice idea, but it would have been nice if they had done it before the election. That would have required a set of testicles.

[mad libertarian guy]

That would have required a set of testicles.

Which apparently only one man in the senate has.

[Counterfly]

It doesn’t count if his wife keeps them in a jar.

[$park?]

I can’t figure out if you mean Boxer, Feinstein, or Murray.

[Rich]

What is this “threaten” crap? Just do it.

[tarran]

John, I think you are missing the bright side…

Romney was going to suck ass – and everyone was going to blame the inevitable failures of a New England Rockefeller Republican on free markets and limited government.

Instead, we have a chance of having the suck blamed on Obama’s policies *and* going through the lovely theater of him being impeached. I have a vision of the Swordfish biplanes winging out to attack the Bismark.

[tarran]

The Bismark representing, of course, the abomination that is progressivism.

[John]

I see that bright side. I saw it before the election. Watching Obama slowly drown in his own bile and incompetence is a pretty good consolation prize for the dumb bastard being elected.

[WTF]

They will still blame republican obstructionism for the failures. And the media will let them get away with it. Hell, the republicans still get blamed for all that’s wrong in California.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Republicans were responsible for Prop. 187, which galvanized the Democrats and other liberal/lefties in the state. I would write a deeper analysis of this issue, but just read the Wikipedia entry.

The implications for how Prop. 187 harmed the GOP on the local, state, and even national level are quite interesting. Since there is no real opposition to the Dems in CA today, sure, in a weird way the GOP is responsible all that’s wrong in CA.

[John]

And all Prop 187 did was cut illegals off welfare, something that happened nationally under welfare reform just three years later. People act like 187 was a plan to lock all Mexicans up in camps or something.

[Lord Humungus]

Ignatius: North Korea and the price of patience
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..story.html

Some longtime Korea watchers argue that Kim is rattling sabers to get attention and that Washington should give it to him. “Even if we’re at an impasse, there has to be dialogue,” argues Joseph DeTrani, a former special envoy for negotiations with North Korea.

But when a country is developing nuclear weapons that could hit U.S. territory, and when its party newspaper responds to sanctions by calling for a “final showdown,” the United States needs options beyond diplomacy and the threat of more U.N. sanctions. So it’s reassuring that the U.S. Navy is readying ballistic missile defenses in the Pacific, and that it has such total dominance underwater that it can threaten any adversary in Asia instantly.

Counting on North Korean restraint has been a bad bet. It may be wiser to assume the worst and plan accordingly.

[John]

The North Korean leaders have nothing to lose. That makes them very dangerous.

[mad libertarian guy]

I’d start with PsyOps.

Drop pictures showing American grocery stores all over the country, and tell the North Korean people that they too can eat if they’d kick that fat fuck to the curb where he belongs.

[John]

Actually, one of the biggest problems for the NORK government is smuggled in VHS tapes of South Korean soap operas. Apparently the love of soap operas cuts across all cultural boundaries such that the tapes are nearly impossible to eradicate.

[$park?]

I’d start with PsyOps.

Get them all dancing Gangnam Style?

[Enough About Palin]

As I said before, what they need to do is evacuate Seoul. That would send one hell of a message.

[WTF]

I don’t know about ‘nothing’. They could be turned into a smoking crater.

[John]

There is only one level of dead. And if that regime ever falls, they are dead. So it really doesn’t matter to them if it ends in a crater or at the end of a rope.

[WTF]

Good point.

[Zeb]

If it comes to a war, they have nothing to lose. But they have a lot to lose by having a war at all. If they seriously attack S Korea or Japan or the US, that’s it for them.

But who knows? I tend to underestimate how crazy and fucked up people are.

[John]

If it comes to war they are dead and if there is ever an internal insurrection they are dead. That is the problem.

[Zeb]

Yeah. It’s going to be ugly when change comes to N Korea, no matter how it goes down.

[some guy]

But if there is internal insurrection, they will focus their wrath internally. Even they know that nuking Seoul isn’t going to stop the NORK masses from storming Pyongyang.

The biggest worry regarding nukes is that if they end up in a protracted Syria-style civil war, they might nuke a rebel held NORK city.

[John]

But they might start a war knowing that doing so is the only way to stop an insurrection. Betting on the US And South Korea bluffing, while a long shot, is still a better bet than sure death via insurrection.

[Emmerson Biggins]

Also, if they start making things better internally, they are probably dead.

[some guy]

They have their lives and their livelihoods to lose. That’s all they care about, so that means they have quite a bit to lose. Their goal right now is to keep control of their country. As long as we don’t threaten that, they’re harmless.

[John]

They have their lives and their livelihoods to lose.

Sure they do. But backing down to the US and South Korea puts that in danger by appearing weak. They are more afraid of their people than they are of us. And that is dangerous.

[Bobarian]

That is the crux of NKs problem.

They need to continue to fight a cold war with lots of sabre rattling to keep their own people convinced that SK and the US are a threat and that they’re the only thing standing between them and being wiped out/enslaved by the evil US.

A properly conducted open media war could could topple the NK government in a very short time.

[Chris Mallory]

Only if you count kidnapped Japanese sex slaves as “nothing”.

[some guy]

Pretty much any country can “hit US territory” given that US territory is spread all over the globe. Them having nuclear weapons is kind of irrelevant, given that they won’t ever use them.

