President Obama Announces Federal Brain Project, Florida Medical Marijuana Bill Going Nowhere Despite Popular Support, Dutch Regret Joining Euro: P.M. Links

• 

  Dank Depot/Foter.com

  The Pentagon says budget cuts will see it spending less on its drones, and only $1.03 billion on research and development when they requested nearly $2 billion.

• President Obama announced the BRAIN project, a fedeally-funded effort to map the human brain that will start with a $100 million "investment."
• Seven out of ten Floridians support medical marijuana, but a bill legalizing it can't even get a hearing in the legislature.
• Two men in Texas are suing their local sheriff department for allegedly detaining them for 39 days and seizing $14,000 they say they saved up for a new car.
• Senators John McCain and Sheldon Whitehouse are visiting Mali to check out the French-led intervention.
• Tens of thousands of people die in the winter in the United Kingdom, in part because of fuel taxes.
• A poll in the Netherlands shows 55 percent regretting the country joining the euro. Eurozone unemployment, meanwhile, hit a record 12 percent high.
• Samoa Air may start to charge passengers by weight.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Two men in Texas are suing their local sheriff department for allegedly detaining them for 39 days and seizing $14,000 they say they saved up for a new car.

A new car... MADE OUT OF DRUGS!

[Episiarch]

Uh oh, FoE just watched Up in Smoke again.

Fist's not here, man.

[tarran]

Actually, it's worse; the men claim that the source of a significant portion of the cash was a loan from a bank.

The bank doesn't care what happened to the money, they want their loan payments.

[Brett L]

I'm pretty sure your loan repayment is exempt from force majeure.

[Randian]

You would think that, but you would be wrong.

[Brett L]

Hell, even my credit card has a force majeure clause. We can argue whether this would qualify (I vote aye, because it is neither normal nor within the foresight of a reasonable person.)

[Pro Libertate]

Payment is exempt? It's often the one thing not exempted in commercial force majeure clauses.

[Brett L]

If they seize your asset, but what about if they seize the cash? Also, what how did they get cash on a loan for a car?

[Pro Libertate]

Fuck you, pay me.

[Joe M]

Probably they were going to put the new car perpendicular to traffic, so this was good police work.

[Enough About Palin]

"President Obama Announces Federal Brain Project"

If only he had one.

[gaijin]

but it's to map "THE" human brain...the one "we" all share dontchaknow.

Seriously, how long until the research shows that those on the right are genetic malformations, who must be identified via mandatory scans, that must be fixed.

[NeonCat]

Do they snip out the little piece of brain that causes all the problems, then give it to you in a jar?

[Episiarch]

gaijin is Walter Bishop?

[NeonCat]

I was making a Simpsons (Treehouse of Horror whichever it was) reference. I never watched Fringe.

[gaijin]

Walter Harold Bishop....PhD!

[Episiarch]

You want a milkshake, Walter?

[Tim]

(Dorothy)
With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You could be another Lincoln
If you only had a brain

[Bobarian]

"President Obama Announces Federal Brain Project"

In order to figure what causes Joe Biden to continue to breath?

[Enough About Palin]

I could wile away the hours,
Atop of Stephanie Powers,
In Dallas or Danang.
I could rise above flirtation,
Try my hand at masturbation,
If I only had a wang.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

It's Stefanie Powers.

That's Mrs. H; she goureous!

[IamNotEvil]

Maybe he's trying to find Biden's brain. Or figure out how it works so they can install a 5 second delay to his mouth.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Tens of thousands of people die in the winter in the United Kingdom, in part because of fuel taxes.

A small price to pay for whatever it is artificially hiking the price of fuel gets you.

[tarran]

... that is far outweighed by the tens of millions of people that I am assured are dying yearly because we are raping Gaia for oil.

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep Calm and Die Freezing.

[NeonCat]

Really stiff upper lip.

[Rich]

LOL

"Had to. Dead, you know."

[PapayaSF]

Those deaths get you an average global temperature, 100 years from now, that's .00000001 degree cooler. Totally worth it.

[Cytotoxic]

I heard that Australia is allowing direct conversion to Yuan, bypassing the USD. I'm too lazy to link.

[Tim]

Juan?

[Xenocles]

I guess I just assumed that transactions not involving USD... don't involve USD. Hmm.

[Enough About Palin]

"Samoa Air may start to charge passengers by weight."

That actually makes sense for Samoa.

[playa manhattan]

There or Tonga would be a real money maker...

[robc]

It makes some sense for every airline.

Charge X dollars per seat and Y cents per pound.

I dont expect airlines to do it here because of the whining that would insue.

[Zeb]

And you need to watch out for that. I heard something about the Canadian HRC mandating that fatsos get a second seat for free.

[Enough About Palin]

"I dont expect airlines to do it here because of the whining that would insue."

Jezebel would explode!

[Episiarch]

Well, that might be worth it.

Oh god the butthurt that would come with making people pay by weight (which actually makes more sense from a "fairness" perspective, as right now, light people subsidize heavy people, whether they're fat or they're an NFL linebacker) would be epic. Not just from Jezebel, but so many other places as well. What fun! Too bad it'll never happen for just that reason.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I would be so on board with this. Tired of subsidizing all you tall motherfuckers (in addition to bitches who can travel sans liquids).

[Episiarch]

I knew shrimps like you would be anti-tall people! Bigot! That's the worst kind of discrimination! The kind against me!

[gaijin]

Actually, it ought to be the combination of the weight of you and your luggage. No pounds ride for free.

[Winded]

You poor cramped peasants...in first class it doesn't matter how fat the person next to me is, until they get over 500 pounds they don't spill over. Plus there is free monocle polishing up there.

[Raston Bot]

As a darksider? (200+lbs), I'm not siked. But at least it makes no attempt at calculating BMI or other bullshit metrics.

[robc]

Tens of thousands of people die in the winter in the United Kingdom, in part because of fuel taxes global warming.

Fixed?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Seven out of ten Floridians support medical marijuana, but a bill legalizing it can't even get a hearing in the legislature.

Like what the voters want makes a difference when there's serious money to be made in prohibition.

[NeonCat]

If only they could get Disney behind MMJ?

[Mickey Rat]

Not exactly the most motivated of constituencies.

[Episiarch]

President Obama announced the BRAIN project, a fedeally-funded effort to map the human brain

I wonder how this could be politicized...maybe finding "unusual brain structure" in your political enemies? There's got to be a way!

[playa manhattan]

All courtesy of our new "Scientist-in-Chief".

[Episiarch]

I thought that "Scientist-in-Chief" was made up by someone else to mock him, yet, nope, he came up with it himself.

The guy's fucking ego is the size of Tulpa's ass. He's a complete megalomaniac.

[Rich]

It was made up by the "Humorist-in-Chief".

[gaijin]

all children scanned at birth to identify the malformations...and sent to special camps for fixin'

[Heedless]

Fix in'

Are you some kind of monster? That's what abortions are for.

[Zeb]

Right wingers and left wingers are mostly just scared of slightly different things, so I doubt they'll find much structural difference there. I suspect it will be more like the genome project and we will have people handwringing about how much people should be allowed to know about themselves.

[gaijin]

I doubt they'll find much structural difference there

Politicized science always finds what it's looking for.

[a better weapon]

I think Obama is a craven opportunist as much as any opponent of his, but this move doesn't bother me so much. In the category of "Shit Washington Spends Our Money On" I can live with this one.

I'm with Zeb, since the Genome project didn't result in political gamesmanship, I don't see that happening here.

[Heedless]

1000x as useful as the supercollider at 1/40th of the price.

[Tim]

"Brain and brain! What is brain?!"

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Referencing one of the better episodes in Star Trek's canon can only get you so far, Tim.

[Pro Libertate]

Better? What's better than that?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Don't make me choose between Spock's Brain and the Ferengi episodes on DS9.

[Pro Libertate]

They should make that the next Star Wa--I mean, Star Trek--movie. A mashup of a Ferengi episode with "Spock's Brain."

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I'm thinking you can really go somewhere if you make it a tasteful homage to Wizard of Oz.

The Vulcan without a brain, the Ferengi without a heart, the... whatever the hell Neelix was supposed to be without courage.

[Pro Libertate]

Who is the Wizard? I'll gut you if you say Q.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I was thinking Harvey Mudd.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, okay, that works.

[Episiarch]

No, the episode where Spock's command abilities are challenged aboard the shuttlecraft. It's the bestest!

