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Official Says 'Everybody' Thought Benghazi Was a Terrorist Attack, Bloomberg Sees No Need for NYPD Reforms, Russians Protest Against Putin: P.M. Links

J.D. Tuccille | 5.6.2013 4:30 PM

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  • Michael Bloomberg
    Rubenstein

    Greg Hicks, the then number-two State Department official in Libya, says that "everybody" assumed the Benghazi attack was a terrorist act, which is a little off-message from the official White House story.

  • Ilinois is scheduled to have its healthcare exchange up and running in June, but the offerings will be a tad sparse. Only half as many insurance companies as the state expected have signed up to participate.
  • A jihadist magazine is advertising for help with hacking and seizing control of drones. Interested applicants should apply to: The Smoking Crater, Afghanistan.
  • Despite what might be called a shit storm of complaints about police conduct in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomber insists that subjecting the NYPD to an Inspector General or reining-in "stop and frisk" would "undermine public safety."
  • Chicago faces a lawsuit over taxi regulations so restrictive that cabbies complain they can't make a living.
  • Tens of thousands of rather courageous Russians turned out in Moscow to protest against Vladimir Putin.
  • Having legalized marijuana for recreatonal use, Colorado is now considering reforming sentencing for other drug "offenses."

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J.D. Tuccille is a contributing editor at Reason.

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  1. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

    …which is a little off-message from the official White House story.

    In the White House’s defense, they wanted to attack free speech, saw an opportunity and ran with it.

    1. C. Anacreon   12 years ago

      It sure would be fun if this became a huge black mark against HRC and torpedoed her planned 2016 run. You can just see a 2016 commercial with her voice saying over and over “what difference does it make” while film of flames, panic and corpses fill the screen.

      Yeah, like that will ever happen.

      1. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

        Anyone but a Clinton, maybe.

      2. CE   12 years ago

        Being 150 years old will probably torpedo her chances more.

        1. Fatty Bolger   12 years ago

          Being Looking 150 years old will probably torpedo her chances more.

          1. Mechafenris   12 years ago

            She doesn’t look a day over 125.

  2. A Serious Man   12 years ago

    Greg Hicks, the then number-two State Department official in Libya, says that “everybody” assumed the Benghazi attack was a terrorist act, which is a little off-message from the official White House story.

    Is that a bus I see barreling towards Mr. Hicks?

  3. gaijin   12 years ago

    A jihadist magazine is advertising

    Two of these three things do not go together.

    1. Brandon   12 years ago

      A jihadist clip is advertising?

      1. gaijin   12 years ago

        +1 bullet

  4. $park?   12 years ago

    I wish I had know before today that this song existed.

    An Italian singer tries to sound like an American. Supposedly the lyrics are complete nonsense in any language.

    1. rts   12 years ago

      Bob Dylan did it first.

      1. $park?   12 years ago

        I didn’t know Bob Dylan was Ital… oh, I get it.

    2. Joe M   12 years ago

      One of the more distinctive American English phonemes is the central close mid vowel, or schwa, ? , which sounds like “uhhhhh…” Bet that video has a lot of it.

      1. Heroic Mulatto   12 years ago

        You’re correct. I suspect the schwa is the reason why American English is supposedly easy to sing.

        1. Rufus J. Firefly   12 years ago

          That was classic. Oll right!

  5. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

    …Mayor Michael Bloomber insists that subjecting the NYPD to an Inspector General or reining-in “stop and frisk” would “undermine public safety.”

    I think we can assume Bloomber doesn’t see any of his unconstitutional policies as ever being possibly wrong.

    1. Aresen   12 years ago

      When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.

      – Niccolo Machiavelli

      1. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

        He was talking about swords!

        1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

          Bloomberg and the rest of the bantards are not okay with you walking around with a sword either.

        2. Art Vandelay   12 years ago

          Why does anyone NEED a sword?

          1. Aresen   12 years ago

            Depends if you are immortal or not.

          2. EDG reppin' LBC   12 years ago

            I need a sword, because walking around in a cape without a sword looks ridiculous.

            1. hamilton   12 years ago

              Tell that to Batman.

              1. Aresen   12 years ago

                OTOH, Batman hangs around with a teenage boy.

                1. prolefeed   12 years ago

                  More like a twink than a teenage boy.

                2. Bobarian   12 years ago

                  or a tween girl, or a prostitute, or some combinations of these.

                  The only thing really strange is that he wears his underwear outside his pants. But maybe that goes good with a cape?

          3. gaijin   12 years ago

            double edged swords are clearly for military use only and should be banned.

            1. CE   12 years ago

              And who needs that curved thingy that keeps your hand from getting cut except the King’s combat swordsmen? I think we can safely call that an assault sword feature, which should be banned.

    2. Paul.   12 years ago

      His policies aren’t wrong because he doesn’t see anything wrong with them.

      1. Aresen   12 years ago

        His policies are right because his wrongs are only against wronginess.

        (Or something like that.)

  6. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

    Man with world’s largest penis releases song

    1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

      Before I click, is it Jonah Falcon? I don’t want to hear Jonah Falcon singing.

      1. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

        Yes you do

        1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

          That was beyond terrible.

          1. Irish   12 years ago

            Putting a dick of that size on a guy who looks like that seems like a bit of a waste.

            1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

              It doesn’t matter what he looks like; the Edmund Hillarys and Admiral Peary’s of the size queen world will want to test their mettle.

              1. Irish   12 years ago

                I don’t know if anyone can handle that thing. Let’s hope he’s not a grower.

            2. gaijin   12 years ago

              I dunno, hand models find work.

    2. gaijin   12 years ago

      I would be more impressed if the world’s largest penis sang it.

      1. A Serious Man   12 years ago

        South Park did it.

        1. gaijin   12 years ago

          hah! I should have known.

      2. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

        I think that’s covered by John Mayer’s discography.

        1. gaijin   12 years ago

          that cat sings?

      3. hamilton   12 years ago

        Paul Krugman probably can’t sing.

        1. Bobarian   12 years ago

          +1 NY Times subscription

    3. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

      This report is incorrect. I don’t have a song out.

    4. Kaptious Kristen   12 years ago

      He looks like Phil Helmuth before Phil dropped all that weight.

  7. A Serious Man   12 years ago

    Next January the LA Kings will play the Anaheim Ducks in a regular season game at Dodger Stadium.

    1. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

      Outdoor ice in LA?
      CLIMATE CHANGE

    2. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

      Yeah, I heard about that. What is the weather generally like there in January?

      1. EDG reppin' LBC   12 years ago

        If played at night, the temperature at Chavez Ravine could easily be @ 40 degrees. If played during daylight, they will be playing in slush.

        1. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

          A swim meet could be interesting, too.

      2. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

        Chilly but pleasant. We have outdoor ice rinks, they just have to work harder to maintain them.

      3. A Serious Man   12 years ago

        I’m sure they have a device that can keep the ice frozen on the field for one game.

        But at night it can get down into the low 40s. We recently had an exceptionally cold January where it got down to almost 30 at some points.

        1. John   12 years ago

          Do it at night. And if it is a bit warm, put large coolers around the rink.

        2. Almanian!   12 years ago

          it got down to almost 30

          LUXURY!

          We call that “spring” in Midwest flyover country.

        3. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

          we got up to 25C today!
          (that’s 77 on the ancient scale)

          1. Zeb   12 years ago

            The “C” stands for Communist.

          2. CE   12 years ago

            When it comes to temperature scales, the old ways are best, as is often the case. Who wants a system where it doesn’t snow until it gets below zero, and 30 degrees is hot? 100 degrees from ice to steam is not enough range, since most of the time the weather is between 10 and 30C.

  8. Zombie Jimbo   12 years ago

    Now THAT is how you do alt-text.

  9. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

    Tens of thousands of rather courageous Russians turned out in Moscow to protest against Vladimir Putin.

    In Russia, numbers find strength in you.

  10. Irish   12 years ago

    I posted this late last night, so a lot of people probably didn’t see it. It’s too funny not to repost.

    Mitt Romney says he thinks college students should have a lot of children. Amanda Marcotte compares him to a eugenicist.

    1. Zombie Jimbo   12 years ago

      This word, I do not think you know what it means.

      1. prolefeed   12 years ago

        She also called him a racist:

        “As the country becomes more racially diverse, one should be clear what Republicans are doing when they tell white people to breed more.”

        Funny, the quote doesn’t mention race at all — it’s basically boilerplate Mormonism — get married and have a lot of kids.

        1. fish   12 years ago

          …one should be clear what Republicans are doing when they tell white people to breed more.”

          As long as Mandy isn’t breeding I’ll take that as todays feel good moment.

        2. Cavpitalist   12 years ago

          you think non-white people go to college? what a racist you are.

  11. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

    recap From the weekend:
    Montreal holds first-ever gathering of redheads

    1. Episiarch   12 years ago

      Don’t tell Auric, he might have a heart attack. Wait, no: tell him, right away.

      1. Auric Demonocles   12 years ago

        Thankfully I took an aspirin today to deal with a hangover.

        You know, Montreal really is not that far away from me and one of my friends from undergrad is doing a postdoc there right now. Maybe I should go visit him.

        1. Auric Demonocles   12 years ago

          GOD DAMN IT I MISSED IT. Maybe they haven’t left yet. My friend actually had asked me if I wanted to go up this past weekend.

    2. Generic Stranger   12 years ago

      First ever? Pretty sure Ireland beat them to the punch…

    3. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

      Looks like I missed an opportunity to get my sunscreen lotion truck business off the ground.

      1. $park?   12 years ago

        Why would anyone buy a sunscreen lotion truck?

        1. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

          That’s what I’ve been asking myself.

          1. $park?   12 years ago

            Perhaps if you started in Africa. I hear it’s always sunny there.

          2. JW   12 years ago

            The hard part is squeezing the truck, to get that last little bit out.

        2. gaijin   12 years ago

          Why would anyone buy a sunscreen lotion truck?

          To provide free application services of course. duh.

          1. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

            You may be on to something.

        3. Libertarian Book Club   12 years ago

          Step 3

  12. Ted S.   12 years ago

    Despite what might be called a shit storm of complaints about police conduct in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomber insists that subjecting the NYPD to an Inspector General or reining-in “stop and frisk” would “undermine public safety.”

    Blomberg thinks he is the public.

    1. CE   12 years ago

      But what about that part of the public who thinks getting stopped and frisked by the police isn’t safe?

