A.M. Links: U.S. Army Bans The Guardian, Senate Passes Immigration Reform Bill, Virginia GOP Candidate Wants Ban on Oral, Anal Sex Reinstated

• 

  NateLove/Foter.com

  The U.S. Army has banned access to The Guardian on its computers.

• Former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "Hoss" Cartwright, is suspected by the government of being behind the leak of information about cyberattacks on Iran's nuclear program.
• The Senate passed its immigration reform bill yesterday by a vote of 68-32.
• Michigan state police raided three medical marijuana dispensaries in Springfield.
• Virginia's Republican gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, wants the courts to reinstate the state's ban on oral and anal sex, saying it was an important tool in prosecuting child molesters.
• Chinese urban police tasked with cracking down on unlicensed street vendors and enforcing beautification orders have been setting up their own unlicensed street vending operation, to see what it's like.
• Monsignor Nunzio Scarano of the Vatican Bank was arrested as part of an investigation into money laundering and corruption.
• Egyptian clerics warn of a civil war in the country.
• The government of the United Kingdom will draft regulations allowing three-person IVFs for the baby making.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, wants the courts to reinstate the state’s ban on oral and anal sex…

EVEN ON YOUR BIRTHDAY??? The powerful girlfriend and wife lobby must have gotten to him.

[a better weapon]

WAR ON WIMMM… wait, that can’t be right, can it?

[Zeb]

It could be if cunnilingus counts. Or is the law just about blowjobs?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Cunnilingus is just a myth, like the G spot.

[Tonio]

IIRC, the original VA statute read “if any person know by the mouth or the anus.” “Know” meaning to have carnal knowledge of (have sex with); the statute was (IIRC, again) written in the 1600’s so the language is gnarly.

[Rasilio]

Indeed since most women need that more than guys need blow jobs

[Lord Humungus]

War on rimming?

[a better weapon]

+1 dental dam

[Ted S.]

There’s a reason the Republicans are the Stupid Party.

[SugarFree]

That’s a damn lie! The GOP never tries to make gay sex illegal or ban abortions. There is no such thing as a theocon. No religious people ever try to take your freedoms away from you. It’s all the liberals! Those filthy liberals!

[Careless]

And here I was thinking that should have been a comment on Republican Senators voting to create millions of net votes for Democrats.

I expect them to be evil. I don’t expect them to work this hard against their own job prospects.

[sarcasmic]

Q: What’s the difference between a wife and a job?

A: After a few years the job still sucks.

[Rasilio]

Not if you marry a high libido redhead 😉

[Enough About Palin]

RUN!!!!!11!111111

[gaijin]

This guy must be retarded.

[Live Free or Diet]

He’s certainly lost my vote. If oral wasn’t on the menu, I would have fathered a half dozen extra kids prior to college.

[NoVAHockey]

there’s a guy running libertarian.

[some guy]

SoCon is as SoCon does. He’s basically handing the office to McAullife, though, which is going to be great for the state.

[robc]

Without any knowledge of VA, I see an option other than Socon (which is the obvious guess).

He is pro-prosecutor, and wants them to be able to pile charge on top of charge, like they always try to do.

Especially since his reasoning is based on making it easier to prosecute molesters. In theory, the molestation charge should be enough, but we have seen actual practice that they want more. And also, this gives them the chance to make charges stick against someone they cant prove was a molester. Possibly because it was consensual to begin with.

So SoCon, Prosecutorial douchebag or both all seem like reasonable guesses.

[some guy]

You’re right. It’s both.

[Tonio]

Without any knowledge of VA…

Yep. Should have stopped while you were ahead. And while you may be correct, that candidate has a pretty long record of saying bad things about gays.

[wwhorton]

I’m in VA’s neighbor to the north. We’ve got our own problems (see: Gov. Martin O’Malley) but Cuccinelli is the kind of guy that could sniff glue for an hour with no noticeable effects on his intellectual capability. This is the same guy who wanted mandatory sonograms for women seeking abortions. He makes Terry McAuliffe look like Thomas Jefferson.

[LTC(ret) John]

“The powerful girlfriend and wife lobby must have gotten to him.”

Their power is fierce and unrelenting.

[invisible furry hand]

Doesn’t this proposed ban cover cunnilingus as well? Can’t see too many women lobbying for that

[sarcasmic]

“So, whatcha in here for?”

“Going down on my wife. Third offense.”

[Tonio]

If they revive the original Virginia anti-sodomy statute (see my post above), yes. I haven’t seen him float any specific language, just refer to reinstating anti-sodomy laws.

[Brett L]

The powerful girlfriend and wife lobby must have gotten to him.

But they left in the diamond exception, right?

[fried wylie]

Mandate for publicly subsidized diamonds for all women regardless of marital status.

[NoVAHockey]

well, i things will suck under guess Gov. McAuliffe. just in a different way

[Francisco d Anconia]

And the republicans can’t understand why people have a hard time voting for them.