[Pro Libertate]

It's better than "Spock's Brain." I didn't love that episode, because it gets Spock wrong, but that's hindsight. I liked the going to orbit on phaser power bit--Scotty's like a god. Sorry, strike the "like" part.

Geordi couldn't get to orbit on phaser power, that's for fucking sure.

[Episiarch]

Is this some sort of veiled impotence insult?

[Pro Libertate]

It could be. I mostly pity LeVar Burton, who I've liked since his Roots days, because his character wasn't treated so well by the writers. Kind of like poor Wil Wheaton.

[Stormy Dragon]

You think LeVar Burton was treted badly? What about poor Michael Dorn?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edflm7Hh3hs

[Pro Libertate]

Please. Worf had whole story arcs dedicated to him. And he got regular sex, unlike Geordi.

[Mickey Rat]

Geordi's best relationship was with a hologram of a real married woman. Worf got to mack on Deanna and Jadzia. I don't think Dorn was terribly disappointed.

Geordi was the Mk I version of Harry Kim.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Geordi was the Mk I version of Harry Kim.

I can get behind this. At least Geordi didn't have the filial piety act going on; that was an addition for the Mk II.

[Stormy Dragon]

Did you watch the video? It chronicles how Worf was repeatedly dissed by his crewmates. At least they respected Geordi.

[NeonCat]

Sure, not with the phasers they have in NG days. Back in the Kirk days, they had real phasers that'd knock your shoulder off, if you didn't hold it right, phasers that would shoot true and plow through anything in their path. But too many recruits couldn't take it so they switched to the lower power model the NG bunch runs around with. Makes me sick, this Sevrin-ification of Starfleet. (spits, hits spitoon)

[Pro Libertate]

Yeah, back in Kirk's day, real men used real phasers. De-materialize and self-destruct were options individuals were trusted with before the rise of the Federapetion.

[Stormy Dragon]

"Those are Klingons??" "We do not discuss it with outsiders."

[Rabban]

This is actually explain in a multi episode arc in the Enterprise series. Too lazy to Netflix it? Short version is a failed attempt at genetic modification (like what made Khan) by the Klingons went ary and left them flat foreheaded for a period of time. This was later corrected by improvements in genetic tech.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1WI8BUe9Eg

[Raston Bot]

Dr. Frankenstein: [To Igor] Igor, may I speak to you for a moment?
Igor: Of course.
Dr. Frankenstein: Sit down, won't you?
Igor: Thank you. [sits on the floor]
Dr. Frankenstein: No no, up here.
Igor: Thank you. [sits on a chair]
Dr. Frankenstein: Now... that brain that you gave me... was it Hans Delbruck's?
Igor: [Crosses arms] No.
Dr. Frankenstein: [Holds up hand] Ah. Good. Uh... would you mind telling me... whose brain... I did put in?
Igor: And you won't be angry?
Dr. Frankenstein: I will not be angry.
Igor: [Shrugs] Abby...someone.
Dr. Frankenstein: Abby someone? Abby who?
Igor: Abby Normal.
Dr. Frankenstein: [takes a deep breath] Abby Normal?
Igor: I'm almost sure that was the name. [He and Dr. Frankenstein laugh]
Dr. Frankenstein: Are you saying... [Stands] that I put an abnormal brain... [Puts hand on Igor's hump] into a 7 and a half foot long... 54- inch wide... [Grabs Igor by throat] GORILLA?!?!?! [Strangling Igor] IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME!?!

[Pro Libertate]

One of my favorite movie comedy moments. Abby Normal.

[Enough About Palin]

The film would be nothing without Feldman. He's the glue that holds it all together.

[Pro Libertate]

I wouldn't put it that way, exactly, though he was critical and awesome. It probably doesn't work the same without a few of the cast members. Like Frau Blucher, for instance.

[Enough About Palin]

True, it was an great ensemble but just think of the scene when Frau Blucher and Igor are on the roof. She's playing violin and he's sitting there just counting rests waiting to play his six notes. And when he does - priceless.

[Pro Libertate]

No doubt, he was amazingly funny.

[SIV]

I predict the "scientists" identify a "rape zone" in male brains.

[Enough About Palin]

U.N. passes sweeping international arms regulation viewed by some as Second Amendment override

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Pentagon says budget cuts will see it spending less on its drones...

No more G.I. Bill for drones? Or maybe the drones won't get those up-armored humvees they've been asking for.

[Brett L]

Tennessee proposes an end run on the 17th Amendment.

Tennessee state Sen. Frank Nicely, a Republican from Strawberry Plains, has introduced S.B. 471, which would, beginning in 2016, eliminate party primaries for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee. Members of the state Legislature would instead select the nominees. Republican House and Senate caucuses would pick the GOP nominee, and their Democratic counterparts would select their candidate. State Rep. Harry Brooks, R-Knoxville, has also introduced the bill in the Tennessee General Assembly.

Repeal would be better.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Given the polarization now you won't see a Constitutional amendment for a long time.

[Brett L]

Oh, I agree. But being on record as pro-repeal, I just wanted to put this up and say that while I agree with the sentiment, the mechanism is terrible. For one thing, there's no way to have anything but a 2-party election under the bill.

[Palin's Buttplug]

I would accept the repeal of the 17th in exchange for making gerrymandering illegal.

[Kreel Sarloo]

Even in California?

[Palin's Buttplug]

Yes. Gerrymandering is worse than the direct election of Senators.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Come on Shrike, look at MD:

http://alephblog.com/http://al.....mander.jpg

That doesn't excite you at all?

[MP]

Not sure that's at all practically possible.

[Stormy Dragon]

It's easy, just make the House a lot larger. The more finely sampled the electorate is, the hard it is to make districts that deviate wildly from the actual electorate.

[mnarayan]

It's easy, just make the House a lot larger. The more finely sampled the electorate is, the hard it is to make districts that deviate wildly from the actual electorate.

I don't think you've really thought this one through.

[Stormy Dragon]

It's like the Laffer curve. Pennsylvania currently has 12,763,536 people in it. If they were all in one giant congressional district, it would be impossible to gerrymander it. At the other extreme, if we created 12,763,536 one-person congressional districts, it would be impossible to gerrymander them.

Obviously, there must be some intermediate district size that creates "optimal" oppurtunities for gerrymandering. If our present situation is too close to that optimum, the solution is to move toward one of the extremes by either creating fewer bigger districts or more numerous smaller districts.

[Isaac Bartram]

I'd go along with that but the only sure way to avoid gerrymandering is one of the individual voting methods of proportional representation like Hare or Hare-Clark. Instant-runoff voting is another choice.

There are other voting methods that might achieve a reasonable distribution of votes but on observation of American voters, thousands of whom do not seem to be able to select a single candidate without fucking up, I'm convinced they are not sufficiently intelligent to use any of these systems.

It speaks badly of Americans to see that they can probably not master a voting system that Tasmanians use in every election.

[Isaac Bartram]

That said, I'd be OK with doing away with the electoral college if we did away with presidential primaries and just went for Instant-runoff voting for presidential elections.

I'd even be fine with separate elections and runoffs until a clear majority emerged if presidential elections were held separately from all others.

[Stormy Dragon]

It speaks badly of Americans to see that they can probably not master a voting system that Tasmanians use in every election.

Spinning around and slobbering all over the place makes me dizzy.

[Brett L]

I would take that deal. However, a good friend of mine is doing grad work in GIS -- specifically political geography -- and introduced me to the complexity of making "objective" districts. For instance, if you try to do a minimum perimeter to area in my state (FL), the smoothing of coastal features and where you start from will give you radically different districts. Also, the VRA won't let us (again, in FL) disregard demographic geographies, although I'm not blaming gerrymandering on that.

[Emmerson Biggins]

ya, define gerrymandering exactly, and I'll listen. I don't think it can really be done though. All you can do is make rules about how the districts are drawn get along less easily with gerrymandering.

[Mickey Rat]

Why not? It is the reason most openly given to gerrymander.

[Acosmist]

It'd be nice to get rid of the Voting Rights Act and its MANDATED gerrymandering, for damn sure.

[Stormy Dragon]

I realize that it's current GOP mythology that the VRA requires racial gerrymandering, but SCOTUS has ruled on two separate occasions that it does not and that racial gerrymandering is in fact unconstitutional: Miller v. Johnson and Bush v. Vera.