Kim and his ilk know that if they nuke someone the party will be over and their lives will soon be forfeit. So they only time they would ever use a nuke is if they thought it would prevent some other threat to their control of the country. All we have to do is not provoke them. Sit back and let them wallow in their own crapulence until their own people are ready to deal with them.

[John]

At this point, thanks to China propping them up for 60 years, all we can do is ignore them and hope for the best.

[some guy]

Agreed. This should be our policy regarding all petty tyrants. Unless they have the motive, will and ability to threaten the US we should ignore them. If they have the will and ability, then we just have to avoid giving them the motive.

[John]

That sounds nice, but they create their own motives. Any dictatorship has to have outside enemies to distract its people from what a failure it is.

[Matrix]

Universal background check bill designed to land you in prison

A law designed to put people in prison? Whodathunkit?

[John]

What about the following situations:

You leave on a trip for 10 days, with the firearm at home in possession of a room mate, fiancee, or lover.
You have a few acres here in Georgia. You step away from the “curtilage” of your home and permit a friend or relative to use your firearm to shoot targets or pests on your own property.

Both situations would land you in prison under S. 374.

It gets worse. What is a shooting range? Under the bill, it is only a shooting range if it is owned or occupied by a “duly incorporated organization organized for conservation purposes or to foster proficiency in firearms.”

Is the shooting range owned by a natural person? Prison.

It is effectively a national gun ban. It would make the vast majority of gun owners felons.

[Kaptious Kristen]

The guys on Duck Dynasty would be royally fucked.

[John]

They like everyone else would just ignore it. The law is effectively unenforceable. And like all unenforceable laws would grant the police the right to arrest and convict any gun owner they choose to.

[Emmerson Biggins]

It’s sad that is an upside. But it is. They pretty much can already arrest anybody they don’t like. So at some point it doesn’t matter if they add new laws that are only useful if you already on the enemies list.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

It sounds stupid, but I’m actually a little freaked out by this. It would make all my current trips to the range illegal–it’s for-profit and I always shoot my boyfriend’s guns too. I mean seriously, what the fuck? Gah.

[John]

You should be scared. They want to ban and confiscate all guns. This is a great first step towards doing that.

[Chris Mallory]

The shooting ranges this would hit would be the ones owned by gun stores. I doubt very many public ranges are owned by natural persons. The liability would be too high to not incorporate.

[Raston Bot]

holy shit. and the House will fold on this to suck their friends’ dicks, neh?

[Longtorso]

GAS, COFFEE, BITCOINS: Here’s What Everything Looks Like Priced In Gold

[Lord Humungus]

Farage Slams Eurozone As “Complete Economic Disaster”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/…..c-disaster

[Rich]

Farage-Hannan 2016.

[Longtorso]

U.S. to let spy agencies scour Americans’ finances
The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters.

The proposed plan represents a major step by U.S. intelligence agencies to spot and track down terrorist networks and crime syndicates by bringing together financial databanks, criminal records and military intelligence. The plan, which legal experts say is permissible under U.S. law, is nonetheless likely to trigger intense criticism from privacy advocates.

Financial institutions that operate in the United States are required by law to file reports of “suspicious customer activity,” such as large money transfers or unusually structured bank accounts, to Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

The Federal Bureau of Investigation already has full access to the database. However, intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, currently have to make case-by-case requests for information to FinCEN.

The Treasury plan would give spy agencies the ability to analyze more raw financial data than they have ever had before, helping them look for patterns that could reveal attack plots or criminal schemes….

[gaijin]

What is ‘large’ transfers ? Is it the $10K reportable number so easily avoided with a $9999 transfer? Or do they just say that and then track lesser amounts? Also what is an ‘unusually structured’ account? I fear these are defined as whatever FinCEN wants them to be at any given moment.

[Zeb]

You can also get in trouble for making $9999 deposits if they think you are doing it to avoid reporting. There was some story a few years back about a lawyer who got in trouble for that.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

I get that they do it, but that seems a lot like giving someone a ticket for 64 in a 65 because he was doing it to avoid a speeding ticket.

[Zeb]

I agree. But I think the argument would be that depositing $10000 is not a violation of any law, as speeding woudl be.

[Ice Nine]

How predictable was that? Remind me to avoid using that dunce for my legal work. It’s $8873, always.

[Raston Bot]

bitcoin.

[radar]

And before the election, no one liked Obama’s policies either. Apparently mass amnesia is common in the month of November.

[generic Brand]

The Florida Department of Education has found that charter school students outperform public school students in math, science, and reading.

But that’s UNPOSSIBLE! I’ve been told that charter schools are just a big scam and that they funnel money away from public schools, plus charter schools don’t take problem students and blah, blah, blah.

I’m really sick of the public sector masking their complaints in the children when it’s really about their job security. Like I’ve said about my own job and about theirs: if you’re good at your job, you’ll easily find work in the private sector. It’s only if you’re that bad at your job that one should worry about losing their public sector position.

tl;dr version: Fuck off, slaver!

[Lord Humungus]

Ezra Klein: Paul Ryan’s budget: Social engineering with a side of deficit reduction
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..e-deficit/

It is Ryan’s unusual ideology, and not the specific state of our finances, that justifies this budget. Ryan’s view is that the federal government is strangling our community

[John]

Ryan’s view is that the federal government is strangling our community

Well yeah.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

I’d go with “shooting it in the back of the head, execution style” but ” strangling” works, too.

