A.M. Links: Rand Paul Blocking Tax Treaties, Air Shows Canceled for Sequester, Iraq Shuts Down Nine Media Outlets

• 

  U.S. Air Force

  DC lobbyists are upset that Rand Paul is blocking a set of tax treaties in the Senate.

• The Russian government apparently recorded conversations between the Boston bombing suspects' mother, who in 2011 was put in a CIA terror database, and her eldest son, who was also on the list, as well as an FBI target in southern Russia. The U.S. was unaware of the conversations. The mother maintains her children are innocent.
• Air shows around the country were canceled this weekend due to sequester, but a federal helium program lives on.
• San Francisco's gay pride parade, an official function of the city government, extended and then quickly rescinded Grand Marshal status for Bradley Manning.
• Charlotte's mayor Anthony Foxx is expected to be named as Ray LaHood's replacement as Transportation Secretary later today.
• The government of Iraq has suspended the license of Al-Jazeera and nine other television media outlets, blaming sectarian violence.
• The Greek parliament has approved civil service lay-offs; 15,000 state workers will lose their jobs, by the end of next year.

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Comments

[db]

Iraq's getting it right on Western governmental values, I see.

[cavalier973]

It's not freedom of the press if it's not regulated.

[evie778]

Start working at home with Google! It's by-far the best job Ive had. Last Tuesday I bought a gorgeous Lancia Straton from earning $4331 this - 5 weeks past. I began this 7-months ago and right away started to earn at least $69, per-hr. I use this website,,
http://goo.gl/4z9pn

[sarcasmic]

Kate Moss and her husband wear the same pants.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....Paris.html

[DJF]

At the same time?

[UnCivilServant]

Yes, but don't judge them.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I'm just gonna leave this right here..

http://www.smbc-comics.com/ind.....2961#comic

[sarcasmic]

I'm proud of my one-night stands and drug use says Foxy Knoxy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....Knoxy.html

[sarcasmic]

Julianne Hough is still scrumdiddlyumptious.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....crest.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....Miami.html

[SugarFree]

Damn, woman. Lose those retarded fucking hats. They make you look like you spent all weekend pulling a train on a ska band.

[T]

For once, I have to agree with your fashion advice.

[WTF]

Hats?

[robc]

I like the hat, at least in the first link.

But like WTF below, why are you even noticing the hats?

[SugarFree]

They distract me from attempts to gauge the length of her pubic hair based solely on the depth of her camel toe.

[robc]

On a related note, I wonder if she is going to be in town this weekend?

She is single, Im single, and there is only a 19 year age difference. So if I happen to run into her somewhere on Friday night, I will let you all know what happened next Monday.

[db]

Don't bother, I'm sure we'll all read about her harrowing escape from a stalker in P"eople."

[robc]

Im way too incompetent to be considered a stalker.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Air shows around the country were canceled this weekend due to sequester, but a federal helium program lives on.

Those air show goers won't spend their money elsewhere, either. Thanks, sequester!

[Bee Tagger]

Who could afford those balloon payments to begin with?

[Ted S.]

Technically, you don't begin with a balloon payment.

[Bee Tagger]

The guy from Memento would.

[LTC(ret) John]

Or from Up.

[Bee Tagger]

Nice

[DJF]

Air shows cost money, the helium program is one of the few things where the government makes money semi-honestly, ie, selling a product that people want for a price that actually makes money.

[Fist of Etiquette]

They're overcompensating for the embargo that caused the Hindenburg disaster.

[$park?]

Hydrogen, helium, what's the difference really?

[JEP]

Are you crazy Lana?!

[Fist of Etiquette]

"You want to blow us all to shit, Sherlock?!?"

[UnCivilServant]

One proton, one electron and give or take two neutrons, depending upon the hydrogen

[Rasilio]

1 proton and 2 Neutrons.

Depending on which isotope of each you're talking about of course

[$park?]

I guess the lesson here is: don't bother trying to make science jokes.

[UnCivilServant]

Oh noes, you made an ion! Quick, give it an electron and take away the charge!

[Rasilio]

I'm sorry, this is libertopia, nothing comes free of charge

[SugarFree]

Phil Plait manages to write an article without mentioning global warming climate change climate weirding or whatever they are trying to call it this week. Unfortunately, the article is about anal enemas.

[db]

Phil Plait was great before he went off the fucking rails on climate stuff. He is absolutely no fun to read at all anymore.

[Pro Libertate]

I was a regular reader for years until he decided regular overt political posts in a science blog were a good idea. It's not just AGW, though I always found his attitude about the topic a little ridiculous, considering he's as much a climatologist as I am.

[db]

Yeah, this. He's an astronomer. I'm sure he's really smart and all, but I personally know Ph.D. astronomers that have no business commenting on science outside their specialties. Stick to what you're good at, what got you the initial attention. Stay away from the political B.S. If I wanted that, I'd read a newspaper of watch the news.

[Pro Libertate]

He's really swallowed the worst of the AGW claims, too, at least the last time I looked he had. It's really crazy how much he talks about the importance of skepticism and the scientific method, all while being one of the most politically biased science writers out there. You can pick up his leftist politics in one or two posts, which shouldn't be the case for a science writer.

I enjoyed the old Bad Astronomer blog before he stopped editing himself. If he was spouting politics back then, it wasn't as overt.

[db]

I feel the same way about James Randi and the CSICOP or whatever they call themselves now. Their loud commiment to skepticism and empiricism is completely undermined by their religious clinging to progressive tropes.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I've been trying to figure out when exactly this started happening.

Over the last few decades, I've been listened to / been involved in several science discussions. On pretty much any science topic, if one of the scientists is not an expert in that field, they will defer to someone with a much greater understanding of the topic.

Not so with climate science. It seems anyone with a background in science feels qualified to speak passionately about AGW. Could you imagine a biologist giving a speech about interstellar propulsion? Or a physicist giving a talk about neurological diseases?

I think it's telling that anyone who has taken a college level science class can be an "expert" on climate science.

[tarran]

BECAUSE IT'S A RELIGION!!!!!!!!!

Seriously! Everyone is an expert in their religion!

[itsnotmeitsyou]

BECAUSE IT'S A RELIGION!!!!!!!!!

In Gore We Trust

[Pro Libertate]

I found it distressing when I first noticed it, because I used to work with a lot of scientists, and while they could be stupidly opinionated about things outside their own fields, they also usually avoided acting like they understood unrelated scientific fields with any degree of certainty.

It's a very bad sign that biases are more accepted in science (they've always been there, just not endorsed). That can lead to false results and bad decisions based on those false results. Science has the status it does because it's remained relatively objective and produces useful things (indirectly or directly). Losing that is a bad idea.

[Agammamon]

Yeah, I've tuned him out too.

I can read environmental polemics anywhere Phil - stick to the astronomy.

[db]

As opposed to what other types of enema? Nasal?

[Dweebston]

Don't knock the nettie pot.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...extended and then quickly rescinded Grand Marshal status for Bradley Manning.

Floatus interruptus.

[Virginian]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013.....olice-car/

Cop runs over teenager on bicycle.

[Matrix]

was the teen ticketed for denting the cruiser?

[Virginian]

Dead people don't pay tickets.

[Matrix]

Make the family pay the fine. they're responsible, since he is a minor.

[Ed]

http://reason.com/blog/2012/10.....ar-charges

[$park?]

If by ticketed you mean killed, then yes.

[Slammer]

Dead people DO get tickets:

http://gothamist.com/2009/06/0.....covere.php

[sarcasmic]

Will anything else happen?

[Ted S.]

[Lights the dunphy signal]

[Marshall Gill]

Stop that shit! No need to fuck up Monday even more than it is already!

[Matrix]

Army: We don't need any more tanks. Thanks.
Congress: Sure you do! Here are some more!

Nothing left to cut.

[Rich]

Aw, come on. Those extra tanks might come in handy during the coup.

[db]

Who would be America's Boris Yeltsin?

*note to self: "America's Next Boris Yeltsin" is reality TV gold, baby.*

[Ted S.]

But is it Solid Gold?

[Ted S.]

When Bob Hope visited the troops, they gave him some tanks for the memories.

[sarcasmic]

It's the same rationale for why they keep building ships that the Navy doesn't want. To keep workers in the supply chain. The idea is that if they stop production, the experienced workers will go someplace else. Then when work starts back up, there will be no one to do the work. No one at all. Not a single experienced worker will be found. Not a one. So they must keep thousands employed in building stuff the military doesn't want so when the military does want it the workers will be there.

[Rasilio]

Well there is actually something to this, not just from an experienced worker standpoint but from an overall capacity standpoint.

For example those shipyards are not gonna just sit there and wait for some nebulous future navy contract, they're either going to switch to building commercial ships (if there is demand for them) or they are going to shut down entirely and go out of business, then in 5 or 10 years when the Navy does need a new ship they're going to have to pay for not just the ship, but to rebuild/refurbish a shipyard to build it in.