[Brett L]

It depends. Try drawing lines without a demographic survey and see what happens.

[Stormy Dragon]

It's a false dilemma. The courts have said you can't gerrymander districts to disadvantage minorities. That's not the same as saying you must gerrymander to advantage minorities.

The states could, you know, just stop gerrymandering entirely.

[Xenocles]

Sure, they just have to get their plan approved by a totally nonpartisan process.

[Virginian]

Yeah, there needs to be some study of this phenomenon of the government circumventing the law.

See, for example, the "my official email accounts are public record, so I will create a secret email account and use it for secret correspondence."

Or the ATF's "The law says we have to delete the background check records, so we'll just 'forget' to do that every night."

[Mickey Rat]

Then how do you get purposely created majority-minority districts? How else does a district that starts in Jacksonville end in southwest Orlando?

[ant1sthenes]

Fine, I will trade you a system where representatives and electors are chosen at random, which would be the exact opposite of gerrymandering, as representation would be exactly proportional, in the long run.

[Calidissident]

I think the state legislature election of senators thing is kinda overrated in terms of protecting liberty. Hell, the 17th Amendment itself was pushed for and approved by the vast majority of state legislatures.

[Gladstone]

Well I know this is old but it involes two of HR two favourite things: Firefly and feminists.

http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html

http://allecto.wordpress.com/2.....-part-one/

[Bam!]

"This is a really long rant about Joss Whedon's Firefly. Why? Because I'm angry and I think it is really important that feminists don't leave popular culture out of the equation. Especially considering that popular culture is increasingly being influenced by pornography."

Nope; can't get past the first paragraph.

[Mickey Rat]

You really should. She seems a mite confused by the meaning of the word "rape".

"For example, one Guild rule is that the 'Companion' chooses her rapist, not the other way around."

[Brett L]

Wait, just so I'm clear, the show that features (a)a female mechanic (who took her boyfriend's job) (b)a prostitute who is treated as an honorable person and (c)a couple where the woman does all of the ass-kicking is anti-feminist and pro-rape. Although, Saffron was clearly worth more than Vera.

[Isaac Bartram]

Zoe: I know something ain't right.
Wash: Sweetie, we're crooks. If everything were right, we'd be in jail.

[Mickey Rat]

She believes that prostitution can never be anything other than rape and apparently thinks that a minority can ever play an antagonist or heaven forbid an outright villain, else you are portraying the minority group badly (she strongly objects to Jubal Early and the Operative being portrayed by black men).

[Calidissident]

Don't forget the part where she says any man who pressures (and if you read the context, she's using that term extremely broadly) a woman into sex is a rapist and that the vast majority of hetero sex today is rape.

[Episiarch]

tl;dr

But I skimmed a little, and if this person gets RAPE from Mal's actions in "Our Ms. Reynolds", then just walk away. They can't be reasoned with, they can't be bargained with, and they will not stop with this shit ever.

[Gladstone]

Don't forget this comment by the author:

I feel awful for Joss Whedon's wife. From what I've read about him and the interviews I've watched, I'm fairly certain that he rapes his wife and abuses her in various other ways. I honestly can't think of anything worse than living with a man like Joss who thinks of women like the way he portrays in his tv shows. How awful. The comment about the money was meant to be about how I personally could see no benefit from being with a man like Joss OTHER than money. Joss uses and abuses her. Probably rapes her and thinks of women as whores etc, etc. Obviously, Ms Whedon has her own reasons for staying. Fear, patriarchal concepts of love, etc. But I would argue that she gives everything and gets nothing. Money is the only concrete thing that she could possibly gain. But as I said money is worth nothing compared with self-integrity, self-esteem, love (sister/lesbian/gynaffectionate love) etc. So she still loses out. Poor woman.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Wow, I'm not going to read it but what on earth do I not know about Joss Whedon?

[NeonCat]

That he is, in reality, STEVE SMITH?

[jesse.in.mb]

I was confused too, isn't he known for independent female characters?

Is the article from yesterday? Maybe it's self-parody.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

dani (_allecto_) wrote,
2007-12-15 23:15:00

Yeah, I had to check too...

[jesse.in.mb]

I'm trying to come up with some way to structure my picture of this writer where I don't want her put in a burlap sack and tossed into a stormy sea. Maybe she was a college freshman, really impressed with her sociology of gender prof and she went way overboard, or she could have some kind of degenerative brain disease, or be suffering from exposure to toxic waste.

There, I am at peace with the world again.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Wow, that's some impressive repression and denial you've got going on there. Are you sure you're not a liberal?

[jesse.in.mb]

Wow, that's some impressive repression and denial you've got going on there.

It's been hard to do, but I've watched my liberal friends closely and learned some of their secrets. Now when someone is quite clearly a monster I just smile and feel bad for them because their parents probably gave them mercury to play with during their formative years.

It's really relieved my urge to kill with fire those who are wrong.

[Episiarch]

No, jesse, no. Feel the hate flow through you. Use its strength. Then take it out on Hugh.

[Irish]

Why Hugh? I thought you said that Nicole is the worst, so why would people take it out on Hugh when we have the worst person floating around here?

[Episiarch]

Don't worry, I have more detailed plans for nicole. Hugh is a more immediate problem. For instance, he reads--and likes--graphic "novels".

[Irish]

So? I like deep dish pizza. According to H&R that makes me a stupid, no class fatty who hates real pizza.

Because H&R is wrong and probably eats fucking Dominoes or something.

[Episiarch]

(adds Irish to the list that also has ProL, nicole, and Hugh in it)

[Coeus]

(adds Irish to the list that also has ProL, nicole, and Hugh in it)

Wait. Was this you?

[Irish]

I can't be. He's not in the midst of stuffing his face with the cardboard that we call 'thin crust pizza,' so clearly it can't be Epi.

[Episiarch]

No, this is me.

(adds jesse and Coeus for being near Irish in the subthread)

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Fucking Shrike-lover.

[Episiarch]

It's true, I can't deny it.

(adds nicole to the list again)

[jesse.in.mb]

Can't you just have the Reason Admin print you off a list of registered commenters and that can be your list?

[jesse.in.mb]

Egad, Irish, are you trying to get onto Epi's hitlist?

[Episiarch]

This person is clearly insane, and I'd also throw some projection and dark, dark fantasizing in there.

[Eduard van Haalen]

And she's probably guilty of defamation, too, if you want to get technical. Unless she's using a definition of rape different from what normal people use...never mind.

[JW]

C'mon, that HAS to be sarcasm.

It's Poe's Law, that's all that I know it is for sure..

[MJGreen]

So to be clear, in her eyes, a woman can only feel love from other women? This is an April Fool's post, right?

[itsnotmeitsyou]

nope, it's old..

Can someone please tell me what the fuck "gynaffectionate love" is?

I googled it, and all the results were links to her post or people mocking her post.

[CharlesWT]

Secretively a member of the Alliance Information Bureau.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Holy crap on a crutch. She used "feminist" FOUR times in the first sentence. Gee, think this may have been written by a feminist? feminist.

[NeonCat]

There feminist is no better feminist way to raise feminist consciousness than feminist to feminist say feminist more.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

We really need a Poe's Law for feminism. This article is beyond the ridiculous. It's like a caricature of a caricature of a caricature of feminism. I mean, I don't think I've seen this many terrible interpretations out of anything Marcotte dribbles onto the page.

I mean, she took a series where EVERY SINGLE WOMAN in the cast is a strong independent woman. Zoe is an absolute badass, Kayleigh is a super intelligent ship mechanic, Inara holds more power than anyone, and River is a god damned force of nature. Yet, all she this cunt sees is a subservient minority woman, a patriarchially downtrodden subordinate, a rape victim (who "chooses her rapist"), and whatever she said about River (I honestly couldn't read that far).

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

So I read some of it, and I don't actually know anything about Firefly (or probably anything else Whedon has done), but I immediately notice that she has a problem with prostitution. "Companion" is "Joss Whedon's euphemism for prostituted women" who are "raped/fucked/used by a prostitutor." Thank you for taking women's agency away, you fuckhead. I mean it's not like we were doing anything with it.

[Episiarch]

I don't actually know anything about Firefly

The. Worst.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Look, I know a lot more now than I did 20 minutes ago. Like about how rapey it is and shit. I mean about how "Serenity" is the name of a "Firefly" type ship or whatever. Plus you know I have to put these little notes in for you so I can keep the tiara.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

She completely misses the point of the Companions in Firefly. They aren't just whores. Inara actually gets quite offended when she is called a whore. There are actual whores in the world, which Joss doesn't demonize, but Companions are SOOOO much more than a whore.