  13. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

    Having legalized marijuana for recreatonal use, Colorado is now considering reforming sentencing for other drug “offenses.”

    Get ready for the hissy fit from the state’s prosecutors.

  14. $park?   12 years ago

    Some days after reading through all the articles on reason, I feel like this.

    So here, maybe this will help.

  15. Virginian   12 years ago

    http://swampland.time.com/2013…..d=tsmodule

    TERRORIST!!!!!

  16. Paul.   12 years ago

    Greg Hicks, the then number-two State Department official in Libya, says that “everybody” assumed the Benghazi attack was a terrorist act, which is a little off-message from the official White House story.

    Define “everybody”.

    1. Rich   12 years ago

      “Everybody in the mission”, Paul. Duh!

      Now, define “in the mission”.

  17. KPres   12 years ago

    Great. The fact that you said the name Bloomberg means I’m going to be pissed off for at least the next 3 hours. Was this really enough of a story to ruin my afternoon, Reason?

    1. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

      Technically he didn’t use that name.

      1. rac3rx   12 years ago

        Yeah, I originally read it as “Bloomer”.

  18. Virginian   12 years ago

    http://www.medicalnewstoday.co…..260148.php

    So?

    1. Brandon   12 years ago

      80% of suicidal teens do not have easy access to firearms! Huzzah!

    2. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

      I wonder what percentage have access to acetaminophen?

      1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

        Ugh, don’t give teens any ideas, Tylenol ODs are such a fucking mess, and usually they just end up crippling your liver rather than killing you outright.

        1. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

          I know, but unfortunately it’s just a Google search away.

      2. rts   12 years ago

        Imagine my bemusement when I first moved to the UK and tried to buy “too much” paracetamol.

        1. rts   12 years ago

          More up-to-date source, with bonus extra-bullshit graph on lives saved.

  19. Virginian   12 years ago

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie…..t-22408341

    THE OCEAN IS TURNING INTO ACID!!!!!

    1. John   12 years ago

      Let me guess, global warming?

      1. Art Vandelay   12 years ago

        Who cares why it’s happening, As long as it’s an excuse for MOAR REGULASHUNZ!!!

    2. gaijin   12 years ago

      man, that explains why the last time I was at the beach the sound of the waves was… orange.

    3. Killazontherun   12 years ago

      Awe man, wrong kind of acid.

    4. tarran   12 years ago

      A ph increase of 0.02 per decade?!?

      So I do some digging: ph dropped from the basic 8.24 to the slighly less basic 8.19.

      The OH- ions still outnumber the H+ ions 1000 : 1.

      Oh noes! No way organisms can adapt to slight changes!!!!11111

      Why am I not surprised to find that that superstitious tripe on BBC’s website is authored by Harrabin?

      It’s going to be really funny when the BBS’s heavily-invested-in-AGW-promoting-corps pension fund tanks. The fuckers deserve it.

      1. Brett L   12 years ago

        Decrease, right?

        1. tarran   12 years ago

          Decrease, right. 🙂

  20. Bam!   12 years ago

    Pet food stamps for low-income families

    How about this? Get rid of the fucking dog.

    1. gaijin   12 years ago

      or eat it

      1. Anonymous Coward   12 years ago

        This isn’t Korea, this is AMURICAH! Sure we let cops suffocate dogs in cars, but we don’t eat them!

        1. UnCivilServant   12 years ago

          speak for yourself, those dogs ate better than the cow that became dinner, they’re perfectly safe to eat.

    2. Brandon   12 years ago

      Give it to the cops and let nature take its course.

    3. Tonio   12 years ago

      How about this, it’s a private program so mind your own business. You’re of course entitled to an opinion, but others are also entitled to push back against that opinion. And thanks to Reason for providing this opportunity.

  21. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

    A MAN who tried to confront a driver who backed into his wife?s SUV ended up clinging to the front of a speeding car – and his ordeal was caught on video.

    Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world-n…..z2SXyA75Iy

    1. EDG reppin' LBC   12 years ago

      He watched too much TJ Hooker!

  22. $park?   12 years ago

    Chili ain’t just good eatin’.

    The man smashed the cash register on the floor, and hit Tarnosk in the chest, police reported. She then threw a vat of hot chili in her attacker’s face, sending him to the floor.

    “I didn’t think twice, I just wanted to protect myself. I threw all the chilli on his face here and then he got crazy because of that,” Tarnoski told Sky.

    1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

      I don’t know what that picture is, but it’s not chili.

      1. $park?   12 years ago

        That’s what I thought too, I’m sure it was just some stooge looking for a food picture.

    2. Almanian!   12 years ago

      No one NEEDS a whole bowl of chili. Was is con carne? Cause if so….ASSAULT CHILI….

      1. Joe M   12 years ago

        Dude, she had a vat That’s like a nuclear warhead of chili.

        1. mad libertarian guy   12 years ago

          If in the wrong hands, it can certainly feel like there is a chemical attack happening.

    3. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

      “You guys don’t get it. I’m not trapped in here with you. You’re trapped in here with me.”

  23. Libertarian Book Club   12 years ago

    Tens of thousands of rather courageous Russians turned out in Moscow to protest against Vladimir Putin.

    How courageous? Rather more than award-winning Gaby Giffords, I suspect.

    1. Art Vandelay   12 years ago

      Putin is nothing compared to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

    2. DJF   12 years ago

      What about the 11 million residents of Moscow who courageously did not protest?

      1. Libertarian Book Club   12 years ago

        Gabby Gifford-oviches, all of them.

  24. Virginian   12 years ago

    http://abcnews.go.com/Internat…..YgTj7VJMuc

    You know what? I think this is kind of bullshit.

    We’re coming up on 70 years since 1945. Anyone who is still alive was a fucking spear carrier during the war. The architects of the genocide are dead and buried. What was this guy supposed to do? Poison the guards dinner?

    1. John   12 years ago

      How about we arrest a few former communists? Their crimes are a bit more recent.

      1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

        Hush now, that’s totally different because lookoverthere!

      2. Zeb   12 years ago

        The Communists didn’t get destroyed in an open war, so they never had to admit how evil they were.

        1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

          When you consider how many people the Communists killed in the absence of any large wars and pitched battles, it’s absolutely staggering how much of bastards they were. It’s one thing to be awful to your enemies (something that has a long history in human society), but to be awful on that level to your own people is something else entirely.

        2. mad libertarian guy   12 years ago

          The Communists didn’t get destroyed in an open war, so they never had to admit how evil they were.

          Nope they failed all on their own accord.

    2. Night Elf Mohawk   12 years ago

      He was just following orders anyway.

    3. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

      Anyone who is still alive was a fucking spear carrier during the war.

      Maybe, but Nazi Germany’s base of support was in large part young people, and the SS was overwhelmingly comprised of young men in their 20s. Maybe if the guy was Wehrmacht, a draftee, something to that effect, but joining the SS was selective, voluntary, and ideological — a whole different kettle of fish.

      1. Virginian   12 years ago

        Yes, the SS was ideological but they also fielded the elite combat units. Much in the same way someone might want to volunteer for the Airborne or SF in Vietnam: you’d be with volunteers, not draftees.

        Plus, can you really consider anything in Nazi Germany to be voluntary?

        1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

          Plus, can you really consider anything in Nazi Germany to be voluntary?

          Well, the guys in the SS weren’t dragged into the organization kicking and screaming — so yeah.

          And I mean, come on:

          In an interview last month with Die Welt newspaper at his home in southwestern Germany, Lipschis said he spent his entire time as a cook and had witnessed none of the atrocities. He did say, however, that he “heard about” what was going on.

          That has to be the “smoked, but didn’t inhale” of the death camp world. I’ve been to Auschwitz. It’s not that big, and many of the atrocities were committed right in the center of the camp. You’d have to be fuckin’ Hellen Keller to not notice that shit.

          1. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

            “I was never a member of the Nazi Party! I only followed orders. I had nothing to do with the war! I didn’t even know there was a war on. We lived in the back, right across from Switzerland. All we heard was yodelling… yoodle le he hoo”

          2. Virginian   12 years ago

            Except the Hitler Youth was strongly encouraged, and anyone who did well in that would have been recruited heavily for the SS….and it’s kind of an offer you don’t refuse.

            Eh I just have an issue with people who are descended from people who kept their mouths shut and pretended not to know what was going on going after someone who did the exact same thing.

            I mean, anyone who had kids born 1946 kept their heads down, didn’t speak out against the regime, didn’t make waves. The prosecutor’s parents and grandparents were most likely not trying to assassinate Hitler or spying for the Allies. They were doing the same exact thing this guy did: what they were told to do.

            Hell, one of the main thing German women did for the war effort was launder the stolen clothes of the murdered for further use. Or stuffing mattresses with human hair. So how come they aren’t getting those elderly Fraus on some charges?

            1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

              Eh I just have an issue with people who are descended from people who kept their mouths shut and pretended not to know what was going on going after someone who did the exact same thing.

              But it’s not the same. Inaction isn’t the same as action — and working a death camp, being part of the SS, etc *is* action. A Social Democrat or Catholic who was a party loyalist and maybe fought on the East front for patria isn’t exactly on the same moral plane as someone who works what is effectively a domestic murder mill — it’s the difference between living in the Gaza Strip and working for Hezbollah. Since we have proof for this guy’s complicity, I have no problem with a trial to mete out justice contingent on this guy’s actions.

              1. Virginian   12 years ago

                I mean, I’d argue there’s an omnipresent coercion.

                If someone breaks into a building, and holds the people hostage, and then he turns to you and tells you to kill one of the women or he’ll kill you and the woman, how responsible are you if you kill the woman? Because that’s the position he was in. It’s one thing if you’ve got the gleeful sadistic fucks like Mengele.

                But this guy just seems like one more brainwashed dupe. By the time he’s confronted with the reality of what his country has become, it’s too late. He can die with these people, or do evil things and live. We all like to imagine ourselves defiantly refusing to do evil. But there’s plenty of room in that gas chamber.

                1. Jerryskids   12 years ago

                  Ask the average person what he would do in a bad situation – say, Germany in 1939 or the American South in 1859 – and he’ll tell you he wouldn’t act like the average person did in fact act. Which is of course statistically highly improbable – the average person tends to act like the average person.

