U.S. Missile Defenses Strengthened Against … North Korea?, ACLU Wins Round in Battle for Drone Data, Medicaid Pay Boost Falls Behind: P.M. Links
-
Carlb In response to North Korea's claim that its sophisticated network of Sinclair 1000 computers has been under assault from South Korea and the United States, the U.S. government has committed to beefing up missile defenses on the West Coast.
- Don't tell anyboody, but consumer prices are going up. But it's not inflation. Because.
- The ACLU won a court victory that brings it one step closer to extracting data on drone use from the CIA. Here's a free bit of info: The U.N. wants American drones out of Pakistan, because they're too … kill-y.
- The NRA's Wayne LaPierre tore into gun controllers in general and background check proposals in particular.
- New York City police who respond to domestic abuse calls are now under orders to run criminal background checks on accusers as well as the accused. Two victimizations for the price of one!
- That two-year boost in Medicaid compensation for physicians, carefully crafted to be enough to raise costs without actually luring physicians into the doc-short field, is way behind schedule.
- In Ogden, Utah, Michelle Merila called police to report a burglary. When officers arrived, they shot her dog. There is no happy ending.
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http://www.thefrisky.com/2013-.....ned-to-me/
Seems legit.
She must have bionic vision to see sperm. Impressive.
I get the impression I'd have a hard time keeping it up while screwing this girl too.
I get the impression you are not alone in that impression.
Judge for yourself.
Sadly, most of the kinky girls I know look like this. The other one only likes guys a lot uglier and shorter than me.
Hence the "I wanted to have sex so badly".
After a long prison term maybe.
OK, so I'd need at least two barrels of Viagra to keep it up while screwing this girl.
Well, that's a Deployment Two, if I ever saw one.
Lena Dunham's ugly sister.
I would say she is actually homelier than Dunham, but not as fat. so it is a push.
Y'all got some high standards.
Most of us have banged worse, but we were drunk and we didn't admit it in the cold, sober light of day.
Ya I would've given her the reptile juice too.
MY EYES!
If you're fucking a woman w/o a condom and you are not 100% sure she is correctly using some other means of birth control you're supposed to pull out and come in her mouth. Doesn't everyone know this?
Chapter 4 of The Rules, right?
Yeah, but according to the Nicole's link the other day, if you miss and do it on her face or in her hair, it's practically rape.
You're assuming that some dude, who has to resort to picking up chicks like Ms. Wakeman on online kink fora, has the stamina to last the few seconds it would take to pull out and aim the money shot.
I phased in and out of being sympathetic.
Pulling out isn't an effective form of contraception, herpes and HPV can be transmitted skin to skin, no ejaculate necessary. He shouldn't have cum in her, but if she was worried about pregnancy and STDs she shouldn't have told him to rawdog her.
the idea of being discriminate in choosing partners or not doing something simply because "I wanted to have sex so badly" never enters the process. I get horny; I don't get stupid and/or careless.
But if someone said "well you have all of the morals and common sense of a dog in heat" you would be called a sexist, even though she admits as much in the article.
Meh, she'll take a lot of heat from the BDSM community for what she's saying. Not everyone plays by the rules, but there seems to be a really strong personal responsibility streak, and she didn't do her due diligence before putting herself physically in his power. He legitimately seems like an asshole, but one shouldn't put yourself in the position of being bent over and spanked by an asshole (IMHO).
Hush now, my wife might read that.
YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!
It is okay HM. She knows you are an asshole. Marrying you counts as affirmative consent. You are fine.
Thanks John. I needed that "lol".
I'm sorry HM, if we had an EDIT BUTTON, I'd go back and put in a an exception from my statement for you.
He is a total asshole. But any person in the BDSM community with an ounce of common sense would tell her she was a complete idiot for going that far on the first date with someone she just met on the internet.
He legitimately seems like an asshole, but one shouldn't put yourself in the position of being bent over and spanked by an asshole (IMHO).
Yeah, she'll take heat from the BDSM community as well as from her own commentariat, who all basically agree on this. Dude does seem like a potentially scary and controlling motherfucker, but you gotta leave when there are red flags. Her description of the safeword issues would have had me out the fucking door, I don't care what the neighborhood is like.
But scary and controlling gives her the vagina tingles. This is a textbook example of what some brilliant guy dubbed the "rationalization hamster".
She wants it both ways: that scary rush that losing control gives her, and the comfort and security of being in control. It's like wanting to be hot and cold at the same time. It's impossible.
But she felt so used after it was over. Honey isn't that what you wanted?
It's not impossible for an awful lot of BDSM practitioners.
Well, it's certainly possible with someone you have a relationship with and trust. But not with a one night stand, IMO. I mean, I love this stuff myself, so I know what she claims she looking for. But she wasn't going to find it with a hookup. If you're a submissive female, and you're looking for a dominant guy for a one night stand, it's probably going to be either too tame or outside your comfort zone. It's doubtful he'll be able to keep you right in that sweet spot because he doesn't know you. Not really.