That said this shows a huge flaw in our military procurement systems, they are all set up to build hundreds of units a year for a few years then nothing for a long time. A more rational approach would be to say "The M1 is expected to have a 40 year service life and we want to have 3200 total tanks so we are going to build 80 tanks a year. We will also retire 80 M60's a year as those M1's come on line so as to maintain a steady state number of tanks in service.", then about a decade before the M1 reaches it's EOL you start design on it's successor and the year after the last batch of M1's roll off the line you build 80 M2's (or whatever you call the replacement) and retire 80 M1's.

[db]

The feds have fucked up the helium supply so badly. The Nixon administration allowed a huge amount of it to be released into the atmosphere rather than pay the storage costs. Not even a consideration for privatizing the supply, just vented it. If you don't already know, helium, once released into the Earth's atmosphere, escapes from the planet entirely and is lost for good.

Helium is also necessary for things like MRI machines to function.

[some guy]

PEAK HELIUM!

Once we perfect nuclear fusion we'll be able to make our own helium.

[Zeb]

There's also alpha decay, which I believe is where most of the He on earth comes from now (trapped underground with natural gas).

[some guy]

We can't exactly speed up the rate of alpha decay, though. I guess we could use nuclear fission to generate isotopes that undergo alpha decay, but that would require a hell of a lot of nuclear fission.

[Zeb]

I don't know how much you'd get from commercial scale fusion, but probably not a huge amount. Even if someone figures out fusion, I bet we'll still get helium out of the ground.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Yeah, we've basically fucked up the supply so kids could get balloons that float.

[NeonCat]

Float and not burn/explode. Kids balloons could be filled with hydrogen again but of course in our litigious world it isn't going to happen.

[Slammer]

San Francisco's gay pride parade, an official function of the city government,...
I stopped there

[Rich]

How do you separate the gay pride parade from the city government in San Francisco?

With a crowbar.

[cavalier973]

Not with a garden hose?

[Rich]

Or that.

But not with a whip.

[Brett L]

GMO is always bad, right? Even when it is being used to make plants that glow like fireflies? Because I think this is way better than making tomatoes that can be used to play catch with harvested by machines.

[Matrix]

what about glow in the dark gold fish like Sheldon created in The Big Bang Theory?

[Randian]

Dude...a Big Bang Theory reference? For shame.

[Brett L]

We were trying to just ignore it and let the shame be unspoken.

[robc]

What about carrots that are orange?

[$park?]

What difference, at this point, does it make who replaces John Kerry in the Senate?

Weeks before the blasts, Steve Koczela, president of MassINC Polling Group, found that more than 40 percent of likely Democratic voters and nearly 50 percent of likely Republican voters hadn't settled on a candidate.

"It just doesn't seem like -- even as of the last poll -- people were really paying attention to who was running," Koczela said. "There's room for any of the candidates to make a move."

[db]

Wait, John Kerry is who again?

[cavalier973]

Sounds like a character in a bad spy novel.

[$park?]

He married the ketchup lady.

[Libertymike]

What do you think of Dan Winslow?

[$park?]

Who? Oh wait, he's one of the guys running right? Never heard of him before this article. Wouldn't vote for any of them anyway.

[Libertymike]

He's been an assistant district attorney, judge, chief legal advisor to then Governor Romney and now he is a state representative.

Great resume?

Then, you have Michael Sullivan, former assistant district attorney, Plymouth County District Attorney, ATF administrator and US Attorney.

Great resume?

GOP types think so.

[$park?]

GOP types think so.

That's the problem right there. But I don't vote so I don't care.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Charlotte's mayor Anthony Foxx is expected to be named as Ray LaHood's replacement as Transportation Secretary later today.

LaHood texted congrats to Foxx while at a stop light.

[Rich]

Linky?

[Fist of Etiquette]

A LINK TO MY JOKE? It's right there!

[Rich]

Sorry, Fist. I'm still in the process of reverting to reality.

[PS]

Your 'jokes' are bad enough to confuse anyone, FoE.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I.E. OVER YOUR HEADS.

[some guy]

So that's what happened to all the helium...

[cavalier973]

I suspect that actually knowing the personalities named has little bearing on the punchline. It's possible that the names are the punchline.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Here ya go.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I thought about doing that, but I'm not a smartass.

[Rich]

Kristen, I am *shocked* at your mean-spiritedness.

Fist, not so much.

[cavalier973]

Wait, what? This link just goes back to the...uh....nevermind.

[Ted S.]

Redd Foxx (God rest his smutty soul) would have been more intersting in the Cabinet.

[Rich]

He could push the President's face into the dough and make [fill in blank] brownies.

[Libertymike]

You recall how he treated Lawanda Page?

Just imagine what he could do with Michelle!

[Brett L]

Let's take a waste chemical from steel production and turn it into non-splodey NH4NO3 fertilizer that probably works even better than plain NH4NO3 in alkaline soils.

Science, bitches! It fucking works!

[Virginian]

But the explosive kind is more fun.

[Brett L]

That's kinda the unstated thread running through the inventor's comments WRT why adoption in Afghanistan (where NH4NO3 is technically illegal) will be slow.

[sloopyinca]

Pervert cop who not only wasted taxpayer money by routinely having sex while on duty, but sent pictures of himself jacking off to a 16 year old girl, is given a desk job for a while.

[db]

The department is just waiting till this blows over and he'll be right back on top of the job. He's got the skills it takes to skirt the rim of society and penetrate the criminal gangs that roam downtown. You don't just toss that kind of experience away.

[DJF]

So they are giving him a desk job, a deck job where there is probably a computer in front of him, one connected to the internet so that he can send out his latest photos.

[sloopyinca]

I guess they don't want an ADA discrimination lawsuit when his union boss declares his sexual proclivities a "disability".

[Jerry on the boat]

With Bags of Cash, C.I.A. Seeks Influence in Afghanistan:

For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan's president ? courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

What could go wrong?

[Rich]

The fun really begins when the dye packs go off!

[Virginian]

http://www.politico.com/story/.....90727.html

One of the more interesting examples of unintended consequences.

[Rich]

A central point of contention ? and one of the rawest debates ongoing in black politics ? is whether Obama shares some blame for not doing more to advance a generation of African-American politicians.

BUUSSH!!

[Brett L]

EPA reduces methane leak risk from fracking. Whoops.

The scope of the EPA's revision was vast. In a mid-April report on greenhouse emissions, the agency now says that tighter pollution controls instituted by the industry resulted in an average annual decrease of 41.6 million metric tons of methane emissions from 1990 through 2010, or more than 850 million metric tons overall. That's about a 20 percent reduction from previous estimates.

Emphasis mine. That's gonna hurt the narrative of energy producers as heartless Gaia rapers.

[$park?]

No it isn't.

[Brett L]

I know. But it should if the people spinning the narrative didn't spend their days jerking off to the idea of Gaia being personally grateful to them for stopping the rape. So grateful that she showers them with wealth, fame, influence, and bitches (maybe literal bitches depending on the person).

[itsnotmeitsyou]

On the same wavelength as me again, Sparky.

This won't even put a bruise on them. The evil frackers are still thrusting their phallic drills into mother gaia, tearing apart her insides, and shooting their fluid deep inside her.

See, rape.

[Raven Nation]

And when science-oriented sites don't discourage speculation...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....230423.htm

[Fluffy]

Every time you think that government-funded science can't get any stupider, it does.

These people undertook a study where they walked into doctor's offices and asked the mongoloid members of the populace what "might have contributed" to their illnesses, and because a bunch of semi-literate Pennsyltucky retards said, "It must be TEH FRACKING!" they declared it worthy of further study.

If you "surveyed" Pennsylvania residents about the causes of their ailments 300 years ago, most of them would probably have blamed witches.

WITCH PROBLEM WORTHY OF FURTHER STUDY, GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS ANNOUNCE

[Brett L]

Have you proven with a double-blind study that witches AREN'T a health problem? Why are you anti-science?

[Ptah-Hotep]

But the whole point of government-funded science is:

"The goal of science should be to protect the public and the environment before harm occurs; not simply to treat it after the damage has been done."

Not to find the truth or anything.

[Raven Nation]

Yeah; all I really needed to see on that story was something like: "studies have failed to note any health consequences from fracking." But, they couldn't even pull that off.

Of course, if there were no consequences, you couldn't ask for funding to do studies.

