IRS Still Sitting on Non-Profit Applications, Panetta Leaked Info to Moviemaker, Gun Control Fails in New Jersey: P.M. Links

• 

  U.S. Government

  Even as the IRS faces investigation for politically targeting the non-profit applications of conservative groups, it appears that over 200 such organizations are still stuck in limbo.

• The source for leaks to Zero Dark Thirty filmmaker Mark Boal, including the name of the Navy SEAL unit that carried out the Osama bin Laden raid and "top secret" information, was then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, himself. This was known by the White House prior to the November election, but is being released only now.
• Demonstrating a rare insight into the Constitution, Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested that bloggers may not be entitled to First Amendment protections. He apparently really meant that bloggers might not deserve the elevated protections accorded professional journalists which is … better?
• A poll conducted in both China and the United States finds that a majority of residents of those countries have low opinions of their overseas counterparts. Yeah, well. Sunday morning dim sum is still awesome.
• New Jersey's restrictive gun laws are impotent to prevent criminals from getting guns, say the beleaguered residents of crime-ridden Camden, New Jersey, and they say such laws elsewhere will be bypassed with similar ease.
• Denver politicians have decided not to opt out of Colorado's marijuana legalization, after all. Good call, if you want to hold on to those (mellow) tourist dollars.
• Private-sector data shows that the U.S. is adding jobs — 135,000 in May — very slowly.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

New Jersey's restrictive gun laws are impotent to prevent criminals from getting guns, say the beleaguered residents of crime-ridden Camden, New Jersey, and they say such laws elsewhere will be bypassed with similar ease.

NEED MORE LAWS.

[Rich]

NEED MORE LAWS.

Specifically, laws making it ILLEGAL to bypass them.

[gaijin]

Open systems, how the f*ck do they work?

[Live Free or Diet]

New Jersey has been in existence for 350 years.
The personal gun has been in existence for 650 years.
Yet NJ is still finding it needs to make new laws about them?

[Matrix]

66 year old Hong Kong "man" finds out he is actually a woman
Wow...

[Archduke Pantsfan]

stop othering her

[Brett L]

Get back, Jojo.

[Auric Demonocles]

QUICK! Let's base all our definitions of gender on this one edge case!

But seriously, sucks for that... uh...person?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Is no one going to make an Asian joke here you racists?

[Rasilio]

Well being asian we know why he never bothered to look into why his penis was so small

[Generic Stranger]

Wait, I had something for this...

[Brett L]

Lacist!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Demonstrating a rare insight into the Constitution, Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested that bloggers may not be entitled to First Amendment protections.

Constituional protections based on profession. What could go wrong?

[Auric Demonocles]

We already have second amendment protections for cops only.

[Ted S.]

Members of Congress already get protections in certain situations.

[Pro Libertate]

It's been a long time since I did much with the First Amendment, but I believe it's fairly well established that the freedom of the press is not legally distinguishable from the freedom of speech. In other words, an individual can claim the same rights as The Chicago Tribune.

A corollary to that is that government can't require credentials or licensing of the press, because then it would have the power to restrict it that way.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The press referring to the printing press, or the means of conveying speech, not an occupation.

[Pro Libertate]

Exactly. It's the act of communicating to others that's really the "press." Especially nowadays, where people can send e-mails and post on the web.

[JW]

Did you print out those emails and web posts?

No? Then they're not protected.

[db]

Hell, linotype is barely protected.

[JW]

Apropos....in 7th grade shop, we had a section on printing presses. We were expected to tie letterpress type blocks together and print off kid business cards.

I was cursing so much trying to tie those fucking things together that I nearly was kicked out of the class.

[LynchPin1477]

At least you were learning marketable 21st century skills.

[LynchPin1477]

an individual can claim the same rights as The Chicago Tribune

But I was told in another post that corporations were legal entities whose rights could be restricted by law. So if the Chicago Tribune's rights can be restricted, and an individual has the same rights as the Chicago Tribune, then an individual's rights must also be subject to legal whims. So bloggers don't enjoy freedom of the press. Brilliant!

[Pro Libertate]

No, see, corporations are people. So if you make a corporation go out of business, that's murder.

[Zeb]

It was my understanding that it is shield laws that give journalists extra protection against being compelled to reveal sources and stuff like that, not the first amendment. Is this not right?

[Pro Libertate]

Well, while there is a line of cases restricted so-called compelled speech, it's not like law enforcement can't force just about anyone to give up information, absent privilege.

[ant1sthenes]

If they aren't set forth as an expansion of first amendment rights, there would be some equal protection issues raised.

[CE]

Bloggers ARE the press, as it was defined in 1789.

[Pro Libertate]

It's not really debatable. Though with sufficient numbers of idiots in power, it might become so.

[Matrix]

Kevin Ware, the Louisville basketball player who snapped his shin is standing on his own two feet again
He might be able to play again. He's been taking jump shots in practice.

[Matrix]

Kid thinks it's still 2007, and decided to Rickroll Vine

[Matrix]

Self-help radio hosts found dead of apparent suicide

[Live Free or Diet]

What do you know? They did find a way to help me!

[Andrew S.]

I will give money to anybody that goes up against Lindsay Graham in the primary election. I have absolutely no connection to South Carolina. Don't care. There's nobody in the Senate I hate more (except maybe Schumer).

[Matrix]

Graham is probably one of the most despicable GOP senators, ever.

[Ted S.]

More despicable than McCain?

[Matrix]

McCain, for all his faults, gets things right every once in a while.

[JW]

Not on purpose.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Some point, when you least expect it, I'm going to comment "McCain, for all his faults..." and then my comment will trail off to nothing. Which is what you should have done there.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Toss up between him and McCain.

[Bobarian]

Droopy Mitch has got to be in that party too.

[Matrix]

Slate doesn't like "smart rifles" 'cause... children (I guess)

[Irish]

The TrackingPoint "Smart Rifle" Exemplifies Everything That's Horrible About American Gun Culture

They're not even trying to pretend anymore that their anti-gun biases are anything other than stupid culture war bullshit.

[Matrix]

Nope.

Maybe we should refer to their side as the "hysteria culture".

[NeonCat]

You mean HYSTERIA CULTURE!!!