Yeah, that's what I would think too, but I know it can be a thing to do this with strangers so I assume some of them are making it work somehow.
Well, not saying that's the case here, but in my experience, when a sub arranges a one night stand, they're looking for more of what is called edge play, where you're not really sure if it's a game or real life. Rape fantasies obviously come into it an awful lot, which is why consent can get a little blurry in this particular subculture. It's the main contradiction of the whole BDSM thing: the sub wants to fully surrender to the will of their dom, but that's super dangerous unless you really know the person, so casual encounters are usually awkward, if not downright terrible.
Yes it is. There is a huge portion of the community that abandoned safewords in favor of contracts and slave ceremonies. That's because they realize it's not possible.
Safewords are a compromise that never brings the full thrill.
No, if we just make one more law...
The BDSM community members I know are very into safe words for rough play.
I'll bet they use condoms too. Doesn't mean it's not a less satisfying compromise.
Also, I've noticed (from my experience and those of friends), that just like using condoms, it's the women who don't want to use safewords (the women are subs, in this case. I've never gotten to know a female dom well enough for that to come up in conversation).
It's levels, john, levels. She consents to sex. Then she consents to having sex without a condom, but she didn't consent to having his body fluids there...right there. Why can't you just admit that women are still oppressed?
It has to be consent all the way down... or... all the way in, in this case.
Holding women responsible for their own choices? SEXIST!
And then she has to go on to write about "enthusiastic consent" and rape culture.
Now, I'm not particularly into kinky stuff, so I could be wrong, but I would think that there has got to be some element of rape fantasy in a D&S or S&M sexual encounter.
Depends. It's a wide wide world. But yeah, the existence of the safeword is so the sub can say things like "please no don't do that" when he or she actually means "fuck yes give me more". In a agreed upon BDSM session "Stop" means go and "Zebra" means stop.
It's amazing how glib some women are about tossing around the word "rape." Rape is not a synonym for bad sex, it's a major crime that can land a person in jail for a very long time. She seems to walk right up to the edge of accusing him of rape, without quite going over it. All because he spanked her too hard (but stopped when she used the safe word), and came in her after she told him to take off his condom?
Another red flag came at one point during play when he called me a "bitch." I'm not against being called names in bed. In fact, with a partner whom I know and trust, being called a "bad girl" or a "slut" can be really hot! But we never had a conversation about using words like that, and if we had, I would have told him that the word "bitch" was not OK with me.
That gash is nuts.
I get the distinct impression that she doesn't get too many second dates.
Bitch you trippin.
But what a romantic she is. Let's talk about what to call each other in the sack, mkay?
The NRA's Wayne LaPierre tore into gun controllers in general and background check proposals in particular.
Hopefully he circled around to tearing into the mentally ill.
Didn't you read what you quoted? That's where he started!
In Ogden, Utah, Michelle Merila called police to report a burglary. When officers arrived, they shot her dog.
Small price to pay for piece of mind.
This isn't news. Now "Dog Shoots Cop", that would be news!
What would be news is "cop shot after shooting family pet for no good reason."
Far as I'm concerned, you shoot my pet, you've just placed me in fear for my life and I will respond appropriately, regardless of what jack-booted gestapo thug uniform you happen to be wearing.
She got a piece of mind on her shirt after the cops blew her dog's brains out.
In Ogden, Utah, Michelle Merila called police to report a burglary. When officers arrived, they shot her dog. There is no happy ending.
Lesson learned?
http://www.examiner.com/articl.....family-dog
Lesson learned?
I wonder what how far the "97% of cops never fired their gun" stat has fallen now that the pooch apocalypse is in full swing?
Dog-shootings don't count - they're like range practice.
In response to North Korea's claim that its sophisticated network of Sinclair 1000 computers has been under assault from South Korea and the United States, the U.S. government has committed to beefing up missile defenses on the West Coast.
"North Korea is like the shortbus of nations." --Sterling Archer
Well, that was worth Wikipedia. I'd never heard of the Sinclair 1000 before. What do you suppose they really use in NK?
My families first "home computer" was a Timex Sinclair 1000. My Dad got it for "free" by opening up a certificate of deposit at the bank. As I recall you couldn't do much w/o the expanded memory which was pretty much unobtainable at the time. I saw one NIB at a thrift store a few weeks ago. They were asking $130. Fucking insane.
People collect that stuff SIV.
I collect stuff too (including vintage science, tech and electronics) but do you know how many TS1000s are sitting new-in-box in old people's closets, basements and attics?
Nope, but guessing it's not a lot of NIBs. I could be wrong, though.
Lightly used in box is probably a better description.
IIRC, you could write a program to generate lottery numbers, but only up to 5. The 6th number would run it out of memory.
You young people today.
What am I saying? You have probably the only sack of flour for miles. People must come over to admire it
The U.N. wants American drones out of Pakistan, because they're too ... kill-y.
Mostly because drones can't wear blue helmets and rape the indigenous.