[Virginian]

The narrative is the set of assumptions the press believes in, possibly without even knowing that it believes in them. It's so powerful because it's unconscious. It's not like they get together every morning and decide "These are the lies we will tell today." No, that would be too crude and honest. Rather, it's a set of casual, nonrigorous assumptions about a reality they've never really experienced that's arranged in such a way as to reinforce their best and most ideal presumptions about themselves and their importance to the system and the way they've chosen to live their lives. It's a way of arranging things a certain way that they all believe in without ever really addressing carefully. It permeates their whole culture. They know, for example, that Bush is a moron and Obama is a saint. They know communism was a phony threat cooked up by right-wing cranks as a way to leverage power to the executive. They know that Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction, the response to Katrina was fucked up.... Cheney's a devil. Biden's a genius. Soft power good, hard power bad. Forgiveness excellent, punishment counterproductive, capital punishment a sin.
--
And the narrative is the bedrock of their culture, the keystone of their faith, the altar of their church. They don't even know they're true believers, because in theory they despise the true believer in anything. But they will absolutely de-frackin'-stroy anybody who makes them question that....

[Matrix]

That's unpossible! I have it on good authority that industry would have completely destroyed this planet if not for the all knowing, all powerful EPA.

[UnCivilServant]

Their business is selling methane, what good is it to have all that product leak out into the atmosphere? Of course they'll voluntarilly try to limit emissions.

[Brett L]

Actually, I think the ethane, propane, and butane are probably more profitable, but essentially, wherever the CH4 goes, the other gases are sure to follow.

[Matrix]

Vermont has gigabit internet, and it is half the price of Google Fiber

DAMMIT! I WANT IT HERE!

[Rich]

Then surely you won't mind paying your fair share?

[Matrix]

I just want gigabit speeds internet. Right now, I have 3mbps down and .3 up (AT&T DSL). I should be moving sometime in May, so hopefully I will have much better internet, though it will be Comcast.

[Rich]

Move to Chattanooga.

[Matrix]

I would if I had the money to. But I'm hoping Huntsville, AL will be put on the map.

I mean, come on, the city is full of engineers. gigabit is essential!

[Rasilio]

Why? Unless you plan on running a Massive Porn server or have 6 different streaming HD video feeds simultaneously anything faster than 20 MBPS is a waste because none of the servers on the other end are configured to give you anywhere near that kind of data rate.

[sgs]

"640K is more memory than anyone will ever need on a computer"

You'd think people would know better than to say impossibly stupid stuff like that.

[Rasilio]

Yes but the problem here is not what the individual user may want or desire, this is a limitation on the part of a 3rd party. Even streaming 3D HD videos with Dolby Surround sound will not use more than 10 MBPS and you can comfortably fit 2 such feeds with plenty of spare bandwidth for browsing icanhascheezburger.

The difference between this and Gates 640K comment is incentives. Back in the day application developers had every incentive to use every bit of that 640K with the assumption that no other apps were running at the same time because it made their app perform better. So whole no individual app exceeded the hardware limit users freqently did because they would run multiple apps causing hardware needs to explode past that 640K limit.

On the other hand today server owners have every incentive to limit you to just enough bandwidth for their site to function because they pay for every bit that leaves their servers and shaving your page load times from 7 seconds to 3 seconds is just not economically viable for them.

[some guy]

Where the hell are you that they don't have cable or fiber?

I'm not saying gigabit wouldn't be great, I'm just saying you're a hillbilly.

[Matrix]

I live in a small town outside of Huntsville. The people behind us have Cable, but the cable company doesn't want to run 100 yards of cable to our house or a few hundred more for the rest of the neighborhood.

And it is Mediacom. They are the worst ISP I have ever dealt with.

[some guy]

Every cable company is the worst ISP I've ever dealt with. My sample size if 4.

[Brett L]

They are the worst ISP I have ever dealt with.

Only because you don't have Cox or Sprint locally.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I love Cox!

(heh heh.)

[Marshall Gill]

Cox are definitely cocks.

[Cavpitalist]

Cox is the worst company on Earth. All of it. Been stuck with them for internet for 5 years, and cable for 1. Horrible service, EVERYTHING is fucked up, my fastest-available connection is down 3-4 times a day (and sometimes struggles streaming SD video), and their solution to the HDMI output on their box being dicked up was to connect via component, and then send us a house call bill because "the problem wasn't our equipment".

I hope Cox burns in fiery hell.

[some guy]

One of my 4 samples is Cox. They weren't any worse than the rest. I think the general problem is that their customer service folks aren't really tech savvy, they're just following a script. And part of the script is to assume that the customer isn't tech savvy. This approach may work well when the customer really is tech incompetent, but it makes tech savvy customers miserable.

[Brett L]

One of my 4 samples is Cox. They weren't any worse than the rest.

This is probably true. Whoever you're with now is the worst ISP or cable or cell phone provider you've ever had. I once went into collections with Sprint because I was never giving them another cent. Now, I feel like doing the same for AT&T. (Although they still haven't tried to scam me into a new line and phone like Sprint did. Fuck those guys. Change your name all you want, I'm still never using your phone service again, fuckers. DIAF.)

[Rasilio]

I don't know, I have Comcast Xfinity and have been generally happy with their service and when I was in Louisville I had Insight and thought they were excellent.

Similarly with my cell provider, currently with AT&T I think they are OK and they generally do a pretty good job, that said I will probably be switching to Verizon because there are just too many dead zones (including the area surrounding my house) for them to be really usable.

[Kaptious Kristen]

That's pretty much the only problem I've had with Cox - geting the initial "tech support" off script. Even when I opened the conversation with "I already turned my modem off and on", they would still want me to turn my modem off and on. But when you can get them to deploy their "A Team", they are really good. It's just getting to the A Team that's the problem.

[some guy]

Agreed, Kristen. I've gotten to the point that I don't even argue. I let them go through their list and every time they ask me to do something I've already done I just say, "Ok, done. Nothing changed." So far none of them have wondered how I can fully power-cycle my modem in 2 seconds.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

This approach may work well when the customer really is tech incompetent, but it makes tech savvy customers miserable.

This, times eleventy billion.

I used to have direct dial numbers to AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, and Cox's tier 2 support numbers so I didn't have to listen to "I'm sorry sir, but I can't help you further until I verify that you have power cycled the modem" type crap. I know your average internet user doesn't know the difference between a modem and a router, but I've been setting up computer networks since before there WAS an internet. Seriously, I don't need anyone to tell me to make sure all the cables are plugged in securely to the modem.

[Citizen Nothing]

I'm a hillbilly with no access cable or fiber. But I've got a sweet compound. (I'm thinking of growing a ZZ Top beard like those duck-call guys.)

[Citizen Nothing]

Now you're gonna ask how I even know about the duck-call guys without cable...

[T]

I presume because you have internet.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Now you're gonna ask how I even know about the duck-call guys without cable...

You saw the DVDs at Walmart?

[Ted S.]

It's only gigabit speed because it's Vermont, where there's nobody to use all that bandwidth.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Just sent to my boss (I've been trying to finagle full-time telework for several years now). "Hey boss! Vermont has beter internet than Alexandria!"

[Fluffy]

It doesn't actually exist.

I live in Vermont, and this is press release vaporware.

[Tim]

Yeah.

[a better weapon]

I appreciate the comments in that article. Its been months since Google announced they'd be putting Fiber in Kansas, and the neck beards still can't figure out why they would choose to put it flyover country and not San Fran.

[Brett L]

the neck beards still can't figure out why they would choose to put it flyover country and not San Fran.

Well, the labor cost differential alone probably covers the costs of materials. Not to mention the compliance regime...

[Tim]

Nobody told me about this.

[np]

http://www.tomshardware.com/ne.....22118.html

For just $50/month, So-net is offering a 2 Gbps fiber-based Internet connection to Tokyo-area residents.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The government of Iraq has suspended the license of Al-Jazeera and nine other television media outlets, blaming sectarian violence.

Do they get their license fees back?

[some guy]

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

If you'd like a formal response to that question you'll have to fill out form 17Q-90 and pay the required response fee.

[LTC(ret) John]

Needz moar bahksheesh

[Virginian]

So the university just put up a big poster advocating a "living wage" right across my desk. The same one that is laying me off at the end of May so they won't have to pay me for healthcare.

I'd like progressives a lot more if they weren't such hypocrites.

[Matrix]

the only thing that matters is that they feel good about it.

[db]

Now that's how irony is done.

[some guy]

Was it the university as an institution or just some idiot at the university.

[UnCivilServant]

At what point can you differentiate?

[Virginian]

It's a professional job. Big six by four foot poster professionally printed. Probably cost a couple months of my pay.

[Zeb]

Maybe you could get some students to organize a protest on your behalf.

[UnCivilServant]

Student protests mean jack unless they're in the predetermined interest of the university, or fit the narrative. (or if it's around 80% of the student body, because they then look bad for not controlling them)

[Zeb]

Well, yeah. But you will often see stories about students agitating for better pay or unionization of the staff or food service people at universities. I don't know if they ever succeed.

[Virginian]

Yeah one day they demonstrate for a living wage for school employees, the next day it's time to protest tuition hikes.

Because there is no connection whatsoever between the two.

[Agammamon]

The staff and food service people don't hand out "C's" either.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Toga. Toga! Toga!! Toga!!!

