A.M. Links: Margaret Thatcher Dead, Two Killed in Clashes Outside Christian Church in Cairo, NASA Wants a Second Moon

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Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative prime minister of Great Britain throughout the 1980s, has died after a stroke.
- Wikileaks released a further 1.7 million mostly State Department documents from a period spanning 1973 to 1976, that were not released with the rest of the leaked cables.
- The CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan began in 2004 with the agency offing an enemy of Pakistan in exchange for limited access for bombing to the country's tribal area.
- South Korean officials say there's no indication North Korea is planning a nuclear test soon. Meanwhile, no deal's been reached yet in multiparty talks with Iran over its nuclear program.
- Two more people were killed in clashes outside St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, where funerals for four Christians killed in earlier violence were being held.
- The Portuguese Constitutional Court struck down $1.3 billion in cuts proposed by the government, which has outlined new cuts to replace them.
- In Burma, Buddhist monks are inciting violence against Muslims.
- NASA wants to lasso an asteroid and tow it into Earth's orbit. What could go wrong?
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Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative prime minister of Great Britain throughout the 1980s, has died after a stroke.
At least Krayewski had the decency not to put up a pic of that awful Spitting Image puppet.
How can you even tell.
This is certainly the nicest-work I have ever done.. Earn 10 to 50$/hr working from home with Google! I work two shifts 2 hours in the day and 2 in the evening. And whats awesome is Im working from home so I get more time with my kids I follow this great link Fox78.com
So which leftist will say the most horrendous thing about her? Who will say the stupidest?
Almost every Brit I've ever met thought Thatcher was evil incarnate. For almost anyone under 40 from perfidious Albion it's an accepted truth.
The state monopolist media outlet leadint the way of course.
Don't you love how corrupt Milo? Zeman is?
But Zeman is a socialist and Klausov? is married to a freedom fighting libertarian hero! How is it possible they are so chummy?
What amazed me last week was how gleeful the European media outfits I listen to were over Zeman's flying the EU flag. Submit or die, I suppose.
I'm curious why you follow Czech politics. I mean I don't at all any more and I live here.
I don't follow it per se; I listen to international broadcasting going all the way back to when all of these statoins were on short-wave.
The non-politics stuff is more interesting than American radio. It's also how I learned many years back about the custom of whipping girls on Easter Monday that I mentioned to you last week.
Ah, ok. Sort of like This American Life without the smug or the America.
Most Brits today don't even think well of Churchill. The entire nation has gone full retard.
Never invoke full retard. The bar always gets raised (lowered?).
Because a mass murdering psychopath should be thought well of. The only thing Obama has done that should be praised is sending the bust of that thug back to the UK
Churchill was a combination of John McCain-like foreign policy and Romney-esq domestic politics. He's as much responsible for the modern British welfare state as Labor is.
The glee over her death versus the encomia for Hugo Chavez is startling.
Yet utterly predictable.
I didn't say it was surprising, did I?
You said startling. Which is pretty similar!
and disgusting.
A 20-year-old I know through the MMA show I used to host on the college station in town posted on his fb wall "Margaret Thatcher is dead. Good."
For someone born in the 1990s, he sure does hate Reagan and Thatcher.
too young to remember seeing the news stories of uncollected garbage and unburied corpses in pre-Thatcher Britain. Or to think through the implications of letting a murderous junta win. But old enough to know better than the rest of us
Can we just move past the point where we are saddened by the death of a politician, whether conservative, liberal, progressive, libertarian, whatever? Unless they touched my life personally, I really don't understand this collective sadness I'm supposed to feel over the loss of a celebrity.
Can we just move past the point where we are saddened by the death of a politician, whether conservative, liberal, progressive, libertarian, whatever?
Nope, not ever. They're all useless assholes until they die and must be remembered well. Except for the ones that the celebrities like, those can be hated.
I met her once. Sorry, she was someone special.
Nothing but the truth. A dead politician just means we can quit paying their pension.
Depends on the politician. I think it's fair to say, with the long view of history, that she made the world a better place. She may not have stopped the decline of the west, but she helped to give it enough of a breather at a time we needed it.
Speaking of the puppets, how many of the world leaders from the Land of Confusion video are left? Gorby?
Children in factories! This is what libertarians want!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....mines.html
Just because the mines are small doesn't mean there's no coal in them.
And this is what Progressives want with our children...Lean Forward:
All your kids are belong to us
(I posted this last night, but it deserves the largest audience it can get)
Even in the light most favorable to this moron, lack of money doesn't strike me as the main issue with public schools.
lack of money is demonstrably NOT the problem and a lie on its face. Education funding has risen year by year for long as I can remember. And the results get worse and worse.
Look. All problems with education can be explained by bad parenting. It's always the fault of the parent. Remove the child from the bad parents and all problems with education will go away. Oh, and they're all bad parents.
That's not quite true.
A lot of the problems in education are cause by not paying teachers enough money.
Give em all a big phat raise and they'll automatically be better teachers, for a year or so until the next big raise is due.
Give em all a big phat raise and they'll automatically be better teachers, for a year or so until the next big raise is due.
I'd actually be more than happy to give teachers a raise if it meant nuking the bloated administrative bureaucracy that's developed in the last 30-40 years. At least the teachers can be capable of providing a useful service if, in a dream scenario, cultural marxism was eradicated from university training curriculums; a third vice-principal or tenth social worker is nothing more than dead weight.
That is only used as a last resort. After all, if parents are the only problem that is not soluble by throwing more tax money at the teacher unions.
Finland is the one western country which scores better on testing than American Whites (yeah, yeah). They spend about 50% less per student than we do.
That's just fucking creepy.
I wonder if beating her senseless with a copy of Brave New World would help any?
No, but it would make me feel better.
There's only one way to find out.
Why would you want to get idiot all over a nice book like Brave New World?
I posted this on Saturday with the exactly the same sacr-comment you bastard!
Well you know what they say, great minds and all.
sorry bout that I didn't see this til SUnday...but trust me, my mind is not great. So, we'll just have to chock it up to "a million monkeys on a keyboard"-like coincidence.
I think reason actually had a blog post on this. What strikes me most is that, not only does she think these outlandish things, but MSNBC thought they were both coherent enough and popular enough to make a commercial out of them.
What bugs me about this is not only that it steps on parental rights, but why the fuck should I be responsible for anyone's children when I haven't had any of my own? There's a reason I don't, after all.
Because they're the ones who will be paying the bill when you go onto Social Security.
Ha. I am way too young to think I am going to see a dime of SS money.
I am rapidly closing in on 47 and I know better too.
It takes a village.
It takes a village idiot.
Finished it for you 🙂
You could enter some kind of contract by which you agree to take responsibility for particular aspects of said children's education or upbringing.
Indeed. But such a contract would be a bit less vaporous than the beloved "social" one.
Lean Forward
Shouldn't that be "Bend Over"?
This is why Margaret Thatcher broke the colliers' union.
While Hugh Grant was getting hummers from trannies, Liz Hurley was fucking Sgt Horvath.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....Grant.html
Seizmore is a wife beating drug addicted piece of shit of the first order. Beautiful women rarely have any taste.
Liz Hurley is currently engaged to a man of spectacular crassness and vulgarity. Bloody great bowler, but
He's a pitcher. Bowling means tenpins. (Or, for the Massholes, candlepin bowling.)
When's he's got a cricket ball in his hand he's a leg spin bowler, damn you. When he's at the crease he's a batsman, not a batter. And when he's in Liz Hurley he's a happy happy man
This looked like English, but I didn't understand 2/3 of it.
That's because it's English and not American.
So he's a thrower then.
Or, for the Massholes, candlepin bowling.
Or, as I like to call it, real bowling.
Thank you, $park?.
It is well-known, JW, that the only people who like duckpin are furries.
I just call that "big ball bowling" in order to distinguish it from just plain (e.g. candlepin) bowling.
He's a pitcher. Bowling means tenpins. (Or, for the Massholes, candlepin bowling.)
You mean duckpins, right?
Your wife certainly didn't.