They are also terrible at running prostitution rings.
Especially underage prostitution rings, which are the clear favorite of UN peacekeepers.
And US congressmen.
They're learning.
Plus no opportunity for graft.
Hugo Chavez's coffin paraded through crime infested slums and past breadlines he helped create.
In Ogden, Utah, Michelle Merila called police to report a burglary. When officers arrived, they shot her dog.
Otherwise known as "cause and effect".
If you can't run with the big dogs, cops will shoot you anyway.
Innocents are legitimate targets in wartime. She shouldn't have used a dog as a human canine shield.
New York City police who respond to domestic abuse calls are now under orders to run criminal background checks on accusers as well as the accused.
No word on whether they will also run background checks on your recently deceased dog.
Hot stock tip: Invest in companies that develop background-checking stuff!
Yet another writer bitching about Rand not saying something he actually mentioned several times during his speech.
Couldn't he have at least read the highlights compiled on his employer's website? Is that too much to ask?
Don't know why it didn't link.
BFYTW.
Because you haven't propitiated the squirrels.
Rachel Maddow goes off on tirade against Ted Cruz for having the audacity to question Dianne Feinstein's knowledge about the Constitution and gun control.
Why do people think Maddow is smart, again? She didn't even address the substance of Cruz's question.
She went to a good school, and then was a Rhodes Scholar, and has her doctorate in philosophy from Oxford. Thus, she is smart. Because what makes you smart is the quality of your pieces of paper, not the quality of your thoughts.
Wow an open lesbian with leftist political ideas did well in academia despite having mush for a brain. Color me shocked.
booksmart, yes. Street smart, not so much. Common sense smart, not a chance.
She's smart, in the sense that "smart" means "able to get As." Of course, unless you're taking classes entirely in hard subjects like science or mathematics, a lot of the ability to get As is the ability to determine what the teacher wants to see and to write papers in accordance with this.
Exactly. My freshman poli sci class I argued constantly with the prof and the lefty students. I aced the midterm, never missed a class, got an A on the project, aced the final, turned in a really good paper which got a B, and somehow ended up with a B. Which I protested, to no avail. Meanwhile the fat bitch across the aisle got an A despite the fact that I filed a "lack of contribution" report on our group project because she didn't actually do shit.
Fuck group projects, and fuck biased professors.
I took an intro to philosophy class at Baylor. Needless to say, dude was a christian philosopher. I argued with him constantly. But I wasn't a dick about it (learned since high school) and most of the time he would ask my opinion first. For the final paper, I did 3 1/2 pages when the assignment was 10. Argued directly against his central tenet that ethics are derived only from morality. He gave me a B+. Good guy.
I think even science majors are getting corrupt.environmental science obviously but all disciplines especially a unis seem to always get result that indicate a need for more government funding
If they didn't have emotional arguments, there wouldn't be very much for them to talk about.
She tells liberals what they want to hear and she has credentials. The reality of course is that she is an idiot. If you ever take her out of the liberal echo chamber anyone with the ability to make a cogent argument rips her a new asshole every single time.
To her credit, I have seen her remain silent when things get too "deep".
She does have the Cocktail segment she pulls out every few months or so. Of course, it's sad that she's an alcoholic and her producers are doing anything about it. But she does know her liqueurs.
REally? She does a segment on cocktails? At least there is one part of the show worth watching.
I don't know. They're kinda messy. I prefer my spirits as straight as possible.
Oops. Confused my drinking lingo. I meant "neat."
"Straight" is acceptable, but "neat" makes you sound cultured, whereas "Straight" makes you sound like a 1950s detective who just saw his partner get shot. "Straight up" essentially is a drink served neat, but you put ice into it and then filter it out in order to chill the drink.
Hence the elegance and superiority of the martini. It isn't like you're drinking straight gin, so they can't call you a drunk. To your face.
"The martini is the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet." - H. L. Mencken
That Mencken. Fuckin' drunk.
Oh, and "One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough" - Thurber.
That the great H. L. Mencken is mentioned in the same thread as the odious Maddow makes me want to get drunk.
I prefer the East End Martini. Drink straight gin, and hit somebody with the vermouth bottle.
* Actually, the only "mixed" drink I enjoy is a Ginskey: One part gin, one part whiskey.
Ick. I wouldn't be sure which part of the drink I'd screwed up. And yet I feel an odd curiosity to try it.
I like the combination of Laphroaig Scotch and Tanqueray Rangpur (lime-flavored gin). It tastes like the smoke that would be produced if somebody burned down the Mr. Clean factory.
That sounds just like something I would be really interested in never trying.
Philistine! Teetotaler!
She dresses up her show in pseudo-intellectualism, but I can't tell much difference between her and the other pundits (aside from being perhaps the most tolerable of the afternoon/primetime MSNBC pundits).
If that's not damning with faint praise I don't know what is.
but I can't tell much difference between her and the other pundits (aside from being perhaps the most tolerable of the afternoon/primetime MSNBC pundits).