[Kaptious Kristen]

As long as Farnborough is still on for 2014, I don't give a shit about any military air shows here in the U.S.

The agency I work with managed to get through sequester without any furloughs at all. Any agency can cut 5% off the top without furloughs. It was always just a scare tactic used on public-facing agencies by His Lord and Master Savior of the Universe.

[Ted S.]

Any thinking person ought to realize that they're deliberately "cutting" stuff that's noticeable to the people to try to get the people to panic over these "cuts". After all, it's what they do Every Single Fucking Time, on every level of government.

The folks in government are counting on the average Joes not getting this point.

[Pro Libertate]

The best way to deal with this is to show something trivial that hasn't been cut.

[Kaptious Kristen]

This, for one. In fact, they're ramping up this "future strongman dictators of Africa" program.

[Pro Libertate]

Give me the budget and a flamethrower, and all of our immediate fiscal woes will be solved.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I can't wait til 20 years form now when the next Mugabe is a graduate of that fucking YALI program.

[Warty]

You want to cut training for African leaders? Why don't you want Africans to have leaders? You fucking racist bitch.

[Virginian]

I always bring up the Indian Arts and Crafts Board.

[Agammamon]

Cowboy poetry festivals in Montana.

[some guy]

This. We all know that a lot of federal employees don't do anything anyway. Seriously, ignoring issues of whether a given agency should even exist, what percentage of said agency's workforce could be laid off without having a negative impact on the agency's productivity. I'll bet it's about 50%.

But you can't lay off public "servants". Such power might be "politicized".

[Andrew S.]

I was in the elevator with a couple of co-workers (same company, not people I work with). Before the legislative "fix". One of them talked about how she had been delayed at the airport thanks to the "sequester-created delays". The other one talked about how glad he was that there were all these delays because it would show everyone how important government is and how they truly need all this money.

I had to hold my tongue.

[generic Brand]

I had to hold my tongue.

Next time, don't. It's not like you work with them anyway 😉

[sloopyinca]

Miami cop arrested for cocaine possession claims he was set up.

Awesomeness FTA: "This all came about from a love story. I met a girl, she happens to have a pimp and we fell in love. He doesn't let her be free," said Munoz. "I mean this came about because he set the whole thing up."
and
Prior to his arrest, Munoz was under Internal Affairs investigation and assigned to administrative desk duties with no police authority.

Thank God that union contract is in place so this good officer can continue to be paid by the taxpayers until this whole mess gets cleaned up.

[Brett L]

I mean if you can't trust your IA buddies to give you a little cover when you do a poor job of re-enacting True Romance IRL, who can you trust?

[Ted S.]

Miami cop arrested for cocaine possession claims he was set up.

It didn't seem to hurt Marion Barry very much.

[Rich]

"Re-Elect Marion Barry. He got drugs off the streets."

[mad libertarian guy]

Let the leftist freakout over the potential purchase of several newspapers by the Koch brothers commence!

While it's likely many journalists in cosmopolitan cities, such as Los Angeles, don't share the Kochs' politics, journalists' concerns go beyond ideology to intentions. Surely, the Kochs would want to promote their libertarian views on the Tribune Co. papers' editorial pages, but do the Kochs respect the division between news and opinion?

Because the current media run by leftists definitely respects the division between news and opinion. They don't want editorial independence, they want to make sure that their leftist opinions can still have a virtual monopoly in major news outlets.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Right winger Sam Zell owned the Tribune Co previously. The Kochs won't move the needle right a bit.

[Ted S.]

In which case the lefties shouldn't be worried about the Kochs buying the newspapers.

[Palin's Buttplug]

They shouldn't. The Kochs are to the idiot left what Soros is to the dumbass wingnuts.

[cavalier973]

What?

"idiot left" = "dumbass wingnuts"

[Zeb]

I thought wingnuts referred to the idiot right.

[Citizen Nothing]

The seven libertarian journalists in this universe are salivating over the prospects...

[cavalier973]

Leftist opinion IS news. What else could possibly be as informative and interesting?

[thom]

I've had to insist that my wife stop listening to NPR in the morning. The reporting of left-wing-opinion straight as fact "journalism" was making it difficult to get my breakfast down.

[Virginian]

Same reason they freaked out about Citizens United. If corporations could donate to politicians, that meant union money would not longer be the only big money game in town.

[Jerryskids]

This is the most hilarious criticism in the article.

In February, KochFacts alleged "inaccuracy and journalistic misconduct" by Politico chief investigative reporter Ken Vogel and described the journalist as "a former employee of the left-leaning George Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity." While mentioning Soros ?- and thus suggesting strong ties to the billionaire liberal benefactor -? KochFacts didn't note that Vogel previously worked at The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash; the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; and spent the past six years reporting at Politico, where this reporter also once worked. The suggestion, of course, is that Vogel is potentially biased against the Kochs.

KochFacts also published emails between Vogel and Koch director of external relations Rob Tappan, a former State Department official and public relations veteran who's worked with such clients as controversial military contractor Blackwater.

See, the Kochs aren't journalists so they aren't allowed to smear with guilt-by-association the way a real journalist can.

[Slammer]

San Francisco's government, an official function of Gay Pride...

[cavalier973]

*The Greek parliament has approved civil service lay-offs; 15,000 state workers will lose their jobs, by the end of next year.*

My Big Fat Greek Layoff

[BakedPenguin]

Reposted from Chapman article: Tebow released, in favor of this guy. Go Jets.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Tebow should be thankful that idiot Bible-beating Denver head coach wasted a first round pick on him. He was projected in round 3-5.

[Ted S.]

Tebow has won more playoff games in Denver than Peyton Manning.

[Matrix]

they should release Sanchez. But they will probably stick with him and have another abysmal season. F the Jets

[robc]

Sanchez has guaranteed money.

[db]

Hahahahahahahah!

Why will no one even give Tebow a chance? Are they hoping he'll improve with age? One would think anyone with him on the roster wohld be trying to train him up to be useful either on the field or in a trade.

[Virginian]

He's a great athlete and a hard worker. I just find it hard to believe there isn't some team that can find a use for him.

[Brett L]

How the Jaguars have continued to NOT pick this guy up, if only to boost ticket sales is beyond me. The new owner must really want to GTFO of Jacksonville. He couldn't possibly do worse at the QB position than Gabbert and the old guy who played last year.

[Brett L]

I mean, for Christ's sake, the Jags had Byron Leftwich and his glass shoulder on the roster as the number two QB last season.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Yeah, Tebow is actually the type backup QB a losing team could use when their starter has been sacked five times and injured.

[Fatty Bolger]

The only team Leftwich played for last year was the Steelers.

[Brett L]

Maybe it was 2 years ago.

[Fatty Bolger]

He hasn't been with the Jaguars since they released him. He has bounced around a bit and played for a few other teams besides the Steelers.

[Brett L]

Who the hell am I thinking of? Someone was a half-game wonder for J'ville last year, right?

[Auric Demonocles]

Henne? He lit up the Texans in one game that went to OT.

[Brett L]

No, Henne was respectable. I thought he was the 3rd string. Although, come to think of it, I might be conflating the '11 Texans, and '12 Jags. Maybe I'm still laughing at Matt Leinart's glass shoulder and remembered Leftwich doing the same thing to make way for Charlie Batch in '12.

[Fatty Bolger]

The Jaguars under the new owner tried to trade for Tebow and made a (slightly) better offer than the Jets. The offers were so close that Denver let Tebow pick where he wanted to go, and he picked the Jets.

[Citizen Nothing]

More souls need saving in NYC.

[John]

Especially when you consider how many horrible quarterbacks are recycled through the league. If Matt Castle and Rex Grossman and Brady Quin can have a job, Tim Tebow should have a job.

[sloopyinca]

My only question is why did you go to the trouble of spelling Grossman correctly?

[Auric Demonocles]

I'm starting to think it's got to be on purpose. I've pointed out his misspelling of Cassel's name several times already.

[John]

Yes it is. After what that shit bad did to the Chiefs..

[sloopyinca]

I've got to disagree. John's smart enough to know the correct incorrect spelling of the other one would be "Brady Quim".

[$park?]

Blind squirrel, etc, etc.

[Rasilio]

The are probably at least a dozen teams who could find a use for a guy like Tebow, the problem is twofold...

1) To this point he does not seem willing to accept that he is not and never will be an NFL QB. If her were willing to drop that demand and accept any role on a team he would make a very effective H-back/TE combo who could occasionally take a snap on a trick play and serve as the teams backup QB on game days. Not that he'd be the #2 QB on the roster, they'd have a real backup for that but they could leave the backup inactive on gamedays with the knowledge that Tebow could finish the game in a pinch if the starter got hurt.

2) He brings the media circus and there are very few teams willing to put up with that, especially for a guy who probably can't be more than a 3rd string player.