HIYO!!!
You're just bitter that beautiful women don't give you the time of day.
Yeah, because a guy who routinely beat the shit out of his girlfriends and got a reality show about being a violent drug addict, is so someone to be jealous of. What the hell is wrong with you?
He fucked Liz Hurley. He's slipped the surly bonds of Earth.
No. She returned to earth and rolled around with a pig.
Nah, they just get used to being fawned over and flattered. Someone who doesn't do that is interesting, exciting, different.
How many men call out beautiful, and I mean perfect 10 beautiful girls out on their bullshit?
First thing you should say to a perfect 10 is that her hair is messed up, or her makeup is uneven, or her clothes are mismatched.
Let me take back my statement below about Augusta National.
I'm starting to think the reason you chase chubbies is that you don't know how to talk to the hotties.
Yeah that is it sarcasmic. That is totally it.
Damnit, I can't look at her the same way ever again.
I don't think AM links has ruined my morning quite like this before. Thanks Sarcasmic ?_?
Olivia Wilde is still hot.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....wards.html
Christina Hendricks is still fat.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/uss.....ywood.html
If only there was some way to combine the two in a transporter accident, and then age-regress the result to 22.
Then, finally, I'd be happy.
I'd still take Christina first.
Olivia Wilde. Firefly Christina Hendricks over Olivia Wilde though.
I would viciously hatefuck Wilde though. It would be brutal.
Not that I wouldn't, certainly would, but something about her eyes is a little off and creeps me out. Certainly couldn't look at me.
Christina, despite all she can do, is losing the battle with her genes. She was so hot in Firefly though.
Christina Hendricks is still fat.
Which is it that drives your libido, love of children, or love of twinks?
The fact that you were not breast fed as a child is not my problem.
That seems like a false choice to me.
It could easily be both.
I don't give a crepe what you think.
Seriously, though, I looked at your bear chart, and the gay hierarchy still confuses the shit out of me. Guess I need to go back and watch Sunny some more.
Oh, that was just a small subset of the gay taxonomy. It didn't go into twinks, muscle queens, or chubs. Frankly I get confused quite a bit; nobody has been able to clearly define where wolf stops and muscle bear begins.
Let us say I suggest you may be human. Your awareness may be powerful enough to control your instincts. Your instinct would be to respond to the troll. If you do so, you die. You will feel...an itching...there! Now, the itching becomes burning. Heat upon heat upon heat. The statement is so ignorant, that it MUST be responded to.
Welcome to Troll Free Monday!
Many have tried to respond to the trolls. You may ask, they tried and failed?
They tried and died.
But seriously, as usual, if you feel the need to make up for your various inadequacies in Country Matters, feel free to respond. Otherwise, scroll on, big river, scroll on.
I think a gom jabbar to the neck is sufficient deterrent - I shan't respond!
Hey, I would never threaten violence as a response to speech!
I prefer to let the shame of their postings do it for me. Since I assume that anyone responds later cuts themselves and self-flagellates.
We announce the founding of a new order of monks:
Seipsum nocendo Ordinis Reason
Here's the thing, see...I am bored, or I wouldn't be reading comments on a political blog. I NEED the empirical destruction of smug and smarmy troglodyte puppets to get me through my day. I live in a hippie town, god damn you.
Hang on, aren't you in Arkansas? Are you by chance a fellow Fayette-villain?
I am indeed. I'm Harrisonian by raising, but moved back here when I got out of the Army. Don't plan on ever leaving, either.
What do you do? I've been here for a few years in the MANA/Washington Regional circles, although I'm trying as hard as I can to get out of the medical industry.
Good to know there are more of us around in case the proglodyte uprising happens.
I have various irons in the fire. I'm mostly one of those people freelancing media all over the place, and working a day job to pay the bills. The only way you're likely to know who I am from this area is if you ever listened to the TJ Carpenter Show or Steve Weimer Live on ESPN 92.1.
NYC cops sideswipe bicyclist, sending him to the hospital, then bill him for damages to the car.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/l.....qwUV9F5bXK
In fairness, if there is anyone who I might choose to believe a cop over, it is your typical douche bag city bicyclist.
He's lucky he didn't injure a police dog.
That's K-9 officer you fucking terrorist.
Two more people were killed in clashes outside St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, where funerals for four Christians killed in earlier violence were being held.
Were those two members of Westboro by any chance?
I'm pretty sure they only go to funerals for white people.
You know, safe funerals.
The Portuguese Constitutional Court struck down $1.3 billion in cuts proposed by the government, which has outlined new cuts to replace them
Because they were not 'fair'.
In other Portuguese news, Portugal Considers Paying Public Workers In Treasury Bills Instead Of Cash
Didn't California try this?
"Y'all get paid soon enough, we just have to print it first. Take this IOU."
Zimbabwe here we come!
It's just like Amazon.com and Google! Get in while the getting's good, and in a couple years you'll be a gazillionaire!
strange. How would that even work? Can exchange a Treasury Bill for a loaf of bread?
You could try the French farmer routine, when they were faced with Allied occupation script right after D-Day. Go pay your taxes with it.
Iirc, CA banks accepted the script as deposits up to a certain value when this happened.
Actually I think this might be a good idea. Give government employees a reqson to be frugal. Make sure they get paid only in scrip based on the solvency of their employer. Of course, it's still a bad idea because they'll just have their leaders raise taxes on everyone else.
The replacement cuts are to the Constitutional Court's budget.
Not all of it, mind you, they still get paid, but no security, no utilities and no staff.
"OK, make your rulings alone, in the dark and amidst your piled up refuse and feces.
Workers who want to donate a kidney will be offered up to six weeks' paid leave under an Australian federal government plan to reduce the waiting list for life-saving organs. But the Government is at pains to insist that no market in organs will be allowed
more
Either you have a right to your own body or you do not. I assume abortion is legal in Australia. I don't see how these square logically.
You can have your kidney removed, you just can't sell it.
I assume it's the same for fetuses. Feti. Tadpeople. Whatever.
I'll not live in a world where I can't shampoo with fetii.
I'd say that if you can't sell a thing, then you can't really say you own it.
I want to buy your abortion, Zeb.
I should have said "if you are not free to sell a thing". Obviously, you may own some stuff no one wants to buy.
I didn't hear a "no."
Make an offer.
Bureaucrat: We've just passed legislation that will enable gazillions of patients to get the kidneys they need to survive.
Patient: You mean I could get a kidney that will save my life?
Bureaucrat: Oh no, not you. We couldn't find a match with the 3 people who decided that an extra 6 weeks vacation in exchange for a kidney, most of which is spent recovering from having a kidney removed, seemed like a good idea, and we definitely can't let the many people who would sell a matched kidney that would save your life make any money off the deal, so you're fucked. But don't worry, it's for the greater good.
Yes, but what difference, at this point, does it make?
1.6 million of those were just correspondence with Elvis.
Truly, not just the King of Rock and Roll, but the great, unsung ?minence grise of international diplomacy. If he had lived, the Carter administration would not have made so many foreign policy blunders.
Looks like Snoop Dogg and the entire rap community are homophobic haters.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....g-gay.html
A couple of months back Radio Sweden had a report about some reggae performers who were going to be appearing in Sweden and how they had terribly homophobic lyrics.
It was a hoot listening to Sweden's gays twisting themselves into knots trying to rationalize bigotry when it came from another minority group.
Yeah, Jamaicans, and Rastas in particular, I think, are very anti-gay. I wonder how many trustafarian white boys know that?
One of the funniest things I ever experienced was a tolerance and diversity day thing at my high school.
Speaker 1: Palestinian-American, claimed some parking lot incident where a guy in a pickup yelled at her.
Speaker 2: Gay dude who grew up in a small town and feelsbadman.
Speaker 3: Sudanese guy. When he was a small boy, he watched from a bush as his whole village was massacred, then walked a couple hundred miles to Ethiopia and freedom.
So obviously most of the questions were to the guy who's actually suffered due to hatred. Somehow, the Sudanese dude ends up saying "Well you know I mean, no offense to this guy here (gestures to his left) but the gays...they just wrong. Love is for a man and a woman."