                  Many years ago in school we had a classroom argument going over whether the US or the USSR would be more likely to use nuclear weapons in a first strike. Most of the class argued that there was simply no way the US would ever be the first to nuke another country given the fact that nukes would necessarily target civilians and the US doesn’t do that sort of thing. Then some asshole mentioned how disappointed he was to learn that apparently most of the class had never heard of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Yes, our government would do horrible things – and the average person will defend it for doing so.

      2. prolefeed   12 years ago

        but joining the SS was selective, voluntary, and ideological — a whole different kettle of fish.

        Not always. Read about a German volunteer firefighter whose entire outfit was involuntarily made into police — which subsequently made them all automatically SS.

        1. prolefeed   12 years ago

          See page 99 here from “They Thought They Were Free”:

          archive.org/details/theythoughttheyw027497mbp

          1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

            Interesting that it happened in the pre-war period; my understanding from reading Richard Evans was that the SS preferred to wholesale supplant local institutions rather than co-opt them where it was possible and that they were reduced to going with local institutions after the war due to manpower shortages.

        2. PapayaSF   12 years ago

          True. G?nter Grass was conscripted into the Waffen-SS. Apparently there were many such conscripts after 1943.

    4. Heroic Mulatto   12 years ago

      What was this guy supposed to do? Poison the guards dinner?

      That wouldn’t have been a bad idea, actually.

      1. Virginian   12 years ago

        OK, so they torture him to death, and they get new guards.

        I mean, you’re just demanding that some young guy rebel against a system hes been brainwashed into, all alone, with no support. That’s the action of a true hero, and true heroes just aren’t that common.

        1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

          He could have not joined the SS. There was a lot of pressure for the excelling Hitler Youth to join up, but there were also plenty of Wehrmacht recruiters and of course there’s always the option of coasting so that you don’t get singled out to be part of the SS.

          Sorry, but while I have some level of sympathy for people born into circumstances where they’re taught immorality from an early age, that doesn’t mitigate the need for justice when an injustice has been committed — it reinforces the need for justice now so that such cultures and behaviors don’t get passed down to later generations and so that some level of restitution for past crimes can be made.

          1. prolefeed   12 years ago

            I think the charges are bullshit collectivism: “He was there, so he was responsible for whatever anyone did.”

            If he personally murdered someone, prove it. And even then, what if the choice was, “You can carry out this order, or else you can take off your guard uniform and join all those people over there lined up to take a ‘shower’.”

            1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

              “He was there, so he was responsible for whatever anyone did.”

              Well that’s nonsense if that’s what the charge actually is, but I have nothing against holding a trial to see what this guy did and what the evidence against him is, exactly.

              It’s a 99% certainty that he’s lying if he’s saying that he never witnessed any atrocities in the 4 years he was there, so I’d like something a bit more reliable than his own word for what happened. Hell, he was there a little bit before Eichmann’s major reforms of the concentration camps and delineation of official roles (e.g., cook and such). Suffice it to say, I’m dubious of the notion that this guy was a poor German mixed up in something he didn’t support.

              1. prolefeed   12 years ago

                Witnessing an atrocity is not the same as committing one, especially when quitting your job is a good way to get sent to the front lines on the Eastern Front, or join the inmates in the concentration camp.

                I’m guessing all the surviving prisoners there also witnessed some atrocities — does that make them culpable?

                If he personally voluntarily did something bad, and they can prove it, fine. Throw the book at him then.

                1. prolefeed   12 years ago

                  How about the surviving prisoners who got horrific jobs that kept them alive — try them too?

        2. Heroic Mulatto   12 years ago

          OK, so they torture him to death, and they get new guards.

          No…what you do is go by the latrine where prisoners are dying from typhus, touch stuff but don’t wash your hands before preparing the food.

    5. ant1sthenes   12 years ago

      What difference, at this point, does it make?

  25. Anonymous Coward   12 years ago

    “Let’s be clear: the NYCLU’s priority is not protecting our safety. It is protecting their ideology, And in that regard, they are no better than the NRA. One group views the Second Amendment in absolutist terms; the other group views the Fourth Amendment in absolutist terms. Both groups, I think, are dangerously wrong on the Constitution.”

    And one mayor views the Constitution in ass-wiping terms.

    1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

      He’s just going to keep doing this until he’s publicly hanged for treason, folks. He knows it, you know it, and he gets off on making the rest of us look like pussies for tolerating his shit.

      1. Restoras   12 years ago

        Not in NYC. People here love him.

        1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

          His message isn’t aimed at you locally. He and your governor constantly make speeches that sound like declarations of war mimicking the verbal pounding of cold war era communist tyrants on the rest of the nation. You are too close to the source to notice, but, really, you should be alarmed because we in fact do notice.

  26. A Serious Man   12 years ago

    Meet the 15 year old girl who wants to be the first astronaut on Mars.

    I think we should help inspire her. Someone in Minnesota needs to go smash her mailbox.

    1. Bam!   12 years ago

      I bet if you asked a lot of 7 year olds, they’d say they want to be the first astronaut on Mars. Bet they also look up at the night sky and tweet NASA launches.

    2. Episiarch   12 years ago

      You’re such a pervert, Serious. “Smash her mailbox”? Get your mind out of the gutter!

      1. A Serious Man   12 years ago

        On April 24, Harrison announced that she and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano would collaborate on a massive social media educational project.

        Looks like someone is going to beat me to it. 🙁

    3. Rich   12 years ago

      “So I believe that being the first astronaut on Mars is a goal that I’ve made and that I’m committed to working to working towards.”

      Sorry, you ain’t gonna be the first astronaut on Mars.

      1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

        I don’t think anyone alive is going to be the first astronaut on Mars.

    4. A Serious Man   12 years ago

      So I link to an inspiring story about a girl with dreams and you cynical assholes have to go and ruin it.

      That’s exactly what I was expecting from you people, so I’m not disappointed.

      1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

        You know who else had a dream of conquering alien frontiers that was ruined by liberty minded third parties?

        1. Brett L   12 years ago

          Denise Richards in Starship Troopers? The Buggers from Ender’s Game?

        2. Bobarian   12 years ago

          James T Kirk?

        3. trshmnstr   12 years ago

          Han Solo before he met Obi Wan?
          Jean Luc Picard during that one episode when Q took him back to the academy?

      2. Bam!   12 years ago

        She’s the aerospace equivalent of a class president.

  27. Rich   12 years ago

    “I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning,” [said] Greg Hicks.

    Well, Mr. Hicks, *I* think you’re going down like Susan Rice.

    Seriously, Sharyl Attkisson had jolly well better get to the bottom of this.

    1. db   12 years ago

      …going down like Susan Rice.

      I didn’t know SugarFree had released that one yet.

      1. Red Rocks Rockin   12 years ago

        It’s in Development Hell right now.

  28. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

    90 year old does double backflip

    1. Rich   12 years ago

      Not cool, AP.

      1. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

        I was honestly frightened at what I might see there.

    2. Heroic Mulatto   12 years ago

      I’ll have to masturbate to that later.

    3. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

      That’s nothing. Let’s see him do a triple lindy.

      1. Pi Guy   12 years ago

        I don’t joke about dives.

  29. John   12 years ago

    http://www.thefrisky.com/2013-…..ked-women/

    Danish show offers men’s opinion on naked women. Sort of PTI for soft core porn.

  30. A Serious Man   12 years ago

    Man arrested for assaulting ghostbuster and Imperial Stormtrooper at comic book event in Portland.

    Police Lt. Gary Hutcheson said Adam Barnes, 31, was arrested on State Street after a man dressed as a Ghostbuster and another dressed as a Stormtrooper were assaulted outside Coast City Comics at Congress and Park streets, where people dressed in costumes had gathered about 2:30 p.m. Hutcheson said the Stormtrooper character ? Owen Wood of Portland in real life ? was thrown to the ground and the Ghostbuster character was punched.

    Hutcheson said Barnes, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 300 pounds, was intoxicated.

    It would have been perfect he had been dressed up as the Hulk.

    1. Bam!   12 years ago

      Not surprising he took down the Stormtrooper given their terrible aim.

      1. Episiarch   12 years ago

        Only Portland LARPers are that precise.

        1. Professor Booty   12 years ago

          I live in Portland and driving by the LARP-ers swinging their foam swords in the park always brought a smile to my face. The comic nerds should have known better than the hang out on the streets downtown. It’s mostly schizo hobos and sketchy townies down there these days. It’s starting to look like Sarc’s hometown, actually.

          1. Cdr Lytton   12 years ago

            Starting??? There’s no comparison. It’s always been an open air psych ward in Stumptown.

    2. Generic Stranger   12 years ago

      He was cosplaying as Ogre.

  31. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

    Have I told you kids about the time President Bubba tried to reunite Led Zeppelin?

    1. Brandon   12 years ago

      Clinton’s legacy keeps getting better and better by comparison.

  32. Coeus   12 years ago

    Must be a slow day for feminist bitching. They’re really reaching with this one:

    At the National Rifle Association convention this past weekend, vendor Zombie Industries was asked to remove a shooting target that looks like President Obama. The company sells more than a dozen mannequins that “bleed” when shot, and as it states on its website, “to discriminate against Women by not having them represented in our product selection would be just plain sexist.” So here’s the the one female mannequin they sell: It is called “The Ex.”

    Between 30 and 40 percent of women murdered in the US each year are killed by a current or former intimate partner. In over half of these cases, the perpetrator used a gun. Put another way: Of women killed with guns, almost two-thirds are killed by their intimate partners.

    Given that they are apparently so concerned with “sexism,” I wonder if Zombie Industries knows just how closely their product mirrors this reality. You can ask them here.

    1. T   12 years ago

      I’m going to guess Zombie industries doesn’t care about people who were never going to buy their product.

      1. fish   12 years ago

        I’m going to guess Zombie industries doesn’t care about people who were never going to buy their product.

        Hat’s off to their market research department.

      2. mad libertarian guy   12 years ago

        I’m going to guess Zombie industries doesn’t care about people who were never going to buy their product.

        MARKET FAILURE!!!!!!

    2. Anonymous Coward   12 years ago

      Between 30 and 40 percent of women murdered in the US each year are killed by a current or former intimate partner. In over half of these cases, the perpetrator used a gun. Put another way: Of women killed with guns, almost two-thirds are killed by their intimate partners.

      15% of women are killed by their fuckbuddy/cohabitator with a firearm. What about the other 85%?

      1. hamilton   12 years ago

        Further, only about 30% of total homicides of women are committed by firearm if this is correct.