[mad libertarian guy]

I’d go with “shooting it in the back of the head, execution style”

What’s happening is way too slow to be a shot to the back of the head.

It’s more like waterboarding that takes days and days to kill someone, all while giving hope that they just might be able to survive.

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

Crucifixion’s a doddle.

[Ted S.]

All of those fucking “targeted” tax “cuts” are social engineering.

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

I’m not going to fucking read that. In fact, I’m angry I even accidentally glanced at the portion you quoted.

[Brett L]

Isn’t Ezra pro social engineering?

[John]

http://balkin.blogspot.com/201…..-goes.html

The amount of debt is just unbelievable. I can tell you from experience paying off 50K of debt is a major pain in the ass. But $150? You would be fucked. You would never pay it off.

[DJF]

I also have heard that lots of law school graduates are having to take unpaid or low paid internships just to get the practical experience to practice law that they did not get in law school. If they are going to have to do that then why not go back to the old system where people would apprentice with a lawyer to learn the job instead of going to law school.

[John]

That is a point no one ever wants to discuss. Liberals think unpaid internships are slavery. So, a company taking you in and training you for free is slavery. But a university charging you $50K or more a year for a degree that still requires you get training after college is just great in liberals’ view.

[NoVAHockey]

the market is changing too. i’m not a lawyer, but i’m doing associate level work for a firm. it’s not legal work, but you don’t need a JD to analyze regulations and do some hand holding on Hill visits. but the firms do like the creditials — so i got an MA from night school for about 10k or so (GW). which i did PAYGO

[NoVAHockey]

the only downside is that i’ll never make partner here. screw that anyway.

[Raston Bot]

Credentials or no, I’m sure they’re billing you out at 100+/hour.

[robc]

$150?

I might have that in my wallet (actually, no, but I could hit an ATM).

I think you may have left off a k or MM or something?

[SugarFree]

What do hate groups think about Jennifer Lawrence?

VICE: I was wondering if you could tell me your organization’s thoughts on Jennifer Lawrence?

Edward McBride, National Socialist Freedom Movement: Jennifer Lawrence? I don’t know anything about her. Why?

You know who she is, right? She just won best actress for Silver Linings Playbook? She was in The Hunger Games?
No, sorry. I don’t really pay attention to that nonsense.

Oh. Well what kind of stuff are you into?
Basically, you know, defending the rights of white people everywhere.

Jennifer Lawrence is white.
OK.

So you guys would defend her?
If something were to happen to her.

Well, a while ago she won an award at the Golden Globes, and when she went to get it, she said this thing about Meryl Streep, which was just a reference to The First Wives Club, but a lot of people misunderstood and thought she was dissing Meryl. A bunch of people were angry. There was this huge Twitter backlash.
Uh-huh.

Is that something you guys would have defended her against?
No.

What kind of stuff would you defend her against, then?
A variety of different things. Say, for example, she was the victim of a flash mob.

Ugh. I hate flash mobs.
Yeah, basically where a group of nig-nogs are looking for any excuse to attack whites.

[John]

WTF?

[Tim]

Where does he find this shit? ( I know he linked it, it’s rhetorical)

[John]

I don’t get all of the Jennifer Lawrence hate. She is gorgeous. I don’t know if she can act. She has never been in a movie I wanted to see. But the other day there was a giant feeding frenzy on here on how unattractive she is.

[sarcasmic]

I’d fuck her.

[John]

Great skin, a nice natural body, what is not to love?

[Counterfly]

A complete lack of charisma and personality?

I mean I totally would, but you asked.

[John]

I have never paid any attention to her. I have just seen pictures of her. I have never seen one of her movies and never seen her interviewed. Is she really that bad?

[mnarayan]

You might be the creepiest person on the internet.

[John]

We love you too.

[John]

And sorry only the pretty girls get the male gaze.

[mnarayan]

The male gaze is one thing.

Great skin, a nice natural body

Channeling Hannibal Lecter is something else entirely.

[sarcasmic]

Good enough to eat!

[mnarayan]

Oh yea not Hannibal Lecter. The other guy in Silence of the Lambs.

[Bobarian]

Thanswer you’re looking for is Jame Gumb.

And the imagined vision of John and Sarcasmic doing the tuck-dance to ‘Goodby Horses’ should be enough to get you banned.

[AlexInCT]

Miggs?

I CAN SMELL YOUR….

[John]

Great skin, a nice natural body

Channeling Hannibal Lecter is something else entirely.

Oh yeah, that is exactly what it is. Is that you Mary? Have you gone off your meds again?

[Enough About Palin]

You didn’t notice that mnarayan is just an angram of Na Na Mary, right?

[Enough About Palin]

anagram

[gaijin]

basically where a group of nig-nogs

So this is the workaround for the ‘N’ word?

[tarran]

Nah. It actually is pretty old.

[Rich]

Thanks for that!

[gaijin]

ah. I’m out of the loop on racist slang apparently. I wonder if there is an app for that.

[WTF]

No, that’s been a slur for quite some time.

[mad libertarian guy]

Being that flash mobs are comprise of more than black people, I’d say that this is the new slang to denigrate those who participate in flash mobs.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Normally, yes, but this guy heads up something called the National Socialist Freedom Movement, so it’s possible there may be a racial slur intended.

[Eduard van Haalen]

But he must be fairly slow on the uptake if he lets some prankster interview him about Jennifer Lawrence.