It was quite interesting watching my incredibly leftist guidance counselor bite his tongue hearing something positively Fallwell-esque come out of the mouth of someone holding like....four or five Leftist Victim Trump Cards.
That's pretty hilarious. Also, this happens about every day on BBC-Africa World Have Your Say (where (mostly) Africans call in to talk about hot topics of the day...and it almost always devolves into how they really hate the gays).
But, I don't know, some of his cards may not be valid, since he was a victim of black-on-black violence, which the left doesn't give a crap about.
Nah, he was a child when it happened, then a refugee, then an immigrant, plus he's obviously black. That's four at least.
I mean, if a white American man had said that exact same sentence, he would have been booed and shouted down by that same audience.
There was just silence, except I laughed maniacally.
They don't give a shit about white on black violence either, unless it can be used as a pulpit from which to extend their agenda. Just ask the many minority victims in the War on Drugs.
Did you, by chance, go to VCU?
Nope.
Had a cab driver in DC a couple of months ago from Eritrea, the whole cab ride he is talking about how much he hates the TeaBaggers, but loves Obama and Clinton, because they fought against racists and hateful people and won...then we passed two guys holding hands, and the rest of the trip was about how homosexuals should be euthanized.
Commence white washing of rabid support for Snoop Lion and his pro gun control stance in 3...2...1
WTF is a Snoop Lion? Did Snoop Dogg go through some kind of Pokemon-esque evolution?
Looks like he might have!
The Political War on the NYPD
New York's top cop Ray Kelly on fighting crime and fighting off critics of a basic police tool: stopping suspicious characters and checking for weapons.
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....on_LEADTop
Because walking down the street while Hispanic is "acting suspciciously".
They walk? I thought they all just hung out on the stoop?
Ive been walking in central park
Singing after dark
People think Im crazy
Ive been stumbling on my feet
Shuffling through the street
Asking people, what's the matter with you boy?
That criticism makes no sense. Unfairly targeting minorities IS an age-old police tactic.
I don't see nothin wrong, with a little stop and frisk.
Our wise masters are just looking out for us.
The parents of a then-seven-year-old North Carolina boy are beyond angry after their son was charged with two felony counts of possessing a BB gun. Just moments before the child was expected to answer to the allegations before a Catawba County judge ? the charges were dropped.
Sam's parents, Ray and Cherry Robbins told Fox News they are both relieved and angry over what happened to their son.
can seven year olds be charged for crimes?
Fuck you, that's why.
I keep saying that the State is the biggest bully of them all.
They can be tried as adults for capital crimes.
In this case, I assume it was Potential Murder with an Assault Weapon.
And what felony do you get charged with for a BB gun?
thoughtcrime
You're in luck! I provided a handy link to the article just for you.
Ah. So it was for shooting a car, no possessing the gun. The excerpt you posted was a bit misleading.
Shooting a moving vehicle on a public road.
"But Sam's curiosity got the best of him ? and he scampered out of the backyard ? and fired his BB gun at an abandoned house across the street. In doing so, he accidentally hit a passing car."
""They told us that they considered it to be a violent felony ? discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle," Robbins said. "It was crazy. We completely disagreed with the charges.""
"You could shoot your eye out!"
/Captain obvious
Seven die at Corona brewery.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-made.html
They'll sell it anyways. Its not as though the corpses emptying their bladders will change the product all that much.
I had always assumed that's why you put a lime in it anyway.
"Find your beach"
Have you seen their most recent "Find you beach" ad?
A guy is walking down the street and his boss, a phone operator, mechanic, and twit girlfriend are all giving the guy bad news or being annoying to him. Then he shrugs it all of, walks into a bar and his buddies hand him a Corona.
I've never seen a more accurate depiction for reasons why people drink, and was quite surprised it was aired in the first place. It certainly beats the "have our beer after a long day of white water rafting with your adrenaline junkie friends" type ad.
The people he meets at the bar don't appear to ever move their lips or speak. Ideal drinking buddies?
Nah, I like someone who will talk about all sorts of topics over a beer. Much preferable to drinking with my girlfriend, who just wants to "dance" (and the quotes aren't because it's an innuendo for something... she's just not as good a dancer as she thinks she is)
And then there's this guy...
Like with basic gun safety, there is basic brewery safety.
And this violated some of those basic ideas.
I haven't RTA but I'm assuming it's a confined space entry problem. That's like industrial safety 001.
Exactly.
Tanks have manways, which is the worse name ever, because that is the one thing that should never pass thru them.
NASA wants to lasso an asteroid and tow it into Earth's orbit.
I'm not sure how this is going to appease the Muslims? Maybe NASA should lasso some Burmese Buddhist monks.
Looks like some George Bailey at NASA is trying to impress his Mary Hatch.
Two moons means two eids.
Two Ramadans too - great, as if one month of crabby, hungry and cantankerous folks isn't enough.
They always come in threes:
Ebert, Thatcher....????
I'm betting on that guy that was in Fargo and Mystery Men.
Whose death gets more posts on Reason? Thatcher, who basically helped change the world for the better or a movie critic most people had thought had died years ago? My bet in on the movie critic.
Well, most posts about dead people are driven by hate for what they did in life, so I certainly hope that Ebert beats out Thatcher.
Not at Reason. The whole staff gave Ebert's body a big post mortum tongue bath.
They were just trolling. They let us do the real talking for them, so they don't get shut out of the cocktail parties.
I was referring to the comments section here.
Yeah, the writers will no doubt write a few Thatcher was an enemy of liberty articles.
Are you sure you are reading the same blog as I am? Reason is a cultural magazine as well. Are they supposed to just ignore anyone who is not a pure libertarian?
you know who else's death got lots of coverage?
That guy from the Jackson 5?
That guy who got swallowed by the sinkhole?
Elvis?
Tim Russert?
At least she died before Argentina takes back the Falklands-with a force of 3 rapists in a row boat.
Nah, a couple of drunken oil exploration workers would wander down to the pier and beat them half to death, for threatening their livelihood.
I bet there will be at least two posts about Thatcher today. And probably a full article sometime this week.
And there you go. There are already 3. Can we stop with the cocktail parties bullshit?
Don't be silly.
OK, John, 7 posts before lunch. What do I win?
Being named the world's oldest person is a virtual death sentence. Smart money is on that person.
i'm thinking a pop star. Ke$ha?
You monster!
Choking to death on her own special beverage?
Carl "The Truth" Williams? Ruth Prawer Jhabvala? Eldred G. Smith?
Justin Bieber, in a Vitteresque scenario.
How about a David Carradine situation?
Why not both?
That'll work!
Fidel Castro maybe. It's about time he died.
Seriously. He's been through...10? 11? US Presidents.
11, I think. He came to power when Eisenhower was president, right?
Who is to say that he hasn't?
"He is not Zombie Fidel! His devotion to duty was so strong that it transcended death! The brain eating is just because they're counter-revolutionaries."
*UPTWINKLES*
/Occupy
Funicello, apparently.
http://www.etonline.com/news/1.....index.html
Heading backward: The miserable March jobs report
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/.....bs-report/
etc...
Is this before or after the numbers are 'adjusted to comply with reality?'
PETA killing furry animals.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....homes.html
17yr cicadas are set to swarm!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....years.html
Rise my chitinous horde, rise! Insect Swarm....ATTACK! DESTROY!!!
You know who else lives underground for 17 years and comes out to fail miserably at breeding...
this guy
Me?! The 5th Duke of Portland in a women's prison at 3 AM? With my reputation? What were they thinking?
Welsh Tin Miners?
There are 17 different broods of 17 year cicadas.
Fuck Brood II, Brood X and XIV are the ones that matter.
Brood X was brutal here in 2004, 2021 is gonna suck.
I was thinking about that. I knew that it was much less than 17 years since that buzzing and humming nightmare.
I remember Brood X from '87. I learned that year a '75 Camaro has the perfect windshield angle to send a cicada straight up in the air when you hit it.