Realistically if Tebow can't pull his head out of his ass and fix problem #1 then problem #2 will guarantee he never spends another day on an NFL roster so he better head north to Canada or just retire from Football altogether

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Would the media circus really be that bad anywhere else at this point, though? Most of the coverage was due to ESPN being their usual ridiculous selves, but ever since Deadspin published that article on the network choosing to make Tebow a central media focus, they seem to have dialed it back a lot.

I honestly think at this point that even if he didn't want to play anything other than QB and some team decided to take a flyer on him with the intent of actually using him, the media circus wouldn't be nearly as bad as it was last year just because of how Ryan and Sparano buried him. As long as it wasn't Jacksonville, his presence would probably be fairly non-descript except for local media coverage.

I also don't buy the hype that he isn't willing to play other positions. The guy just spent a whole season as the Jet's fucking punt protector, for god's sake. The evidence shows that he wants a chance to be an NFL QB, but will work with the team in other ways if he's not the number one guy. But he's a professional football player and extremely competitive, and I'd be stunned if he DIDN'T expect to be given a shot if the starter went down. That's one of the things that defines the league.

[Brett L]

Everyone knew this was coming when the Jets drafted yet another QB, giving them something like 17 quarterbacks. Of course they were going to let the guy with the highest NFL winning percentage at the position go. Who wouldn't?

[Auric Demonocles]

People who attribute a team winning a bunch of low scoring games to the quarterback being great.

[John]

Time of possession helps your defense and not turning the ball over keeps you in the game. Low scoring games is a way teams have been winning for decades.

[Andrew S.]

Except that when you play like crap for 3.5 quarters and suddenly turn it on (see several games that the Broncos played in that streak, especially that one against the Dolphins), it's going to be on the defense to bail your ass out on a repeated basis. If the defense wasn't playing at an extraordinary level, the Broncos would have been nowhere near the playoffs.

[Palin's Buttplug]

And Denver lost to KC 7-3 in the final game of that season then backed into the playoffs.

3 points in a big game vs KC?

[John]

So it is better to get in a high scoring game, not be able to run the clock out and then watch the other team score on a last second bomb?

Denver ended up in exactly the same place with Manning that they did with Tebow. Not surprising given that they signed the greatest regular season and running up meaningless stats for fantasy degenerates quarterback in history.

[Andrew S.]

Their 2012 defense was not nearly as good as their 2011 defense.

There is no conspiracy against Tebow. He's one of a very long line of Heisman-winning QBs and college championship winning QBs who are not good enough to play in the NFL. If Tebow was good enough to play QB in this league, there would be teams lining up to sign him. Teams want to win. And he's not going to make your team a winning team in the long term. One half of a season does not a career make.

[robc]

Im still not convinced.

No one, even Denver, was willing to entirely remake their offense to take advantage of Tebow's skills.

Fox absolutely hated having Tebow as his QB but didnt have any other option.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Their 2012 defense was not nearly as good as their 2011 defense.

They had the second-ranked defense in the league in 2012.

[Auric Demonocles]

So it is better to get in a high scoring game, not be able to run the clock out and then watch the other team score on a last second bomb?

No, it's better for your defense to keep the opposing offense low scoring, while your own offense has the ability score more than points in the teens. Keeping your offense crappy just because your defense is great is stupid. You want both to be as good as possible.

[Fluffy]

I think the reason a lot of fans object to your position is that it reveals that the NFL is run using a "Combine" mentality.

I.e. that it doesn't matter if you win and are successful; all that matters is how you statistically perform at certain measurable tasks on Combine day, or that your height, weight, etc., fall within certain parameters.

NFL coaches think they're performing an engineering task, and a lot of NFL fans think they're watching a sport.

I'm torn, because I understand completely why the NFL is run the way that it is, and how rational it is. But if MLB was run the way that the NFL is run, a guy like Dustin Pedroia (who was, you know, only the MVP one season) wouldn't get drafted and wouldn't play, because his college performance would be ignored because he's too short.

[John]

And time and time again Fluffy, the experts in the NFL fuck it up. Drew Brees fell to the second round because he was "too short". Meanwhile duds like Blaine Gabbert and JeMarcus Russell get drafted high in the first round because they do well in the junior olympics known as the combine.

Football still is a sport. And it does require skill. There is more to it than being a great athlete. And part of being a great athlete is not just being big and fast but also having the ability to master the skills necessary to play the sport. The NFL always forgets that. They always think the coaches at the lower levels are idiots and they are going to be able to teach a player skills even though the college coaches couldn't.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

The NFL always forgets that. They always think the coaches at the lower levels are idiots and they are going to be able to teach a player skills even though the college coaches couldn't.

NFL coaching staffs have come to resemble a government bureaucracy. Vince Lombardi had five assistants. Now, they have coaches for everything from the QB to the pass rushers. Supposedly, they're teaching the players different techniques, but unless it's a radical switch like bringing in Wade Phillips to implement the 5-2 like they have in Houston, are the coaches really improving the players abilities? Or is it that the veterans are actually doing most of the work teaching the younger players the various tricks and techniques needed to be successful against different players and schemes, and these coaches are just proxy security blankets for the head coach?

[John]

I think they are very much like a bureaucracy. And no I don't think they are teaching those skills. And here is why. Time and time again pro coaches go to college and fall on the asses. And the reason usually is not recruiting. They fail because they are used to dealing with players who already know how to play the game. In the NFL the player pretty much either come to the league with skills and learn the nuances from the vets or they wash out. And when the pro coaches are put in a college environment where you can't just cut people and players are coming out of high school and rarely have high levels of skill, they fail.

[Auric Demonocles]

Low scoring games is a way teams have been winning for decades.

Yeah, and those teams are recognized as having good defenses, not good offenses. You want your opponent to be low scoring and your own team to be high scoring.

[robc]

All I know is the 6-pack I won on my Tebow bet with Baked Penguin was extra delicious.

[BakedPenguin]

What's happening to Tebow now is pretty much what I envisaged for him. (Minus the fluke playoff win, naturally).

Also, let me know if you'd like to go double or nothing on Everton making the Champions League.

[robc]

You might have had me 6 weeks ago.

But its too much of an outside shot now.

Fucking ManU cant win against any contenders.

[BakedPenguin]

Hell, Arsenal should have won that game.

[cavalier973]

Dude, don't you know that Tebow is Christian? That stuff can be contagious!

[$park?]

CHRISTFAG!!

[Andrew S.]

They should release both of them.

If Tebow was able to play NFL QB, he's in demand. As it is, no way would I even consider giving him a contract.

When the Jets gave him permission to seek a trade earlier this offseason, multiple teams showed interest -- if Tebow was willing to play Tight End. He's sticking to the delusion that he's a quarterback though.

[Auric Demonocles]

I've heard one report that he is now willing to reconsider other positions. If that's true, he's finally made the right decision, but he may have made it too late.

[Andrew S.]

Tebow has the 5th worst completion percentage (47.9%) of any QB with at least 300 pass attempts in the last 30 years.

An NFL QB should be above 60%.

[Brett L]

No way Sanchez was above that last year unless you're counting interceptions as completions.

[Auric Demonocles]

54.3%

I remember some people last year saying "Sanchez is only completing 54% of his passes! They should put Tebow in!" Now, I agree that 54% is shitty, but it's less shitty than below 50%.

[John]

But Tebow could run. Sanchez couldn't.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

No matter whether Tebow is or could have been a decent QB in the NFL long-term, one thing's for certain--the Jets suck.

[sloopyinca]

Indiana cop awaiting his trial for DUI/homicide from three years ago gets popped over the weekend for....DUI.

His original trial has been delayed because police mishandled every aspect of the crime scene and evidentiary procedure, causing mistrust by the public.

[Ted S.]

His original trial has been delayed because police mishandled every aspect of the crime scene and evidentiary procedure,

How is this different from the way they handle every other crime scene?

[sloopyinca]

How is this different from the way they handle every other crime scene?

Because it looks like it was intentional this time in an atempt to help the defendant as opposed to harm the defendant when it's a "civilian" on trial.

[Matrix]

Bisard then said to the officer, "I know you know who I am. I messed up today. If you guys can cut me a break I promise I will never drink again," according to the police report.

Fine, but if you are caught again, it's summary execution.

[Rich]

Now, *that* is "taking responsibility".

[sloopyinca]

South Carolina police officers actually charged with assault and terminated for tazering woman minding her own business.

[cavalier973]

This has to be an urban legend.

[Jerryskids]

According to the several articles I have been able to find, the local newspapers and TV station don't seem to be particularily interested in this story. All they can tell us is what the cops told them - that they were perfectly justified in the use of force. So why have they been fired? Apparently IA knows something the news reporters don't know and can't be bothered to ask about.

[Brett L]

Neighbors being too loud? Blast them with Iron fuckin' Maiden.