[AlmightyJB]

CCW to the rescue

http://fox6now.com/2013/03/12/…..ing-woman/

[Way Of The Crane]

The West Allis police chief says these types of situations really are judgement calls for gun owners. While they don’t encourage this behavior, they appreciate citizens watching out for each other as long as they do it legally and are willing to accept the consequences.

Of course they don’t encourage average citizens proving how useless the police are at stopping crime.

[Scooby]

as long as they do it legally and are willing to accept the consequences.

i.e., the chief wants you little people to know that you won’t get nol-prossed when you shoot an innocent, and you won’t get extra paid vacation, either.

[Jordan]

How does 75% of federal agencies being non-compliant with FOIA laws only rate a C-?

[Lord Humungus]

racist!

[gaijin]

graded on a curve…like government school grades

[mad libertarian guy]

like government school grades

I have hope that calling them government schools catches on. It’s the only truthful descriptor of what they are.

[gaijin]

indeed. I picked that up here in some post (you?) and try to use it faithfully with family and friends.

[mad libertarian guy]

I to picked it up around here a few months ago. Don’t remember from whom. And I too try and use it with everyone I know, especially those who will give me an eye roll for doing so.

[Counterfly]

I figured they had to weight for the agencies. I mean no one gives a crap if Defense or State is non-compliant but if the VA or Transportation is, then it counts a lot more.

[WTF]

Because Obama is still benefitting from Affirmative Action.

[Ken Shultz]

“The sequester is hurting Obama’s approval ratings….The president is still more trusted, but only by 44 to 40.”

That’s terrible news.

No, really.

The chances of the president having lost this credibility with voters because the sequester didn’t slash the budget deep enough are a bit like a snowball’s chances in hell.

[Jordan]

Maybe his approval ratings are declining because people see his bullshit fearmongering for what it is…

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA yeah right!

[John]

There is some of that. But mostly it is bi partisan disease. Most people don’t understand government and pay little attention to politics. If you are one of those people, the way you sound smart is to say something like “why can’t they just put politics aside and solve the problem”.

Obama did well with these people in the election because he convinced them that Romney was an uncaring evil rich guy who hated women. But it doesn’t do so well with sequester because of the bi partisan disease I explain in the paragraph above.

[Ken Shultz]

It seems to me that the best spin we can put on it is that the media convinced so many middle of the road people that the sequester was going to hurt the economy that they came to believe it was going to hurt the economy–without really knowing anything about it.

The media manufactures these opinions–intentionally or otherwise. Sometimes they make average people support background checks at gun shows, something they’d never really cared about before. Sometimes the media convinces people that the sequester is a terrible thing for the economy.

However they got there, though, people seem to think, right now, that slashing government spending is bad, and anyone that champions slashing spending, right now, should probably count on taking a dip in the national polls.

[John]

Good point Ken. They definitely convinced people sequester would hurt the economy. Where they miscalculated was thinking that people would never blame Obama for that. But it turns out they have because they think one of the President’s responsibilities is to be able to make a deal with the other party.

[John]

http://dailycaller.com/2013/03…..wer-video/

Bill Gates longs for the coming of the strong man. My God did Hayak have these people pegged. “We need a man who can make a plan work”.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Ah, yes, the problem in this country is Obama not getting everything he wants. It all makes sense now.

[John]

The funny thing is that Gates built Microsoft in no small part because of his ability to hire good people and judge talent. And now he thinks the problem is Obama doesn’t have enough power. Makes you think that maybe success is due to dumb luck or fate more than anything.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Gates built his empire on thievery, trickery, and intimidation. Why is it surprising that he thinks Obama needs more power to do these things?

[John]

Gates built his empire on thievery, trickery, and intimidation.

That is not true. To the extent he did things like that he is no worse than any of his competition. He built his company by making a good product and understanding that the way to get on top was let everyone use it so it is the standard. That is really the only difference between him and Apple. Apple refused to license their shit out and wanted to control everything and wound up losing despite having a better product.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I really need to get better at that whole sarcasm on the internet thing.

Trust me, I’m no Apple fan and I only use MS products because the vast majority of the world does. I use my fair share of open source products, but compatibility is an issue when you make your living in computers.

I have issues with some of MS’s business practices, but Gates’s rise is mostly his own perseverance and leadership. He wasn’t above the things that I mentioned, though.

[John]

Of course he wasn’t. You don’t get that big by not playing dirty. But all of his competitors were too. It wasn’t Bill Gates who paid off Bill Clinton to get the Justice Department to sue his competitors. It was Sun and Sisco who did that.

And my God does the Microsoft anti-trust suit look even more retarded in retrospect. They actually thought internet browsers, rather than content and search engines were going to own the future.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

And my God does the Microsoft anti-trust suit look even more retarded in retrospect. They actually thought internet browsers, rather than content and search engines were going to own the future.

People ignorant of technology making decisions about technology… That is the fear of every IT pro out there.

To be fair, though. Many people, at that time, had AOL and browser = content in their limited view of the information superhighway.

[John]

The whole thing just shows how stupid most if not all anti-trust is. What is a monopoly today is a dated business model tomorrow.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Very true. I see the same shit in the Google anti-trust nonsense. Google makes a DAMN good product and then gives it away for free. Google is one of the younger search engines out there, but it works better than anything MS or Yahoo has created, so people use it.

[robc]

Google is starting to get some age on it now.