[Dr. Frankenstein]

Sexist

[Fate]

Apply vibrator to treat hysteria?

[Zeb]

And it really doesn't even exemplify things that anti-gun dicks find horrible about gun culture.

[Rasilio]

Hmmm, seems to me that this would work perfectly on those flying assassination drones that I mentioned a couple months back that everyone said were too complex and could never work.

[Gray Ghost]

It still needs to dope wind, Rasilo. The website for the rifle mentions that wind corrections need to be manually entered into the system. When they get a laser that can read scattering over the path of the beam, and interpolate a mean wind drift over the projected bullet path, that'll be slick. Until then, the rest of it is interesting, with the integrated rangefinder/reticle/ballistics tables.

Really, it makes it lot easier for a less capable shooter to shoot at targets outside the point-blank range for that particular cartridge.

For your proposed application, IIRC, I thought that you'd need a pretty effective stabilization rig to cope with the platform's vibration, and that would put a floor on just how accurate you could make the drone. You could move the drone closer, of course, but then why not use something like an EFP as the payload? That'd be a lot more lethal, and probably less expensive.

[Rasilio]

The idea was to be able to deploy a cheap disposable flying drone armed with a high power rifle in place of a Hellfire missile so that instead of killing everyone within 10 meters of the target(s) you could selectively kill 1 or 2 targets then the drone self destructs.

The use of a scope like this is to eliminate most of the required stabilization and the accuracy really only needs to be a 6 inch group from 150 yards since it would be small enough to be largely invisible from that range

[Killazontherun]

If it's a one shot deal then you could drop the gun from the body of the drone once the target Lindsey Graham is made. The gravity drop of the gun is an easy differential to make compared to what it would be if shot while mounted.

[Killazontherun]

Holy crap. I didn't even do that on purpose.

[Killazontherun]

I know what happened. I copied his name for another post, I mean, who like writing it out, right? And for whatever reason it was pasted a second time.

[ant1sthenes]

Tell it to DHS, buddy.

[Brian D]

Nothing infuriates me more than someone with a weapon who is more likely to hit their intended target and not some innocent bystander. Unless it's cause they've practiced alot, I guess.

DEEEEEEERRRRRPPPPP!!!!

[Brett L]

Dear assholes at Slate -- and really everywhere else on the internet -- scorn does not excuse you from having to make a cogent argument about why the thing you scorn is bad.

[Bobarian]

The last time Slate made a cogent point, they were doing features on the best toothpaste

[Killazontherun]

Why not? It's got them this far.

[Matrix]

Do dogs mourn the death of owners?
Without trying to anthorpomorphize their behavior, I do believe many of them do mourn and do, in their own ways, understand death.

[Mad Scientist]

Hachiko

[JW]

Once on a flight, I was exposed to the dreadful Richard Gere movie based on that story. Excruciating and retchingly maudlin. I was tempted to hijack the plane, just to make it stop.

[Mad Scientist]

I had no idea there was a movie. Did Gere play Hachiko?

[JW]

Look upon me and despair.

[AuH20]

"A different person is getting me food. Where did the old person go?"

[Francisco d Anconia]

You do not have a dog, do you?

[AuH20]

I have had a dog. I do think they get death and such, but I think that is their first reaction to it.

[Irish]

"A different person is getting me food. Where did the old person go?"

My dog didn't eat for three days when I went to college and wouldn't leave the front door. I'm not even her favorite person in the house.

[Stormy Dragon]

Likewise, you wouldn't believe how much my parents' dog freaks out in happiness whenever I come to visit, considering I'm just this guy they only see for an hour or two a month.

[ant1sthenes]

Do wolves mourn packmates? If so, it's understandable that would transfer to human "packmates".

[Surly Chef]

Wolves often eat their pack mates.

[Tonio]

Technically, it's anthropoPATHIZE - attributing human emotions to animals.

But, yes, they do experience grief and loss. We basically bred them to read and share our emotions. We therefore owe them something. This doesn't fit comfortably into the libertarian paradigm.

[Rasilio]

Um, why not?

Animal rights are in no way shape or form antithetical to libertarianism and debates on the nature of rights and what qualifies one for those rights are quite common within the libertarian sphere.

IN fact being the only political philosophy that elevates individual rights to the highest good libertarianism is the only philosophy that even cares about this question enough to debate it.

[Tonio]

I actually agree with you Rasilio, but there is (or perhaps was) a vocal contingent here that maintains that animals are mere property and deserve no more consideration than lumps of clay.

This faction also argues most disingenuously that granting even the barest anti-cruelty protections to higher animals, such as dogs, (non-human) apes and whales is ridiculous.

[Irish]

Who says this? I've never seen that argument, and I don't understand how anyone could believe this.

[Matrix]

oh, there are some... even here.

They have no problem with what Michael Vick did.

[Joe M]

I said animals weren't moral agents a few days ago and Tonio got pissed.

[Tonio]

I believe you're leaving something out, Joseph. I've never maintained that animals were moral agents.

[Episiarch]

I say it. I know Tonio and I disagree on this, and I find purposeful cruelty to animals to be distasteful, but they are not sentient beings and can therefore only be property.

Any other interpretation becomes an insanely muddied mess of which animals are "advanced" (?) enough for protections, and which aren't. Not to mention that all animals are potential prey for us, which sort of puts the lie to them being anything other than property.

[Nikki says you caddie well]

I think you make a mistake here by saying they're not sentient, because they are. They're just not as intelligent as (most) people. Bare sentience is enough for me to say "active cruelty is immoral." I also believe that if voluntarily take a sentient being into your care, that implies taking on obligations not only to avoid active cruelty but also to provide for its welfare, so people who abuse pets are acting immorally.

Of course, I "get out of" the hard part of wanting to write laws about this.

[Episiarch]

Fine, sentient is the wrong word. Capable of reason is what I should have said, and therefore my point remains the same.

Humans hunt whales, gorillas, you name it. They don't hunt other humans, unless that human happens to be Ice-T and the hunters happen to be Rutger Hauer and Gary Busey. This second paragraph has no real point other than to mention Surviving the Game.