        1. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

          BUT THAT’S 30% TOO MANY!

          /just one life yadda yadda

      2. Virginian   12 years ago

        Am I a bad person for wondering by how much the whole “crazy fucker murdering hookers” skews these stats?

        1. Bobarian   12 years ago

          If you stopped murdering hookers, maybe we could find out?

          1. Virginian   12 years ago

            I only visit hookers to regenerate health. Then I run them over with my stolen car, and take the money back.

    3. gaijin   12 years ago

      If shooting at mannequins saves even one life, then we must do it.

    4. Agammamon   12 years ago

      “Given that they are apparently so concerned with “sexism,” I wonder if Zombie Industries knows just how closely their product mirrors this reality.”

      So . . . they need more female targets?

  33. Dennis Raimondo   12 years ago

    Tens of thousands of rather courageous Russians

    You mean “cowardly treacherous Yankee stooge” Russians, right?

    1. PRX   12 years ago

      did you lose your 90’s juicebox name?

  34. A Serious Man   12 years ago

    If conservatives really cared about the family they would make collective sacrifices to stop global warming…for the children.

    1. Irish   12 years ago

      Conversely, if progressives really cared about poor people, they wouldn’t constantly be attempting to drive up energy costs and destroy nascent industry in the 3rd world.

    2. Warty   12 years ago

      Ah, yes, I am destroying the environment by eating meat. I had almost forgotten about that one, since no one had beaten me over the head with it for a few hours.

      1. Tulpy Pooh (LOL-PA)   12 years ago

        Ha. Ha. What a story Warty.

      2. Episiarch   12 years ago

        I remember my vegan employers explaining to me why eating meat was bad for the environment back when I was a teenager and worked in their health food store. I don’t think they appreciated the fact that I didn’t give a shit.

        1. Warty   12 years ago

          Are they crippled from osteoporosis or something yet? Fucking vegans.

        2. UnCivilServant   12 years ago

          Someone who actually looked at land usage determined that meat-free diets were equally bad, because they would leave non-arable pastureland unused and that the optimal diet for sustaining the most people with current food tech involved a mix of grain crops and pasture fed cows and sheep.

          Oh, wait, they were probably whining about rain forest knocked down for cows, and couldn’t give one crap about feeding the most people. Did they devolve into anti-gmo ranters later on?

          1. mad libertarian guy   12 years ago

            Did they devolve into anti-gmo ranters later on?

            You can almost predict that vegans are also going to be anti-GMO proglodytes. I’d make that bet every single time.

        3. prolefeed   12 years ago

          I don’t think they appreciated the fact that I didn’t give a shit.

          You made my GF laugh when I read this aloud to her.

          She totally doesn’t gave a shit about an amazing assortment of topics.

    3. Heroic Mulatto   12 years ago

      Look at those two middle-aged, upper-middle-class-looking White guys grilling hamburgers! I bet that one guy is telling a racist joke as he flips that hamburger high in the air for no reason. Meat eaters are racist. You know, they’re probably drinking beers too, because that what they do when they grill. I bet those two White guys are going to those hamburgers, get drunk and beat their wives while screaming at them with the scent of burnt cow flesh and alcohol on their breath!

      Fuckin’ rape culture!

      1. fish   12 years ago

        Shit HM….if you were on the other side of the fence you should have come in….we had plenty.

        Just don’t let the neighbors see you!

        /ducks

    4. C. Anacreon   12 years ago

      I’d like to post a comment under the story that says “Aren’t you the same asshole who hoped the Boston bomber was a straight white male? Who gives a fuck what you think about anything? Salon obviously keeps you on solely as a sideshow geek that increases website hits “Ew — look at what scumbag wrote now! Isn’t he horrible?”.

      But I don’t want to register for Salon so I won’t.

    5. Agammamon   12 years ago

      “. . .the livestock industry is responsible for between 18 percent and 51 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.”

      That’s. that’s a pretty large set of error bars you’ve got there.

      1. Agammamon   12 years ago

        And if the livestock industry is responsible for 51% of greenhouse gas emmissions then why are we supposed to be so worried about industry?

        1. Heroic Mulatto   12 years ago

          Why do ya think they call it a FACTORY FARM????!!!!111???!!?!?

      2. PapayaSF   12 years ago

        I wonder how much is methane from cow farts, and if they could solve the problem with something like Beano?

  35. Anonymous Coward   12 years ago

    Obama to launch ‘Jobs and Opportunity’ tours

    President Obama is turning back to the jobs issue, launching a series of “Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tours” starting Thursday with an appearance in Texas.

    Obama will visit growing areas “to learn what has helped them become successful and use these models of growth to encourage Congress to act,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

    1. Rich   12 years ago

      Would that Josh had uttered something more akin to

      Obama will NOT visit growing areas “to learn what has helped them become successful and use these models of growth to encourage Congress NOT to act.”

      1. Rich   12 years ago

        With proper tags, of course.

    2. John   12 years ago

      If we just build a big enough control tower, the planes will come.

      1. Anonymous Coward   12 years ago

        Maybe it will look something like this.

        China is always leading the way.

    3. Irish   12 years ago

      This is going to be awkward when all the places he has to visit are red states in the south, Arizona and the upper midwest.

    4. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

      He should just talk to my sister Jeanne. I could hardly believe it. She makes more than $1 an hour completing captchas online. She even just bought a new-to-her Geo!

      1. Joe M   12 years ago

        What HOLO YOLO said I could not believe it either.

        1. C. Anacreon   12 years ago

          Roll that beautiful bean footage!

          1. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

            …wait, I just looked that up in Urban Dictionary.

            Why, exactly, does anonbot say that?

    5. Night Elf Mohawk   12 years ago

      Obama will visit growing areas “to learn what has helped them become successful and use these models of growth to encourage Congress to act…

      Not a single person on this fucking planet believes he’s going to encourage Congress to act like Texas.

      1. prolefeed   12 years ago

        He’s going to encourage Congress to act like the Blue-er parts of The People’s Republic of Austin.

        Which city I’m thinking of moving to the suburbs of — Blue state culture, Red state governance.

    6. db   12 years ago

      Just think how successful Texas would be if they followed Obama’s lead!

    7. Red Rocks Rockin   12 years ago

      Obama will visit growing areas “to learn what has helped them become successful and use these models of growth to encourage Congress to act,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

      Why do I get the feeling he’s going to avoid North Dakota entirely?

    8. mad libertarian guy   12 years ago

      Obama will visit growing areas “to learn what has helped them become successful and use these models of growth to encourage Congress to act,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

      And when they tell him, he will let it go in one ear and out the other because it doesn’t mesh with his ideological predilections.

  36. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

    Obama administration drops appeal, accepts temporary injunction allowing Bible publisher to exercise its religious freedom by ignoring the HHS mandate (which the Protestant company believes mandates abortifacients):

    “”Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer. For the government to say that a Bible publisher isn’t religious is outrageous, and now the Obama administration has had to retreat in court.”

    “”We will continue to argue that the administration cannot disregard the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom for all family business owners and must offer a comprehensive exemption to the mandate,” Bowman added.”

    http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/7667

    1. Zeb   12 years ago

      That’s a fine decision, but I don’t see why it is so outrageous to say that a Bible publisher is not religious. There’s money to be made in selling Bibles, no? I’ve heard it’s a pretty big seller.

      1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

        I’m certainly flattered that you have such an idealistic and high-toned ideal for religion!

  37. Tulpy Pooh (LOL-PA)   12 years ago

    You betrayed me Hit ‘N’ Run, you didn’t keep your promise, you tricked me, and I don’t care anymore.

  38. Tulpy Pooh (LOL-PA)   12 years ago

    The bank saves money and they are using me, and I am the fool.

  39. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

    Part XXIV in a Continuing Series of that Progressive Love and Respect that We’ve All Come to Love and Respect

    The point is to price the right to control your fertility out of the hands of lower income women. Since having babies you don’t want costs you a fortune in child care and lost opportunity costs, it’s basically a massive wall between lower income people and building better futures. If you remain confused about how the misogynist right fits in with the economic right, that there is your answer.

    1. Irish   12 years ago

      I hate women so much that I want them to be able to defend themselves without relying on big strong policemen for protection.

      Truly I am a monster.

    2. John   12 years ago

      Because no lower income person ever used a condom or closed their fucking legs. And every woman wants to use birth control. And no woman would ever think getting pregnant and living on welfare and or child support was a good idea.

    3. T   12 years ago

      Yes. We must subsidize everything for the poor people because they’re too dumb to make good decisions otherwise. How patronizing.

      Don’t get me wrong. I think most people make poor decisions. But I also think I’m not smart enough to make their decisions for them. I don’t know their life, nor do I care to.

    4. UnCivilServant   12 years ago

      Gee, when I was growing up, child care was telling the older siblings to watch the younger ones while the parents were at work. Once your oldest reaches critical age, costs = $0.

      1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

        Ditto. I grew up poor, and it’s amazing how much nonsense and bad behavior people will excuse if you tell them that from the get-go.

    5. Killazontherun   12 years ago

      No, I remain confused by your crappy syntax, mixing collaquial English and formal economic terminology like you don’t know what the Hell you are saying or doing.

    6. ant1sthenes   12 years ago

      How expensive are they making not fucking again?

  40. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

    A reader writes:

    My girlfriend of five months is into the fetish scene, has other partners and considers herself polysexual. Originally, I thought that this would be OK, but now I’ve fallen for her hard. She has moved in with me but has other lovers that she talks to and texts all the time and I can’t help but get jealous. She says she wouldn’t mind if I played around with other women, as long as she remains my number one ? but I don’t want to. It tears my heart out to think of her with another man. How do I quell these jealous feelings?

    1. John   12 years ago

      If you were not into your g/f banging other guys, why did you date a woman who called herself a “polysexual” and banged other guys? Either admit you like it and shut up about it, or admit you were horney and kidding yourself and move the fuck out.

      1. prolefeed   12 years ago

        My GF’s take: “John’s right, but he could have been a little less harsh. Jealousy is you being insecure about yourself.”

        Me: Either suck it up and try to learn to not to be jealous — maybe TALK with her about his feelings — or find someone else. Lots of chicks out there.

        1. PS   12 years ago

          Jealousy is a valid emotion that evolved for a reason, for males not to raise someone else’s offspring and for females to not have resources diverted away from their offspring. If you can handle an open relationship–fine, if not, get out. But it’s silly to say that jealousy is simply about being insecure.