I don't know. Sometimes she is just SOOO smug that she even gives Al Sharpton a run for his money. Seriously, why do people call him "Reverend"?
Speaking of MSNBC, I heard they are moving Ed Shultz to a two-hour block on Saturdays now. So, they decreasing the amount of TV time Shultz gets by 80 percent and decreasing the amount of prison porn they show on the weekends. Don't look now, but MSNBC might be trying to improve the quality of their programming.
Poor Special Ed. Him and his five viewers will be on right after "Lock Up Corcoran".
Yeah, but they put Chris Hayes on weekdays, which means their nighttime lineup is all grad school, all the time.
She was smart enough not to address the content of his question. Being smart doesn't necessarily mean being right or honest. I have no idea if she is smart or not.
Clever... not smart. 😉 There's a difference.
"consumer prices are going up. But it's not inflation."
Edward Shrike Buttplug the III said so.
Dude seems to know which way is up man. Wow.
http://www.Goto-Anon.tk
Don't remember who I was talking to but here's your proof that the feminists talking about it don't just want to educate about consent:
The only way to know that sex is consensual is if there's a freely and clearly given "yes." This may sound radical to the uninitiated, but don't we all want to make sure we're only having sex with people who are actually interested? Ensuring enthusiastic consent requires only the most basic respect we all owe our partners in the first place: paying attention to how they're doing, and asking them if we can't tell.
It's not that difficult. But even if it were, it's the only way to ensure a genuinely equal world in which women's bodies aren't presumed to be available to men until otherwise stated. Without an affirmative consent model, rapists will continue to go free based on outrageous arguments about whether or not their victim didn't want it enough. Current research demonstrates that most rapists already know they don't have consent. It's the rest of us who are confused. Affirmative consent removes this confusion.
See, they know teaching men not to rape is bullshit. They just want bad sex written into law as rape.
That was me. I agree in general with the point you're making, I just thought that the rape survivor who was cited should be given the benefit of the doubt that she knows what rape is.
I still think that people in general (not just men) have a poor idea of what consent is and why it's important.
Notice they never just talk about "affirmative consent". They pretend that all they want is a "yes". But If you look up "enthusiastic consent" you can see their definition makes it rape if they feel uncomfortable at any time during or after sex.
Well, you can stop now. This is from an article she wrote last week.
Well... damn. That sucks.
Seriously. Every time you and your lover got drunk and fell into bed at the end of a great night for some more fun? That was rape. Every time you woke up your lover on a lazy Sunday with some flavor of adult play? Also rape.
Fuck that shit.
What the fuck is she babbling about? Do I just miss the constant rape going on around me every day? Is there like a secret room in every building where you can drag women to ravage them?
It's English, but it doesn't actually mean anything.
So? Rapists are criminal scum, and the best way to deal with criminal scum is to arm yourself and be mindful of your surroundings.
I'm certainly confused by what she wrote. It doesn't seem to actually mean anything.
It's Valenti. Her and Marcotte have made careers out of writing whole articles that go nowhere and make vague references to horrible things happening to all women everywhere. In Marcott's case I think she adopted it after the whole Duke debacle. Can't be called a liar if you never actually say anything.
Without an affirmative consent model, rapists will continue to go free based on outrageous arguments about whether or not their victim didn't want it enough.
And with the affirmative consent model, 99% of all the actual sex that happens out there is now considered rape.
And the thing is, I bet most women just want to have sex sometimes without having to pause every 5 minutes to give additional consent. The whole thing is ridiculous. Yes, men have an obligation not to be pushy creeps and need to take no for an answer if that is the answer, but women (and men) also need to speak up if they have a change of heart about what is happening.
I was raped any number of times in my 20s. "Man, this is a bad idea." went through my head while having sex with just about every woman I didn't have a repeat engagement with, and I was often uncomfortable.
Ditto. It really cheapens the experience of actual victims to an appalling degree.
Doesn't count, because you're a man, and sexually discriminatory laws are ok as long as they favor women or punish men.
"world in which women's bodies aren't presumed to be available to men until otherwise stated"
Shit, which world is this? If I have had a problem in my relations with women over the years it is assuming that they are less available to me sexually than they actually were.
No shit. As if men just run around attack women and making out and getting naked with a guy could and should never be interpreted as wanting to have sex. What a fucking idiot.
Who are these people that they can't just decide to, I don't know, not go into a bedroom with someone they don't know if they want to screw. It's like they believe they have to hook up casually. No, you don't. And you can still have sex with a different partner every month. Take 4 dates/hangouts over 2 weeks to decide if you really want to have that person in your bed. Or keep screwing crazy people who leave you feeling bad about yourself. I was probably 25 when I figured that out, but several friends had it down by 19.
Cool, do they also plan to make sure they have enthusiastic consent from the men they fuck? Because, contrary to their self-image of martyrdom, there's still a fair bit of male sexual behavior performed primarily for the benefit of their partner.