[jesse.in.mb]

Hunting Bin Laden

See also: bountyhunt, manhunt, assassination

[Nikki says you caddie well]

I hear tell Roose Bolton's bastard may also be interested in hunting the most dangerous game.

[Suthenboy]

Forget movies.

Cortez and his men wrote that they could barely stand the smell when approaching the Aztec capital for all the rotting flesh. A city full of people in a desert or jungle have to get their protein from somewhere.

I would bet every cultural group, at some point in history, hunted other people for food.

[LynchPin1477]

Fine, sentient is the wrong word. Capable of reason is what I should have said, and therefore my point remains the same.

I'm not positive that even this is true. Some of the work done on chimpanzee's is...confusing. I don't think we understand what goes on in their head enough to completely rule out some rudimentary reasoning skills.

[Rasilio]

"Any other interpretation becomes an insanely muddied mess of which animals are "advanced" (?) enough for protections, and which aren't."

Um, being an insanely muddled mess does not in any way shape or form preclude it from also being true

[Suthenboy]

"..not sentient beings.."

Every once in a while Epi....geez. *headsmack*

[Killazontherun]

When applying law, to focus on the animal, to find some criteria to justify giving it protection, is the wrong one. It will always be humans who sort through the understanding of law, who have something to gain or lose through its application. Who decides? Will the decision makers always give defference to sense? Say, will banning whips from training lions be on the agenda? Should it be? Would you jail someone for following in the footsteps of a centuries old tradition? The question should always be paramount when discussing law, would you jail someone for doing this?

[Tonio]

Epi, while I disagree with you and am saddened that someone who I otherwise respect holds that opinion, my beef is not with you. You've never displayed sneering contempt for the plight of animals or for anti-cruelty advocates.

Yes, it's an insanely muddled mess with few bright lines. I don't shy away from the hard questions. I'm not willing to ignore real suffering and cruelty for convenience.

[Zeb]

I definitely think that a person who intentionally causes unnecessary suffering to a higher animal is a nasty person, but I'm torn on whether such a person should be punished by other people.

I guess I am sort of in between. I think animals are property AND they deserve better treatment than a lump of clay.

[Matrix]

Yeah. There are ways to have different levels of rights for certain animals. I do not believe someone should have the right to tie up a puppy and bash it against a tree until it dies. Should that person spend his life in prison the same as if he would have done the same thing to a 5 year old child? No. But some kind of punishment seems necessary.

[Suthenboy]

It is not uncommon for people who do that to puppies to move up to people later on.

[Tonio]

I've made that argument here repeatedly, and it falls upon deaf ears, or gets dismissed as utilitarianism.

[Killazontherun]

If I'm not willing to punish a person for aborting a human fetus through the mechanism of the state, and I am not, I can't see applying a higher standard to animals, though, like you, I find all forms of cruelty disgusting.

[generic Brand]

The difficulty with animals is that you can have some that are simple property, in the sense that they are raised for what they can provide in a material sense (chickens for eggs or meat, cows for hides or meat, etc.), but those same animals can also be kept as pets which takes on a greater value.

I don't think there is one right answer, but I would never elevate the life of an animal OVER that of a human, if it came down to such a choice.

[SeaCaptain(Yokeltarian)]

"consideration than lumps of clay."

You're talking about the pro-abortion contingent.

[Tonio]

Yes, the fact that some animals have much higher neural complexity than human fetuses at early stages of development is a thorn in the side of the hardcore anti-abortion contingent.

I have always acknowledged that different organisms have different degrees of neural complexity, and that developing humans go from having no neurons to being extremely complex.

You?

[Brett L]

Animals can't have true rights because they can't accept the responsibilities that are required. Same with children, except it is a temporary condition for children. Animals are, at best, wards of some actually competent human. However, I think its a much better course to simply argue that anyone who is cruel to an obviously feeling animal would do the same to a human and thus deserves to be driven from society.

[Matrix]

I read an article, and it may have even been posted by someone in the HR comments. It was about how dogs were cruelly beaten to death and used as meat in Thailand. This was done in front of others dogs to terrify them, knowing it would happen to them soon. It is said this was done because it makes the meat taste better. Horrible, despicable human beings.

The big thing was they kidnapped dogs from owners locally and in other countries, because dogs from owners were healthier.

I'm sure if I had a dog and found out someone did that to him/her, I wouldn't care that they were human. I would want them to die, painfully.

[jesse.in.mb]

Legend has it that Koreans do that. The added adrenaline makes the meat more flavorful. It's entirely possible that that's an urban legend, and the Korean govt has sidelined kaegogi sales as much as possible without making it explicitly illegal.

[Rasilio]

"Animals can't have true rights because they can't accept the responsibilities that are required"

Are you sure about that? I am not.

I agree *most* animals are not capable of understanding the concept of responsibility much accepting one but I have seen quite a few instances where the only logical conclusion is that the animal did in fact recognize it had a responsibility and acted upon that.

Dogs, Elephants, Dolphins, and Chimps at a minimum seem to have some level of moral agency. True their morality does not exactly match ours but denying that it exists is either ignorance or willful blindness.

The question then becomes whether this form of moral agency qualifies those animals for more rights than mere property

[CE]

But some children can, so arbitrarily denying them rights based on not yet having reached a certain age is justifiable how?

[Tonio]

I'd settle for protections. I've deliberately avoided calling for rights even though many others have tried to claim I have.

Serial killers almost always start with animal torture. That doesn't mean that every person who commits an act of cruelty is a potential serial killer, but should give us pause.

[Brett L]

This is a far more consistent and less thorny path that gets us to the same place.

[sgs]

"Technically, it's anthropoPATHIZE "

Not really, their behavior is part of the calculus in additions to their perceived emotions.

[Tonio]

Yes, really. Get you to a dictionary.

AnthropoMORPHIZE means to depict animals having human form (morph) - walking upright, wearing clothes, etc. Which usually implies anthropopathization (pathos = emotion).

[Suthenboy]

It doesnt?

Perhaps I am not familiar enough with the libertarian paradigm.

[Sevo]

Matrix| 6.5.13 @ 4:33PM |#
'Do dogs mourn the death of PACK MEMBERS?'
Absolutely. One of the pack is gone.