    2. Episiarch   12 years ago

      How do I quell these jealous feelings?

      By banging her mom?

      1. A Serious Man   12 years ago

        By banging her my mom

        FTFY Epi.

        1. Episiarc   12 years ago

          Damn you!

      2. John   12 years ago

        She would probably go for a first class sick threesome. She is a polysexual after all. This guy is clearly not making the most of his situation.

      3. Episarch   12 years ago

        Banging my mom?

        1. John   12 years ago

          Like you haven’t done that.

    3. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

      Have her move out and find a new girlfriend?

    4. A Serious Man   12 years ago

      I hope he always uses protection with her.

    5. JW   12 years ago

      This has to be made up. Nobody could be that stupid.

      1. Zeb   12 years ago

        “Nobody could be that stupid.”

        I keep saying that too, about lots of things, even when faced with evidence to the contrary.

      2. John   12 years ago

        People are that stupid. I have a good friend from high school whose live in boyfriend told her he was a cross dresser and planned to spend every weekend in drag. He was totally shocked and didn’t understand when she dumped him. He told her she was being mean, judgmental and intolerant.

        1. Agammamon   12 years ago

          Well, she was. She was also being honest abot what she’s willing to tolerate and had the decenycy to break up with him rather than spend the time and effort to make him ashamed and “change him”.

      3. Episiarch   12 years ago

        Oh yes they can.

    6. Mad Scientist   12 years ago

      Dear Jealous,

      Believe it or not, there are other women in the world. Find one, you douchebag.

      Sincerely,
      The Grownups

    7. Virginian   12 years ago

      I think I actually know this girl. Or one just like her.

    8. Agammamon   12 years ago

      “but I don’t want to” – should be read as “I can’t get laid simply by calling up someone and asking ‘wanna fuck’ like she can”.

  41. A Serious Man   12 years ago

    Iron Man: Like Most Libertarians He Learns to Grow Up and Move On.

    There are no politics to Iron Man 3, beyond the political assertion that lethal and indiscriminate terrorism is bad. Director Shane Black, who co-wrote the screenplay, is far more concerned with the slam-bang fight scenes and the romance between Stark and his live-in girlfriend Virginia “Pepper” Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow). So much of the film focuses on Stark, once the consummate care-free playboy, settling down with the love of his life. It’s a genuinely interesting and tender part of the story?and the best and most convincing romance in the modern comic-books-as-film cannon. Their relationship demonstrates just how softened and vulnerable (touchingly so) Tony Stark can get.

    With his single life, goes his ideology.

    So…settling down with the woman you love is a renunciation of libertarian ideology? Am I reading this right?

    1. John   12 years ago

      Yeah. You get married, have kids and then you understand why we need things like drug laws and stop and frisk and FBI wiretaps and universal healthcare.

      When you have kids you will understand.

      1. T   12 years ago

        Nope. I just get more pissed off out about the stupid shit that’s destroying his future.

        1. John   12 years ago

          You just hate your children T.

      2. Matrix   12 years ago

        it’s Mother Jones. Are you expecting anything intelligent to come from that site?

    2. Irish   12 years ago

      The dude builds himself a death machine by himself and goes around being a vigilante.

      I struggle to see that as a progressive message.

      1. PapayaSF   12 years ago

        Don’t you love it when people who never grew out of college student socialism telling anybody that they need to “grow up”?

    3. Worty   12 years ago

      No shit it does. That is why I’m going to get married to Epi, my mom, his mom, Art Modell and Betty White.

    4. EDG reppin' LBC   12 years ago

      Somebody should tell my wife. She can’t figure out why every little thing gets me going off on a rant about Communism.

    5. Episiarch   12 years ago

      Anyone who watches any of the Iron Man movies deserves whatever stupidity they get. Though I admit Shane Black has done good work in the past (I like The Long Kiss Goodnight, and he was fun as an actor in Predator).

      1. Irish   12 years ago

        Why do you hate everything?

        1. Episiarch   12 years ago

          Mostly because bronies and furries exist. And because of your mom.

        2. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

          Because it proves he’s cooler than us people who like popular things.

          1. Episiarch   12 years ago

            Uh oh, here comes the butthurt!

            This really is an amazingly dumb argument considering I like some of the most popular stuff out there right along with everyone else, but if you need to be insecure, you go right ahead. I like it.

            1. T   12 years ago

              Look, man, no matter what you tell yourself (and others), scat play is not popular.

              1. Episiarch   12 years ago

                YES IT IS. The internet says so!

                1. T   12 years ago

                  The internet thought Ron Paul was gonna be president, too, and look what we got instead.

            2. Pro Libertate   12 years ago

              Yes, you’re talking to an entity that doesn’t repudiate the new Star Wars Trek with Kids movie.

      2. A Serious Man   12 years ago

        The first Iron Man was fun, the second one was mediocre and I haven’t seen this new one.

        But it does have Ben Kingsley in it, so I might give it a look whenever it comes out on DVD.

        1. Episiarch   12 years ago

          See I felt the first one was mediocre (I mean, it’s Jon Favreau directing, what do you expect), so didn’t bother with any more. The whole super hero movie genre is so fucking played out. It’s all just so boring.

          1. John   12 years ago

            The first one was mediocre. Totally overrated series.

          2. Warty   12 years ago

            You’re just saying that because you’re upset you have to wait another year for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot. Later, hater.

            1. Episiarch   12 years ago

              I actually would be totally psyched for that if it weren’t Michael Bay. Regardless, only 11 days until the new Star Trek movie! I can’t wait! ProL, how about you?

              1. A Serious Man   12 years ago

                I think I’ve made my feelings on Abrams Star Trek clear, but fuck it, it has Cumberbatch blowing shit up and taunting Kirk so it’s automatically worth seeing.

                I just wish Abrams’ movies weren’t so derivative from Lucas and Spielberg.

                1. Episiarch   12 years ago

                  Yeah, Cumberbatch being in it has made me more interested than I otherwise would have been. I mean, I would see it regardless, but maybe we get some 110% asshole from Cumberbatch to spice things up.

                  1. Pro Libertate   12 years ago

                    If they did a Cumberbatch cut, without anyone else, I might watch it. I really like Sherlock.

                2. Zakalwe   12 years ago

                  I just wish Abrams’ movies weren’t so derivative from Lucas and Spielberg.

                  Holy fuck, I watched Super 8 last night and the self parody was painful.

                3. Agammamon   12 years ago

                  No dude, it has Damien Lindelof of “Prometheus” infamy as a screenwriter.

                  This guy helped fuck up the story in “Promethues”, helped write the overrated-pile-of-garbage that dissovled-into-asmelly-mess-at-the-end that was “Lost”.

                  AND he somehow thinks that “Star Trek” is *hard* sci-fi.

              2. JW   12 years ago

                How can this not be good? It has the whiz-bang, crack Hollywood squad: Abrahms, Kurtzman, Orci and Lindelof.

                1. JW   12 years ago

                  I mean, the only thing that could make it any better is the deformed, congenitally-joined offspring of Michael Bay and Roland Emrich.

                2. A Serious Man   12 years ago

                  How can this not be good? It has the whiz-bang, crack Hollywood squad: Abrahms, Kurtzman, Orci and Lindelof.

                  The time travel device they created for the last movie was retarded even by Star Trek standards. Really? A black hole can send you back in time?

                  1. JW   12 years ago

                    It was red matter, you illiterate philistine.

                    1. A Serious Man   12 years ago

                      Granted they didn’t exposit this until halfway through the movie when old Spock finally shows up, but IIRC he says something like:
                      1. A giant supernova is threatening the galaxy.
                      2. They decide to use the red matter to create a black hole that will consume the star.
                      3. Spock fails to do so before Romulus is destroyed and for some reason the villain blames him for it.

                  2. Gladstone   12 years ago

                    How about travelling really fast and turning into giant horny salamnders?

                    1. Pro Libertate   12 years ago

                      That’s ridiculous. No one would ever suggest that, even in fiction.

                  3. Episiarch   12 years ago

                    My solution to the ridiculous plot elements is to get really buzzed during the movie and just ignore them. This worked wonders for Prometheus until I was a minute or two out of the theater and then I was like WHAT THE FUCK?!?

                    1. A Serious Man   12 years ago

                      I’m A Serious Man, Epi, I demand that the movie either be realistic or at the outset establish a consistent set of rules and follow them. I hate it when a movie insults my intelligence. Star Trek was egregious in particular since they’ve already established in the canon the existence of parallel universes and time-travel. No need to invent this red matter/black hole nonsense.

                      In fact, why not have Shatner’s Kirk and Nimoy’s Spock be the ones to time travel and create this new universe? It’d delete “Generations” from the canon (as if anyone would miss it) and we’d have Shatner in this next one.

                    2. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

                      Meh, Star Trek is not the franchise to invest in if you’re looking for consistency at any level.

                    3. Episiarch   12 years ago

                      My thought on this is that Abrams felt he had to both include shit from pre-re-boot Star Trek, and also not include shit so that he could make a pretty clean break, and that inherent schizophrenia resulted in some really stupid plotting. My hope is that now that the re-boot has been established, he can just be entertaining, which is something that he is actually capable of at times.

                      If only we could get rid of Generations.

                    4. Killazontherun   12 years ago

                      My idea for a time travel story. A young family man who has made a success of himself finds out that unless he, Al Capone, goes back in time to assassinate Carrie Nation, the very fabric of his perfect white picket fence, middle class life will be utterly destroyed.

                    5. Killazontherun   12 years ago

                      Of course, this is coming from a guy who absolutely hates with the exception of Restaurant at the End of the Universe time travel stories.

              3. Pro Libertate   12 years ago

                Oh, I can wait. To the heat death of the universe, if need be.

          3. A Serious Man   12 years ago

            Spider-Man and Batman were the only superhero movies this last decade that were great movies. Both because they felt grounded in a certain realism and focused on the actual characters rather than the imagery and action sequences.

            1. Irish   12 years ago

              Kick-Ass was hilarious.

              1. Matrix   12 years ago

                +1

              2. PapayaSF   12 years ago

                Eh, it was at times, but overall I found it a bit of an uncomfortable mix of comedy and over-the-top cartoon violence.

            2. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

              Both because they felt grounded in a certain realism

              Three words: Evil Peter Dance

              1. A Serious Man   12 years ago

                Spider-Man 3 sucked, but 1 and 2 were good movies. C’mon, even Christopher Reeve did Superman 3 and 4.