Brood II was absurd the last time it happened around here (NJ), much worse than Brood X. There was a two week stretch where we played street hockey with full visors and cages in '96 because we were so sick of the damn things hitting us in the face while we were skating.
"There are 17 different broods of 17 year cicadas."
Incorrect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicada
FTA
"The Marlatt numbering scheme has been retained for convenience, although today only 15 broods survive"
787 test flight includes 40 degree takeoff and 2G turn.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....again.html
I'll be in my bunk...
Can you imagine being on a plane that big pulling a 2G turn?
I'd piss myself. I'll just stay on the ground and take pretty pictures, TYVM.
Stewardess, can I change seats?
Show me a 787 doing a hammerhead or an aileron roll and I'll call it acrobatic. Although some of the airliners are exceptionally capable craft. When you strap on enough thrust and leave out the passengers and cargo with just enough weight in the right places to keep the CG in bounds, they can do some amazing stuff.
Anyone here ever see Citizen X? I saw it on Saturday and loved it. Good flick for libertarian sensibilities.
No one?!? SEE IT.
The one about the soviet era serial killer? Yeah, I liked it too. Based on a true story, IIRC.
Yep. I loved the commentary on grinding bureaucracy and the relationship between the Colonel and the Detective.
No really, the world would be chaos if it weren't for these laws.
"It smells like something dead," said Meghan Brummett as she looked at the birds with her husband and children. The family was visiting from Brawley, a farming town two hours east of San Diego.
Biologists say the odor is the smell of success: Environmental protections put in place over the past few decades have brought back endangered species.
I used to surf down there, until I got tired of the constant sinus and ear infections from seal and pelican shit.
Ignatius: America the war-weary and war-wary
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
So where do we go to war first, North Korea, Syria or Iran?
Thankfully we have a wise leader in Obama to move us forward.
Well with North Korea we don't exactly get to call the shots, there is no scenario in which we would launch a preemptive invasion there. It basically boils down to how crazy lil kim is.
Iran is also an issue as Putin would not take kindly to another American intervention along his southern border and while they wouldn't stand a chance it is a large country that could put up a damaging fight. That said we also don't hold all the cards here, If the Israelis decide to blow up Iran's nuke factories then we may be drawn into a war there whether we want it or not.
Syria however, is nice and safe, a country already in the middle of a civil war so it's government isn't exactly the most stable and we could probably turn the tide to the rebels without much if any ground troops getting involved and there is plenty of international sentiment for someone to get involved and do something.
Tell Me How This Starts
What war on the Korean Peninsula would look like.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/a.....his_starts
drive a risk-averse United States to back down and restrain its eager ally
That is impossible. Reason has assured me that weakness and boot licking leads to world peace. It could never embolden our enemies to miscalculate. Never.
You forgot cocktail parties.
Only if they feature Cosmopolitans!
Citation, please?
See any posts on Iran's nuclear program.
We're weak if we don't kill people who want one of what we have 10,000 of! America cannot allow rogue nations to have a nuke, they might actually use it! Not murdering is bootlicking!
You're a clown.
Minding our own fucking business isn't weakness or boot licking. FOAD warmonger.
...and the presence of tons of hardware provides more than enough tinder that a spark could start a ...
Yep, it's always the weapon's fault.
Not the psychopaths wielding some of them.
Not a very informative article. South Korea and the U.S. would destroy NK missiles and artillery as fast as possible - while the NK's killed South Koreans with them as fast as possible.
Once that phase ends, they re-enact the First Gulf War with NK's playing the part of the Iraqis - only with more obsolete equipment.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-.....r-gun-bill
John McCain gets more sad and pathetic every day. If you really hate the guy, hard to imagine wishing him a worse fate than his performance the last couple of years.
He doesn't understand the 1st Amendment, either, so this isn't very surprising. Maybe he plans on working his way through the entire Bill of Rights.
He wants to billet himself in his constituents' houses at their expense?
Obligatory
I could get behind that - which of you has the nicest place for me to crash out at?
Maybe?
I agree with McCain for once.
Let the Senate vote on gun-control. I want every Senator on the record.
Warp Factor
A NASA scientist claims to be on the verge of faster-than-light travel: is he for real?
http://www.popsci.com/technolo.....-view=true
I smell a government grant.
Well, if we test the warp drive, then the Vulcans will make first contact with us.
I'm not scientist, but don't we have to get to the speed of light first?
You can't go the speed of light because of problems with mass. The only way is to jump over it.
Why is the speed of light so special in that way? Explain like I'm 5...
The closer you get to the speed of light, the more mass you gain as the energy level required to go that fast is converted (see: e=mc2). The more mass you gain, the less you can accelerate. Hence, you can't catch up to the speed of light.
This dude, we'll call him Einstein, developed this Theory of Special Relativity. According to this theory, as you approach the speed of light your mass increases. If you were to ever attain the speed of light, your mass would become infinite.
In order for this to not happen, you have to find a way to jump past the speed of light. If, like some scientists believe, space-time is a flat plane, I would say that FTL travel would involve some kind of folding mechanism rather than actual acceleration/deceleration.
Hey hey - leave the physics education to the womynz and you just sit in the corner at look pretty. Mmmkay?
you just sit in the corner at look pretty.
Pshaw. That would be harder than answering physics questions.
Warp drive theory, to my understanding, has to do with relativistic bubbles that the traveller is moving in. Each bubble moves at sub-light speed relative to the bubble it is inside of. Therefore you can avoid breaking Einstein's law because you stay under those limits relative to your space.
Folding space-time, as Sparky refers to, is worm-hole travel.
Well Guild Navigators make it work. Get on it.
I think I'll wait for the inertial dampeners, first.
No, I think that the idea here is to change the shape of space, so you aren't really moving through space at FTL speed (which is impossible as far as people know). The problem with actually traveling through space at close to the speed of light is that you need to accelerate and decelerate, which takes a long time.
I think it is likely that it is theoretically possible, but as with most big space travel ideas, you'd need an enormous energy source.
dilithium crystals, duh!
Actually the latest calculations on an Alcubierre drive would have considerably smaller energy requirements than originally anticipated. I think it has something to do with radically changing the shape of the bend in space. The warp equivalent of improving the aerodynamics.
How awesome would it be to have the technology that enables interstellar travel named after you?
If the Space warp theory proves out it will be just one more thing for Star Trek nerds to lord over the Star Wars nerds.
Star Trek nerds still believe in a post-scarcity world where the price system is not needed to bring goods and services to where they are needed. Talk about fantasy.
if replicators become a real thing, then of course we will end up living in a post scarcity world.
Some things will remain scarce like real estate, lap dances and raw, unbridled power.
Real Estate- An entire galaxy's worth of planets to colonize. True there are still some limits but it would take millenia to reach them.
Lap Dances - Holo Suites, problem solved
Raw Unbridled power - not sure if you are referring to political or electrical, if the latter, see warp core reactors, just make an arbitrarily large one with no warp drive or phasers to power and use it (or even multiples of them) to power an entire city then problem solved. If the former well that is an intangible think which was never in limited supply but still difficult to achieve
Hmmm, replicators. too bad we're not close to that yet.
Sure, but I think that the replicators (and the related transporters and holodeck) are probably the most far fetched of the technologies in Star Trek.
Replicators still require inputs. We're not going to invent our way past those whole laws of conservation of mass and energy things.
Pessimist!
Pretty much all of it depends on a practically unlimited energy source, which we aren't remotely close to having. And even if you have that, the amount of information needed to replicate some food, or especially transport a person is insanely large.
Well if you post the technologies they display, power generators which offer near limitless energy for apparently free combined with matter "replicators" capable of quickly and easily converting energy into any given molecular structure you desired then effectively you are in a post scarcity society
The Fascinating History of Birth Control
http://www.todayifoundout.com/.....h-control/
14 year old Chinese kid will play in the Masters.
http://espn.go.com/golf/master.....story-golf
Nothing against golf, but if t here is a bigger pile of pompous bullshit on earth than the Augusta National, I am unaware of its existence. God that place if vomit inducing.