[Gbob]

Do those people just wake up in the morning asking themselves “What stupid ass thing can I do to make sure that nobody will ever want to elect me?”. You would think, at some point, team red would realize that telling people what to do with their sex lives is a losing proposition. Couldn’t he call up someone like Santorum and find out how well it worked for him?

[db]

They really have no concept of how ridiculous they are.

[Fist of Etiquette]

It’s what happens when you exist in an echo chamber.

[Gbob]

What’s odd is that I can’t think of a single Repub I know who has ever voiced that kind of sentiment. Sure, I’ve heard anti same sex views, but never the kind of sexual puritanism so many candidates seem to endorse. So where do these people come from? Why are they the ones to rise to the top.

Crazy thing is, about 90% of their platform are views the majority of Americans hold. Lower taxes, lower spending, etc. Why die on this hill?

Somebody ought to sodomize this idiot. Make him change his mind.

[Rasilio]

The problem is that there is a segment of the population that really eats that shit up.

They are totally down with draconian laws punishing people for doing things they find icky.

My brother actually lives in Virginia and is totally like that, he thinks Cuccinelli is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that legalizing gay marriage is self evidently the first step in a planned agenda to legalize child molestation.

The fact that when he was 27 he was having an affair with a 13 year old he met on the internet (interstate one so federal felony to boot) seems not to phase him at all.

[Spoonman.]

What the fuck?

[fried wylie]

For me but not for thee.

Obviously his brother is sophisticated enough to responsibly handle the rigors of fucking a lil kid.

[NeonCat]

I thought Virginia was for lovers?

[Tonio]

Some restrictions apply.

[Restoras]

Nope. Only fuckers.

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

Cuccinelli claims he will only use the sodomy law to bring cases involving minors or sexual assault, and argues that Virginians need not worry about him prosecuting “consenting adults,” because the part of the law that would enable him to do so was defanged by the Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision. But in 2004, when a bipartisan group of state Senators was trying to fix the sodomy law so that it would only apply to cases involving minors and non-consensual sex, Cuccinelli, then a state Senator, blocked the effort.

:headdesk:

[tarran]

We won’t use this law against you…

Suuuuuuuuuuure

[John]

They really can’t. The courts would kill them and you would have a great civil rights suit.

The problem is that since when is it a problem to get a stiff sentence against a child molester? The only reason you would ever tack a sodomy charge onto a case is if there was an issue with consent. And consent is not a defense if the victim is a minor.

I don’t think Cuccinelli is being malicious. I think he might actually be this stupid and such a poor understanding of the law that he thinks such a charge would help in an abuse of a minor case.

[Rasilio]

Sure it does, it gives him something to plea bargain with.

Plead guilty to this charge of sodomy and we’ll drop our (*cough*relatively weak*cough*) child molestation case against you

[John]

Yeah. There wouldn’t be an appeal since you can waive that as a condition of the deal.

So what he really wants is a way to convict people where there is not enough evidence to do so. The only reason such a deal would ever happen is because the prosecution can’t prove its case and the defendant is terrified of taking the chance.

So he is not stupid, just evil.

[robc]

So he is not stupid, just evil.

He can be both.

Both is always a valid option.

[John]

Although, I am not sure a judge would or could accept a consensual sodomy plea with a minor. Since minors can’t consent, there is no way the guy could ever pled guilty to the charge without admitting to child molestation. He would have to lie or not mention that the victim was a minor.

I would have to think about it. But that would be a very hard plea to pull off. Not sure it is possible or that any judge would accept it.

[Stormy Dragon]

So the cops just use it a source of harassment. Arresting your violating it and then release you without charges after a night in the slammer.

[John]

They could do that too. It would be a way to harass hookers and their Johns. Well we can’t prove you paid her, but that is sodomy.

Basically, there are no good uses for an unconstitutional law.

[mad libertarian guy]

Nice scare quotes around consenting adults. Is it really that hard to imagine adults who like to be fucked in the ass? Is it so hard to imagine that some adult like to shove their tongue in to the asshole of another? Is it so hard to imagine that some people really like ass-to-mouth?

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Go on….

[Enough About Palin]

^^THIS^^…

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I bet this guy has never had oral or anal sex. Oral sex has to be one of the most universally wonderful sex acts. If a guy tells you he doesn’t like blowjobs, he’s either lying or never received one. And most women (in my vast personal experience) that don’t like cunnilingus just haven’t had it done correctly.

Note: “vast personal experience” MAY be a slight over exaggeration. maybe

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

It doesn’t matter how good it is, itsnotme, it’s AGAINST THE NATURAL LAW.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I’m pretty sure putting yourself inside a metal box and propelling yourself at speeds that no living thing was ever intended to travel at is against the natural law, but I like driving, so this guy can go fuck himself. or is a ban on masturbation part of his plan, too?

[gaijin]

I bet this guy has never had oral or anal sex.

He’s a politician. More likely he has an anal/oral fetish.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Quite possibly. The level of repression and denial mixed with severe projection in people like this is not really shocking.