[Brett L]

Also, the "I'll be in my bunk" quote and meme derives directly from the Companion taking a female client. So was she also being femsploited?

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Something something, "maybe someday we'll all be mermaids so men can't get between our legs and we will reproduce only girl babies via parthenogenesis," something something, no I am not shitting you. (Actually, that was a commenter, and on an unrelated post, BUT STILL.)

[Xenocles]

titheni: I'm curious. Given your definition of all prostitution as rape, and also most heterosexual intercourse as rape -- is a woman who pays another woman for sex raping her, in your view?

allecto: Yes.

[Episiarch]

IT'S RAPE ALL THE WAY DOWN

[kinnath]

The first scene opens in a war with Mal and Zoe. Zoe runs around calling Mal 'sir' and taking orders off him. I roll my eyes. Not a good start

wow

[JW]

Kinnath and I can think back to a time where we would be blissfully unaware of this frothing moron, since she wouldn't have had an easy way of distributing her batshit crazy, other than pamphletting on a street corner and being shunned by passers-by.

Now we see the Internet's true dark side.

[Gladstone]

http://allecto.wordpress.com/2.....-part-two/

I won't be allowing comments from anyone who is not a radical feminist (or pro-radical feminist) or a lesbian feminist/separatist. Yes, I am pro-censorship. Boohoo.

Well nice of her to admit that she is a statist fuck in the end.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Yeah, I read that line as "I'm a closed minded dipshit who's flimsy beliefs can't handle the slightest challenge so I'm just going to lock myself in an echo chamber and pretend no one else exists. LA LA LA LA LA!!"

[Enough About Palin]

"I won't be allowing comments from anyone who is not a radical feminist (or pro-radical feminist) or a lesbian feminist/separatist. Yes, I am pro-censorship. Boohoo."

And the matriarchy continues its oppression of others.

[Xenocles]

Anonymous: While I realise you hate my sex, may a gay man comment on what has been a facinating read?

allecto: I don't hate your sex, I hate your gender. If you don't understand what I mean by that then go and do your feminist homework before attempting to take up space on my blog.

I'm just going to read some YouTube comments to wash that out of my mind.

[jesse.in.mb]

Thank you, Xenocles, for bursting my bubble...Where is Hugh!?

[Xenocles]

Surely you mean raping your bubble.

[jesse.in.mb]

That's what I said. Is there some kind of non-penetrative bubble bursting method that you're aware of?

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Bubbles can explode. Can you be raped by the evil inside of yourself?

[Coeus]

What do you think "Nightman" is about?

[Episiarch]

Charlie: (singing) Nightman, sneaky and mean, / Spider inside my dreams, / I think I love you. / You make me wanna cry. / You make me wanna die. / I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, / I love you, Nightman. / Every night you come into my room / And pin me down with your strong arms. / You pin me down, and I try to fight you. / You come inside me and fill me up, / And I become the Nightman?

Mac: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Charlie! Hold on a second. I mean, the first half of that song was kinda cool, but what's with the second half?

Charlie: It's about the Nightman like, you know, like filling me up, and I become him. I become the spirit of the Nightman.

Mac: But it sounds like a song where a man breaks into your house and rapes you.

[jesse.in.mb]

I suppose, but that would imply that Xenoclese was inside the bubble with me, and therefor sharing my self-delusion, which was not the case. Ipso facto he was an external force penetrating my bubble and freeing me of my false consciousness. Or something like that.

[Xenocles]

I'm not into kinky rape.

[Coeus]

Christ:

MAL
She's a nice girl.
BOOK
Seems very anxious to please you.
MAL
That's their way, I guess.
BOOK
(bright, casual) I suppose so. If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the
theater. (My emphasis.)

Now, that comment right there indicates to me that our dear Mr. Whedon is a porn user. And that it is highly likely that his pornography of choice is Hustler, given that he seems to think it funny to trivialise the sexual abuse of children. How many times has Joss wanked to our degradation in Hustler while chuckling away at Chester the Molester cartoons? I actually really want to know the answer to this question. Joss continues his race hatred by putting this 'joke' in the mouth of a Black man.

[Episiarch]

Like I said: she's insane.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Guys. I just read a lot of really terrible things on that blog. It was so much more insane than the usual feminist stuff we get. Well done, Gladstone!

[Irish]

Almost all porn is child pornography, really. Mainstream porn magazine almost never feature women even in the advanced age of the? early twenties, and many of them capitalize on having titles like "barely legal!" highlighting that their models, while all still supposedly adult, are just so barely adult that they may as well still be children. Furthermore, porn started the stupid trend of women shaving off their pubic hair in an attempt to look less adult, and then picks women with body types that are less curvy, thus further evoking images of a naked child.

WHAT?!?

[Episiarch]

What part of "she's insane" are you missing?

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

That doesn't even approach the insanity of 90% of what I just saw, either. E.g., "I never said that Joss was a rapist or a wife-beater. I do believe he is a probable rapist but no more so than the majority of men on the planet. All men are probable rapists."

[Irish]

I would fucking love to throw the men who come to my blog searching for pornography into the deepest, darkest, most hellish dungeon imaginable, and throw away the key.

I would love to be able to silence men, those bores, those phallosophers, those wankers. I would love to be able to silence the women who support men's woman-hatred and race-hatred. And here, on my blog, I can do exactly that. And I fucking love it.

I am not interested in free speech. Free speech has given me nothing and cost me much. Men and Athena's can take their free speech and shove it where the sun don't shine.

Fuck you, Nicole. THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING WORSE!

[jesse.in.mb]

Who knew feminists were so hung up on Athena as a misogynist?

However, she is strongly male-identified in classical mythology, assisting male heroes and (often) treating women rather badly.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Yeah, that's a whole new thing for me. I mean I can't say I'm super surprised. I almost feel I should have predicted it.

[Episiarch]

You know, I just realized that this woman bears a striking mental similarity to rctlfy, Mary's signature handle. Seething hatred of men. Just seething.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Yeah. She also has some really, really nasty shit in there about her black female relatives being abused by their white husbands. And it's like "wow I wouldn't for a second think this is more a personal than a societal thing for you eh?"

[jesse.in.mb]

Goddamned, hetoronormative, gay-porn-othering bitch!

[Calidissident]

"and then picks women with body types that are less curvy"

Cause it's not like porn with women with large breasts and big butts is extremely popular or anything?

[Brett L]

Sports news:

Marlins draw fewer groupon claims than $5 pizza.

Vince Young and Rex Grossman might have careers again. Really?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Samoa Air may start to charge passengers by weight.

I was expecting that from Sumo Air, but not Samoa Air.

[Zeb]

It was a better joke unmodified.

[Coeus]

"I mean, he got a weight problem. What's a nigger gonna do ? He's Samoan."

[Palin's Buttplug]

After a March 2009 low of 666 the S/P 500 is now 1570, the USD is at 83 (up 15%) and gold is about to enter bear market territory. GDP is forecast at 3% for Q1 and inflation is tamed.

Good stuff.

[gaijin]

remind me again, what was 4Q12 GDP predicted to be in April of 2012?

[Restoras]

*blows whistle*
5 minute penalty for Feeding the Troll.

[NoVAHockey]

a major penalty. tough but fair. score at will!

[gaijin]

sorry...I thought someone said in AM links it was ok to feed the trolls today. My humblest apologies for breaking the rules.

[Mike M.]

Our resident shithead has been predicting gold to go into the tank for like two years now. Like Krugman, he never gets tired of making a complete ass out of himself.

[OldMexican]

Re: Palin's Buttplug,

GDP is forecast at 3% for Q1 and inflation is tamed.

Look, Buttwipe! Over there! A unicorn!

[Juice]

I sure do hope gold goes down again, so I can actually buy some. Waiting for Bitcoin to crash also, but I think it's going to be a while.

[Jam]

true dat

[Heedless]

I'm skeptical of Bitcoin, simply because it's just as vulnerable to the government's sticky fingers as any other foreign currency. If your country is in such a state that you really need a stable currency, the government will probably be confiscating foreign denominated holdings anyway.

[Brett L]

Magic Johnson's son comes out. There's a practicing safe sex joke in there somewhere, but I'm too lazy to find it.