The State of the Union.
Why Are the Democrats Failing the World on Climate Change?
http://www.alternet.org/print/.....-democrats
we may no longer be able to affect the outcome in ways that will prevent long-term global catastrophe
maybe teh problem of these Dems is none can figure out exactly how to prevent said catastrophe, never mind whether they actually believe one is in the offing.
All the recent plateauing of climate temperature data has my progtard friends acting sensible again. I post the most recent article highlighting doubtful quotes by IPCC officials or Stephen Malcombe's admission of his recent studies limitations and they all jump on my case about how science is an "iterative process" and my cherry picking of articles doesn't mean its not happening.
I'm happy to see pause when reacting to the most recent science news, but where the fuck was it 13 years ago? Nothing a progressive does pisses me off more than their pillaging of the scientific process.
Meant to say Shaun Marcott.
Because the Democrats are working on much more important things like universal health care and gun control? Because they realize they can get more votes handing out freebies to deadbeats and more donations handing out freebies to cronies than by fighting for "climate justice," whatever that is. Because the only way they support environmental crap is if they can push some business toward a favored constituency that benefits from regulations forced against other less favored interests.
It must be urgent becuz I already wet my pants!!
I am back from my S. Carolina vacation
lessons learned:
traveling with old people (my parents) means stopping ALOT at every restroom.
(new) GM makes crappy car seats - parts decontent?
Harbor Island is too far from Charleston - the place I wanted to visit the most. At least it was beautiful - even with the security / gated community feel to keep the riff-raff out.
even with the security / gated community feel to keep the riff-raff out.
And yet they let you in. [confused]
I got in under the cover of darkness
Battle Creek, MI police officer with a troubled past (shock!) shows up too work drunk. Is given a paid vacation for the second time due to her being an alkie.
I should call my employer and tell them I can't work today because I'm all kinds of fucked up. I wonder if they'll keep sending me checks?
Look. Alcoholism is an illness. It's not his fault. Can't fire someone for something that isn't their fault. That's not fair. Must be supportive and put him through treatment while on full pay. And if he relapses, do it again. So what if he's a drunk with a badge and a gun and immunity for his actions. It's an illness. Sheesh.
Hmm. Maybe I should start drinking more in the morning.
It's always happy hour somewhere.
It's a woman you sexist pig. Women can be just as big of drunks and just as awful cops as men.
If George Bush had set a program to inspect people's trash on the grounds of fighting terrorism, the left would have had a stroke. But do it for the God mother Gia and it is just great.
To help improve the city's landfill diversion rate, Slattery and his crew pound the pavement, both in the early morning and in the evening, keeping tabs on what's being thrown out and educating people about the three-bin system. The early-morning cart monitors are armed with clipboards, and they take notes about the trash sorting behavior of each household, which is later entered into a database and given to the outreach crew.
I don't care how nice San Fransisco looks. How anyone could live in that authoritarian shithole is beyond me.
http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/.....nia-hosed/
Every once in a while, my kids would put something wrong into the recycle bin. The second time it happened, the city sent us a letter saying they'd fine us if it happened again. We just stopped using the recycle bin at all.
And recycling does nothing for the environment. It costs more resources to recycle the products in your trash than it saves. If it was the other way around, you wouldn't have to worry, because people would be showing up at your door to buy your trash. And we are not and never have been running out of landfill space.
Yep. It serves no purpose other than to boost the left's delusions of superiority.
I think they just grab all the scrap aluminum and sell it. The paper and plastic and glass just goes in the landfill.
I think so. Sometimes they can find people who want to buy plastic, but I think that the market for that dried up a few years ago. If no one wants to buy a particular waste material, it's a good sign that it is more efficient to make new than to recycle it.
That's not true, it depends on what you are recycling.
Thing is those things which are beneficial to recycle, they actually pay you for.
Got a bunch of used copper you what to throw away? They'll pay you between $1 and $3 a pound for it (depending on it's form), Brass is worth $1.50/lb, Steel $0.50 - $1/lb, etc. Plastic bottles however, not really enough of a market for them to really make recycling them worthwhile.
They can make some pretty cool building materials out of recycled plastics. But it's not enough to warrant a huge dent in the market for them.
It costs more resources to recycle the products in your trash than it saves.
For paper, yes, for metal, absolutely not so. There has been a has been a robust recycling system for metals in place for over a century, driven solely by lower costs for recycled metals than mining and smelting it from scratch. Not sure about plastic, glass and rubber (from tires).
There are secondary markets that use the the recycled glass and plastic to make consumer goods, but Zod forbid we let those industries offer consumers real money for their trash.
And if people were really serious about carbon sequestration, they'd bury their waste paper and let the trees planted to replace that paper suck more carbon in while they grow.
CA has done recycling better than any other state. They manage to get their citizens to pay a $.05 CRV on bottles and cans as the "deposit," and manage to give back about 1/10th of that at the recycling centers when the citizens return the items. I don't even think Bernie Madoff could have come up with that good of a scam.
Wasn't there a problem with people driving in cans and bottles from non-CRV states and cashing them out in CA?
Wait, here it is.
Damnable Nevadans, abusing our CRV.
Sure there is. That is why people collect cans. As I said, if your trash was worth anything, people would be stealing it, which in the case of cans and metal they do.
But not everybody loves cans. In fact, some people hate cans.
Excellent choice.
That happened to me in Minneapolis a few years ago also. Everything went down the trash chute after that.
The comments on the original Atlantic article are refreshingly sane.
http://www.theatlanticcities.c.....u-do/5191/
The company I work for is recycle happy. We no longer have a trash bin, but eight different containers. Of course if I have something that doesn't fit into their predefined bins, it ends up getting stashed in a plastic bag and thrown away at the local gas station.
Godspeed, Mrs. Thatcher. You helped to slow the decline for a while.
Wine country cop.
Red Solo cup.
Motorized scooter.
Golf course.
No wonder the guy wants to have the medical records quashed.
Funny that no breathalyzer was given at the scene of the "accident". What with almost the entire police department being there and all.
Eh, I'm not going to change my stance on the foolishness of overly strict DUI just because a cop is involved.
Crashing a golf cart while drunk, assuming no one else is injured, should not be a crime.
Although then hypocrisy angle is very compelling.
DUI laws are stupid, as written. But I'm just pointing out the double-standard here. If this were a "civilian," he'd have already been tried and convicted based on the breathalyzer that would have been immediately administered.
The fact that DUI laws apply at all anywhere but public ways has always struck me as wrong. If I want to get shitfaced and do donuts in my field, I should be able to.
I think you can on private property, if you bar the cops entry onto it. Way back in the day, we'd hang out a a buddy's house in Dinwiddie, VA who had a small dirt track in his front yard where we'd race midgets (the cars, not the people). The cops would come by pretty regularly and one even hopped in a car because he knew the owner. We were always drinking when we were out there and not once did the cops tell us it was illegal.
I think the laws are different if it's in a place open to the public. Otherwise, cops wouldn't be able to troll bar parking lots waiting on people to put a kay in the ignition so they could light them up.
I'm sure it varies, but at least in some states it is technically illegal anywhere (though I am sure it is rarely enforced in places with no public access). I remember something from a few years ago where a guy in Fla. got busted for riding a bicycle on his own lawn while drunk.
I have a close friend who got into an argument with his wife and decided to grab a six pack and cool off in his car listenning to music. A neighbor complained about the music and when the cops arrived he was arrested for DUI even though he had never left his driveway. My son got his DUI when he was sleeping it off in a parking lot. They are strict here in Florida.
I was apparently a very bad boy last year. I received a full 1 liter bottle of Woodford from the Liquor Fairy on Saturday.
Did you have to leave something under your pillow?
How can I ensure a visit from this wondrous being?!!
Yeah. Do you have to leave part of your liver under the pillow?
I had to answer an email on Saturday afternoon.
The bottle was given to me during the 2nd game Saturday night.