Its amazing that it continues to lead, based on past history of search engines. But they radically changed the concept of a search engine, so I guess it isnt really a surprise.

[robc]

Sisco was on DS9.

Cisco makes routers.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Sisco didn’t like competition either.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I doubt Gates succeeded due to dumb luck, he simply put more skill and effort into his own business than into analyzing public policy.

Big-shot businessmen often wish “the country could be run like a business,” with the President/CEO being able to order people around for their own good. These businessmen miss the point that their own success was based on *persuading,* not forcing people to but products or services. But the egos which help drive their success leads them to think in terms of a smart guy (someone like them) ordering things for the better, like a CEO managing his employees.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Not to mention that the kind of government big-shot businessmen support tends to favor large corporate organizations such as the ones they run.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Plus, the really big businessmen can probably schedule an appointment with the President, and if nothing else, the Pres can stroke the businessman’s ego about how much he’s Participating in the Political Process. And it only gets better from there, as doors open into the administration, assuming the guy has made enough campaign donations.

[Jerryskids]

Actual headline on the NPR story about the guy who killed four people in NY himself being killed:

“Cops Kill Suspect In Deadly NY Shooting Rampage”

It took me a second to realize what the headline meant – I clicked on the link wanting to know which cops and how many cops were going on a deadly shooting rampage and how many dogs and innocent bystanders were shot in the course of the deadly shooting rampage.

[generic Brand]

Darn, I read that headline as “Cosby Suspect in Deadly NY Shooting Rampage”

“uh-Theoooo! Get me another mag! And a puddin pop!”

[LTC(ret) John]

+100

[Enough About Palin]

Margret Sanger Smiles

Study: African-American teen abortion rates reach twice national average

[RG]

Insurers see premiums rising 20-100% for millions of customers.

http://www.philly.com/philly/b…..shock.html

[John]

I will never forget the liberals on facebook all crying the day Obamacare passed about how wonderful it was going to be to let people with pre-existing conditions get coverage.

You know maybe Roberts and the penaltax isn’t so bad after all. This is going to be quite an educational experience for these people.

[Matrix]

they won’t put blame where blame is due. They will be calling for a single payer system. This is just a step towards that. Like gun control. They have an end game in mind. Knowing they can’t pass it all at once, they do it in increments, until one day you wake up and find yourself in a socialist hellhole.

[John]

That is what they want. But they are a decade late to get it. The time to get single payer was the 90s when we had the money to do it. There is no way we will get single payer in this budget environment. You will never see another big entitlement like Obamacare passed again. There just isn’t the money. The existing ones cost too much to allow for it and there are too many people who depend on the existing ones to cut those.

[RG]

I’m with you on this. We’ve crossed the threshold and the deficit/debt is too precarious to pile this on, without massive tax increase whcih will turn voters out in droves.

[sarcasmic]

massive tax increase whcih will turn voters out in droves.

What do you mean by that?

Do you mean turn out voters who are against the tax increases, or voters who feel that the rich haven’t paid their fair share by virtue of their being rich?

[RG]

IMHO, they’re running out of room to finagle budgetary predictions.

They could only pass single payer and make it appear feasible with across the board tax hikes, which voters won’t tolerate.

[sarcasmic]

What are voters going to do? Vote out incumbents? Vote for a third party?

They’ve got a lock and they know it.

[RG]

Tax avoidance, black markets, capital flight, etc.

[sarcasmic]

When has “There just isn’t the money” ever stopped government from spending it anyway?

I believe that they’ll go after retirement accounts or institute a wealth tax.

[John]

It has never stopped them before Sarcasmic because there really was the money. We had a lot of money in the 1960s. We had a lot of money in the 00s even. Now, not so much.

[Fatty Bolger]

I believe that they’ll go after retirement accounts or institute a wealth tax

I don’t think we’re nearly at the point where Americans would put up with them going after retirement accounts. And a wealth tax would hit the Democratic power base hard.

[RG]

They’d risk fraying or fracturing their coalition if they pursued either.

I guess it dpends on how bad you think the situation is and how desperate the gov will get.

[Rasilio]

“Look at all of these people who won life’s lottery and were able to save for their own retirement just sitting on those 401K investments and not using that money to help their fellow countrymen in need.

It is unfair that they will enjoy so much more comfortable of a retirement than you will, it doesn’t matter if you were a Janitor or Jurist, Cashier or CEO, or even someone who stayed home and did the important work of raising a family you all worked just as hard and you should all be guaranteed the same level of comfort when you retire.

So with that in mind today I am proposing the Retirement Income Security Act which will guarantee all Americans regardless of wealth or savings the retirement income needed for a comfortable life and redirect funds currently saved in designated retirement accounts into funding a new Medical benefit for all Americans”

[John]

The thing is sarcasmic, even if they steal all of the retirement accounts, that won’t even pay for the programs they have, forget about single payer. Hell, they are not going to be able to save Social Security.

[Raston Bot]

Money markets… bullseye.

[RG]

Yep. I can’t wait to drink their tears. I’m itching for my liberal friends to whine on FB.

I may even start quizzing people with I Love Obamacare bumper stickers how it’s working out.

Of course, intentions will always trump results, and the market will be blamed.

[PS]

You know maybe Roberts and the penaltax isn’t so bad after all. This is going to be quite an educational experience for these people.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!

Oh you naive fool.

[John]

Civilization got build somehow. People do learn. They don’t learn quickly. But they do learn.