[playa manhattan]

I don't really think he was that far in the closet to begin with:
http://www.tmz.com/2013/04/02/.....dad-proud/

[fish]

Apple.....tree.....fall!

[Drake]

...far...not..

[gaijin]

...that there is anything wrong with that...

[Palin's Buttplug]

When will Magic come out? You can't tell me a full hetero man didn't infect his wife in the 80s/early 90s.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Good question. I am of the opinion he is gay. But some of the folks at my local bar were practically screaming at me that there is no way he's gay. Ironically, I'm the conservatard libertardian and could care less. Yet the progressive, unionized, enlightened ones are appalled that Magic might be gay.

He will come out some day. But not for 10 years or so.

[playa manhattan]

He's old enough to be part of the closeted generation. I think he is probably gay, but will never come out for the same reason Huell Howser didn't.

[jesse.in.mb]

You can't tell me a full hetero man didn't infect his wife in the 80s/early 90s.

Depending on his viral load and their sexual habits, it's entirely possible that he didn't infect his wife while having a rigorous, albeit painfully conventional, sex life with her.

[Drake]

He always did seem very happy...you could say gay even.

[Mike M.]

That's fine and all, but honestly, who the hell cares? I could see it being a big story if it were Magic himself, but his son simply isn't newsworthy in any way.

[gaijin]

Senators John McCain and Sheldon Whitehouse are visiting Mali to check out the French-led intervention

Wonder if they will be scouting out good locations for a new drone base while they are there.

[Drake]

Do we really have a Senator named "Sheldon Whitehouse"? This sounds like a terrorist plot.

[Mike M.]

It really is sick how much this motherfucker McCain loves war, especially when you consider what was done to him in Vietnam. There is something seriously wrong that guy.

[gaijin]

especially when you consider what was done to him in Vietnam

Exactly.

[Brett L]

In Greece, privatizing the trains. Funny how those public assets aren't worth as much to the private bidders as the government spent to build them.

[NeonCat]

Well, sure, they're not high-speed rail, are they? Probably not totally wonderful and in no way in the way trolleys, either.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

I am pleased with today's Champions League results.

/No Spoiler

[BakedPenguin]

I must concur.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Amanda doesn't understand how GoT works:

I also love how much of a mockery the show makes of the old rationalizations for sexism that claimed women exert their power in the home: "the hand that rocks the cradle" or "the power behind the throne" kind of garbage people still push today. Cersei has made it her life's work to manipulate men, but she finds pretty quickly that their actual, real world power trumps hers. She's left with kicking her brother Tyrion around?he used his male privilege against her the second he had it, and now that it's been stripped from him, she's going to expend all her anger towards all the men who control her on him.

Of course Marcotte would see Cersei as the victim in the GoT world.

[Auric Demonocles]

Of course Marcotte would see Cersei as the victim in the GoT world.

Well come on. It's not like she ever used her real world power to overturn a legitimate edict of the king and slaughter a bunch of men right in the open to gain power for herself.

[Coeus]

Jesus, I didn't even see all these marcotte links before I posted. I think we're driving half her traffic.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Probably.

[John]

OMG is she a moron.

[Episiarch]

I've said this before, but the prison of perception these insane obsessives put themselves in must be worse than anything else in their lives. To see your boogeymen in everything and everywhere all the time. To hate, hate, hate all the time.

She's her own worst enemy.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

It's kind of hilarious. I'm a Christian, was agnostic 10 years ago, and in both cases I never had any motivation to turn the popular entertainment I viewed into a morality play. I'm guessing you and most other forum members can say basically the same sans the Christian part.

How on earth do people make their political views even more central to their self-worth than religious people? It verges on self-parody.

[Drake]

When you have only your feminist reality-bending prism to view the world, Cersei Lannister is a poor victim.

Holy Fuck.

[John]

There is no escaping the world for these people. No such thing as fantasy. Any work of art is immediately reducible to their sorry world view.

[MJGreen]

My standard response to these people: It must be exhausting to live as you do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trousers, every time you post an Amanda Marcotte link, it is like you are gently caressing my balls with a lit match. Unlike SugarFree, I don't enjoy it.

she's going to expend all her anger towards all the men who control her on him.

Including railroading Tyrion for a crime he didn't actually commit (one theory is that it was done by the seemingly wizened little old lady). But what does truth have to do with anything? The dwarf must be punished for his dwarf...I mean MALE privilege.

such as the strategies used by the slave traders that Dany meets up with in the first episode of this season.

If Amanda Marcotte didn't find reading comprehension so difficult and read ahead in the books, she would know what Daenerys has planned for the slavers of Astapor will be somewhat more...unpleasant than robbing them of their "agency."

[Dweebston]

She's filling pages. She's a content-generator. The vacuousness of her applied-victimology has absolutely no bearing on her, nor her following. She knows what she's doing, and, I suspect, could give a shit about whether she sounds silly in public. She knows who butters her bread. She's a purveyor for fetishists.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

It's a living!

[fish]

She's filling pages. She's a content-generator. The vacuousness of her applied-victimology has absolutely no bearing on her, nor her following. She knows what she's doing, and, I suspect, could give a shit about whether she sounds silly in public. She knows who butters her bread. She's a purveyor for fetishists.

So she's the Paul Krugman of feminism......

[Anonymous Coward]

As a book fan of the Ice and Fire series, Marcotte trying to tar the series with a broad brush offends my literary sensibilities.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

She also disses the Lord of the Rings trilogy as anti-feminist in the same article.

I'm guessing she had to nix her commentary on Dune and Starship Troopers due to time constraints.

[Dweebston]

Dune would be the worst. An entire caste of chadored women segregated to their own planet and exoticized by the rest of the universe? It's the ultimate exercise of misogynistic othering ever conceived.

[Dweebston]

Also, slut-shaming Jessica and the whole Kwisatz Haderach man-completes-women deal. It's been awhile since I read the original.

[Episiarch]

The thing is, look at Martin's characters. They're fully fleshed out, not stereotypes; this is part of what makes his writing so fucking good. So she doesn't even have the taste to recognize the sophistication of a character like Cersei or Brienne.

[Anonymous Coward]

THANK YOU! Cersei is not hateable because she's a woman. Cersei is hateable because she is a cruel, petty, spiteful, amoral, maniac who will gladly step over anyone to have her own way and sees no problem in doing so.

Brienne is the polar opposite of Cersei. She might the most honorable character in Westeros, but she is flat out ugly (except for her eyes). She also happens to be a decent fighter (good enough to defeat Loras Tyrell).

[Episiarch]

And yet there are still moments where Cersei exposes the fact that she is, in fact, human. Her real concern for her children, her love for her brother (incestuous as it may be), etc. Like I said, Martin's characters are amazing and so...real.

Of course, Tyrion is the best example of all. I can't wait until he kills [spoiler redacted] on the show.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, Tyrion is the best example of all. I can't wait until he kills [spoiler redacted] on the show.

The poor little halfman. He just wants to be loved.

But where do whores go?

[Episiarch]

Actually, now that you mention it, Shae is another very elaborate and interesting character.

It's really amazing that Marcotte can't see that. Oh wait, I'd bet $1000 she's never laid eyes on one of the books.

[Coeus]

And yet there are still moments where Cersei exposes the fact that she is, in fact, human. Her real concern for her children, her love for her brother (incestuous as it may be), etc.

"Cersi, your love for your children is your only redeeming quality. Well, that and your cheek bones."

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Dude, don't forget her hair. So prettay!

[Coeus]

Dude, don't forget her hair. So prettay!

Yeah, but I think her "little" brother perferred brunettes. That was an in-show quote (first season, I believe, but maybe the beginning of the second).

[Mickey Rat]

Brienne is possibly an even more gooey romantic than Sansa was at the beginning of the series, she just did not think she pull off the pretty princess role so she tried going for "knight in shining armor".

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bene Gesserit are totally feminist and cool and don't rule the Known Universe because of TEH MAIL PRIVLEJ!

Being a feminist writer is easy.

[Heroic Mulatto]

She also disses the Lord of the Rings trilogy as anti-feminist in the same article.

Oh for fucks....

[Eduard van Haalen]

You'd think she'd enjoy the metaphor of destroying evil by throwing it into a crack.

[Xenocles]

She's a purveyor for fetishists.

A prostitute, you might say.