Normally, the Liquor Fairy breaks into my house and hides the bottle in the back of my liquor cabinet. So she is getting a bit more customer friendly. And it was an upgrade from the typical 750 ml bottle.
Dang - I'll answer 10 emails on a Saturday if it gets that kind of treatment!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/.....e/2060337/
My God leftists are assholes.
And what's with the hate for Warren? He's been pretty non political.
He doesn't pray at the alter of gay marriage.
He stood next to the One on the Day of Ascension too.
They're like....Diet Stalinists. They just do the Ten Minute Hates without the gulag or the bullet in the head.
For anyone interested, a metheglin from a recipe derived from Digby (1669)
1 tbsp Rosemary; 1 tbsp Marjoram; 1 tbsp Anise, 1 tbsp whole cloves; 1 oz crystalized ginger; 1 oz whole bay leaves; 3 sticks of cinnamon; 1 whole nutmeg (crushed).
Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil, then add all herbs and spices. Boil for another 10 minutes, turn off the heat, and cover with a lid. Let this steep for about 2 hours.
Pour the herb/spice "tea" into a 10 gallon stock pot and strain out all the herbs and spices. Add one gallon of high-quality honey and 4 1/2 gallons of water. Bring to a boil, skimming the white foam off the top of the wort as it heats up.
Then 1 oz Target at 50 minutes; 1 oz Challenger at 10 minutes; and 1 oz East Kent Goldings at the end of the boil. Chill the wort. OG 1.082.
Pitched a packet of Windsor yeast.
I'll let you know how it turns out in three or four weeks.
Thats a surprising amount of hops.
The IBU calculator said just under 40. But, yeah, I read a lot of old recipes and cringe.
I wasnt sure Metheglin would have ANY hops.
IIRC, the alpha acid percentage, even on things like EKGs, werent as high in the past as today. But its hard to say, as they couldnt measure them in the past.
So did, some didn't.
The recipes varied widely from a little hops to lot of hops in a batch. In all cases the hops went in a the start of the boil and they boiled it all for an hour.
The goal was keeping beer good in wooden barrels for a year or two.
skimming the white foam off the top of the wort as it heats up
I don't know much about mead.
This video of Thatcher on Swedish TV is awesome.
As much as I love ABBA, defeating Hitler should give you greater bragging rights
Damn she rocked, eg defeated the Argentine junta in the Falklands while staying up late to write condolence letters by hand to the families of the servicemen killed.
What does a police officer's wife do for kicks?
Apparently in Riverside, CA, they fuck a bunch of high school students.
She's married to a cop, can you blame her for wanting to bang some mature guys?
I know high school guys can be hard up, but Jesus.
Yeah, she's no prize. And a principal to boot. I mean, I wanted to bang a teacher or two from high school, but administrators? No fucking way, man. They were the enemy.
I saw plenty of hot 20 something teachers back in school. But never once saw a hot principal. Get those kids into some kind of therapy.
Cass Sunstein lets his inner retard out again. What else is new, right?
And we are but a generation removed from forced sterilization and genocide. God what a dangerous idiot that guy is.
At least he's less of a dipshit than Bloomberg. I'm surprised.
What do you want to bet Obama makes a complete jackass out of himself over Thatcher's death and doesn't even bother to send Crazy Joe to the funeral.
You could have stopped at "himself".
I wouldn't be surprised if he sends an iPod full of his greatest eulogies to the funeral home.
It's all just dance remixes of Candle in the Wind.
And then has his team alter Thatcher's wikipedia entry.
I cannot fathom that the President would not send the Vice President to the ceremonial funeral at St Paul's.
Even _if_ the White House was tempted to make some unnecessary dig at Thatcherism, the rancor that would erupt would be out of proportion to whatever ideological filip they would have hoped to achieve.
I had thought that if it were a state funeral that the US might send all of the living Presidents to lead the delegation. But the elder Bush is too ill and I have read that W. Bush is also not hale and hearty.
That seems a very DEAL WITH IT picture of Baroness Thatcher 🙂
May she Rest in Peace.
I might just have a new hero!
FTA: According to an arrest report, Hilt jumped back, began yelling and asked how they were going to determine if he was crazy and how the officer was going to "read his mind and get in his head."
The report said Hilt then took off his clothes and screamed once again for the neighbors to come out.
Police said Hilt then became violent when they tried to place him under arrest. Police said at one point, Hilt tried to stick his thumb in the officer's eye in order to gouge it out. The officer defended himself by punching Hilt in the face and told him to stop resisting.
During the fight, Hilt punched the officer several times in the face, police said.
Police said that also during the fight, Hilt was able to grab the other officer's Taser and shocked the officer he was fighting.
At that point, the uninjured officer pepper sprayed Hilt in the face, but it had no effect, a report stated.
AWESOME!
That is badass.
He's lucky to be alive.
That's why don't think he's crazy. He was smart enough to call all his neighbors outside so there'd be plenty of witnesses.
Also note that the story gives basically the police account of the interaction with no witness statements other than unnamed ones that basically said he was scary? Nobody asked about what they saw and nobody gave a name. Nice reporting.
I am surprised he wasn't shot many, many times.
three counts of depriving means of communication
WTF? Somebody from Florida want to explain that one?
Tearing the cops radio mic away from his body.
Probably by taking their radios.
I got a kick out of the five counts of aggravated battery on an officer, but two counts of resisting with violence and three of resisting without violence. Those don't jibe with each other.*
*Not to mention "on an officer" should never, ever denote a separate criminal category.
And remember: the cops showed up to do a "well-being check", which is code for "pick the crazy fucker up on something", because they read his Facebook posts and were disturbed by them.
What the fuck is up with that?
A man who made suicidal threats and threatened law enforcement officers on Facebook was arrested
In case anyone was worried, I'm still here and in good condition, i.e., it wasn't me.
Also, for posterity's sake: ORLANDOOOOOO!!!! Fuck Lake Eola.
John finds paradise -
http://news.nationalpost.com/2.....n-toronto/
no nylons? Those tramps!
Here's something you'll never hear a man say: "Stop sucking my dick or I'll call the police."
You wouldn't call the police if Warty tried sucking your dick?
http://thehill.com/blogs/healt.....endly-fire
Democrats slowly panicking over Obamacare.
Game of Thrones Subthread!
Not loving the lack of Strong Belwas. Thoros looks nothing like I pictured him. Looking forward to meeting the Blackfish.
I was looking forward to some giant Samoan dude beating that guy to death - then shitting in their general direction.
Boy, I sure hope they all do more walking next week. Can't get enough of that walking.
That's how they show how vast and epic the world is!
I always like the road trips with Tyrion. Not so much the walking as the drunkenness, whoring, and massive doses of sarcasm.
Brienne and Jamie walking gives a fair amount of old school buddy cop comedy:
"She's a good knight, true and honest. He's sly and sarcastic. But together, they're going to have to make it to King's Landing."
Tyrion is my favorite character, as he was in the book(s).
I like the way Dinklage plays Tyrion. He will be awesome at the end of this HBO season, and whenever they get to "A Dance with Dragons".
From what I've heard, A Storm of Swords is going to span two seasons.
You've gotta think they'll follow the books a lot more loosely from here on out, just because of the timeline divergences; I don't see them leaving characters completely out of some of the upcoming seasons.
http://neworleans.craigslist.o.....85022.html
what are we thinking about the new Mad Men?
Who's "we"?
I don't care for any of the "look back at the 60s and reimagine" it stuff. I was born in 1972 and am sick and tired of everything being look at in the light of events between the death of John Kennedy and the resignation of Richard Nixon. I can't wait until all the Boomers retire and die off and take their cultural influence with them. And I'm sick and tired of the fucking -gate suffix, too.
I'll let you know as soon as my penis is torn off in a bizarre gardening accident.
Matthew Weiner can't pull off a two-hour season premiere. Both this seasons and last seasons two-hour opener sucked.
Over-all, I enjoyed the opener, but it was a little uneven.
I laughed out loud at Roger's reaction to his mother's death.
I don't know why NASA would put an asteroid in earth orbit, but I like the idea.