"Without trying to anthorpomorphize their behavior, I do believe many of them do mourn and do, in their own ways, understand death."
See above. I doubt it is death qua death, but a missing pack member is cause for sadness.

[ChrisO]

Dogs are pack animals and see us members of their "pack." Just like their wolf cousins, they do mourn dead pack members, though undoubtedly their understanding of death is different and more limited than our own.

[CE]

And probably more accurate and less tied to fairy tales.

[Suthenboy]

Heh. I was about to say...what is to understand about death? A biological machine breaks and quits working. Soon it is gone.

There is nothing deep about death. From what I have observed in dogs they understand it just fine.

[Enough About Palin]

"Do dogs mourn the death of owners?"

Fuck yeah!

[Auric Demonocles]

Even as the IRS faces investigation for politically targeting the non-profit applications of conservative groups, it appears that over 200 such organizations are still stuck in limbo.

Well, of course they should face extra scrutinize. They want to lower taxes, so they are obviously just trying to cheat on their taxes. Duh.

[Raston Bot]

^POLITICS!!

Also, lowering taxes does not qualify as a social welfare issue because everyone knows that if you lower taxes, then society gets hurt.

[Rasilio]

"Yeah, well. Sunday morning dim sum is still awesome.

I thought Dim Sum was Vietnameese?

[jdtuccille]

Cantonese. And awesome.

[Fist of Etiquette]

A poll conducted in both China and the United States finds that a majority of residents of those countries have low opinions of their overseas counterparts.

Both countries are filled with low-information citizens, so take that with a grain of salt. Or MSG.

[Brett L]

Revenge of the Nerds: Highschool Yearbook Edition.

As reported by Dallas-Fort Worth TV network WFAA, the Irving Independent School District decided to take all 300 Irving (Texas) High yearbooks printed back into its possession after it discovered that the name of one of the school's cheerleaders had been replaced with the phrase "Ugly Hoe." The school told WFAA that only 12 yearbooks had been distributed when the mistake was discovered.

[generic Brand]

There was another story about this recently, where a girl's name (_______ Masters, I want to say) was changed to _______ Masturbates or something similar.

[ChrisO]

There is nothing ugly about a hoe. It's a perfectly useful garden implement.

[AuH20]

Gawker comments love Michelle shutting down the protestor:

Sorry, but this is awesome for a number of reasons.

Not the least of which that Michelle Obama is the most genuine First Lady since Ladybird, and maybe moreso. Especially when one considers how increasingly ridiculous the constraints of the position are in modern America, "tradition"-wise. The way that she manages to walk the tightrope of being an intelligent, highly-educated feminist, without getting caught in the "cookie-baking" verbal traps that her predecessors did every time they looked the least bit liberated is nothing short of amazing.

Top notch FLotUS

It's ingrained in certain white people's dna to feel threatened by a black person in power. It's like they're saying, no your place N-word.

Three reasons the First Lady is a certified badass:

1. She said "do you understand?" but her tone said "I can have you removed by men with guns."

2. She made the audience choose, showing the protester she had the power of her status as the speaker plus the will of the people. This was a teachable moment in manners and bitch was gonna get some learnin'.

3. When Barack asked how her speech went, you know she said "fine honey, how was your day?" even though she knew he'd see it in the papers later. Coz a boss doesn't need any emotional handholding.

[Irish]

It's okay to tell a lesbian to shut up about equal rights and kick her out of your event if you're a progressive.

[Calidissident]

I wonder what the left's reaction to this would have been if this was Laura Bush in the exact same circumstances

[Tonio]

I think we all know the answer to that.

[DesigNate]

Burn her in the town square. Plus you'd be taking a blow at Bushitler.

[Tonio]

There is clearly a hierarchy of protected classes.

[JW]

Heretics deserve no protection.

They got no class either!

[AuH20]

"She came right down in my face," Sturtz said. "I was taken aback."

That's right. You might be able to mess with President Obama but Michelle will kick your ass and not apologize.

Get 'em Michelle!

Heckling the First Lady at a private fundraiser in a private residence is beyond rude. Furthermore, it does nothing to highlight any issues or causes. Heckling her does not make you an activist. You're just the rude asshole who shouted things at the First Lady. No one even knows what you're shouting about. Not to mention the fact that her husband's administration is on your side. Way to alienate and distract lady

"'She came right down in my face,' Sturtz said. 'I was taken aback.'"

jerk activist only wishes she came right down in her face. amazing she uses words as if she was wronged by michelle obama.

still, good the activist came prepared with some lines about some executive order, give the press something to quote other than pure idiocy

Love it. So, moron heckles from the audience expecting to be protected by decorum. Instead, the heckled calls her out on it head and the heckler panics. Mess with the bull and get the horns, honey. You got schooled.

[AuH20]

And last but not least:

Can we say that democracy consists in part of letting people express themselves, listening and then responding. Heckling shuts that down. There may be instances, let's call them "big issues" where heckling is legitimate, e.g. the War in Vietnam, the AIDS, crisis, drones policy, pick what you want. Also instances, as in the case of the president of Turkey, where the leader refuses to engage in a dialogue, refusing to give reasons, etc. But if we let heckling interrupt all speeches for all issues then democratic dialogue is shut down. This is not a "big issue", and I say that as a gay who more or less supports what this women wanted. Did the First Lady behave badly. I actually have sympathy for her. It might have been better to just ask that the women be escorted out, which I think she had every right to do, but what the First Lady did was not that bad. (As an aside, Republican misuse of language, such as calling legitimate Presidential actions, "court packing" does more harm to democracy than the protester's behavior.)

[AuH20]

I really wanted to stick another criticism in that began, "As a Political Gay..." and then preceded to excuse Michelle.

[LynchPin1477]

pick what you want

Let me finish up this thought...

"Well, not that. Or that. Or that either -- look, I didn't really mean you, I meant educated, civilized people. Like me and my friends."

[Eduard van Haalen]

"There may be instances, let's call them "big issues" where heckling is legitimate, e.g. the War in Vietnam, the AIDS, crisis, drones policy, pick what you want....But if we let heckling interrupt all speeches for all issues then democratic dialogue is shut down."

So you like hecklers as long as you agree with the topic they're heckling about.