The 71-year-old woman and her 81-year-old husband live in Stockholm, and said they were so put off by their new neighbors' volume that the wife had to resort to using sleeping pills. Their solution? Set up a music system on their balcony, facing their neighbors' home, and blast Iron Maiden songs at the transgressors

[tarran]

Wow, those elderly people were really nice! To lovingly bestow the gift Iron Maiden upon those people rather than seeking revenge!

[PS]

Exactly. It's not like they played a Rush album.

[Rasilio]

Oh no you dinint

You do not dis the Holy Trio

[mad libertarian guy]

This.

But their age is also revealed. Were they to really want some disturbing metal to blare at their neighbors, Maiden is very low on the list. Try some Deathcore, or at the very least something like Dordeduh or Negura Bunget (which I maintain is what Khal Drogo would listen to as he prepares for battle were he alive today).

[Slammer]

Except for Negura Bunget's slow atmospheric sections. Suffocation or Incantation would be the best. But I don't disagree with playing -core shit to piss somebody off, just not listen to it myself.

[mad libertarian guy]

The atmospheric sections make their black sections that much more extreme. It's perfect. Listeners think they're getting a reprieve, but it's just warming up for the next section of blast beats and raging screams from guys who still wear tunics.

[a better weapon]

But their age is also revealed.

Dordeduh? Negura Bunget?

I'm 27 and have no clue what you just said. I think it reveals more about someone who KNOWS who those bands are.

[mad libertarian guy]

Perhaps.

But what I'm getting at is that Iron Maiden was considered awful noise 30 years ago. Now it's rather tame as far as metal is concerned.

And don't worry: unless you're in to the metal underground, no one has heard of Negura Bunget or Dordeduh.

[mad libertarian guy]

Dordeduh!

[Warty]

I've dropped Nile on people I want to annoy. It works.

[mad libertarian guy]

Yes.

Nile even has the ability to turn avid metal lovers mad!

[Warty]

And if you really, really hate them and yourself, Napalm Death.

[Slammer]

I love football, but an underground metal daily subthread would be awesome

[BakedPenguin]

Discordance Axis.

[tarran]

Meh. It's repetitive and kind of boring - I could see it working as a lullaby.

[Slammer]

Y'all have heard of Portal, RIGHT?

[Joe M]

XXX Maniak, most offensive music ever. NSFW to listen to or even look up their album covers btw.

[a better weapon]

THIS is how it's done!

[Ted S.]

I also like this solution.

[Matrix]

I was never big on Iron Maiden. I knew who they were when I was a younger teen, but they weren't really my thing.

But I do remember something from when I was a much younger teen, or maybe even preteen. I was with my grandmother while she was getting her hair done. One of the ladies who was there was talking about how she met some of the band members of Iron Maiden. I guess her grandson, or son had introduced her to them or something. I don't remember the whole story. But I always remember how she thought that the guys from Iron Maiden were "such nice, young men". Here's some 60 year old grandmother talking nicely about Iron Maiden. I had to chuckle to myself. And this was in the early 90s.

[Mr. Soul]

I might have played some Sting, but that would not have ended well.

[mad libertarian guy]

But Maiden is full of nice, young men (though not so young anymore).

Bruce Dickinson is a world class fencing competitor as well as pilot and entrepreneur of some avionics company. He's also fairly libertarian in his anti-tax and regulatory views.

Reason did a story on him and his company a few months ago.

[Don Mynack]

Article from last year describing why Rand Paul was concerned about the tax treaties - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/.....ounts.html

Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said the protocol is too "sweeping" and would threaten protections under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guards against unreasonable search and seizure. Paul said he is exercising his privilege to delay a Senate vote.

"We're concerned about the due process of whether or not people have any kind of process before their records are looked at, the privacy of your banking records," Paul said in an interview last week. "There needs to be some constitutional protections to your banking records."

Much better than that Reuter's garbage linked above.

[Eduard van Haalen]

The Reuters reporter was sincerely trying to wrap his mind around the idea of a Republican supporting "libertarian ideology" rather than business interests, but the overload of information blew some fuses in his brain, so he ended up phoning in the article.

[John]

Ann Althouse with the best piece of snark I have seen in a while.

: I really do find the shots of the audience quite sickening. Do they not realize how they look? It's an anti-advertisement for the services they'd like to sell us. They seem utterly unprepared to confront power. I'm thinking: This is something that should be done in private, like masturbation. Then I realize: This is the public show. Imagine what they do in private.

The point about power is very true. The tongue bath they gave George W. Bush last week is a great example of this. The Washington media spent 8 years telling the world that Bush was evil and stupid. But now that he is out of office and no longer an ideological threat, the media just can't help themselves but lick the boots of a once powerful man. It is just fucking pathetic and sad.

[Bam!]

Then I realize: This is the public show. Imagine what they do in private.

We know what they do in private, Veep shows us weekly.

[cavalier973]

Are you talking about Joe Biden or the TV show?

[a better weapon]

"The things they do on hard wood, man!"

[Ice Nine]

Looks like it might be interesting. So *what* was Althouse talking about? (a link, maybe?)

[John]

http://www.althouse.blogspot.c.....which.html

Sorry. The White House Correspondent's Dinner.

[sloopyinca]

Look, I can't see why they're charging a Delaware police lieutenant because he assaulted a prisoner. Maybe he hadn't been trained not to assault people that had been arrested and put in jail.

[Fatty Bolger]

He prefers working in America, where we have no class: I'm no posh kid, insists 'toffee-named' Benedict Cumberbatch

With his public school education and aristocratic-sounding name, it's hardly surprising Benedict Cumberbatch has been branded one of Britain's poshest actors.
But the Sherlock and Star Trek star has railed against the tag, insisting it's unfair to typecast him as another stereotypical 'posh kid'.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Now that's a name.

[mad libertarian guy]

Liberal delusion.

Yet if the health care law is allowed to work, despite continuing Republican efforts to try to make sure that it doesn't, and if we take into account some other victories -- the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the stimulus that was as large as the political market would bear, the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, the largest since the New Deal if Congress will let it be implemented -- his presidency could go down as a time of historic achievement.

That anyone could consider ANY of these bills a success (and of course Obamacare could be a success if only those dastardly Republicans would just let it!) is mystifying.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Dodd-Frank actually has a great capitalist piece to it. It requires the orderly liquidation of a TBTF bank when their capital falls below Fed standards. This is far better than another TARP.

I know, an LP purist says just let a Citigroup fail and leave 40 million depositors penniless. But that is pretty fucking stupid and would create another Depression as well as mass civil unrest.

[mad libertarian guy]

It might also help create responsible depositors and bank executives to ensure that failing wouldn't happen because of malfeasance.

[Jordan]

You realize that deposit insurance can be handled privately, right? And private insurers actually have an incentive to verify that institutions they are insuring are not behaving recklessly, unlike the FDIC.

Regardless, "Too Big to Fail" is not possible without the Fed and fictional reserve lending.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

And private insurers actually have an incentive to verify that institutions they are insuring are not behaving recklessly, unlike the FDIC.

The irony is that if the FDIC does its job, a bank that is about to break down can do so in an orderly fashion.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I know, an LP purist says just let a Citigroup fail and leave 40 million depositors penniless

You really don't know how the FDIC works, do you?

[Agammamon]

Not penniless - $100,000 dollars worth of account insurance remember?

[SugarFree]

Poe's Law in God Mode!

[$park?]

Everyone loves a good bitchfest, right?

[Brett L]

How dare these friends have fun and post about it on the Internet! Don't they know what it does to modern feminists and their running dog betas who have had their fun centers removed by years of mind-numbing reading of feminist literature? Its kinda like holding a dance tournament at an amputee support group.

[#HOLO YOLO]

Holy shit, I actually did think that was parody, even with your warning.

I guess it's a little relieving to see there are some comments wondering why this is a big deal. A little.

I guess they're banning fewer dissenters, now?

[John]

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/.....doggy-door

Man finds 25 year old naked women had broken in his house and was sitting in his bathtub. Clearly, he was married or gay or the police never would have been called.

[Andrew S.]

I'd avoid it even if I wasn't married. You never f--- crazy, and a naked woman crawling through your doggy door and ending up in your bathtub is about as crazy as it gets.

[John]

There is no sexy like crazy sexy.

[PS]

Yeah, I'd have avoided it, but I doubt I would've called the po po. He probably thought it was safest from a CYA standpoint.

[db]

Totally CYA. The risk involved here is enormous. Best to get your true story on paper before she makes some shit up.

[John]

What a terrible world we live in where you can't safely bang the naked woman you find in your bathtub.

[PS]

Yeah, I had a moment when I figured out a roommate I had was crazy, not asshole or stalker or even Krugman crazy, just crazy crazy, and I left that night.

Probably best to get it on record, but man I hate to involve the cops.

[sloopyinca]

Wasn't this an episode of Leave It To Beaver, except the woman was replaced by a 40 year old hobo?