[PS]

Yeah, civilizations rise and they also fall. If there’s going to be a sea change a sort of Antonine resurgence I frankly don’t see it happening anytime soon.

[John]

Civilizations generally don’t “fall” unless some outside group shows up to burn the place down. Without that, they muddle through and have peaks and valleys. Absent alien invasion, no one is showing up to burn western civilization down. So what we will get instead is ebbs and flows. Think China before the Mongolians showed up; a few hundred years of good rule and development followed by chaos and then things rebuilding.

[PS]

Without external threats the Roman empire would have fallen anyway. But I agree it would have been a lot more gentle. Just a continuing dissolution, discord and eventual breakup into smaller kingdoms that would have probably started warring with each other.

The flipside of that coin is that having real external threats keeps a country (empire) on its toes. Which is why the US and Western Europe is willing and able to devote so much of its resources to PC bullshit, victimology, etc.

[robc]

Without external threats the Roman empire would have fallen anyway.

Hydraulic Empires only fall to external forces.

Thats the theory anyway.

[Clich? Bandit]

you conflate cause and effect here…mongols/Hannibal/Huns/etc. show up BECAUSE civilization has already fallen.

[robc]

No, they were there when the Roman empire was thriving too. They just couldnt put any pressure on the empire when it was strong.

Weak != Fallen.

[Clich? Bandit]

I will give you that but the “success” of invaders is directly proportional to the invaded’s strength…Basically, when you start to look weaker you get more challengers.

[robc]

Or maybe, the challenges fail much quicker when you are strong, so they arent seriously noted.

[AlexInCT]

Most civilizations fell from rot happenign within. The outsiders just showed up to take advantage of the dysfunction caused by the rot. Practically every western democracy is rotting from within. The entitled outnumber the producers. What can’t go on, won’t. At this point it is all bread & circuses American Idol style.

[robc]

Civilization got build somehow.

Beer.

[Matrix]

More on the fiasco that is SimCity

[Jordan]

It gets even worse. It looks like they’re claim about the game making use of cloud-computing might just be cover for their DRM scheme, as people have suspected from the beginning. Fucking EA. Is there no franchise they can’t kill.

For what it’s worth, I’m actually enjoying the game though. BUT FUCK EA AND THEIR ONLINE ONLY DRM BULLSHIT! Also, fuck small cities.

[Jordan]

they’re = their*

Fucking grammar, how does it work?

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Between the DRM and the tiny cities, I’m gonna pass. I’ve faithfully bought almost every game in the SIM universe up until this point. The DRM was mildly annoying in Sims3, but this crap is just uncalled for.

[Jordan]

I’ve taken a break from SimCity to beat the Heart of the Swarm campaign at the moment.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Eh, I’ll pick up Heart of the Swarm once the series is complete and they come out with a box set. I’ve got many other great games to choose from and not being able to play the entire game all at once and having to pay for all three campaigns is annoying and dickish.

[$park?]

Agreed.

[John]

Someone on here turned me on to a site called Good Old Games .com. They have pretty much every game from the mid 00s available for ridiculously cheap prices to download. In many ways those games were better. The graphics sucked by today’s standards. But the game play was better. I think games have gotten worse in some ways.

[$park?]

Most games today are made for kids with short attention spans that just want explosions. The old games, the ones that took months to complete, were the best. Because graphics sucked, they were forced to make awesome, engaging stories. Nobody seems to want that anymore.

[Jordan]

What games took months to complete?

[$park?]

The old school Final Fantasy games, Bard’s Tale, things like those. If you played them just for a bit after school anyway.

[John]

The old Baldur’s Gate Neverwind series were huge and quite interesting.

[jesse.in.mb]

Are you familiar with Project Eternity?

It’s a kickstartered old-school RPG based on the infinity engine and done in the style of Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, etc.

[Jordan]

There is no shortage of games like that these days. I’ve put 109 hours into Skyrim and barely scratched the surface. Also, the Mass Effect series, Minecraft, Dragon Age, Borderlands, Civilization, Sins of a Solar Empire. And MMORPGs are the kings of replay value. I know people who’ve put thousands of hours into WoW. Even “HURR DURR EXPLOSIONS” games like Call of Duty and Battlefield have pretty much infinite replay value thanks to multiplayer.

[John]

I have heard good things about Sins of a Solar Empire. But I have also heard it is really hard to learn to play well.

[Jordan]

I guess it depends on how accustomed to real-time strategy games you are. There is a learning curve, of course, but you can set the A.I. on easy and dick around.

[$park?]

Borderlands 2 took me all of 30 hours of play to complete the first run through the story. Dragon Age didn’t take much longer. Sure, MMOs and other online games have near infinite replay value, right up until you get sick of grinding away on the same things over and over again.

I’ll agree with you about Skyrim somewhat. That one took my about 80 hours playtime to complete.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I still haven’t beaten Skyrim. SO. MANY. PLACES. TO. EXPLORE!

[$park?]

I still haven’t beaten Skyrim.

Yeah, there’s a lot of minutia to get hung up on. Even still, with my 80 hours I was able to complete all of the thieves’ guild, fighter’s guild, and assassin’s guild missions, get all but 2 of the Daedric items, own all but one of the houses …

Yeah, it’s really all about how much time you want to spend doing side missions.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I think it’s become some sort of compulsion for me. I love open world games because I can do anything, but it always breaks down into my need to do EVERYTHING!