                1. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

                  I was only six when Superman III came out and I was actually kinda traumatized by the robot scene.

                  1. Coeus   12 years ago

                    actually kinda traumatized by the robot scene.

                    That scene scared the shit out of me as a child. And it was especially jarring, considering how light and funny the rest of the movie was.

      3. Matrix   12 years ago

        fuck you. Iron Man 1 & 3 are some of the best super hero movies out there. 2 was okay, but definitely the weakest of the 3.

        1. Irish   12 years ago

          Forget it, Matrix. Epi is nothing but bundle of hatred and loathing.

        2. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

          The Iron Man trilogy is a lot better if you think of it as the movie version of Atlas Shrugged that didn’t suck.

      4. JW   12 years ago

        I saw it and it was very meh, mostly incoherent jibberish. Black has a real hit or miss history, mostly miss:

        Iron Man 3 (screenplay)
        2006 A.W.O.L (short) (as Holly Martins)
        2005 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (screen story / screenplay)
        1998 Lethal Weapon 4 (characters)
        1996 The Long Kiss Goodnight (written by)
        1993 Last Action Hero (screenplay)
        1992 Lethal Weapon 3 (characters)
        1991 The Last Boy Scout (screenplay / story)
        1989 Lethal Weapon 2 (characters / story)
        1987 The Monster Squad (written by)
        1987 Lethal Weapon (written by)

        1. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

          1992 Lethal Weapon 3 (characters)

          “Characters” means Shane Black had nothing to do with the movie, other than someone else was writing about fictional characters he originally came up with.

    6. Warty   12 years ago

      It’s Mother Jones, so what do you expect? Hating the Other is what they do. The most egregious thing in that quote is that the writer used cannon instead of canon.

    7. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

      Wait, the MIC is libertarian now?

      Do they just roll dice every time they see something they don’t like to decide whether to call it conservative, libertarian, or rape?

    8. Calidissident   12 years ago

      Wow, the comments

      “‘Settling down with a woman implies’ a degree of respect the true Libertarian is incapable of. Once you get beyond wanting to rape Dagny Taggart too, a whole world of human expression opens up.”

      “The gospel according to Ayn Rand says not to be concerned about anybody’s well-being but your own. That includes the spouse and kids.”

      The True Libertarian has no friends, only meat bags who either serve as obstacles or receptacles for their seminal emissions.

      “People generally figure out that they have to live in Society too, and yes, grow out of libertarianism. Even conservatives and tea baggers are able to simulate human warmth in non political social situations.”

      It always amazes me how so many leftists a) do not realize that Objectivism is not synonymous with libertarianism and b) demonstrate a total lack of understanding of the actual tenets of Objectivism. I say this as a non-Objectivist libertarian

      1. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

        “The gospel according to Ayn Rand says not to be concerned about anybody’s well-being but your own. That includes the spouse and kids.”

        I actually have to agree with this. I can’t think of a single reason for having a kid that wouldn’t come off as a form of second-handing to a hardcore Objectivist.

        1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

          You know who else had a Gospel that put family life in the category of at best secondary concern? Jesus.

        2. Virginian   12 years ago

          Funny, because Rand put a mother in Galt’s Gulch:

          “They represent my particular career, Miss Taggart,” said the young mother in answer to her comment…. I came here, not merely for the sake of my husband’s profession, but for the sake of my own. I came here in order to bring up my sons as human beings. I would not surrender them to the educational systems devised to stunt a child’s brain, to convince him that reason is impotent, that existence is an irrational chaos with which he’s unable to deal, and thus reduce him to a state of chronic terror. You marvel at the difference between my children and those outside, Miss Taggart? Yet the cause is so simple. The cause is that here, in Galt’s Gulch, there’s no person who would not consider it monstrous ever to confront a child with the slightest suggestion of the irrational.”

          1. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

            The fact that over the course of two nearly thousand page novels, you can point to one example of a protagonist that considers children a positive kinda underlines how difficult Rand found it to integrate family life into her philosophy.

            Why would an Objectivist WANT to have children. If you truly except Rand’s position on the nature of love, there would be no reason for an Objectivist to love their children:

            One falls in love with the embodiment of the values that formed a person’s character, which are reflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures, which create the style of his soul?the individual style of a unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable consciousness.

            How can an infant be said to “embody the values that formed your character”? Why would someone choose to be burdened with the task of caring for a person that was in some sense selected nearly at random and for more than a decade will not be able to provide more than the most superficial sort of relationship? Isn’t loving your kids just because they’re “your kids” exactly the sort of mystical altruism Rand excoriates in every other aspect of life?

            1. Virginian   12 years ago

              Eh, I’m not a Randian so I don’t know what they think about children. But I think if one were to be really really serious about Objectivism, then raising and teaching children Objectivist tenets would be a reason for having kids.

              I mean, children in general don’t really fit into a libertarian framework. It can be a real sticky issue.

              1. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

                But if you only want your children around you not because you find the worthy in and of themselves, but because over the next dozen years you hope to manipulate them into thinking and doing what you want them to do, you’re an evil second-hander who only sees people as tools and not as people.

            2. Apatheist ?_??   12 years ago

              What about passing on your genes?

              1. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

                Again, secondhanding. Does the fact someone who happens to have some of your genes goes on to do great things make you a greater person despite being incapable of doing those things yourself?

                1. Apatheist ?_??   12 years ago

                  Not a Randian, but passing on your genes and then ensuring that your offspring pass on their genes could be part of doing great things. I mean it is the entire point of existence. Seems like you would be a pretty big failure if you failed to do so. But as I said that’s from my perspective not a Randian.

            3. 0x90   12 years ago

              I think the answer would be: you have kids because it pleases you to do so.

              1. Stormy Dragon   12 years ago

                That works for most libertarians, but Objectivists argue that aesthetics are rationally determined, so there’s no such thing as personal taste; you must have a rational reason for why everything you like is the one correct moral choice.

                An Objectivist can’t just like cream in their coffee; nay, it is because, as we know, cream rises to the top and therefore putting cream in your coffee symbolizes mans struggle to rise ever to new heights. You know who puts regular milk in their coffee? That’s right, a cow! You’re not just a lazy milk drinking herd animal, are you!?

                1. 0x90   12 years ago

                  On the one hand:

                  Would man be the rational animal, if he did not exist? No. But to exist, there must have been, and there must be, successive generations of men. Procreation can then be construed as a positive objective value in the context of man in the collective sense, but not the individual sense, since each individual man lives but once.

                  And on the other:

                  Can gambling be construed as a rational Objectivist choice? Yes. And so then can procreation, as well: in planning for one’s own twilight years, the calculation can be made that one’s children may provide support, in reciprocity for their having been nurtured in childhood. That this bet may not pay off does not make it an irrational choice.

  42. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

    Seek and ye shall find: Gay activists look for some reason to be offended, and accomplish their goal. They march to St. Patrick’s Cathedral with dirty hands as a protest – oops, I mean silent witness – against NY Cardinal Dolan saying gays are welcome in the Church but are expected to follow Church doctrine. A priest told them they needed to *wash their hands* before entering the church. Outrage ensues:

    “What astounded me most was when he said that we could enter the cathedral so long as we washed our hands first. Even now, writing those words I find myself struggling to understand their meaning, while coming to terms with their exclusionary nature.

    “It was at this moment that Mr. Donohue advised us that if we entered St. Patrick’s Cathedral with dirty hands, we would be arrested and charged with criminal trespassing. Upon hearing those words, I remember standing there thinking, “How can I be charged with criminal trespassing in my own home?” It was then that I realized what it meant to be spiritually homeless.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..19675.html

    The protesters were reacting to a blog post by the Cardinal with the chilling and murderous title of “All are welcome!” But just as the cardinal’s parents required kids to wash their hands before eating dinner at their house, the Church has some expectations for those who attend.

    http://blog.archny.org/index.php/all-are-welcome/

    1. John   12 years ago

      So I guess they will be okay with Catholics showing up to protest gay pride parades?

      God these people are fucking pathetic totalitarian assholes. If they want to be gay, go have fun. But stop pretending that everyone in the world must embrace you. You don’t embrace everyone so why do you expect them to embrace you you spoiled nasty ass queen!!

      1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

        Because nobody has ever protested a pride parade before?

        1. Irish   12 years ago

          Forget it Jesse, he’s on a roll.

          1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

            It should be noted that I think the gays who protest against the Catholic Church are gargantuan assholes. Join the fucking MCC if you need religious community.

            I remember seeing videos of ACT UP protesting because Catholics said no condoms during the height of the AIDS crisis and I thought “Well gee, you’re already breaking church rules on sodomy, you could at least wrap it up while doing so; you’ll hardly piss the church off more.”

        2. John   12 years ago

          And they thought it was great when they did?

          What the hell is wrong with leaving people the fuck alone? If they don’t like the Catholic Church, welcome to the club. I don’t like them either. But unlike these needy piece of shit totalitarian fuck stains, I just don’t go there.

        3. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

          If the gay-pride parade managers said, “if you wash you hands you’re welcome to join us,” I might not join the parade but I would certainly not be outraged.

          Of course, they would probably want me to wash my hands in a rose-scented liquid soap…oops, there I go again.

      2. prolefeed   12 years ago

        If they want to be gay, go have fun.

        You think people CHOOSE to be gay?

        1. fish   12 years ago

          You think people CHOOSE to be gay?

          Yeah…when you order the baby…4th or 5th item on the spec sheet.

          Where do you think the “no homo” meme came from?

    2. Paul.   12 years ago

      Great, first gay people want to get married, now they want to be catholics…

      I see a pattern here of self-flaggelation.

      1. Joe M   12 years ago

        Just wait until they want to be prie– never mind.

      2. Zeb   12 years ago

        Seriously. Everyone knows that if you are gay and want to be Catholic, you become a priest.

        1. John   12 years ago

          +100

        2. John   12 years ago

          And they are not even being excluded. They can join. But the Church isn’t going to give them their daily affirmation. What the fuck is wrong with people?

        3. Paul.   12 years ago

          Is no one thinking of the gays?

          1. We want to get killed in combat in dodgy foreign wars!

          2. We want the crushing misery of marriage!

          3. We want to go to church on Sundays, and not any church, but the one with original sin and stuff!

  43. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

    Modern Seinfeld ?@SeinfeldToday
    Elaine’s bf reminds her of Don Draper. Turns out he’s just an alcoholic who didn’t tell her he was married. Kramer discovers twerking.