[John]

Maybe.

[Rich]

Sounds like something out of The Shining.

[Matrix]

FTFA, it says he's married.

But seeing the picture, yeah, I don't think I would be so quick to kick her out.

[John]

The wife totally called the cops.

[$park?]

If you read the linked article you're either stupid or lying!

/John

[John]

Where did I ever say he wasn't married? Perhaps I don't always read the articles. But you might try reading the posts sometime.

[$park?]

John| 4.29.13 @ 9:42AM |#

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/.....doggy-door

Man finds 25 year old naked women had broken in his house and was sitting in his bathtub. Clearly, he was married or gay or the police never would have been called.

Sure, maybe it's an assumption on my part, but this phrasing generally denotes a lack of knowledge.

[John]

Which is not the same as denying he was married.

[Slammer]

Jeez you rapists..she was just there to use the phone! Didn't you read the article?

[sarcasmic]

They've got a doggy door big enough for an adult to crawl through, but they don't have a dog.

You'd think they would have boarded up the dog door or something.

[SugarFree]

Maybe this isn't the first nude 25-year-old they've caught with their clever trap. Maybe they are building The Human Millipede!

[SugarFree]

When I break into people homes while nude, I just get yelled at. 🙁

[tarran]

Dude,

Firstly, when you cram your way through the doggie door, your bulk is pulling the whole door off its hinges!

[SugarFree]

I use the tradesman entrance. No one ever thinks to lock their coal chute. Or I have myself delivered in a huge box.

[Zeb]

My coal chute is exit only.

[Zeb]

Well, I imagine ti would be disturbing to come home and find your ass wedged in a doggy door.

[tarran]

It's like the time Winnie the Pooh got caught in Rabbits burrow.

Except scarier.

[Fatty Bolger]

One of the comments:

Michael Simpson ? Top Commenter
Why doesn't she just use the naked woman door like she's supposed to?

[Pro Libertate]

She entered the house to use the phone, she claims. Is it her fault that she prefers to phone from the bath?

[tarran]

Maybe she thought the shower nozzle *was* the phone.

Googles frantically for image of Captain Haddock spraying himself in the face, fails, gets sad./

[Pro Libertate]

People seem extra crazy these days. Is it the lead pipes?

[WTF]

It's the CHEMTRAILS!!11!!!

[John]

http://pjmedia.com/richardfern.....6/freedom/

Really interesting article on the connection between intelligence and freedom.

Wissner-Gross called this relationship between freedom and intelligence the "Causal Entropic Force ? a drive for the system to make as many futures accessible as possible". The richest future is the one which hasn't been written yet; it the one we are creating ? if we are allowed to create it ? right now. The poorest future is the one in which the Life of Julia must be lived, marked out by almost mechanical signposts, characterized by a drab sameness, political correctness, organized ignorance and total denial of the possibility that any narrative may exist except the official one.

As noted, Wissner-Gross's work has serious implications for AI. And in fact, he says it turns conventional notions of a world-dominating artificial intelligence on its head.

"It has long been implicitly speculated that at some point in the future we will develop an ultrapowerful computer and that it will pass some critical threshold of intelligence, and then after passing that threshold it will suddenly turn megalomaniacal and try to take over the world," he said.

He argues the true process is the reverse: only if you try to maximize your freedom can you manifest the attributes of intelligence. He and his MIT collaborator have written software based on those principles and it displays some of the characteristics of intelligence.

[Hyperion]

right now. The poorest future is the one in which the Life of Julia must be lived, marked out by almost mechanical signposts, characterized by a drab sameness, political correctness, organized ignorance and total denial of the possibility that any narrative may exist except the official one

That's like that most articulate description of the future that progressives want, that I've ever heard.

[John]

It really is. And it also explains why the press corps is so stupid. Other than people in religious cults, I am not sure there is a group of people in the country who are less free than the Washington Press corps. The talking points and truth come down from the White House through a few connected top dogs. Deviating from them will not only cost you your reputation, possibly your job but also all of your friends. It doesn't matter how well established you are, deviate from the orthodoxy and your reputation and status are shot. Look at what they did to Bob Woodward.

Given that, it is not surprising at all that they believe really stupid things.

[generic Brand]

Other than people in religious cults, I am not sure there is a group of people in the country who are less free than the Washington Press corps.

I think I see what you were trying to say, John, but this is a REALLY bad way of saying it. The Washington Press Corps by any observable or measurable standard is not even close to the "least free" in the country. Their special status grants them far more freedoms than 95% of the country. Hell, the one dude took a "banned" gun or magazine onto TV and we have yet to hear how long he's serving in prison.

[John]

They are free in the sense of being free of official oppression. But they are very not free in an intellectual sense. Not all forms of oppression come in the form of laws. If you live in a culture where any deviation from the orthodoxy is brutally punished and your livelihood and social status depend upon upholding the dogma, you are really not free, at least not intellectually.

[John]

http://www.powerlineblog.com/a.....AAVBwx.jpg

The Kochs, they are just like terrorists man.

[PS]

No, terrorists are victims of society's neglect, marginalization and lack of tolerance.

The Kochs are much, much worse.

[Pro Libertate]

Like terrorists? Why so tepid in your condemnation?

[UnCivilServant]

Can't you tell from the phrasing that's he's stoned while posting that? It's hard to get angry and condemn people with that in your system.

[John]

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-.....un-control

Manchin not giving up on gun control. Remember back in 2010 when he was supposed to be a pro gun good kind of Democrat? Neither do I. There is no such thing. Every Democrat will vote for gun control every time unless there is an election coming up and they have no other choice.

[Andrew S.]

Either he's not going to run again or the WV Democrats are going to have to primary him. Can't see him winning an election (he's back up for election next year, right?).

[sloopyinca]

No, next year is the other (Rockefeller) seat that's being vacated. It'll be highly competitive to say the least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.....inia,_2014

[Palin's Buttplug]

Yeah, because a background check for a nutcase/felon/terrorist is the same as banning guns.

Just like Libya=Iraq.

Wingnuttery at its finest.

(for the record I don't care about background checks but Heller clearly allows it).

[John]

Fuck you you ignorant piece of shit. You already have to have a background check to buy a gun. This would just make criminals out of anyone who loans a gun to a friend or sells one on the internet.

The bill has nothing to do with background checks. It is about criminalizing as many people who own guns as possible. That is because you and your ilk are nothing but fascist pieces of trash who want to disarm people so that you can use the mob to terrorize your opponents.

Fuck you fascist.

[Libertymike]

Has Reason conducted a background check on shriek?

[Mike M.]

Yes, and it turns out his real name is Dave Weigel.

[Palin's Buttplug]

So you support current background checks?

FASCIST COCKSUCKER!

[Libertymike]

Are you accusing John or me or both of us of being fascist cocksuckers?

Do you think that I support ANY background checks for any person exercising their unalienable rights?

Background checks constitute an impermissible interference with a natural person's right to keep and bear arms.

[John]

Fuck you. I don't support any of it. But there already is a background check provision in the law.

[Slammer]

And a piece of photo ID to vote is a terrible fucking burden, right?

[sgs]

"Yeah, because a background check for a nutcase/felon/terrorist is the same as banning guns."

Who cares whether it is or not, it's anti-freedom and decidedly unlibertarian, which makes m wonder why you're implying you support them.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I saw a dude at Pentagon bus terminal this a.m. that hit every single hipster stereotype. I wish I had my goddamn camera.

Picture: burnt orange Members Only-style jacket; brown, extremely tight, tapered ankle corduroys; pointy-toes shoes; handlebar 'stache; thick-rimmed glasses; dirty, disheveled hair; pushing a tiny little folding bike, running to catch a bus. Oh, and rather than bring his teensy bike on the bus, he made a show of completely unfolding it so he could stash it on the bike rack on the fron of the bus.

[John]

How do these people exist? Why do they exist? Who would want to be like that? Who is that desperate for attention?

[Slammer]

You forgot to mention his pants were actually his little sisters

[Kaptious Kristen]

HAAAA! Punctuation....

[Warty]

So the ricin wasn't mailed to Obama by the Elvis impersonator, it was mailed by a pedophile ninja who wanted to frame the Elvis impersonator in order get revenge for the Elvis impersonator encouraging the little girls the pedophile ninja was fucking to come forward. Got all that?

[John]

Damn.

[Pro Libertate]

Reality is fucking weird.

[SugarFree]

Reality is fucking weird awesome! What a better story this makes. Ninjas and Elvis and biologic weapons! Woo!

[John]

No fiction could ever equal that.

[Pro Libertate]

If I saw that in a movie that was anything but a surrealist comedy, I'd probably walk out.

[tarran]

Wasn't this the plot of Burn After Reading?

[Brett L]

Burn After Reading had a plot?

[Warty]

You can't just drop a sex chair onscreen. You have to wrap it in at least a vestigal plot.