[itsnotmeitsyou]

One of the big reasons I like games like this (from Bethesda, specifically) is all the user created downloadable content.

They make their games with the intent that they will be modded instead of locking down their IP and calling anyone who wants to add to it a hacker. It adds so much variety and replayability to the game. Hell, I have loaded up Morrowind and Oblivion because someone uploaded some new adventure to The Nexus.

[Clich? Bandit]

FF7…greatest game of ALL TIME (playable)…
2. Chrono Trigger
3. FF10
4. WoW
5. Mario
6. Command and Conquer
7. Karateka
8. Masters of Orion II
9. TradeWars 2002
10. Pong (for history’s sake)

[Clich? Bandit]

I am going to add Chronicle3s of Ys 1&2 at number 5 with Mario.

[$park?]

FF7…greatest game of ALL TIME (playable).

Pshaw. FF6 was waaaaay better. I’ll agree with CT being 2 though.

[Jordan]

You sir, are worst than Hitler. FF6 is far superior to FF7.

[Jordan]

worse*

sigh

[Clich? Bandit]

One word:
Materia Battle System
(so it is three words, whatever)

[$park?]

FF6 kill the emperor, finish the game. Wait, what? I’m only half way done? BEST. GAME. EVER!

[Jordan]

Best part of FF7: Red XIII. Maybe tied for first with Tifa’s giant breasts.

Worst: Sephiroth. The beginning of Squaresoft’s love for androgynous male characters.

[John]

No Dune 2, cliche Bandit? No Civilization? You are a bigger monster than Warty.

[Clich? Bandit]

Civ went down some weird hole where special powers and luck began to override their already too simple game engine. SimCity3000 was better than any Civ I can name (except for graphics, they do a good job on Graphics).

Agree on Red XIII, Tifa, and Best love story with WORST GAME LET DOWN EVER with Aeris. As for Sepheroth I view him as a pretty decent bad guy.

An honorable mention for the original warcraft and Mortal Kombat II should be mentioned as well.

And for all the sporties out there, a different list:
TecmoBowl
Madden (any season) [if you don’t mind breaking controllers and TVs]
And this PS1 game where you could rollerblade, land luge, bike and stuff in races in Utah and Taho etc…can’t remember name.

[Ruckus]

I haven’t played a Civ game since III, which I remember being really good.

I always loved the Total War games, but I haven’t tried any in the past few years. I did replay Shogun:Total War last summer, still awesome.

I owned a very subpar PC for years until I built one 2 years ago, so there is a large gap in my library when it comes to the PC-only market of RTS, Sim, strategy type games.

[Jordan]

Rome: Total War 2 comes out later this year.

[Clich? Bandit]

Ohhh I forgot Oda Naboonaga’s

[KDN]

I always loved the Total War games, but I haven’t tried any in the past few years

I really enjoyed Empire; it took away a lot of the micromanagement and resource scarcity that were infuriating in the earlier games. I just wish they could add more turns in a given year, it shouldn’t take me 5 years to march an army from Astrakhan to Kiev.

[Rabban]

Heroes of Might and Magic III? Anyone?

[Ruckus]

I loved playing Masters of Orion II back in the day. Such an underrated game.

[John]

Masters of Orion kicked ass.

[Clich? Bandit]

In the list of underrated games comes, Warhammer, FF Tactics, Everquest (But fuck EQ, like meth that shit was), Morrowind.

[Clich? Bandit]

Ohh and a ground breaking game was Military Madness on TG16. THAT game was awesome. Come to think of it TG16 has some bad ass content.

[Matrix]

Greatest games of all time in no real order:

Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Final Fantasy VI
Chrono Trigger
Zelda: A Link to the Past
SimCity (SNES)
Goldeneye (original)
GTA: San Andreas
Zelda: Wind Waker (fuck you, it’s a great game!)
Final Fantasy VII
Resident Evil 4

[Jordan]

Zelda: Wind Waker (fuck you, it’s a great game!)

LOL agreed. It’s probably my second favorite Zelda game, behind A Link to the Past.

[Cavpitalist]

You people with no Gradius 3 make me sick.

[Joe M]

Just want to give props for TW2002. That game was my first online obsession back in the good old BBS days of 1992.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Short, shallow single player game design is a big reason I don’t play a lot of series that I once did. CoD is a big one for me.

I was talking with a friend’s kid the other day about video games and he was confused as to why I would WANT to play a game where 100 hours in, I wasn’t even close to finishing it.

[Jordan]

CoD is really about multiplayer.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

That’s my problem with it. I hate multiplayer unless my team is in the same room with me and we can communicate and strategize. Also, I like to be able to communicate without hearing a pre-pubescent voice string profanities at me in nonsensical fashion.

I get that CoD has become a multiplayer game. It just saddens me. I beat Black Ops in a few hours the afternoon it came out. Haven’t played it since.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Most of the early games took me 20 – 30 hours minimum to beat the single player mode. That’s about the shortest I’m willing to pay $60 for.

I’d play through an old school Fallout or C&C game again before plopping down 60 bucks on game that I’ll beat in one Saturday and then never play again.

[$park?]

I’d play through an old school Fallout or C&C game again before plopping down 60 bucks on game that I’ll beat in one Saturday and then never play again.

Exactly this.