[Nikki says you caddie well]

Not to mention the fact that her husband's administration is on your side.

At least, until they threaten you with men with guns. Or something...

[Brett L]

I'm with these commentors. I'm slightly conflicted about someone being shocked that the speaker didn't shutup and meekly let you steal their show. Only because that someone was Michelle Obama.

[Episiarch]

These people's naked worship of power figures is repulsive. What lickspittle toady sycophant scum.

[Tonio]

Specific persons. Or personalities.

[Brett L]

I happened to be on my company's sharepoint today and saw the CEO's most recent blog post. Out of a sick sense of curiosity I clicked on it to see the comments. They ranged from "wow, very insightful" to "you've really opened my eyes" to "I think you changed my life".

[Raston Bot]

I hope you added something about him saving your soul from the devil and inspiring you to feed orphans in AfPak... b/c otherwise you missed an opportunity.

[Brett L]

I am constitutionally incapable of toadying. Its a win when I just shut the fuck up in situations like that.

[Zeb]

"I think I just pooped in my pants a little bit"

[db]

Wow. Why would a CEO even have an internal blog that allows comments? You're guaranteed to get nothing but toadying or silence.

[Brett L]

To his credit, he doesn't seem the type to bother reading them. He probably just didn't know there's an option to turn them off. It's Sharepoint.

[jesse.in.mb]

No one even knows what you're shouting about. Not to mention the fact that her husband's administration is on your side.

Except EVERYBODY knows what she's shouting about because it's part of the news articles covering her antics and the First Lady's less than well executed response. Say what you will about Barry, he handles hecklers better.

[generic Brand]

Aren't these the same people who get worked up into a frenzy when people like Daniel Tosh go in on a heckler? It must be the rape jokes... AND NOTHING ELSE!

[Apatheist ?_??]

It's ingrained in certain white people's dna to feel threatened by a black person in power. It's like they're saying, no your place N-word.

The First Spouse's job is to fuck their spouse and raise their kids, no matter their race. Anything else they do is open to criticism.

[A Serious Man]

It's totally awesome when our aristocracy shows their contempt for the plebes.

[DesigNate]

It's fucking hilarious how these fucking retards think that even when someone who is their target fucking audience gives the president (or his wookie) grief it is based on race.

That lady didn't have a legitimate complaint about the administration, nope and she should have known her place is at the back of the line behind all the aggrieved groups that Obama holds over her.

[Rich]

"Who is a journalist is a question we need to ask ourselves," he said. "Is any blogger out there saying anything?do they deserve First Amendment protection? These are the issues of our times."

"What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is."

[Caleb Turberville]

http://blog.al.com/breaking/20....._big-photo

Unidentified Doppler Object spotted over Huntsville, Alabama!

[Brett L]

Its just a coverup for their UFO test firing.

[Matrix]

lol, I made that comment

[Matrix]

Yeah, people have been talking about it a lot today.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Hopefully for everyone's sake it's not an M. Night Shyamalan movie hovering up there.

[NeonCat]

Is there a palpable sense of disappointment in the Huntsville area?

If not, then probably not.

[Pro Libertate]

Hmm, space fiber? Could it be that the reason SETI has failed so far is that the rest of the galaxy is connected by fiber optics?

[Brett L]

Hey look the LAPD investigated itself and found the firing of Chris Dorner was justified.

An internal review by the Los Angeles Police Department concluded that rogue ex-officer Christopher Dorner was justifiably fired, a lawyer who reviewed the findings told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Well, the retrospect totality of the circs really seem to bear that out.

[Ted S.]

hth lol.

[Calidissident]

I'm as critical (and probably moreso, since I live there most of the year, my cousin's LAPD, and I have a lot of friends who have had bad encounters with them for no good reason, though I personally haven't), but given Dorner's actions after he got fired, I'm willing to take their word on this one

[Calidissident]

*should say "I'm as critical of the LAPD as anywhere here"

[Calidissident]

Damn it! *anyone

[CE]

He did rat on a fellow officer abusing a mere citizen, after all. What did he expect, a promotion?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The source for leaks to Zero Dark Thirty filmmaker Mark Boal, including the name of the Navy SEAL unit that carried out the Osama bin Laden raid and "top secret" information, was then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, himself.

That's what happens when you have Tony Soprano play you in a movie.

[Jerry on the boat]

What's the point in having stuff 'top secret' when the WH leaks it anyways?

[Zeb]

It's nice to retain the option to punish people.

[Caleb Turberville]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad.....ation.html

RFK, Jr.: A bit of a moron, wouldn't you say?

[Irish]

The Kennedy Family: All morons, wouldn't you say?

[Archduke Pantsfan]

even the in-laws

[Brett L]

Nah, what's her name, the one who started the Special Olympics, she was a pretty good egg.

[Rasilio]

I don't know Bobbie and Jack got to bang Marylin so they couldn't be totally clueless

[Zeb]

I don't think JFK or RFK were morons. Nor their father. Please note I am not saying that that means that they were good people or the sort of people who I'd want to run government.

[ChrisO]

JFK was on the dull side, by all accounts I've read. RFK was reasonably intelligent, and of course their father was a rather clever criminal.

JFK was also the last Democrat who had a remotely sane record in office.

[Let Me Ride]

Why isn't Panetta being wiretapped surveilled in Obama administration's War on Leakers? Why isn't he having his property searched and seized by Federal investigators, militarized law enforcement, The FBI? Why isn't he being thrown in "pre-trial detention" a la Bradley Manning, and being put in solitary confinement, stripped naked and forced to sleep on the floor before his day in Kangaroo Court?

Why?

[Generic Stranger]

Probably because Obama authorized the leak.

[DesigNate]

It's good to work for the king. Especially if he's trying to get re-elected and wants to look like a badass.

[Brett L]

GA building a nucular plant. Technically, expanding an existing plant. But still cool.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...it appears that over 200 such organizations are still stuck in limbo.

What difference at this point does it make. The election is over.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Your evening Longtorso news:

1. This is my 10 year blogversary.

2. I had a camera shoved up my butt this morning (just call it the STEVE SMITHcam) and everything is all clear, anus-wise.