[robc]

I was thinking that even before this last bit, this could be made into an awesome movie.

It would be a weird, dark comedy, but awesome.

[robc]

Sort of "the man with one red shoe" but with actual humor.

[sarcasmic]

Is Quentin Tarantino available?

[Pro Libertate]

No, too reality-based. We need Salvador Dali or, since he's dead, someone like him. Only not dead.

[SugarFree]

Lena Dunham could direct the entire thing in a single 24-hour airplane glue binge.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, there's always Herzog. In fact, there's Herzog.

[SugarFree]

I have always complained about the lack of ninjas in Herzog's body of work.

[Pro Libertate]

This curious omission will soon be remedied.

[robc]

To screw it up?

[Brett L]

If only the Elvis impersonator was actually a pirate, the Internet would implode.

[Warty]

Two GIFs for no reason:

Eeeeeee!

Hmmmmmm...

[Kaptious Kristen]

That's a spectacular pussy, right there.

[Pro Libertate]

This is why there are no libertarian women, Kristen.

[Kaptious Kristen]

One of my strongest skills is Othering.

[Pro Libertate]

She's a bad other--

[db]

Shut yo' mouth!

[Pro Libertate]

But I'm talkin' 'bout Kristen!

[Kaptious Kristen]

Ya daaaaamn right

[John]

The Calico is at 15lbs. She is just enormous. And she still is a bit gawky.

[Warty]

I hope you have plenty of rabbits and baby raccoons for her to dismember. It would be shame to let such killing power go unused.

[Brett L]

Ugh. My cat appears to have taken exception to me moving in the gf full time. I haven't seen the little bastard in two weeks. Been looking on Craigslist and checking the pound. So far, he appears to have gone completely off the grid. I wish him good hunting and that his new home have no pizza delivery guys (his mortal enemy who would send him scampering under the bed). Also, he is welcome to show up again at any time. But he's got to accept the female helper monkey.

[John]

That sucks man. I never let my cats out. They hate me for it. But outdoor cats just live short lives.

[Warty]

We went through a period where 3 or 4 cats disappeared in a year. I have my suspicions about one of the rednecks. Luckily, his daughter died soon after that, so fuck him.

[John]

Poisoning cats is a favorite dumb hillbilly/redneck trick. There is something about disgusting white trash that causes them to hate cats.

[Brett L]

Probably when they had to compete for food with cats when their momma's drunken boyfriends made the little fuckers live in the barn as children.

[John]

That is probably something to do with it Brett.

[Heroic Mulatto]

That's because they're incestuous inbred cat-people.

[Warty]

Luckily, dying of drug overdoses in Burger King bathrooms is a favorite trick of disgusting white trash's daughters.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I wonder who supplied her with the drugs....

[John]

Dying of an overdose in a Burger King bathroom. I am having a hard time coming up with a worse fate. If you are going to die of a drug overdose, do it as a groupie to some rock band or out in the desert trying to find God or something with a little bit of style.

[Warty]

It might have been a Wendy's. For her sake, I hope it was.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Dying of an overdose in a Burger King bathroom. I am having a hard time coming up with a worse fate

You've never seen Warty's basement...

[Brett L]

He has a cat door. I haven't seen him on the side of the road. I'm just going to pretend he found a nice new owner who spoils the shit out of him... on a "farm".

For all I know, that's what happened, although he has never taken to anyone but me.

[John]

Or he got picked up and adopted out to some crazy cat lady who now feeds him tuna by hand every day.

[$park?]

If you weren't in Florida, I'd say he was hiding in the basement.

[John]

What Sparky said. Never underestimate a cat's ability to disappear. Have you been checking his food to see if it is gone? Put out something he really likes and see what happens.

[Brett L]

There are at least 4 other well cared for cats in the neighborhood. Yes, I put out tuna a couple of times (inside my house), but "Other Cat" -- literally the other cat that someone else owns that will come in the porch door (but not the house) comes by just about every time I'm outside. I have never seen a cat that will travel the whole block looking for people outside so she can attention whore.

[Bam!]

What if we never run out of oil?

[Virginian]

Fun fact: doom mongering predictions of oil running out have been issued since the Harding Administration.

[some guy]

What if? I guarantee we'll never run out of oil. Just like we never ran out of whale oil or trees.

[Pro Libertate]

Agreed. To be honest, I, back in, say, 1990, thought we'd be well on the way to alternative energy (maybe even fusion) as well as flitting about the solar system by now.

[db]

If Thomas Gold was right, we may never. Of course, that is a HUGE "if" (see my comments above about scientists speculating outside their fields of expertise).

[sarcasmic]

This perspective has a corollary: natural resources cannot be used up. If one deposit gets too expensive to drill, social scientists (most of them economists) say, people will either find cheaper deposits or shift to a different energy source altogether. Because the costliest stuff is left in the ground, there will always be petroleum to mine later. "When will the world's supply of oil be exhausted?" asked the MIT economist Morris Adelman, perhaps the most important exponent of this view. "The best one-word answer: never." Effectively, energy supplies are infinite.

exactly

[Mike M.]

Even if we never run out of oil, the psychotic lefty environmentalist whackos will do everything in their power to try to prevent us from using it.

[sloopyinca]

SugarFree's extended family given a second chance to beat the diabeetus.

FTA: The monkeys loved the juices.

"They drank them back. Then they would open the paper cup and lick the inside, it amazed them, " said Andrew, 49.

Wendell regained his sight after drinking the juices.

The trip was so successful, Andrew and Carol have been asked to produce a cook book for monkey sanctuaries throughout the USA.

Humanity is fucking awesome.

[SugarFree]

They initially became vegetarians, although their diet is now vegan and based around juicing.

Sounds awesome.

[Pro Libertate]

Juicing what? That's what I want to know.

We went out and picked blueberries on Saturday. I now have 18-20 pounds of them in my fridge. Very tasty.

[robc]

Do you know how many gallons of blueberry wheat beer I could make with that?

[Pro Libertate]

You should do a road trip. Just $3/pound.

[robc]

Local blackberries in June and I prefer them to blueberries anyway.

[Pro Libertate]

Fresh blueberries are pretty awesome, though I love blackberries, too. Used to pick those wild as a kid.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Isn't it early for blueberries? Or am I thinking like a Vermonter? We used to hike up Mt. Mansfield in June and grab wild blueberries right off of the side of the trail.

[robc]

I think everything is always in season in Florida.

[Pro Libertate]

It's the beginning of the season, but it's not early. We've picked them much later, like in June-July, I think.

Blackberries are available in the summer. Think I'm going to get some this year.

We have strawberries in February (there are a couple of seasons for harvesting them each year, I think).

[sarcasmic]

I've got a five gallon batch of blackberry wine that's just about ready to bottle. Yum.

[Brett L]

How gallons of blackberries does this require?

[sarcasmic]

I used four pounds per gallon.

[Brett L]

Thanks.

[sarcasmic]

Google 'blackberry wine recipe' and then take your pick. I chose to make a medium bodied dry wine.

[sloopyinca]

So they've replaced burgers and fries with sugar-laden fruit juices in an attempt to turn back Type 2 diabeetus?

[SugarFree]

Type II is driven only by your weight. If you lose weight drinking juices far less calories than you burn, your 'beetus is going to get better.

Of course, they could be drinking kale juice, or some such vileness.

[Brett L]

Yes. For all we know from the article, they were putting one blueberry in with indigestible fiber.

[sloopyinca]

Somalia to get mail service for first time in over 20 years.

Don't get too excited. The United Nations postal agency is running it, so there'll probably be more rape and prostitution than parcel deliveries.

[Brett L]

What better way to know all the hot and slutty 10 year olds to sell into prostitution?

[ravengabriel]

what Jamie explained I cant believe that any one can get paid $7446 in one month on the internet. have you read this site link
go to this site home tab for more detail http://WWW.BIG76.COM

[Virginian]

How the hell is Jamie making that much money with only one hand to type with?

[sarcasmic]

Police kidnap children of marijuana activists.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-care.html

Seems there is a pattern developing.

[John]

God love them. They have more balls than I do. But you really have to have a death wish to be a marijuana activist.

[sarcasmic]

Good people stand by an allow evil to flourish because evil will do things like kidnap their children.

[robc]

Any constant phrasing anyone has used to reasonable away the work at home spammers?

Maybe "in one moth on the internet"?

[robc]

That is weird, now its gone.

Good job squirrels.

[sarcasmic]

Squirrels stole the letter 'n' again?

[Slammer]

"Wow, sounds like a crazy plan to me, dude"

[LTC(ret) John]

Soemtimes you jsut have to roll with it!

[db]

As Julie remarked, the flapping of a single moth's wings on the Internet can cause storms with winds up to 72000 miles/month.

[John]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....9-07-57-18

Wow. I guys fatso really wants the job as Obama's power bottom.