[Jordan]

Well, I agree. It’s just that my Steam library is filled with modern games, none of which have less than 20 hours playtime. Most are at least in the 30 range.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Maybe I’m just a crotchety old gamer, but most modern games don’t hold muster when it comes to keeping my attention and drawing me in.

Good RTS’s are few and far between.

FPS’s all use the same engine and have very little, if any, story line to make them entertaining.

I’ve gotten away from RPG’s because they have become more soap opera-ish and tend to have whiny protagonists.

What’s worse is that so many new games are either re-hashings of the the same games I played 10-20 years ago, or even worse, re-boots of games I played 10-20 years ago that have really really shiny graphics and none of the depth.

[Jordan]

Good RTS’s are few and far between.

Agreed. Actually, RTS’s in general are few and far between now.

FPS’s all use the same engine and have very little, if any, story line to make them entertaining.

That’s not even remotely true about engines. I can name Frostbite, Unreal, and Crytek just off the top of my head. I’ll agree about FPS stories, but that’s always been the case. Anybody remember Doom or Quake’s story?

I’ve gotten away from RPG’s because they have become more soap opera-ish and tend to have whiny protagonists.

Maybe if you only stick to JRPGs, but they’ve always been like that. Skyrim, Deus Ex, Borderlands, Fallout, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Diablo definitely are not like that.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

The engine comment was overly general. Yes, I understand that there is more than one popular engine. Unfortunately, many DO use the few engines that you pointed out and are literally just a different skin for the same game, different boards, different names, but nothing new or innovative. And I DO remember the doom story line. Not that it was particularly compelling, but the game in and of itself was excellent and innovative.

Also, I misspoke about the RPGs. You are absolutely correct. I wasn’t thinking of games like Skyrim, etc as RPGs. I was thinking more along the lines of the FF series and such. The types that you list are pretty much all I play anymore, not really sure where my mind was categorizing them.

[Ruckus]

Dragon’s Dogma was also fun, but it was a “western” RPG like game, even though it was made by Capcom. Good amount of content, not quite 100 hours, but a solid 50-70 depending on side quests and end game dungeon playing.

I’ve been playing Path of Exile the past week. Solid ARPG Diablo-clone that has a lot of depth with character building, skills, and gear. It’s in open-beta and free to play.

[Jordan]

Dude, you just reminded me of Dark Souls. If you want a fantastic console RPG that’s hard as shit and takes forever to beat, there you go. It’s also a western-style RPG made by Japanese devs.

[Ruckus]

Fuck I forgot about Dark Souls as well. Loved that game, put way to many hours trying different weapons and styles to still end up getting back stabbed online constantly.

It’s one of the few console games where I can pick it up at random times and still be engaged in single player or PVP replay ability.

[Ruckus]

while I enjoy games that give me some hours for my purchase, I do have to admit I enjoy the narrative driven single player games a lot. If nothing else, they can be somewhat entertaining for my wife to watch and occasionally try herself.

I am glad I played Bioshock, Dead Space, Uncharted, Heavy rain, Spec Ops: The Line, etc. Of course, I don’t know how many of those I actually paid $60 for. I had a Blockbuster blue ticket membership until my local store shut down, for just this type of game.

[Matrix]

There was an update yesterday. Afterwards, my game keeps crashing and is not saving progress.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Infinite replay value! See, it’s a feature, not a bug.

[Fluffy]

Reading that article, I was surprised that they even attempted to create individual agents for each city inhabitant.

Wouldn’t that immediately spawn a massive computational Traveling Salesman Program?

If computers could successfully model what they appeared to try to model here, socialism would work.

[Jordan]

Only if each sim seeks the shortest route.

[KDN]

Oh, so EA rushed an anticipated game out the door before it was ready? Let me show you my shocked face.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

And included crippling DRM that is probably already cracked and available for torrenting. Shocking, I know. I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from this.

[Spoonman.]

Texas and North Dakota have fastest growing cities

fracking fracking fracking

[RG]

Little league raffles off AR-15.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/…..26576.html

[Butts Wagner]

This is literally for the children, so it’s good, right?

[The Late P Brooks]

they won’t put blame where blame is due.

“We need more and better executions!”

[The Late P Brooks]

the media convinced so many middle of the road people that the sequester was going to hurt the economy that they came to believe it was going to hurt the economy–without really knowing anything about it.

I think there are people out there who seriously believed they would see some sort of re-enactment of that famous Depression photo of the hobos trudging along a road in front of a billboard saying, “KEEP GOING- NO WORK HERE!”

[$park?]

Oops, they did it again!

Another Carnival cruise liner is experiencing problems with its propulsion system, power outages and overflowing toilets while docked in the Caribbean, one month after a fire crippled the Carnival Triumph in the Gulf of Mexico.

[robc]

As these things go, being stuck in St Maarten isnt the worst result. I spent a week there a few years ago.

IMO, much preferable to a cruise anyway.

[Jordan]

Yeah, but apparently they can’t leave the ship.

[robc]

okay, that sucks then.

[robc]

I wonder why. When I was there, every time a boat docked, the island got flooded with them.

[Bobarian]

I suppose the logistical capabilities of that small comunity would be sorely strained by dumping that population onto them.

[robc]

At peak times of the year, they can handle like 11 cruise ships at once.

[Bobarian]

But most of those are day trips, to sell shit to the tourists and get some money off them.

Once the stay extends past that, you are talking about quartering and food and other human needs that infrastucture hasn’t been built to support.