[Matrix]

I take it you're still under the effects of the drugs...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Shut up, Matrix, or I'll start posting pics from ButtCam (tm).

[Archduke Pantsfan]

WHOOOSH

[Fist of Etiquette]

Somewhere Joe Biden can't understand the sudden tightening in his breeches.

[ChrisO]

Why, with a train that fast you could go from Bakersfield to somewhere near Fresno in record time!

[CE]

But why would you want to?

[mad libertarian guy]

The dumbest thing you'll read today:

Many of us look at Congress and are appalled by how dysfunctional it is. Yet here's an example where EMILY'S List members and others that strive to add women to office should take heart. Adding women to our legislative democracy can make Congress work better. I believe we would never see the partisan game-playing that horrifies us if half the members of Congress were women. And certainly those who abuse women... or allow it to continue... would be held accountable.

And this is just the start of it. Other tidbits include the idea that the only reason Clarence Thomas was cleared of wrongdoing was because of a gender bias in Congress. As soon as it's all women in Congress, utopia will be inevitable!

[Irish]

It's okay to make ridiculous assumptions about innate differences between men and women, so long as your ridiculous assumption is flattering to women.

It's just science.

[Episiarch]

Yes, because women aren't capable of being ambitious and power-hungry. Because they're not human!

[itsnotmeitsyou]

It's exceedingly humorous to even entertain the thought that a giant group of women with widely varying viewpoints would cooperate as a whole and not bicker like children.

Women who like each other can't get in a group that big without some in-fighting.

[Mad Scientist]

12-Year-Old Camper Excited To Meet Girls Who Will Torture Her For Rest Of Summer

[Nikki says you caddie well]

You guys don't understand at all. The only girls who don't get along with groups of other girls are sad, broken creatures who never developed the right kinds of social interactions and thus know only how to show men their tits for attention (literally and figuratively). Real women are able to navigate the slumber-party dynamic.

[Mad Scientist]

Also, those girls are like totally not friends with the popular girls, so there must be something wrong with them.

[Nikki says you caddie well]

Exactly.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

sad, broken creatures who never developed the right kinds of social interactions

Sooooo, politicians...

I didn't mean to say that ALL girls are incapable of interacting with all other girls. But the attention whoring, self important type of girls can't. And that seems to be a prereq for running for office regardless of gender.

[Nikki says you caddie well]

I was being completely sarcastic, actually. My comment is a distillation of the opinions of various ladyblog writers and commenters.

[JW]

So, you're not going to show us your tits?

[Nikki says you caddie well]

It would be frowned upon.

[JW]

Give us their names. We'll turn those frowns, upside-down.

Or else.

[Nikki says you caddie well]

We'll turn those frowns, upside-down.

Nah, that's my job.

[Episiarch]

But the sad broken ones who show their tits are my favorite kind!

[Mad Scientist]

A lap dance is so much better when the stripper is crying.

[Episiarch]

I will always thank the Bloodhound Gang for giving us that song.

[DesigNate]

Did that bitch even pay attention to high school politics? Jesus Tapdancing Christ an eleven year-old knows girls can be catty bitches.

[ChrisO]

200+ mean girls in a room together wielding the gavel of power. What could possibly go wrong?

On the other hand, I'm not sure they'd be appreciatively worse than 535 skirt-chasing shysters.

[ChrisO]

That should be "appreciably". It's Friday, after all.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

Make that 6,001 years ago.

[Pro Libertate]

I was just at the zoo with my 6 year-old daughter, and we were on one of those safari rides to see various animals. There was some reference to some bird being a "living fossil," mostly unchanged over 50 million years. I started explaining that to my daughter and what evolution was all about and realized the people next to me were unusually silent. Then I remembered.

[Tonio]

Don't leave us hanging, ProL.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, sorry, didn't mean to be coy. I just remembered that people believe that the Earth was created more recently, and that evolution is a damned lie.

[Irish]

Yeah, I don't know where this story is going.

[Episiarch]

Your mom is a creationist?

[Pro Libertate]

You should know.

It was just me and my daughter, for the record.

[Episiarch]

Oh, I definitely "know" your mom.

[Pro Libertate]

My mom is very religious, but she's also fine with evolution. She was a microbiology major or something like that in college.

[Episiarch]

I thought she studied poetry? I mean, she did help me straighten out my Longfellow.

[Caleb Turberville]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm.....am-chomsky

Noam Chomsky: "THE U.S. IS OUT TO DESTROY THE FUTURE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!"

[Caleb Turberville]

Don't. Read. The. Comments!

[gaijin]

Like every other aging idealist, Noam now sees DOOM. DOOM. DOOM. All about him. He's just another crotchety old man.

[Caleb Turberville]

Yeah, it strikes me as a sore-loser response to the fact that the world is the vast socialist planet-state that Chomsky so desperately wanted it to be in 1950.

[Caleb Turberville]

*isn't

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I liked your uncorrected post better.

The fact is, when you look at the world today, guys like Chomsky got exactly what they wanted. Now they're standing around in the wreckage they promoted and created, wondering why no one stopped them.

[DesigNate]

^THIS^

[Generic Stranger]

Now they're standing around in the wreckage they promoted and created, wondering why no one stopped them desperately trying to pretend it wasn't their fault.

FTFY. They aren't intellectually honest enough to be appalled at their own actions.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

Know any good recipes?

[jesse.in.mb]

Cooking with Sky Prawns

Locals in eastern Australia ravaged by a plague of locusts could now take the ultimate revenge - eating them.

Two government workers have responded to the crisis by producing a specialist cookbook of more than 20 locust recipes called Cooking with Sky Prawns.

[robc]

A guy in Cincinnati made a Cicada beer last big cycle.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

"Cockroaches: The Shrimp of the Trailer Park"

[Archduke Pantsfan]

Maybe now he can afford a proper stylist.

[Matrix]

Woman paralyzed after mosquito bite

I hate those little fuckers even more!

[Brett L]

Even the mosquitos in Ausralia are badasses. Its like the continent was set up to evolve human killing creatures.

[Matrix]

Yeah, I know. They didn't even need to film "After Earth" (I've heard it was awful). They could have just done a documentary about Australian fauna. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Australian plants weren't the same way.