    1. Gladstone   12 years ago

      Man something that ended 15 years ago is ancient now? Looking forward to Modern Community.

    2. Bam!   12 years ago

      I find it hard to believe Kramer would be into twerking. Now, if he said Kramer invented it…

  44. Matrix   12 years ago

    Army beginning to clean up chemical weapons dump at Redstone Arsenal.
    Yeah, I work there. The tap water for the arsenal is often a yellowish brown. They tell us it’s safe to drink and keep taking away our bottled water. Yeah right! I’m not drinking colored water from the tap, especially on a military installation. I don’t know how many articles I’ve read about service members and their families developing cancer from drinking water at a military installation.
    If the government can’t even give proper water on their military installations, what makes you think they can be trusted with our healthcare?

    1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

      That’s just the natural effect of the lead pipes, you pussy.

      Maybe I’ll ask for a transfer there to serve as a human guinea pig. It wouldn’t be worse than the shit assignments they’re offering me right now.

      1. Matrix   12 years ago

        RSA has a very small number of green suiters. It’s mostly a civilian installation between AMCOM, NASA, and AMC. Most of the green suiters are warrants and officers.

        but I will say this, the area is very nice compared to most military towns.

        1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

          Well I’m on orders to Fort Leonard Wood and probably going to skip on that for Fort Bliss, but both look like career enders with no very reliable path to a command I need to get Real Soon Now. If I have to waste 12 months before regretfully becoming a civilian I might as well do it someplace that has buildings of more than two stories.

  45. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

    I was thinking on the upcoming Arrested Development series, and wondered if we aren’t all already sick of Michael Cera playing Michael Cera.

    1. Gladstone   12 years ago

      I think that happened a few years ago. Do people remember him anymore?

    2. A Serious Man   12 years ago

      He’s failed spectacularly at trying to headline a movie, so I think he should stick to television.

      It was very impressive how he and Alia Shawcat managed to master the comedic timing that the show required at such a young age for an actor.

      1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

        I WILL NOT HEAR A BAD WORD ABOUT SCOTT PILGRIM!!!!

        1. Episiarch   12 years ago

          Oops.

        2. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

          Choosing whatserface over Knives is unforgivable.

          1. EDG reppin' LBC   12 years ago

            Agreed. Knives was the shit. But that was kind of the point, too. Scott Pilgrim was a “hero”, but in reality he was just kind of a dumbfuck.

          2. Zakalwe   12 years ago

            We didn’t see Knives ass in the movie, but I’m going to make an assumption and call bullshit on this.

            1. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

              Wait, what?

              1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

                You do get to see Ramona’s ass; personality aside, Knives has to rebut that before you can legitimately say you’d prefer her.

      2. Episiarch   12 years ago

        Yeah, I found Scott Pilgrim to be very mediocre, and part of the reason was Cera. He’s much better as a supporting actor.

        1. Irish   12 years ago

          Yeah, I found Scott Pilgrim to be very mediocre

          I’ll fucking kill you, Epi. You’re a monster.

          1. Episiarch   12 years ago

            Hey, I really liked Kick-Ass, at least.

            1. Irish   12 years ago

              Okay. Then when it comes time to work down my enemy list, I’ll kill you last.

              1. Gladstone   12 years ago

                You are lying.

                1. Episiarch   12 years ago

                  Please don’t disturb Irish. He’s dead tired.

                  1. Irish   12 years ago

                    I’ll kill Gladstone first.

                    1. Cdr Lytton   12 years ago

                      Irish| 5.6.13 @ 5:41PM |#

                      I’ll kill Gladstone first.

                      And some upthread thought WWII was far enough in the past to stop revisiting it and here we are back in the late 19th century.

                    2. Gladstone   12 years ago

                      And some upthread thought WWII was far enough in the past to stop revisiting it and here we are back in the late 19th century.

                      Hey I tried to implement Irish Home Rule.

                  2. Auric Demonocles   12 years ago

                    From all the drinking?

                    1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

                      Hiding from work.

          2. Zakalwe   12 years ago

            I’ll fucking kill you, Epi. You’re a monster.

            Killing is too good for him, but I’m something at a loss for a way to make his existence even more painful and wretched than it already is.

            1. Episiarch   12 years ago

              Well, you could force Dan Harmon off of Community and change the essence of the show…wait.

              1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

                I’ve seen the first 6-8 episodes of Community S1 and sort of don’t care. Does it ever actually become funny? I will also accept Allison Brie getting naked.

                1. Episiarch   12 years ago

                  Yes, it gets funnier. Remember there are approximately 25 episodes per season and the show really started rolling towards the end of season one.

                  Alison Brie does not get naked.

                  1. Warty   12 years ago

                    Gillian Jacobs has trouble getting nekkid, too.

        2. A Serious Man   12 years ago

          But Epi, it’s supposed to summarize my generation or some such pretentious bullshit because it references Nintendo games.

          Cera is fine for what he’s good at, but Scot Pilgrim was just about a Canadian dumbshit, but I repeat myself.

          1. Episiarch   12 years ago

            Yeah, I went to see it with my cousins who were visiting me and one cousin loved the graphic novels and was all psyched and then afterward I was…unimpressed, to say the least. And so was he.

      3. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

        DON’T TALK SHIT ABOUT JUNO

    3. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

      Michael Cera was easily the most uninteresting and unfunny part of the show.

      1. Archduke Pantsfan   12 years ago

        Whatever happened to that Ann?

        1. Marc F Cheney   12 years ago

          George Michael Bluth: You said I was hogging her. Like I was being a litlle Ann hog. Can she come with us?

          Michael: Ann Hog’s coming?

          …

          George Michael Bluth: Way to plant, Ann.

          Michael: George-Michael, why don’t you take Plant and wait in the car?

          1. A Serious Man   12 years ago

            As plain as the Ann on nose’s face.

          2. db   12 years ago

            She calls it a “mayon-egg.”

  46. A Serious Man   12 years ago

    Officer in charge of Air Force’s sexual assault prevention program arrested for sexual assault.

    1. Joe M   12 years ago

      He’s the only one in the room properly trained to handle the gun–BLAM!

    2. Steve G   12 years ago

      damn, beat me to it. His office is apparently just down the hall from mine. All we can muster is a cynical, ‘brace for moar training!’

      1. tarran   12 years ago

        Reminds me of the time I was in OCS, and the roving patrol found someone had taken a dump in one of the corridors of our barracks, stepped in it and walked off.

        The DI’s were pissed, and getting ready to destroy us… then someone who followed the tracks found a LCDR passed out in the bushes.

        Of course the DI’s punished us anyway, but their heart wasn’t quite into it.

  47. Warty   12 years ago

    A local story: a tranny hooker was brutally murdered here and dumped in a lake. The LBGT community is up in arms…because the shitty local newspaper used masculine pronouns in its story about it.

    1. John   12 years ago

      OMFG. So I guess they will be okay with the guy who killed him as long as he had the decency to call his victim a “she”.

      1. Gladstone   12 years ago

        I thought the proper term was they?

        http://www.thestar.com/news/in…..d_she.html

        1. T   12 years ago

          It.

          1. Gladstone   12 years ago

            I guess “it” is to othering, microaggression and triggering or whatever.

    2. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

      Speaking of Greater Cleveland, how come you never responded to my email? You broke my heart!

      1. Warty   12 years ago

        Email on the what now?

        1. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

          The subject was Cleveland Browns, though I guess I know the answer to the question I asked, now.

          1. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

            I only sent one email, though.

          2. Warty   12 years ago

            Looks like it fell into the spam filter’s event horizon. If your question was whether the Browns suck, the answer is yes.

            1. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

              Re-sent

        2. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

          The subject was Cleveland Browns, though I guess I know the answer to the question I asked, now.

      2. EDG reppin' LBC   12 years ago

        They haven’t had The Internet in Cleveland since those guys stole the wire to sell for scrap copper.

        1. Gladstone   12 years ago

          Was that an episode from the last season of the Drew Carey show?

          1. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

            No, you’re thinking of the episode where he teams up with reason to save Cleveland by privatizing its parking enforcement and municipal golf courses.

        2. Warty   12 years ago

          No Cleveland or Akron building is complete without some boarded-up windows with NO COPPER IN BUILDING spray-painted on them.

          1. Gladstone   12 years ago

            You know who else didn’t want cops in buildings?

            1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

              David Koresh?

            2. C. Anacreon   12 years ago

              Krispy Kreme drive-thru owners?

          2. db   12 years ago

            What about “Copper in Building” with a rigged shotgun on the other side of the boards?

      3. Gladstone   12 years ago

        I prefer the old St. Louis Browns.

        1. EDG reppin' LBC   12 years ago

          As in; “My buddy and I split a case of Busch beer last night. He passed out on the sofa. When I woke up, the living room stunk. My buddy had the St. Louis browns. Real bad!”

    3. John   12 years ago

      And follow me here for a second. Wouldn’t feminists and lesbians tell you that clothes are just a social construct? That just because a woman dresses like a man or a man dresses like a women doesn’t make them that gender. Thinking that things like earrings or skirts are “feminine” is just something knuckle draggers do.

      Okay, this guy was a tranny meaning he still had a dick. So the only reason he was a she was because of the clothes he wore. Isn’t calling him she buying into the patriarchal view of sexuality?

      1. tarran   12 years ago

        Dude, why are you trying to apply reason to incohate emotional ‘decisions’?

      2. T   12 years ago

        Using gender pronouns at all buys into a heteronormative duality. There are more genders than just male and female.

        1. John   12 years ago

          How dare the LBGT community assume this guy was a “she” just because he wore women’s clothes. That is insulting.

        2. Warty   12 years ago

          Exactly. We need a pronoun for the third sex. I propose ?e.

          1. John   12 years ago

            You should trademark that.

          2. EDG reppin' LBC   12 years ago

            There’s a third sex? I know there’s “Missionary”, and I’ve heard about “Doggy Style”. But a third type? Who knew?

            1. Mad Scientist   12 years ago

              You are clearly a latent appliance fetishist.

            2. db   12 years ago

              I think now’s a good time for a discussion of anal.

              1. Fate   12 years ago

                It’s always a good time.