[Dweebston]

That's a respectable woman you're talking about. Have some respect.

Nobody deserves to be compared to Marcotte.

[Mickey Rat]

Well Cersei is a proto=feminist who constantly engrossed self-pity or delusions of grandeur when she is not half as clever as she thinks she is.

[Brett L]

Now this is how to pay back your mother-in-law.

At least one person isn't ready for Google's futuristic world of self-driving cars: CEO Sergey Brin's mother-in-law, who freaked out during a ride in one of the robo-cars.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

90s Nostalgia, Day Two: Grunge

Seriously Marcotte, please stop if only for your own mental health.

[fish]

Seriously Marcotte, please stop if only for your own mental health.

I think that ship has sailed.....

[EDG reppin' LBC]

I think that ship has sailed.....

...into an iceberg.

[Episiarch]

Just walk away, TIT. Just walk away and there can be an end to the horror, an end to the suffering. Just walk away.

[fish]

I can see you in the "Humungous" role!

Try a few more sit ups though.

[Episiarch]

Be still my fish of war. I understand your pain. We've all lost someone we love. But we do it my way!

[NeonCat]

US moving sea-based radar to western Pacific

http://english.yonhapnews.co.k.....0315F.HTML

The U.S. military has sent the Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX-1) based in Hawaii to the Western Pacific Ocean to better monitor potential attempts from North Korea to launch a long-range missile, they said.

The advanced radar is a floating platform and has the ability to search and track targets, communicating with interceptor missiles at its overseas base that can shoot down a target missile.

Seoul defense officials confirmed the movement of the key U.S. military asset, refuting some local reports that said the radar platform was moving toward the eastern coast of the Korean Peninsula.

"As SBX-1 has a range of 2,000-5,000 kilometers, it doesn't have to come close to the Korean Peninsula," a military source spoke on the condition of anonymity.

[playa manhattan]

They had one in port in LA last week that is out to sea now...

I have seen it docked here a few times:
http://goo.gl/maps/LYIAb

[Coeus]

This is astounding. First Marcotte says this:

***I have no idea why women aren't allowed to say they're wearing or doing something because they think it's sexy. I don't wear red lipstick so you can see me in the dark or miniskirts because I like having a breeze on my ass. I'm sick of pretending otherwise.

So you're not showing 3 square feet of clevage at work cause it's more comfortable? Nice to hear one of them finally admit it.

[Coeus]

Then there's this:

Most of the time, it's left at that, but this tendency of women to tell themselves they could tame the savage beast by acting better than the victim can also take a romanticized spin. After all, one of the most common romantic fantasies presented to young women is the story of the woman whose loyalty, beauty, etc. causes the "bad boy" to mend his ways to settle down with her. Isn't this really what "Twilight" is about?turning the vampire into a loving husband? Romantic comedies do it, too, with endless stories of women taming philanderers, sexist pigs, and even slackers.

But there's a dark side to this fantasy, where the "badness" that is tamed is not just womanizing or smoking pot all day, but in fact abusiveness. Romance novels used to have a standardized plot where the nubile virgin is raped by the hero but then wins him over with her innocence.

What's that? Lots of women do like the bad boy? I thought that was a myth?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Yeah, but the women who like the bad boy only do so because of internalized patriarchy, and not because they're immature or have personal issues or whathave you. Or something. I dunno.

[Coeus]

Yet another fact free article about Rand Paul from a feminist.

[OldMexican]

Re: Coeus,

Yet another fact free article about Rand Paul from a feminist.

Jabba the Hutt is a feminist?

[Coeus]

"oo-doo a-wa boo-boo bletchic" Is actually Hutt for "Death to the Patriarchy".

[JMos]

Because clearly the only civil liberty that matters to women is abortion. It's ridiculously sexist to think that women could care about anything else.

[Coeus]

And to complete the social justice info dump:

An article written by a F to M transsexual wondering "Where's all this male privledge I was told so much about?"

In the comments, she admits she might have tried to stay a woman if she'd known what it was like to be a guy, even though she always felt like a guy.

[Brett L]

High five, brother. We been trying to tell you this.

[fish]

"Where's all this male privledge (sic) I was told so much about?"

That must be one serious case of buyers remorse!

[playa manhattan]

All of this should be fairly obvious without having to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Just look at life expectancy, incarceration rates, and college graduation rates

[NeonCat]

"Math is hard."

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with the notion of "male privilege" is that it was created by wealthy white women who don't seem to appreciate that "privilege" doesn't come from having a set of balls, it comes from having MONEY.

[NeonCat]

Ah, so they wanted to distract the uppity prole women from the money so they had them focus on the balls.

[Anonymous Coward]

In their own little sphere, the balls were the issue. In the world not occupied by the old money and its delusions of aristocracy, if you spread enough cash around, people won't care if you have breasts or not.

Money talks.

[mr lizard]

I read the article from the link and I am slightly skeptical. It seems more like a collection of well aimed gender themes expressed by unconventional character. Basically I somewhat believe the story is plausible but I don't believe the character exists.

[Coeus]

Don't forget. This is not the first time a feminist has taken this particular journey and ended up in a mental hospital from the stress. I forget the name, but another feminist just posed as a man for like 8 months (used a professional make-up artist and prosthetics) and wrote a book about it after she got out of the nut hatch. She's not invited to the feminist parties anymore either.

[Thane of Whiterun]

Her?

[Coeus]

Ah, 18 months, not 8. Yeah, that's her.

[jesse.in.mb]

I read Self-Made Man it was interesting, but confusing, partly because I think she was trying to make her experience more interesting and mostly because her discoveries about what it meant to be a man didn't really resonate with me.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

her discoveries about what it meant to be a man didn't really resonate with me.

And we all know why that is amirite?

[jesse.in.mb]

Because my gender identity isn't informed by a lifetime of being a Rachel-Maddow-masculine lesbian, I don't have weird anxieties about bonding (Platonic [not the way he bonded with Aristotle]) with straight men, and because I can have a rockin' beard without use of spirit gum?

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Honestly, the weirdest thing about this stuff is always the idea that it's hard to bond with straight men. I mean I could see it being hard to bond with like hardcore bros, but that's because bros are constitutionally douchy. It's kind of their thing. But like, normal straight men are super welcoming. (I was just reading an article about this woman, because I hadn't heard of her project before, and that was what really stuck out for me: the astonishment that a group of straight dudes just accepts more dudes into the group.)

[jesse.in.mb]

I've been really shocked at how many of my straight male friends are absolutely panicked about trying to make new guy friends after they leave college. I've never been able to figure out the problem.

Even weirder is that they all think it's "easier" for me. Just hang out someplace with like-minded guys, and start (or jump in on) some kind of innocent conversation about sports, ethnic minorities' driving skills, or porn and 10 minutes later you've exchanged phone numbers and are grabbing beers with them on Friday.

[Sidd Finch]

http://blogs.thescore.com/tbj/.....-shooting/

On Easter Sunday, Barack Obama invited the Washington Wizards over to his White House to look for Easter Eggs and shoot some hoops. Obeezy then proceeded to go a positively Wizardian 2-22 from the field.

[fish]

Stop Mocking President Shaq!

[Pro Libertate]

At least Shaq could play in the paint. Obama's got to be even worse with his inside game.

[Xenocles]

The President was shooting some people outside the White House?

[Coeus]

Ok, so I lied about stopping the social justice postings today. But I didn't know that Connor Friedersdorf was gonna do a piece today.

But there are limits to how far they can take us. Group dynamics cannot be mapped onto individuals nearly so neatly as Marcotte attempts it. Her ideology causes her to write as if she doesn't understand what is plain to most observers: Kate Upton is far more privileged, powerful, culturally savvy, and capable of fully exercising her autonomy than the vast majority of straight white males in America, and certainly more than a dateless, non-celebrity 18-year-old high school student on YouTube.

Speaking of "the dynamics of difference and power," as they called it at my alma mater, Marcotte, in her capacity as a regular columnist at a prestigious, internationally read Web magazine, presently possesses a lot more cultural power and privilege than the high school boy she just called "creepy," accused of implicitly threatening Upton with being called a bitch, and told that his prom invitation is rooted in the same premise that stalkers and rapists operate under.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Ha, I almost posted this!

[John]

It is so true. Marcotte is one of the most privileged people in our society. Yeah, upper middle class educated white girls have it so fucking hard.

[fish]

Why can I imagine Amanda at home stomping her little Birkenstocked feet crying....Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!