Cyberattacks pose more of a threat to the United States than a land-based attack by a terrorist group, while North Korea's development of a nuclear weapons program poses a "serious threat," the director of national intelligence told Congress
But does a NuKe pose more or less of a threat than cyberattacks? And where is Iran in all of this? Due to sequestration, we have to prioritize!
C'mon 2 chilly, you know they upgraded to Yoblotchkos when the Russians stopped using them in the late 1980's.
Thanks for that, BP. Didn't know those existed.
The Geopolitics of Girls: How Lena Dunham Explains the World
AUGH MAKE IT STOP DEAR SWEET JESUS IT BURNS
That any woman under 30 is a bum living off her parents?
The Geopolitics of Girls: How Lena Dunham Explains the World
She explains the world in the sense that her popularity points out that the world is an idiot.
Further evidence for progressivism being a form of neo-feudalism.
The entire show is about a bunch of white girls whose egos are writing checks that their looks can't cash?
LA weatherman gets pranked on air, gives shout-out to 'Hugh Janus'.
I may have to change my user name to 'Hugh Janus'.
I think Shriek already has that niche filled.
That made my day.
And for those who don't know, that Timex Sinclair 1000 computer is early 1980's technology with a whopping 3.25 MHz CPU, and doesn't have a built-in display; it hooked up to your PC. It had BASIC in ROM, but no real file system or OS. Most software (games and basic productivity apps) were distributed on ROM cartridges.
So, exactly like my TRS-80.
Same CPU as the Trash-80. Not sure if they ever had floppy drives for the Sinclair. You could save stuff to an analog tape recorder on the Sinclair.
...hooked up to your TV. /derp
My contribution to the war of the sexes, Friday edition. Text between me and the wife.
Me: Rob (nephew) is going to see the new Oz with Michelle from work and her kid. Her husband wont go because he's afraid of the flying monkeys from the first one.
She: So, who's this Michelle.
Me: This is not about relationship gossip. This is about a grown man afraid of flying monkeys.
She: You're no fun.
Me: They're not doing anything.
She: he's no fun.
The flying monkeys are terrifying!
My kid thought the flying monkeys were funny when he saw a trailer advertizing some digital enhancement experiment from the studios. I was going to save the movie for a few years down the road, but after that exposure went well I think he'll be okay.
I wish the real world had real flying monkeys. Would be a good reason for everyone to have fully automatic weapons in the home.
What about cyborg flying monkeys, with their bodies and brains wired to quadrotor drones?
Wait, your wife was hoping for juicy gossip about your nephew getting some from a woman married to a cowardly man?
It's not so much that she wanted that particular scenario to be true, but being a women she has always has her ear open for potential gossip.
Is it bad that I liked your wife better when she was willing soap-opera-like scandal into existence?
Compare and contrast two Slate Double X articles:
The first is about a fictional depiction of bad sex which they call rape.
The second is an fictional depiction of a violent rape which in which they call the rapist justified.
What the hell?
first.
And
second
The squirrels are really kicking your ass today.
It must be a Chinese cyber attack.
Don't even suggest that. If the squirrels defect to the PRC, we're doomed. Doomed, do you hear.
I have to admit that I would kind of like to bash Louis CK's head off of a window too. But yeah, violently forcing someone to do a sexual act is just not funny.
I think he did it to troll the feminists. They reacted exactly as they would if their detractors were correct about their motivations.
Louis CK is my favorite living comic right now. No one is funnier.
His minstrel act gets tired.
So I finished reading Richard Evans' Third Reich trilogy last weekend. I like to alternate between one fiction book and one non-fiction -- any recommendations on a good fiction book?
I read the first of those. I thought it was good. How were the other two?
Really goddamn depressing, but very informative and well-edited -- I'd highly recommend reading them.
The Democratic Budget.
Thanks, but I'm looking for something less depressing and ponderous than a Tolstoy novel.
Trevanian. Summer of Katya
Hmm. I'll see if I can get a version for my Kindle.
FBI Officer At Armed Standoff Has His Rifle Sight On Backward
Famous
But
Incompetent.
I know two army officers who spun the covers rather than the actual adjustments on their M68 CCO when trying to zero at a M4 range.
Jaguars take Justin Forsett from the Texans
Ed Reed leaves Texans facility, no deal expected Friday
It's rare that an NFL team misses out on a high-profile signing when a private jet is involved. After hip hop star Pitbull caused Ed Reed to cut short Thursday's meeting with the Houston Texans, the team may have lost its momentum....
Texans eye Reed after Quin signs with Lions
Connor Barwin joins the Philadelphia Eagles
Shit. It had to happen. The Texans D was too good even without Cush. There was too much talent and too little money..
They had to pay Schaub to suck.
Yeah. Terrible play calling, but he didn't help anything by never throwing to the deep men.
He doesn't have the arm strength to throw to the deep men.
Even dumber when you do time-critical business via FAX
National Geographic conference on 'de-extinction' scientific and ethical issues of reviving extinct species through cloning.