[Pro Libertate]

Australia is like Salusa Secundus. Eventually, the people who survive it will develop an unbeatable level of lethality.

[Brett L]

You're talking about Frank's Salusa Secondus, not the shit Kevin Anderson came up with that never got written down, right?

[Pro Libertate]

Please.

[Brett L]

Anti-hipster hysteria. I mean, my experience with adult kickball is that its a convenient excuse to meet 20 people in a bar and get blitzed on a thursday after "doing something athletic". But worse than heroin? Nah.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

We are learning more about Warty's family everyday.

[Fatty Bolger]

I want one. I mean the tiny primate, not Warty.

[Enough About Palin]

A more abstract form of this parochialism is the multiculturalists' frequent insistence that "only white people can be racist." In this view, racism is perhaps the greatest moral failing of which human beings are capable--but nonwhites are absolved of moral responsibility for their racial prejudices.

But moral responsibility is the essence of humanity. It is what sets Homo sapiens apart from other animals. Assigning moral responsibility to whites while denying it to nonwhites is therefore a way of dehumanizing the latter. Multiculturalism turns out to be a disguised form of white supremacy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/.....TopOpinion

[Irish]

James Taranto is on a roll the last couple of months.

[Brett L]

"Austin to Get Non-Stop Flights to Cleveland"--headline, Austin American-Statesman,

Jesus. That seems like cruel and unusual punishment for not separating your recycling or admitting to drinking something besides Shiner, Lone Star, or craft beer.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Pearl is also an acceptable answer. (gross)

Funnily enough even though the bud brewery in houston is only from the 60s, Adolphus Busch built the original Lone Star brewery and other around the state. Bud is just as Texas made as any other.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

I had a shiner bock in Houston at a reception after a day of call back interviews. I blame my barely hidden disgust on why I didn't get the job. That and I'm from Milwaukee.

[AuH20]

God, it's the SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION of racism, James. It doesn't have to follow your patriarchal rules about what words mean!

[Fatty Bolger]

Known liar Stephanie Cutter, the president's deputy campaign manager, says that the White House meetings with IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman were obviously not political because she was there at the meetings. Because nothing says "non-political meeting" like having a campaign manager attend.

Stephanie Cutter Attended WH Meetings With IRS Chief

As reported by Gateway Pundit, Cutter attempted to dismiss charges they were political meetings but admitted she had attended meetings with Shulman at the White House. "I was in them with him," Cutter said. "So there was nothing nefarious going on."

Totally believable.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

If the Penguins win tonight, they take the series in 6.
If they lose tonight, they lose in 4.

[Fist of Etiquette]

They've been down two games before in to start playoff serieses. They've even come back from two such events to win the Cup. But I'm not making any predictions for tonight.

[Art Vandelay]

"They've even come back from two such events to win the Cup"

They didn't have to overcome mite-level goaltending during those series, however.

[Enough About Palin]

Truck Carrying 6,000 Gallons of Scotch Overturns and Catches Fire in NJ

[Archduke Pantsfan]

oh the humanity!

[Brett L]

Pack it up, this thread is closed. A winner has been found.

[Pro Libertate]

Say, didn't New Jersey shoot down the Hindenburg?

[Brett L]

And almost plunged us into war before we were ready. It was a secret plot by the Lindberghs to doom the US war effort and curry favor with Hitler, guaranteeing that Chuck would be appointed Consul of North America in the new World Reich.

[Pro Libertate]

The Lindenbergh?

[jesse.in.mb]

NJ ruins everything.

[Rich]

Which exit?

[Zeb]

Initially I pictured a tanker truck full of scotch. Then it occurred to me that it might have been in bottles. No picture, unfortunately.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

From Russia with Arms

[Coeus]

Christ, dude. Way to completely disavow your own reasoning.

Should we trust economists?

The problem is that economists haven't really built a model of the whole economy that works. A lot of smart people have spent a lot of time creating tools with names like "dynamic stochastic general equilibrium." But as of this moment, those models can't really forecast the economy like our meteorologists can forecast the weather. Furthermore, they contain a lot of obviously wrong assumptions. To give just one example, many of the models stipulate that companies are only allowed to change their prices at random times! Crazy, right? Economists include things like that to make the models easier to use, and they hope that those zany assumptions are actually decent approximations to the way the world really works. But even with these kludges in place, none of the existing models can do much to predict the economy.

Theory isn't the only problem. Economists don't really have good enough data to understand how the economy works, either. With chemistry or biology, you can put things in a lab and test them out with controlled experiments. With microeconomics -- the study of specific markets -- you can do something similar; for example, the auctions that Google uses to sell online ads were developed by microeconomists.

[Coeus]

cont.

But with macroeconomics -- the study of the economy as a whole -- you can't put countries and entire economies in a lab; all you can do is sit there and watch history go by, and try to deduce some patterns. But often enough, those patterns vanish just as soon as you think you've found one.

And then:

Finally, though mainstream economists may not have it all figured out, they are far better than most of the groups who lurk outside the mainstream. For example, spend an afternoon reading the ideas of so-called "Austrian" economists, who believe that we only need logic to understand how the economy works, and that data and evidence are useless. Absurd. But that's the kind of alternative that's out there, and some people really believe that stuff.

[DesigNate]

Holy fuck that guy is fucking retarded. But then again he writes for the Atlantic.

[Nikki says you caddie well]

Let me put "Austrian" in scare quotes like a complete fucking moron/asshole.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, Nikki, Hitler was an Austrian.

[Some call me Tim?]

Has he actually read Austrian work or only someone else's description of it?

The fact is that Austrians are the ones who believe that our knowledge has a limited ability to provide insight into how the world works.

[Coeus]

Only men should have dress codes, part 134,332.

[Nikki says you caddie well]

Well, that's not really what Jezebel said (this time)... "These irrational rules are geared towards making adults feel safe rather than teenagers." I agree. I also think she should have chosen a different dress. When they're that big you have to give up on most strapless options.