I can think of dozens of reasons, all depending on which type of asteroid it is and how big it is.
I mean even a medium sized nickel iron asteroid could have over a trillion dollars worth of metal in it and with unlimited solar power available in space you could smelt and refine it right there at the asteroid before delivery
Even better. That's exactly the sort of thing that needs to be done if we are going to do anything in space besides satellite communications and farting around in LEO.
There was a hard-sci novella about this in Analog magazine a while back. The advantages that could be reaped are pretty huge.
The plot of the story, a guy 'loses' an unmanned spacecraft but actually programs it to nudge an asteroid out of the asteroid belt using it's own gravity and sends it towards Earth, forcing NASA to capture it.
The John Ringo series, 'Troy Rising' has solar mining of asteroids. By a rather libertarian dude, that uses the money he makes to buy equipment and tech to fight some try-hard alien invaders.
For some reason, I really love that series.
I do too - I was holding out hope for one or two more books, but nothing lately.
And leave it up there. Having that much metal and energy already out of the gravity well might make solar powersats an actual reality. Not to mention the zero-g factories you could build, along with gigantic mirrors. Get us a head start on finding all of the rocks in this system that might eventually ruin our day.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-.....r-gun-bill
You're about as useful as a cock flavored lollipop.
He's right, you know. But for the wrong reasons. They shouldn't filibuster it just so they can get all the Red State Democrats that are up for reelection on record voting for the bill. They can then use it as a cudgel for the next 18 months.
http://www.nationaljournal.com.....t-20130408
A Thomas Friedman esque attempt at linkage.
Morons like this could never in a million years think that the driving force for gay marriage and against gun control is principle - the love of freedom.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....8-08-55-48
The fucking Queen isn't going to give Thatcher a state funeral.
Frankly, Maggie would probably have preferred military honours - she loved Our Boys
My favorite Maggie and the boys story was when she showed up to the SAS party after the Iranian Embassy recapture and got yelled at for blocking the telly.
Eh, before you revv the outrage up, remember who she was. It's very possible she wanted a modest funeral.
Yeah. And she had known for a while she wasn't long for this world. She may have and probably did tell the Queen to not give her a state funeral. Now that I think about it, the Queen is probably doing right here.
Awesome story out of Florida!
Two drunk cops partying at one's house. Drunk Sassy Black Woman Cop tells other drunk cop to turn out lights after her husband complains. Drunk Angry Male Cop says he's gonna shoot Drunk Sassy Black Woman Cop's husband. Husband calls 911. Drunk Angry Male Cop found crying in back yard. Drunk Sassy Black Woman Cop goes batshit and is thrown in cruiser. She kicks out windows and demands to see her boss. She then blames the incident on race.
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/.....anc/nXDTT/
Were they from another jurisdiction? I am shocked the cops arrested other cops. My bet would have been the nice black couple would have ended up at least in jail and maybe dead.
That's no moon....
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....7-19-15-26
When I read this and think about how much power Hollywood has in Congress, all I can think of is the TVs in 1984.
Apparently they have very little power, as more and more people are getting rid of TV's altogether.
But they are replacing them with devices a lot more like the screens in 1984.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....ouths.html
Is it too much to hope that t his kind of shit will discredit Islam for the next generation?
No, they're not. A Buddhist monk who commits murder is automatically defrocked. It would be more correctly to write "Former Buddhist monks are inciting violence against Muslims", or at least, "Heterodox Buddhist monks are inciting violence against Muslims".
It depends on the strain of Buddism perhaps. The monks in Nepal are actually pretty bad ass.
fighting monks? Gurkhas for God?
I meant Tibet.
you'll appreciate this John - watched a BBC documentary from the mid-90s on Gurkhas. Their evenings are spent together "singing songs of their homes in the Himalayas and hacking people's heads off"
I love those guys.
Buddhism is not pacifist, yes, but there is a difference between murder and killing in self-defense.
The comments in the NYT Obit for Thatcher are predictably vicious and inaccurate.
"Dwight McFee Toronto, Canada
Condolences to those who revered her. To most Thatcher was a disaster. But for the west she was a goddess of money redistribution, to the top.
Thatcher was less a conservative but rather in the American Libertarian mold: someone who wants police protection from his/her slaves!"
So Thatcher was a libertarian? You might want to let her or us know that, Dwight.
Tolerant people do not tolerate intolerance, and Thatcher was the model of intolerance. Thus the meaner the comments are, the more tolerant the commenter.
I commend you but really, wasn't that predictable?
Yeah, that's what I said.
Question: why does the NYT typically only allow comments when they are assured of lock-step agreement with their editorial staff? They'll allow comments on a Pauli Krugnuts screed but not on an "Obama renewed the Patriot Act" or "Obama's DoD bombs kill 10 Pakistani children in drone attack" story. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
Doesn't Krugman delete comments that harsh his mellow? I seem to recall people repeatedly complaining about that.
"CMH Sedona, Arizona
I can't think of anyone other than Reagan I despised more in the 1980s. And I still do. They were people who rose to power on abstractions (so-called principles) without any sense of the millions of faces they were stomping on. And that's not even considering Falklands."
Retarded poetry.
The Falklands are a group of Islands populated entirely by Brits that were invaded by one of the worst right wing military dictatorships of the cold war. The Argentine invasion was the kind of right wing imperialism that liberals claim to despise. Yet, they sided with the right wing junta.
They don't really believe in anything except hating themselves and the rest of western Europe and the United States. Forget the Islamists. Liberals are the ones who hate us for our freedoms.
Harvard degree and work in NBA not enough for Jeremy Lin.
Jeremy Lin says race cost him a D-1 college scholarship
Right, because most college coaches wouldn't offer a scholarship to the kid that can make his team better despite race. Hell, even John Thompson gave a scholarship to a white kid once. Atleast, I think he did. Well, he might have anyway.
Look, my point is that people don't look at race when offering college scholarships to athletes.
Lin did have a hell of a high school career to get no D1 offers. And his subsequent success proves how wrong the D1 coaches were. At the very least his career is a monumental scouting failure. If it was because he was Asian, I don't know. But it is possible.
He had a pretty good high school career, making all-state in D-2. But read this from his wiki page: Rex Walters, University of San Francisco men's basketball coach and a retired NBA player, said NCAA limits on coaches' recruiting visits had an impact on Lin's chances. "Most colleges start recruiting a guy in the first five minutes they see him because he runs really fast, jumps really high, does the quick, easy thing to evaluate," Walters said. Lin added, "I just think in order for someone to understand my game, they have to watch me more than once, because I'm not going to do anything that's extra flashy or freakishly athletic."[22]
"[
(cont.)
In July 2005, then-Harvard assistant coach Bill Holden saw that Lin was 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m), which fitted the physical attributes he was seeking, and he had a 4.2 grade point average in high school, which fitted Harvard's academic standards. But Holden was initially unimpressed with Lin's on-court abilities, and told Lin's high school basketball coach, Peter Diepenbrock, that Lin was a "Division III player". Later that week, Holden saw Lin playing in a much more competitive game, driving to the basket at every opportunity with the "instincts of a killer", and Lin became a top priority for him.[23] Harvard coaches feared that Stanford, close to Lin's home,[note 2] would offer Lin a scholarship, but it did not, and Lin chose to attend Harvard.[24] "I wasn't sitting there saying all these Division I coaches were knuckleheads," Diepenbrock said. "There were legitimate questions about Jeremy.
I'm not so sure race had as much to do with it as his style of play. It appears that his intensity level fluctuated depending on his opponent, and coaches do not like to see that.
I wouldn't have expected UCLA to recruit him. But he strikes me as the kind of player that mid majors have made a living on for years.
During a high school visit to D.C., a long time ago, one of my econ teachers took in a Georgetown game. He later told us about it, and noted that the student section, which evidently took up one of the four sides of the arena, had one black kid in it and the rest were white, with a scattering of hispanics and asians. Thompson's team had at that time, IIRC, 11 black guys and one white guy.
He thought it was hilarious.