24x7 says the gag order provision of nat'l security letters have been ruled unconstitutional. Glasnost, at last.
JUSTICE!
Fuck the Pope
Yeah, why can't the Catholic Church be as good on civil liberties as President Murder Drone?
(DUDE, mind you?you can tell a business is tres modern when they don't even let women submit resumes)
You know, I was seeing a lot of this shit on the Twitters, but my raised-Catholic boyfriend told me last week that the pope doesn't actually have to be a dude (or a priest, or really anyone). It's supposed to be whoever God picks or whatever. Obviously, it's always been a dude, but he said there were no actual requirements because it's God's choice and whatnot. Is that right?
I thought it had to be a male Catholic? Because I always see joking nominations of people who are male Catholics but obviously not priests.
Yeah looks like it does have to be a male Catholic.
I am not a Catholic, but my understanding is that the Pope has to be a male who has reached the age of reason (i.e., is not a minor). Theoretically, a pope could be non-Catholic and a member of the laity (many of the early medieval popes were selected from Italian and later Spanish nobility).
It isn't true that all popes have been white, though. There are 3 early popes who were North African (Berber), and of course Peter would have been Semitic.
Were the Berber, or just Romans who moved to Africa?
Both. One was reputed to be of mixed Latin/Berber ancestry.
Justin Berber?
I think so. The Cardinals could vote for anyone they want to. There's no pope until they decide, so who's going to stop them?
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, there may not be a formal rule that you have to be a priest to be elected, but it is unlikely someone who is not at least a priest will be because he will be made a bishop to serve.
If you don't like the Catholic Church's beliefs, there are plenty of other churches for you to not go to on Sunday, Saturday or Friday.
I can't wait until Ms. Lindy West writes her follow up article "Fuck Islam" and discusses its institutional sexism and violence against women.
Holding breath in 3...2...1...
Or "Fuck Hugo Chavez" (who incidentally held much more offensive views on homosexuality than any modern pope).
Seriously, until feminists launch a jihad to liberate the black stone from the Patriarchs who seized it I'm not going to take them seriously.
If Sisterhood is so damn powerful, march on Mecca.
They did, and now they're busy "play[ing] a great role in raising their children and in encouraging them to wage Jihad for the sake of Allah."
I was thinking more western feminists, especially the ones who go on about the "war on women"
Oh, I understood your meaning. And yet, those Western soi-disant feminists will squeal about Israel when it, in many ways, is more in step with their agenda. I mean their most famous Prime Minister was a woman, and women serve in combat roles (and women who get pregnant while doing their military service are entitled to free, state-financed abortion!). But you have to wait until you're 17 to get an abortion, so I guess that's somehow worse than a place where they cut off your clitoris and you can't leave the house without being accompanied by a male relative guardian.
The Israel where they recently/still had sex-segregated seating on public trensit (SLD) because of religion?
That's new to me - I've been to Israel several time and have never seen segregated seating PT or anywhere else.
Several times in the 90's.
Bizarrely enough, women in the Middle East are *more* likely to support Islamist parties than men (see, for example, Bahrain).
I mean, WTF?!
Security. Same reason they support the party talking about safety the loudest in the US.
In the 1970's and 80's they would have been groupies hanging out in jungle tents in the middle of Guatemala as a bunch of thugs revolutionaries chain banged them, now their romanticism has found another death cult fixation.
What Killaz said, in spades.
Yup, nothing to add.
I apologize for the double use of seriously, but I am seriously tired. Now, seriously, I'm leaving for the day.
No joke.
someone needs to drop that in the comments section for her to see
I have a feeling Ms. West's reaction would be similar to this.
Yet another reason BAC prosecutions are bullshit.
Drunk driver was 1.5 times the legal limit.
You are much more dangerous distracted or tired than you are drunk.
Yup. It's about the moral crusade far more than safety.
I always wonder how many actual fatalities are happening from tired drivers. You see the occasional dude who fell asleep, and you see all the drunk driver fatalities reported, but not so much the lesser cases of fatigue.
Adrenaline probably insures that after an accident all signs of fatigue would be gone, which makes determining whether or not fatigue was the cause a bit difficult.
So long as the driver doesn't admit to being tired, anyway.
If the driver admits to anything, he gets what's coming to him.
Rob Portman and the politics of narcissism.
But if Portman can turn around on one issue once he realizes how it touches his family personally, shouldn't he take some time to think about how he might feel about other issues that don't happen to touch him personally? Obviously the answers to complicated public policy questions don't just directly fall out of the emotion of compassion. But what Portman is telling us here is that on this one issue, his previous position was driven by a lack of compassion and empathy...The great challenge for a senator isn't to go to Washington and represent the problems of his own family. It's to try to obtain the intellectual and moral perspective necessary to represent the problems of the people who don't have direct access to the corridors of power.
Firstly, the Senate is supposed to be undemocratic and I feel that the state legislatures losing their voice in Congress has been a net loss to liberty.