Sorry to those of you not Brady Bunch literate.

[Killazontherun]

No, quite to the contrary, all those hours wasted not being Brady Bunch literate went to being just literate.

[fish]

Don't mock me for my wasted life full of 70s television....pity me!

PITY ME!

[Killazontherun]

Did you have an older sister that made you watch? I did. She would sit on me to make me watch it while babysitting. I would shut my ears and yodel until she let me go. The depth of my hatred for the Brady Bunch would easily consume the Pacific if it dared flow near.

[Episiarch]

To be honest, though I admit I don't read her crap in any detail, she just really seems like a hateful bully more than anything else.

[John]

She is the geeky smart girl who never got asked to the prom and will never forgive the world for such.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Marcotte is not smart.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Dude. John. She ain't smart.

[John]

But she thinks she is. She got good grades didn't she? All of her lefty professors have been telling her she is smart her whole life. How could they be wrong?

[Episiarch]

John. Dude. Marcotte is not smart.

I felt a third time would be the charm.

[John]

I never meant to imply she was. But most certainly thinks she is smart. She is the geeky girl who got good grades and thinks she is just so fucking brilliant even though she is in fact a moron.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Marcotte, like a lot of feminists, is determined to make the world pay for her daddy issues.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Marcotte, in her capacity as a regular columnist at a prestigious, internationally read Web magazine

Conclusive proof that Lucifer exists and has a sense of humor.

[Killazontherun]

Well, in Marcotte's defense, the object of her scorn really was a male, just as in the defense of the Spanish Inquisition those executed really were Jews and Muslims.

[Palin's Buttplug]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Home prices are up. Foreclosures are down. Construction is up. And now comes the latest sign of the U.S. home market's revival: Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant that nearly collapsed five years ago, has earned its biggest yearly profit ever.

Fannie Mae earned $17.2 billion last year and said Tuesday that it expects to stay profitable for "the foreseeable future." It also paid $11.6 billion in dividends to the U.S. Treasury in 2012.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/.....11295.html

[Matrix]

so... reinflate the bubble? We'll get it right this time?

[OldMexican]

Re: Palin's Buttwipe,

Home prices are up. Foreclosures are down. Construction is up.

The printing of money by the Fed is up, the value of the dollar is down. The gullible think we're rich again.

[fish]

Forget OM. Trying to explain anything to TEAM BLUEs biggest cheerleader is like showing a dog a card trick...he's just not going to get it

[Isaac Bartram]

OK, I'm going to ask, except for preserving the portfolios of the pampered "American middle class", why are high home prices a good thing?

This is directed at Shriek, of course, not you OM.

[Palin's Buttplug]

They're not.

But demand is a good thing. Supply will follow.

[OldMexican]

Re: Palin's Buttplug,

But demand is a good thing. Supply will follow.

"Why did the Keynesian cross the road?"
"I don't know! Why?"
"To get to the aggregate demand curb!"

Ba-rum-bum!

[BigT]

Housing prices are not up in real terms, only in monopoly money - the US govt monopoly on printing it.

[BigT]

Once symbols of the reckless risk-taking that fed the housing bubble, Fannie and the smaller firm Freddie Mac were seized by the government in 2008 after they were buried by bad mortgages. Taxpayers have spent $188 billion to rescue the two ? collectively the costliest bailout of the financial crisis.

So no real profit, merely return of investment.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

http://www.youtube.com/v/k3VtzMxmPs0

[Brett L]

Tell that to Zillow. My house is valued at 65% of purchase price, (2006 - never taking financial advice from my parents again) and there haven't been any comps within a half mile sell in over a year except foreclosures. At the very least, the recovery is unevenly distributed.

[16th amendment]

American news HQ says the brain project is one thing the president and Eric Cantor agree on. The question is whether the government should be funding this project at all. Because there is practical application and money to be made, I imagine private companies will do it.

I swear that there is a socialist gene.

[ant1sthenes]

I can tell you right now that it isn't the socialist part of the brain that they'll be looking to excise.

[Caleb Turberville]

http://freethoughtblogs.com/ph.....r-freedom/

I swear, when PZ Myers talks about politics, and especially about (L!)ibertarians, he completely loses his mind.

[fish]

He's just pissed because he's stuck teaching 13th grade.

[Caleb Turberville]

By the way, I can't be the only libertarian who pretty much hates the Mercatus ranking of the states?

It's like ranking your favorite albums. New York and California are obvious choices for the bottom of the list. Tennessee is somewhere at the top. But all the rest are just a jumbled mess, and there's literally no practical difference between Missouri and Colorado.

[Coeus]

7

glodson
2 April 2013 at 7:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, they don't care about reproductive rights, love guns, and want no regulations for how private education or homeschooling is done?

It is almost like they are attempting to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I'm sure their reasons behind putting a piority behind prostitution is less enlightened than we might hope.

Emphasis mine. Tha fuck?

[Irish]

They don't care about reproductive rights

Where do people get this stuff?

[ant1sthenes]

From them not factoring abortion in?

[Coeus]

25

Gregory in Seattle
2 April 2013 at 8:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Women are property, as far as Libertarians go. They count only insofar as men are allowed to treat them as a commodity.

[Irish]

I just sold my sister to an Iranian imam, so he might have a point there.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Uh can someone please let me know who owns me?

[jesse.in.mb]

I'm assuming your father, eldest brother or significant other. I'm sure there's a provision for claiming abandoned property if none of those apply.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Thanks, jesse. I'm still not exactly sure. I mean, none of those people seem to have very much control over me so I'm feeling kinda abandoned now.

[Heroic Mulatto]

You signed up for my fan club, remember?

That gives me mineral rights, at least.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

That seems like a euphemism for something disturbing.

[Irish]

Don't tell anyone that. It's a little known fact that if you're a woman and a man does not wield control over you, as is his birthright, any other man can come along, bundle you up into his van and take you to his sex cave.

It's in the constitution.

[jesse.in.mb]

bundle you up into his van and take you to his sex cave

so...Warty?

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

That was my thought.

Um...so earlier it wasn't true self-determination but false choice from within the patriarchal model that made me say I was abandoned property. My boyfriend is actually super controlling. Just so EVERYONE KNOWS.

[Irish]

Too late. Warty's been dispatched.

[Coeus]

So many joke possibilities here.

[Coeus]

trying again. Damn squirrels.

[Coeus]

This guy just made up an article in his head:

35

pacal
2 April 2013 at 8:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Guys you have to understand where Libertarians come from. In their world the only source of oppression is government. Only government is evil. Coercion by private power is absolutely a-okay in their world. Thus the prevalence of theocratic views in a state like Oklahoma and influence of such views is absolutely no problem. For only government is evil.

Thus years ago I remember readingf a piece which argued that Somalia was a Libertarian paradise, benefiting from a lack of that wicked thing called government. That large sections of Somalia were a theocratic state run by despotic clan centered organizations that ruled their members autocratically was of course irrelevant because they wern't that evil thing called government.

In their view regulation that keeps people from being able to screw other people is evil. However "private" theocracies are a-okay. For again only government is evil. Thus we get so many Libertarians defending corperations and writhing in extasy about how good and wonderful they are. Thus we get Penn's Jillette's breathless estatic defence of Walmart. Because you see only government is evil, only government coerces anyone. Or if something other than government coerces it doesn't count.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I feel like that dude read the comments section one day and thought people were serious or something. Only it can't be that, because he'd hate us way more.

[Irish]

Why are retarded statists always such terrible writers? One would think that being a moron doesn't necessarily preclude you from being able to write relatively well. Yet they seem incapable of writing in complete sentences.

It's like their entire brains just rot as their fascism increases.

[Episiarch]

Because they are sheep. They have no independent thoughts. Do you think sheep make good writers?

[Irish]

Thus the prevalence of theocratic views in a state like Oklahoma and influence of such views is absolutely no problem.

This fucking shitfuck doesn't understand what coercion means. 'Culture' is not coercion. If there's a theocratic 'culture' in Oklahoma, no one is being coerced, just like no one is being coerced by progressive culture, inner city culture or suburban culture. You can only be coerced when someone is LITERALLY FORCING YOU TO DO SOMETHING.

The theocratic views of Oklahoma are not coercion. If the government made those theocratic views illegal, THAT would be coercion. They don't even know how words work, Epi. They don't even know the definitions of the words which fire randomly from the syphilitic depths of their empty minds.