Re Jeremy Lin, he's a meh PG, with a mediocre A/TO ratio and so-so defense. He does make an above average number of steals though. My guess is that Les Alexander, the Rockets's owner, had a hand in picking him over the other two PGs on the roster at the time---Goran Dragic and Kyle Lowry---because Lin's ethnicity would help market Alexander's other businesses. Especially since Yao had just retired. I'd much rather have Dragic than Lin, especially when Lin's 3rd year of this deal comes up. Surprising seeing them contend for the playoffs though.
But a meh NBA PG is still head and shoulders above 95 percent of people in the D-1 PG pool. So maybe Lin has a pretty good point? Not that you'll ever get ESPN to admit that minorities in basketball front office positions (scouts, AAU runners, college coaches, etc...) could ever be racist themselves.
I once had someone ask me, when I said I went to The American University in DC: "Is that an all-black school like Georgetown?". I did a facepalm.
Not sure if sarcasmic took care of this DM link in the past week, but since we're on the subject of colleges and admissions, this young woman's open letter to Ivy League admissions' administrators is funny as hell.
He is a meh PG in the NBA. But being a meh pg in the NBA usually means you were a star in college. He was a hell of a college player and would have been one no matter where he went.
Which is why I noted, "[b]ut a meh NBA PG is still head and shoulders above 95 percent of people in the D-1 PG pool." I agree that he'd be a star at pretty much every D-1 basketball program.
One of the reasons he came on so strong for the Knicks that year, was that their previous PGs were so abysmal that nearly anyone would have been an improvement. Making a big splash in NY gets a lot more attention than doing it in, say, Denver too.
"U.S. Treasury Secretary Lectures Europe About The Stupidity Of 'Austerity'"
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs.....44264.html
So, yes, Europe should reduce or eliminate its misguided "austerity" push and pursue "pro-growth policies," as Lew is suggesting.
But it's still odd that Lew is taking this message to Europe when the United States is in the midst of an austerity push of its own.
The U.S. government "sequester," which went into into effect last month, is cutting many government spending categories by 5%. These cuts are indiscriminate and across the board. Economists agree that they will hurt the economy and increase unemployment (or at least reduce the rate at which unemployment drops).
I see Blodgett is still a worthless lying sack of shit.
Buddhism is not pacifist
Not is Japan, anyway.
Weren't the Shinto the ones pulling the Conquer All Non Nipponese Peoples schtick?
The Over|Under on our former Secretary of State Clinton attending the ceremonial funeral of Baroness Thatcher?
Odds on her stealing away press from SoS Kerry?
When boob-jobs go wrong.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem.....rgery.html
Even _if_ the White House was tempted to make some unnecessary dig at Thatcherism, the rancor that would erupt would be out of proportion to whatever ideological filip they would have hoped to achieve.
Yeah, right. You'd have a solid week of MSNBC teleprompter-readers talking about how the Ascended One nobly struck a blow for Social Justice.
A note on the Hakkens kidnapping case.
It appears that they boarded a boat on Wednesday and sailed into the Gulf of Mexico. So it's been 5 days since they left and they havn't been heard from.
Here's hoping they made it to Cuba or something. The Cuban government would eat that up. It would suck living there, but at least they would be together.
Still no publicly releasd information suggesting the children were being abused, or that there was any basis for seizing them other than the marijuana charge.
The Cuban govt would probably set them up with a nice living situation like they did with Elian Gonzalez and family, just to thumb their noses at the U.S.
Thanks for that update. I hope they decided to head east and ended up in the DR or went even further to the Lesser Antilles. There are a hundred islands there that they could just disappear into and become part of the underground society (of which there is a large one).
Doesn't surprise me. Guy's an engineer. He didn't just smoke a blunt, grab a piece, and storm over to get his kids back. I bet you this was thoroughly planned and maybe even rehearsed.
My two usually peaceful house cats got into a nasty fight with each other just as the Thatcher death was breaking on the news. I had no idea they took U.K. Politics so seriously. Now I have to figure out which one is the Tory and which is Labour.
It is funny how cats will just get into it once in a while for no apparent reason. I would love to know what goes through their heads.
Still can't figure out what pussy thinks, eh John?
oh man.
He has been working for months to make the cat/pussy joke. He really thinks he is onto something new here. Be nice, leave him alone.
Mention sometime how they ruined the course by rebuilding it in terror after Tiger Woods de-pants the course in 1997. It is called "rough" dipshit, not "the second cut". And Augusta used to be great for not having it.
I work for DoD. A lot of people I work with are military or former military. Most of them love to play golf. When I was at Ft. Sill, some of the guys would ask me "hey, you want to play golf after work." My reply was always, "pfft, I'm not married." They did not understand, so I explained, "I have no one I need to get away from badly enough that I'm going to chase a little white ball over a golf course carrying a 50 lb golf bag around when it's 100 degrees outside. No, I'll stick to the AC in my hotel room."
Anything less than what the US and British Opens do isnt rough to begin with, so second cut is fine.
Most tournaments dont have rough.
Can somebody translate this?
It is the rough. And what made Augusta great was you didn't have to be that accurate off the tee because, unlike the British or US Opens, the didn't run the risk of having to chip out of the rough. Players could go for it. It made for exciting play. With rough, Augusta is just another boring TPC course.
"Rough" is the grass that grows up to your knees and its stems are thicker than a drinking straw. At least, that's what rough is at a seaside course in Ireland.
It can be a fun game. But it is really expensive, hard and time consuming. You can't just play it once in a while and have any fun. You have to play it all of the time for months and years to be any good at it. In the end, it is just not really worth the effort.
Augusta lengthened many of their holes (which probably needed doing anyway) and added a "second cut", which is basically a light rough. It does lead to more layups, but you NEVER have to "chip out" of it like you do in the US or British Open. Assuming you can even chip out of that shit in Britain.
It isnt that expensive, if you dont live in a major metropolitan area.
My public links are cheap.
But yeah, the best my game ever was was when I was playing once a week for an entire summer.
I havent played in years because just playing once or twice per year is frustrating.
Sounds like my troll shaman.
Disc Golf.
You get all of the advantages of playing golf without the exorbitant greens fees and stuffy old fucks at the country club.
Of course you trade the stuffy old fucks for dumb fuck hippies, but most people just kind of keep to themselves.
"You can't just play it once in a while and have any fun."
FALSE - Scrambles with lots of alcohol are FUN and you normally only do them once or twice a year. Having a ringer on the team does make it funner, though!
I played a lot when I was in the military and living in Texas. Nothing to do and access to a lot of really good courses basically year around. And after a long while, it got fun. But man is it a hard game. The thing that makes it hard is you can't specialize. In any other game, you can pick out an area that you do well and maximize it. If you are a good server in tennis, you can become a serve an vollier. If you are a good shooter in basketball, you can avoid ball handling and just spot up and shoot. But in golf, you have to be good at everything. If you suck off the tee, you suck at golf. I don't care how good your short game is. If you can't put, you suck even if you can drive it 275 yards. The game feasts on any weakness.
The game feasts on any weakness
This.
And when you suck off the tee, suck with long irons, suck chipping, and putt like shit, the game can blow.
But man, I was solid with my mid irons. 5-8, I was gold.
Yup.
I've contacted a few lawyers about starting a class-action lawsuit against the Scotts for inventing the bloody game. Let me know if you want in on the action.
If you're gonna sue the Scotts for something you could start with Haggis which is far more a crime against humanity than Golf
YOU TAKE THAT BACK ABOUT HAGGIS!!!!
If you don't, I am going to get all my old friends in the Royal Scots Borderers and the Scots Dragoon Guards to come and blast bagpipes at you and pelt you with empty whisky bottles until you recant!
yeah, lay off haggis. At least it's nutritious, unlike that Scottish delicacy deep fried Mars Bars
Hey they can belt bagpipes at me all the like, I love bagpipes and have been to several highland games just to hear them (and among her crazyness my ex wife won multiple scottish harp competitions), now would I object at all if they felt like tossing in a few Scotch Eggs but any wah you cut it Haggis is just nasty.