Secondly, while empathy is important, it is much better for a person to have a rational and moral framework for supporting a set of principles upon which one acts. It wouldn't matter if Portman privately thought gays were an affront to God if he maintained that their right to liberty was what motivated his actions as a Senator.
You can hold the right positions for the wrong reasons and still be a crap weasel. Did it not occur to Portman that gay people have families who love them too?
Regardless of what your position on gay marriage is, changing it because it now affects your little special snowflake is the worst.
Given the sociopathic nature of elected officials, nobody should be surprised at their complete lack of empathy.
No, changing from a bad position to a good one is always a net positive, I couldn't care less about his motivations.
Venezuela says U.S. "far-right" wants to kill Capriles
Raimondo still loves him, though.
I had dinner in the same restaurant with Green Day's bassist last night. The gf wouldn't let me hit him with our empty wine bottle on the way out. I can't tell if it is good hat she has better impulse control or bad that she doesn't want to make the world a better place thru violently crippling a member of a tired pop-band.
On an unrelated note, if you ever get a chance to see Fitz & the Tantrums, do go and see a good live show.
Maybe she thought your hitting him might actually make their playing worse.
Is that possible?
Do you want to find out?
Good point.
No, she has this crazy "No Going to Jail on Vacation" policy. Which seems like the perfect time to me. You're already not going to work.
I think she's a keeper, Brett.
My IRL friends have told me the same, which is important because my internal filter only cares about a woman not being obviously crazy (ie, able to hold a job, no eating disorder, and doesn't try to read all incoming texts and emails out of possessiveness.)
Isn't there a legend that Mama Cass got hit on the head with a pipe and her vocal range improved?
Why fuck with Green Day?
Because they wrote 'American Idiot" about Bush/voters?
Because they're a crappy band even by angst music standards.
No, sadly that was probably their least offensive single since the Dookie album. Which is not he same as saying I liked it.
I haven't bought any non-Tom Waits music since 2000.
Hell, I can't name a current band today.
Are Hootie and the Blowfish still big? Counting Crows? They suck, that is all I know.
The Blowfish are gone but Hootie is enjoying a 2nd coming as a pop country star in Nashville.
Bands no longer have longevity. Look at Pearl Jam and the RHCP. They hit their peak in the 90s and suck now.
Contrast the Stones, Dylan, and Tom Waits.
Yes, contrast the Stones. The last decent album they made was in 1981. 30 fucking years of touring on your past glory. That's something to emulate.
Jagger's 'Wandering Spirit' (1993) was excellent. Keith scored too. Dylan's scored huge in 1997 with 'Time out of Mind'. Waits is still at his best.
Dylan's songs are awesome, as long as someone else is performing them.
Dylan? In what? The Travelling Wilbury's? The Stones actually did have about 20 years of decent writing. But you'll not convince me that Voodoo Lounge or whatever in the late 90s was worse than Dani California by RHCP. Everyone but Waits gets stale eventually.
I saw a production of Tom Waits' 'Woyzeck' at UCLA in 2002. It played there and in NYC only (US).
It was the greatest performance I have ever seen and I have seen everyone.
btw- Van Morrison was #2.
Dookie was fun stupid pop-punk. Then they got all serious and went to shit.
It would be nigh-fucking-impossible to criticize a musical act (outside of country music) without criticizing one that happened to lean left.
Rush
Don't tell anyboody, but consumer prices are going up. But it's not inflation. Because.
Yeah, 2%. To the government, that's exactly where it should be (for some reason).
In a healthy economy prices gradually increase due to demand, growth, and labor movement.
That's not necessarily true, and what the hell does a labor movement have to do with a healthy economy? Or are you talking about labor *mobility*?
Don't be pedantic.
When companies bid higher for labor that is a sign of a bullish economy.
2007-2010 labor movement was clogged due to lack of opportunity elsewhere.
Yes, but the prices are going up WITHOUT a healthy economy. It's only 2% at the moment, but I believe there's a word for when inflation begins to pick up and unemployment remains high.
What's that called again?
The value of the dollar in 1918 was within about 10% of its value in 1818. Obviously there was no growth in this time.
I mean it was the same value to within a margin of 10%.
The value of the USD is much higher today than ever.
You have got to be kidding me with that shit.
We can buy more material output with a lower per cent of our labor than ever.
Even food and energy cost less as a % of wages now. Not to mention the enormous productivity gains in high tech with decreasing costs.
A PC cost $3000 in 1982 and now it is $300 tops with more memory and useful features.
Really, Ron Paul put a stupid stamp in the right for his ($ dropped 99% bullshit rap).
All that means is that technology has become cheaper through manufacturing techniques and increased scale. Check something that hasn't change in it's method of manufacture. How much does wheat grown with non-factory farming methods cost? Less than it did in 1900 or more?