[jesse.in.mb]

To be fair, she says nothing about men's dress. I have no problem with us going back to pre-victorian attitudes on cleavage

From wikipedia:

Gowns which exposed a woman's neck and top of her chest were very common and non-controversial in Europe from at least the 11th century until the Victorian period in the 19th century. Ball or evening gowns especially featured low square d?colletage designed to display and emphasize cleavage. The wearing of low-cut dresses which exposed breasts were considered more acceptable than they are today; with a woman's bared legs, ankles, or shoulders being considered to be more risqu? than exposed breasts.

[Coeus]

To be fair, she says nothing about men's dress.

That's the point. They never do. Despite the men's dress code being far more restrictive. It's only the women who should have no rules.

[Nikki says you caddie well]

What's the men's dress code?

[Pro Libertate]

No penis cleavage. At all.

[Nikki says you caddie well]

The school handbook (PDF) doesn't have any rules that would seem to apply to boys but not girls. But then it also doesn't have any rules against showing cleavage.

[jesse.in.mb]

Maybe we can make man-ass-cleavage sexy, and then restrict it to make everything square. It's gonna be a tough sell, but I'm sure it'll make the plumbers happy.

[Coeus]

What's the men's dress code?

If they allow men to wear tank tops, then it's different from every school in my conference growing up. Sleeves were a big one. And mine had a no facial hair rule, despite it being a public school.

And the mexican girls never got any shit about their mustaches.

[Nikki says you caddie well]

Ah. My schools allowed boys to wear tank tops and have facial hair.

I would say there was a "disparate impact" of the dress code on guys, because they were more likely to be in gangs or want to sag their pants, but it's not like the rules were actually different for them.

[Killazontherun]

I once tried the Jeff Beck jacket vest without an undershirt look. Didn't go over well with one teacher who made me change into my gym top.

[Killazontherun]

I use to do some work for my aunt who owned an antique store back when I was in high school. She would buy out the properties after the reading of wills where the items were pretty much useless to the new owners. I would usually get the pick of the clothing for helping her clear the houses out. Had an amazing wardrobe for a seventeen year old kid. Looked so pimp back then.

[jesse.in.mb]

Are we talking in general or are we talking for prom-like formal situations?

We wore uniforms in elementary and high school and the only difference was that women could wear culottes or skirts in addition to slacks or shorts (there weren't many middle school boys complaining that they couldn't wear skirts). My high school only put in a dress code because the girls were wearing bikini tops and booty shorts to class and the headmaster's wife was peeved (which is exactly the sort of dress code that jezebel is talking about here). I haven't experienced a dress code that was explicitly or incidentally more restrictive of boys than girls (not that my experience is all encompassing).

[Coeus]

I haven't experienced a dress code that was explicitly or incidentally more restrictive of boys than girls

If you had uniforms the entire time you were in school, then maybe. But what about sleeves? Mid-riffs?

[jesse.in.mb]

In middle school there were no bare midriffs and everyone wore either long or short sleeved polo-type shirts. I was no longer at my high school by the time they implemented a dress code. Knowing my HS they'd be perfectly fine with a boy showing up in a skirt and tank top, but stop him if the skirt were too short, just like they would for the girls. Most restrictions on male dress are defined by what guys are willing to wear. The main restriction on men I've seen relate to wearing overly baggy pants or low slung shorts.

[Pro Libertate]

I got in trouble for wearing a sleeveless Union Jack shirt in high school I got from a Def Leppard concert a few days earlier.

[Clich? Bandit]

from a Def Leppard concert

I have a whole new level of respect for you...I imagine this embarrasses you but, bro...i feel ya!

[Coeus]

Making shit up, starring Jill.
Leave Amanda Alone!

While we're transfixed, women are especially punished for appearing to go off the deep end. Men who behave like raging narcissists and actually get violent, on the other hand, are routinely enabled and placated. Take Charlie Sheen as the most obvious example: he attacked a couple of women and went on TV ranting about tiger blood, all while maintaining his role on a popular (if astoundingly bad) television show. His behavior, though violent and abusive, was laughed off as "antics".

Yeah, no one ever made fun of Charlie Sheen or Mel Gibson. I this is the best they've got, I think we can go ahead and consider sexism a dead issue.

[Zakalwe]

More Florida genius.

A Seminole County man has been arrested after deputies say he was attempting to propose to his girlfriend while naked, but ended up being in the wrong house.

Casselberry police said Thomas Edwards, 22, showed up at the house that he says his girlfriend told him to go to on Sunday night to propose to her and started taking off his clothes on the back patio.

The homeowners said Edwards' girlfriend was not in their house and that they had never heard of her and didn't know who Edwards was.

The homeowners called the police and when officers arrived, Edwards spit on them when he was asked to put his clothes on, according to authorities.

Edwards was shocked with a stungun and arrested. He was charged with burglary of a dwelling, battery on a law enforcement officer and indecent exposure.

[Brett L]

At least it wasn't Florida Man striking again. He's the worst villain ever.

[Coeus]

These fuckers are completely shameless.

In other countries where Furth denies austerity is happening, ETUI differs. Ireland, they find, experienced a 3.8 percent austerity package last year, and Portugal had a 4.9 percent package in 2011. How do they find this? They sent out surveys to experts in each of those countries, who relied in turn on data put out in the actual budgets proposed by their countries' leaders. "The findings?represent a fairly simple adding-up of the expected size of announced packages and/or individual measures," the report says.

[Calidissident]

Do these idiots even realize that in the vast majority of countries where "austerity" is taking place (and of course, I put that word in quote because it most cases there aren't substantial cuts, if at all, and most of the "austerity" is tax increases) it's because their debt situation has forced them to? Ireland, Portugal, Greece, etc. were fucked before "austerity" happened

[LilDebbie]

http://wwwb.comcast.com/home-security/

I know some of y'all are lawyers so would one of you please explain to me the purpose of anti-trust laws? Y'see, I was under the impression that a government-approved monopoly like Comcast wasn't allowed to use its monopoly status to expand into markets completely unrelated to its core business.

Or perhaps putting motion detectors in your home is somehow related to television. Telescreens maybe...

[WomSom]

Those guys dont make a whole lot of sense man.

http://www.WorldPrivacy.tk

[paranoid android]

Ruh-roh: US government monitoring all communications of (at least) all Verizon customers

http://m.guardiannews.com/worl.....ourt-order

Anyone surprised? Anyone at all?