Then there's fucking this:

Thus years ago I remember readingf a piece which argued that Somalia was a Libertarian paradise, benefiting from a lack of that wicked thing called government.

No libertarian would ever make this claim. He clearly read an article insulting libertarians and decided that's what libertarians actually believe. He's on the intellectual level of someone who would read A Modest Proposal and assume that Swift was literally in favor of eating children. That is what we're dealing with. Mentally incompetent, borderline illiterate morons.

[Episiarch]

I can't argue with you there. Irrational people will believe and come up with irrational things.

[jesse.in.mb]

I've seen articles pointing out that lawless regions of Somalia were better off than some of the neighbors with incredibly shitty governments. I could see reading that, forgetting the salient comparison points and regurgitating it as being SOMALIA IS GALT'S GULCH. Provided the author is a complete simpleton and/or reading comprehension challenged.

[Coeus]

Provided the author is a complete simpleton and/or reading comprehension challenged

I think you can take both of those conditions as a given from a regular poster on FTB.

[Episiarch]

Remember, folks, they have zero interest in being honest, rational, or logical. They embrace a philosophy that says first and foremost that they are right and they are good, therefore it is acceptable to misrepresent others, to lie, to do anything they want because they are right and they are good. They don't say "I have behaved according to a moral code and therefore am good", they say "I am good so whatever I do is moral".

It's basically the opposite of what many of us do. This is why we are astonished at how clueless or mendacious they can be. It's because in their own eyes, they can do no wrong.

[Tejicano]

I believe there is a direct connection here. Progtards have been steeped in their BS lines of "thinking" for so long that a lot of what should pass for thought is just short circuited into mental libertard short-hand. So when they try to form a thought while writing anything great gobs of their logic chain gets dropped out as self-evident. And lacking any reflection or exercising of rational logic they just accept that they have caught their tails and stop working at it.

[Xenocles]

He probably did read such an article, but it was probably someone actually trying to use Somalia as an example of a libertarian regime.

[Coeus]

49

glodson
2 April 2013 at 9:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The fact that Libertarians think that they have real life plot armor and view people who aren't themselves as just a statistic is just par for the course.

This sounds like every libertarian that I've ever come across. The other thing I commonly experience with libertarians is the pseudo-rationalism. It is a bit of an illusion they pull on those who don't always understand logic, reason, and evidence.

[Irish]

BURN STRAWMAN, THE LIGHT YOU GIVE OFF IS GLORIOUS!

[Coeus]

And more projection than fucking IMAX.

[Episiarch]

Dude, everything they think is projection. Everything.

[Coeus]

96

kemist, Dark Lord of the Sith
2 April 2013 at 11:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The thing they don't get is that all the entities that enforce rules are a form of government.

Whether it's a city, state, country, corporation, church or a warlord, that's still someone who forces you to do some things, and it's completely unavoidable unless you mean to live all alone, by your own ressources on your own island or planet.

The only government libertarians seem to want to do away with is governement that is decided by vote, ie democracy.

Tha fuck?

[Irish]

They don't know what coercion is. They don't. They think that if your pastor tells you premarital sex is wrong, it's coercion. They see no difference between that and someone outlawing premarital sex.

They think that if a corporation won't give you something for free, then that is the same thing as the corporation taking that item from you.

They are on the intellectual level of two year olds.

[Coeus]

I guess. I've just never met a libertarian who thought that making someone do something at gunpoint wasn't force. Who doesn't know that?

[fish]

kemist, Dark Lord of the Sith

White, 5' 9", 375 lbs........laid once he thinks.

[ant1sthenes]

So, unless something shitty is entirely avoidable, you just fucking give up? Well, given that death is entirely unavoidable, I reckon he ought to off himself right now.

[Joe M]

You know, I've come across a handful of "liberals who went Libertarian because they thought Ron Paul sounded liberal". But by far most libertarians and Ron Paul sound like Republicans haplessly trying to hide their multi-thousand dollar business suit and their golden cross necklace. And it is pathetic just how transparently conservative many of these alleged libertarians really are. Actually, it is pretty damn similar to all the Tea Partiers pretending they are a distinct group instead of being a group of the most inane, loudmouthed Republicans.

Ooh, can we add business suits and golden cross necklaces to our current repertoire of monocles, canes, and top hats?

[jesse.in.mb]

Golden crosses are so nouveau riche. Besides, gold would clash horribly with my silver cane topper.

I suppose silver cane toppers for some, golden crosses for others.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

White gold, jesse, white gold. I mean really. Besides, I know you were raised Protestant, so I expect you to hate on the idolatry at the very least. This is just pathetic.

[jesse.in.mb]

Protestants are cool with crosses, they're just weird with crucifixes.

I hadn't thought of the white gold angle... I still don't think crosses and business suits out libertarians high-robber-baron regalia.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Yeah, some of y'all are, but not real Puritans like my dad. Who instead wears a fake saint's medal, because people are consistent like that.

The suit thing is simple. Three-piece, bitches, end of story. And yeah, that four-in-hand bullshit? You better end that right now. The true mark of the libertarian is the full Windsor.

So basically the list is: three-piece suit, full Windsor knot, cane topped in the precious metal of your choice (ladies, don't forget about rose gold! or green gold if you want to stand out!), monocle, and rape.

[jesse.in.mb]

I think you're making this too complicated, Nicole, THIS and rape.

[Heroic Mulatto]

How the hell am I to tie a full Windsor with my bow-tie!

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

You know you have a special dispensation for that.

[Zeb]

Weirdo.

[Xenocles]

No. I'm not some greasy eye-talian.

[Episiarch]

He didn't get the WOP part right. Instead of business suits it should have been (expensive) track suits.

[Xenocles]

That's Russian, dude.

[Episiarch]

Oh yeah?

[Xenocles]

Yeah.

Okay, this example might be Ukrainian. But still.

[Episiarch]

Oh shit, I had forgotten that scene. Good stuff.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Man, Groovus must be livin' the life.

[Tonio]

Caleb, it's not that Myers loses his mind, it's that he assumes his expertise in his field translates into expertise in all fields.

[Heroic Mulatto]

it's that he assumes his expertise in his field translates into expertise in all fields.

You know who else assumed that expertise in his field translated into expertise in all fields?

[Episiarch]

Neil deGrasse Tyson?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Sorry, the correct response was "Who Was Noam Chomsky?" Chomsky.

Tonio, you still have control of the board.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Uh oh, HM, dude is still alive. "Who is Noam Chomsky?"

[Heroic Mulatto]

Undeath as a vile lich doesn't coun't, nikki.

[Episiarch]

I don't recognize your authority! Now give me damn Daily Double!

[Heroic Mulatto]

Now give me damn Daily Double!

Fine.

A blow to the back of the neck is named after this animal.

[Episiarch]

If only Jeopardy could be like that all the time.

[jesse.in.mb]

Dr. Oz

[fish]

Dr. Sheldon Cooper

[Killazontherun]

Is this love, I'm feeling?

http://cdn.wwtdd.com/wp-conten.....50x675.jpg

[Heroic Mulatto]

NIGGA GODDAMN!

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

Yeah ditto.

[Coeus]

Question: Is it real? I am just recently coming to understand the vast proliferation of butt implants.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I have a feeling that Ms. Turner is more machine than man.

Doesn't bother me overmuch.

[Jordan]

She's a lawyer. Flaw located.

[SumpTump]

Heck yeah man, now thats what I am talkign about.

http://www.DatAnon.tk

[Coeus]

Also on FTB:

How to get grant money for political bullshit studies.

Among other things to include in the abstract, a recent post at NIH OER Nexus lists the following:
Include the project's broad, long-term objectives and specific aims

Taken literally, this would seem to imply that you should literally list the three Specific Aims of your grant. Don't do this! Only describe the aims of the grant in broad general terms.
The reason for this is that you don't want the reviewers of your competing renewal to be able to compare in detail exactly what you accomplished in terms of published results in the previous project period to the exact metes and bounds of the Specific Aims of that project period. You want to be able to have as much freedom as possible to explain how your research accomplishments forwarded the overall broad goals of the grant, without being hemmed in by minute details of what you originally proposed.

[crashland]

Yeah nothing better than having some strangers fat ass encroaching into your seat. I've been stuck in the middle seat next to a fatty, fat, fatso who needed to raise my fucking armrest to get his ass into his and my seats.