^^ Great minds think alike, Coeus. Computing technology has had probably the largest technological leap of anything in modern America. If you look at food prices, they plummeted from the early 1900s up until about 4 years ago...at which point the prices reversed and food is now more expensive than it was in 2009. Of course we're better than fucking 1982, that's the result of technological advance. That has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
Food as a % of labor was much higher in 1900 than now.
Really, this is not your subject.
I understand that Ron Paul misled you. You can get right now.
Jesus Shrike, that's his point:
He's trying to compare like to like. Food prices have plummeted as a result of increased production. I even pointed this out just before you did:
- Me, like 10 minutes ago
The point is that inflation is independent of increased production. The value of a dollar can plummet and things can still be cheaper due to increased production.
For the record, I think that libertarians' obsession with the value of a dollar compared to 1905 is ridiculously stupid. Low levels of inflation over time will totally devalue currency, but it will do it over a long enough time frame that it doesn't really matter.
The issue is this: If you start having high inflation without a decrease in unemployment, you are utterly screwed. At that point, the only way to get a handle on inflation before it completely wrecks your economy is to raise interest rates, which will jack up unemployment even higher. This is what happened in the early '80s when Reagan and Paul Volcker had to deal with late '70s stagflation by raising interest rates, and subsequently our unemployment jumped to almost 10% before it finally started to come back down.
Only if you have no problems with fiat currency. That's just an example of one of the many reasons it sucks. Unless you think people saving money themselves and not trusting corrupt financial institutions is somehow morally wrong.
I don't think it's morally wrong for people to save money themselves and not trust corrupt financial institutions. I just think that a low rate of inflation (say 2%) is not going to have enough of an impact to matter.
The real issue is having a steady rate. Whether it's inflation, deflation or otherwise. Milton Friedman actually pointed this out in Free to Choose, when he said that even 10% inflation wouldn't have that much of an impact on the economy so long as it was 10% every single year. What really matters is the ability to predict what inflation will be in the future. If you have similar rates of change year after year after year, that's really all that's relevant.
The real issue is having a steady rate.
The reason economists believe that it's more economically efficient to have continual mild inflation rather than a steady state is because all of their measurements are aggregates.
This leads them to conclude that the most efficient economy is one that marshalls all available contributors to output, with no leakage to inactivity. Translated, that means that they don't like passive savers, and they don't like it when secure people pursue leisure.
They prefer to have all savings chasing yield to defeat inflation, and to have all potential valuable labor deployed pursuing new earnings to replace wealth lost to inflation.
The fact that individual people might benefit if you could work hard for a period, earn and save a lot, and then enjoy the fruits of their efforts is not relevant or important. Heck, to economists it's a negative. They will gleefully advocate the state burning your money if you don't spend it fast enough to suit them.
Food prices have plummeted
Yes, we agree.
And no one ever disagreed with you on that point. Both Coeus and I agreed from the get go about that. The point is that your argument about 'the value of a dollar' has to do entirely with production and technology, not with its value relative to other currencies and not with its value relative to a bundle of goods five years ago, both of which are more important than its value 100 years ago.
No shit sherlock. Technology, not rising value of the dollar. Glad you agree with me. Which is why I asked about the price of some of that organic, home grown wheat. And even though that is also less work than it used to be, the percentage is less. Yet the price is still way, way higher than it used to be. You could buy a whole bread truck full back in the day for the same price you're paying for a loaf in the farmer's market.
TLDR: Blind squirrel finds nut, discards it.
This is absolutely idiotic.
Essentially what you're doing is using the rise in productivity over that time frame as a screen to obscure the fact that when the state devalues the currency it's stealing from you.
Given the change in inflation-adjusted productivity per capita in the last 100 years, prices should be 1/12th of what they were in 1905. Or less.
Not if we're comparing USD to gumballs. I know for the fact there used to be penny gumball machines in the olden days. Now ya gotta drop 75?!
Jesus Christ, Shrike. I can't believe you tried to pull that. The value of the U.S. dollar is high compared to computers because technology has improved. Technology will always improve. That doesn't change the fact that high inflation today would make tomorrow worse. The fact that technology has improved has nothing to do with monetary or fiscal policy.
No, they don't.
If anything prices should *decrease* over time (in absolute terms) due to better technologies and understanding of the produciotn process leading to more efficient usage of inputs.
Unfortunately, poor monetary policies lead to wage inflation, increasing the cost of one of the most expensive inputs (labor).
We've been lucky in that most of the time consumer prices have been going down *relative* to our paychecks.
Google glass means you're an asshole.
http://gawker.com/5990395/if-y.....asses-you-
I somewhat agree with the sentiment. But on the other hand, doesn't the surveillance state sort of force you into this behavior? The state is an asshole just like a corporation is a person; if you aren't in the process of collecting evidence to prove your innocence (don't pretend the state assumes you are innocent until proven otherwise), aren't you being an idiot? This after all is the reason so many Russians have dash-cams.
Score a point for David Brin?
Wait, If *I* have ubiquitous surveillance and *I'm* an arsehole, what does that make our government?