          3. Joe M   12 years ago

            Wow, Warty, you are behind the times on this one. There are about a million alternatives being argued over in the lefty swamps. Terms like xe, xir, hir, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgynous_pronoun

            1. Warty   12 years ago

              It’s pronounced “zhe”, you fool. Do you know nothing of the science of Cyrillic? Not a one of those idiots had the forethought to use ? instead of the patriarchical, hateful, rape-triggering “zh”. Assholes.

      3. Warty   12 years ago

        No, he was a she because she was born with a he’s body.

        1. John   12 years ago

          That is what they think. But they only assume that because he was wearing women’s cloths. Since when is wearing a dress and heels indicative of your gender? Monsters.

      4. Mad Scientist   12 years ago

        Mansplainer!

    4. Anonymous Coward   12 years ago

      Interesting…and where were you two weeks ago, Warty?

  48. Anonymous Coward   12 years ago

    Krugabe:

    At this point the economic case for austerity ? for slashing government spending even in the face of a weak economy ? has collapsed.

    In the United States, government spending programs designed to boost the economy are in fact rare ? FDR’s New Deal and President Barack Obama’s much smaller Recovery Act are the only big examples. And neither program became permanent ? in fact, both were scaled back much too soon. FDR cut back sharply in 1937, plunging America back into recession; the Recovery Act had its peak effect in 2010, and has since faded away, a fade that has been a major reason for our slow recovery.

    What about programs designed to aid those hurt by a depressed economy? Don’t they become permanent fixtures? Again, no. Unemployment benefits have fluctuated up and down with the business cycle, and as a percentage of GDP they are barely half what they were at their recent peak. Food stamp usage is still rising, thanks to a still-terrible labor market, but historical experience suggests that it too will fall sharply if and when the economy really recovers.

    1. Irish   12 years ago

      Still ignoring the massive tax increases put in place by all of those European countries, I see.

    2. Calidissident   12 years ago

      Aren’t spending programs designed to boost the economy by definition not permanent? Just one of the many absurdities in his post

  49. Dunphy (the real one)   12 years ago

    Jesus Christ, Bloomberg. NYC already is a very safe city and it doesn’t need fascist, unconstitutional statist tactics to help it remain so.

    Lots of other cities/agencies get along JUST FINE with obeying the constitution and still solving crimes and keeping the streets safe. You are an embarassment to law enforcement and (I can’t believe I am saying this because federal oversight is problematic on oh so many levels as well as violative of federalism) if there is ANY agency in the US that needs federal oversight, it’s NYPD.

    Stops need to be made pursuant to reasonable suspicion (or other rare instances like community caretaking). PERIOD.

    Frisks are only justified in a minority of terry stops and there need to be sufficient frisk factors to justify them. PERIOD.

    We live in a nation that lives, eats, and breathes rule of law (generally speaking), and NY is not your little fiefdom.

    Bloomberg literally makes me ill. I would volunteer to work on a task force to expose anti-constitutional police practices and get people held accountable. His practices are an embarassment, an abomination, and they need to stop.

  50. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

    LMFAO, I might have to change my handle again

    Holosexual Thane? Thane of Holosexuality?

    Easily-entertained Thane?

    1. Warty   12 years ago

      Whatever you are, you’re clearly more a ceorl than a thane.

      1. #HOLO YOLO   12 years ago

        Don’t make me Thu’um your ass

        1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

          That certainly answers Fake Tulpa’s question down below.

          1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

            If someone had told you there was a fake Tulpa who was even more tedious and useless than real Tulpa, would you have believed him before today?

            1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

              Are you saying you prefer real Tulpa?

              1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

                I don’t prefer one VD to another.

                1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

                  I don’t prefer one VD to another.

                  Always go for the non-resistant bacteriological ones. Gonorrhea is unpleasant, but genital warts are forever.

              2. Episiarch   12 years ago

                No where did he say that, jesse. He was just making an observation.

            2. Tulpa Pooh (LOL-PA)   12 years ago

              YUH TEARING ME APAHT ZAKALWE!

              1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

                No, that’s Warty’s sex life.

                1. Tulpy Pooh (LOL-PA)   12 years ago

                  That’s the idea! Ha ha ha.

    2. Joe M   12 years ago

      Fus Holo Dah

    3. C. Anacreon   12 years ago

      Holothanic Projection

  51. Coeus   12 years ago

    Krugman proves that using a basic numeric table of money in vs money out is sadly beyond him.

    The line, which you see in discussion all the time, goes something like this: “OK, I see that in principle you might want to stimulate now, and pay for it later. But we all know that stimulus programs, once introduced on an alleged temporary basis, never actually go away; and the reality is that governments never pay down debt in good times.”

    I see the appeal of this line; it sounds like knowing, worldly-wide cynicism. But if you look even briefly at the actual history, it turns out to bear no resemblance to reality.

    1. Joe M   12 years ago

      Wow, and all this time I thought the U.S. federal debt was increasing even in boom times for the last sixty years or so. Guess I know better now.

      1. Coeus   12 years ago

        He loves to use percentages of GDP in his charts, since most people are too damn stupid to realize that the more you spend overall, the same or larger dollar amounts represent a smaller share of GDP.

        You can explain this to a progtard, slowly taking them through the math. They will promptly forget it over the weekend, and be back spewing the same bullshit talking points ad nauseum.

        1. Joe M   12 years ago

          Yeah, the percentage bit is an annoying little sleight-of-hand I’ve seen him use many many times.

      2. Mike M.   12 years ago

        The welfare state barely existed sixty years ago. But of course dickface knows this full well.

    2. Joe M   12 years ago

      Show he shows all those fancy charts, but somehow neglects to show us the one where the debt is getting paid down in good times. Probably an innocent mistake.

    3. Auric Demonocles   12 years ago

      Nice to know that the almost trillion dollar stimulus was a ‘one time’ spend.

      1. BiMonSciFiCon   12 years ago

        Russ Roberts needs to get Krugman on Econ Talk. Stat.

    4. Art Vandelay   12 years ago

      “no resemblance to reality.”

      That would be a good title for Krugman’s autobiography.

  52. Tulpy Pooh (LOL-PA)   12 years ago

    Anyway Warty how’s your sex life?

  53. Virginian   12 years ago

    http://www.yourtango.com/exper…..nger-women

    Hahahahaha

    1. Zakalwe   12 years ago

      Seems legit.

    2. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

      There’s some truth to it. Of the folks my age who’ve dated younger, I know both guys who traded in for a new model, and guys who were out of the dating scene and, in coming back to dating, tried to get it right and thought that a younger woman would be a better way to go about it than an older woman with baggage and strongly established desires.

      1. Virginian   12 years ago

        Some yes, but the primary driver is that younger women are more attractive. The rest is just older women rationalizing frantically.

    3. Coeus   12 years ago

      Dammit, it’s blocked for me. Could someone quote some of the idiocy for me?

    4. Tejicano   12 years ago

      I dunno. Maybe my experience is different because I live in Tokyo and date Japanese women. Here I find older women start right up front with lots of explicit statements about any relationship needing to be “real” and leading to something long term. The younger women just want to have a good time.

      I have a FWB who is just above the “creepy” age limit who likes hanging out with me because I pay for dinner, can discuss anything with her – including her BF issues – and she can trust me to share/participate in her bondage & S/M fantasies. Oh, and she has a body which turns heads of both genders.

      How can a woman of any age compete with that when she gets heavy during our first conversation?

  54. Gladstone   12 years ago

    “recreatonal”?

  55. OldMexican   12 years ago

    The reason for all that black unemployment is… whites only network with other whites.

    Through such seemingly [sic] innocuous [sic! sic! sic!] networking, white Americans tend to help other whites, because social resources are concentrated among whites. If African-Americans are not part of the same networks, they will have a harder time finding decent jobs.

    There’s clearly something more sinister afoot when whites network with who they feel are their peers, Watson!

  56. Coeus   12 years ago

    Somebody gave Coates a fucking award for this tripe:

    The notion that Zimmerman might be the real victim began seeping out into the country, aided by PR efforts by his family and legal team, as well as by various acts of stupidity??Spike Lee tweeting Zimmerman’s address (an act made all the more repugnant by the fact that he had the wrong Zimmer?man), NBC misleadingly editing a tape of Zimmerman’s phone conversation with a police dispatcher to make Zimmer?man seem to be racially profiling Martin. In April, when Zimmerman set up a Web site to collect donations for his defense, he raised more than $200,000 in two weeks, before his lawyer asked that he close the site and launched a new, independently managed legal-defense fund. Although the trial date has yet to be set, as of July the fund was still raking in up to $1,000 in donations daily.

    But it would be wrong to attribute the burgeoning support for Zimmerman to the blunders of Spike Lee or an NBC producer. Before President Obama spoke, the death of Trayvon Martin was generally regarded as a national tragedy. After Obama spoke, Martin became material for an Internet vendor flogging paper gun-range targets that mimicked his hoodie and his bag of Skittles.

    1. OldMexican   12 years ago

      The notion that Zimmerman might be the real victim began seeping out into the country

      Why, we can’t have that!

      But it would be wrong to attribute the burgeoning support for Zimmerman to the blunders of Spike Lee or an NBC producer.

      Because people are just too dumb to figure out that there was a clear and systematic campaign by the media to lynch this guy. Nope, got to be their hatred for the black brother in the presidential chair. Got to be.

      1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

        While it’s possible this guy is guilty, but that’s not the media narrative, which is “OMG he’s so obviously guilty he should be grateful we have the formality of a trial instead of hanging him from a lamppost! And anyone who advises caution in the face of this rush to judgment can only be some kind of racist!”

    2. ant1sthenes   12 years ago

      Before President Obama spoke, the death of Trayvon Martin was generally regarded as a national tragedy.

      What exactly distinguishes local crime stories from national tragedies? Because I sure as shit can’t figure it out, unless the difference is somehow related to leftists thinking they can pimp the story to their own advantage.

      1. Coeus   12 years ago

        Ding ding ding ding ding. We have a winner. The only time I see that excuse is when it would be politically unfavorable to the authoritarians.

  57. AlmightyJB   12 years ago

    “Interested applicants should apply to: The Smoking Crater, Afghanistan.”

    Winner!

  58. Gindjurra   12 years ago

    I wonder how Bloomberg would react to being stopped and frisked? And would the officer who did it still have a job the next day?

  59. WomSom   12 years ago

    Who comes up with all that crazy stuff.

    http://www.Total-Anon.tk

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