I had an ex that was rather prude about sex because of her upbringing. It was missionary only with the lights off and under the covers. I finally convinced her to try doggy style and she came harder and more often than with missionary. After the glow and ecstasy subsided, she started whining about how dirty she felt and said we’d never do that again. I just can’t understand how someone could feel that anything pleasurable between consenting adults is vile.

[AuH20]

Well, it’s a good thing my new girlfriend doesn’t like receiving oral.

…

Which, seriously, is kind of weird.

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

I know a lot of women who are not into it.

[Rasilio]

I’ve known a few, they were all young and embarrassed by it or felt it tickled too much.

My wife didn’t used to like it as much because she has a better nose than a bloodhound and was embarrassed by the way she smelled (which is not bad at all), and now she is VERY happy that I got her over that bit of self consciousness. 🙂

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

The issue I usually hear, and tend to agree with, is “guys act like it’s foreplay but you already have to be going for it to work right.”

[itsnotmeitsyou]

“guys act like it’s foreplay but you already have to be going for it to work right.”

Most guys don’t have a freaking clue as to how the female sex drive works. I’ve heard many of my female friends complain about husbands/boyfriends who either think that it works just like a guy’s, or it works like in porn (guy whips it out, girl makes puddle on floor).

Have you ever actually watched a guy go down on a girl in porn? Most of the time, they look ridiculous and either the girl is obviously faking it, or she just looks bored.

One of the benefits of having a lot of lesbian friends during my teens was that they weren’t as uptight about discussing such things. At least a few of my exes owe a big thank you to those lesbians. Between crappy sex-ed and the internet not really being a thing, I got a lot of bad info on sex before they set me straight. (pun kinda intended)

[AlexInCT]

Just lick out the Greek alphabet.. works like a charm I been told…

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I’ve found that it’s a bit more nuanced than that, but the key is to not be too repetitive. Paying attention to the woman and taking cues from her responses is the best advice I was given by my lesbian friends.

[Rasilio]

Pretty much this, vary it up and see which things make her respond most, and if you’re worried she may be faking listen to Shakira because when you do it right her hips won’t lie

[Clich? Bandit]

i weep inside for this.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Sometimes I wonder what kind of women you all are gettin’ wit…

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

The wrong kind, unfortunately.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I’ve actually read one of Cuccinelli’s legal filings on this, and – believe it or not – the Mother Jones article you’re relying on turns out to be a misleading summary of his position. (Recall that Mother Jones hates him already for opposing Obamacare in court and for trying to rein in the excesses of the federal environmental bureaucracy, so they’re willing to say anything bad about him. What’s Reason’s excuse?)

He is not seeking to revive the Va sodomy law as it pertains to consenting adults relationships behind closed doors – he wants to use it against adults who commit, or try to commit, sodomitical acts with minors.

The particular case he’s dealing with is of a 47 year old man who propositioned a 17 year old girl, then called the police and told them she tried to rape him. Now he’s serving a prison sentence, and Cuccinelli, like just about any AG of either party, wants to keep the guy in prison. The state courts said the conviction was OK, since *Lawrence* doesn’t create a right to have sodomy with minors, but a 3-judge panel of the 4th Circuit said the sodomy law isn’t severable – a disputed legal point, add to which the fact that Congress and the US Supreme Court have placed strict limits on the ability of federal courts to second-guess the state courts in these kind of situations.

[Eduard van Haalen]

(cont.)

As Cuccinelli pointed out in his legal filings, it’s not enough for a federal court to disagree with a state court’s decision, the state court had to make a mistake so bad a reasonable court wouldn’t make it. Yet these severability issues are quite complex and reasonable courts can come out on either side – that at least is Cuccinelli’s argument.

So, no, he’s not trying to put Adam and Steve in prison for their consensual relationships, or lock you up for what you and your girlfriend did for your birthday. You should be embarrassed for swallowing the spin of a left-wing rag which hates Cuccinelli for daring to oppose Obamacare.

[Auric Demonocles]

9:00AM

LIARS!

[gaijin]

They wanted to give Loder’s review all of three minutes of attention I guess.

[Anonymous Coward]

Loder failed to review The Purge and dedicate a paragraph of that review to Lena Headey’s surprisingly sexy legs.

He’s dead to me.

[sarcasmic]

Rare bird last seen in Britain 22 years ago killed by wind turbine in front of crowd of twitchers who turned up to catch a glimpse
The white-throated needletail is usually only seen in Asia and Australasia
Forty birdwatchers dashed to the Hebrides to catch a glimpse of this one
But as they watched it was knocked ‘stone dead’ after impact with turbine

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..chers.html
Haaaa ha ha ha ha! Take THAT environMENTALists! Hahahahahahaaaa!

[tarran]

What has the Global Warming Cult has done in England is a appallingly massive crime.

[Tonio]

The Hebrides are part of Scotland. So, “British” or “UK” but not “English”.

[sgs]

“but not “English”.

Good thing her didn’t write that, huh pedantic asshole who was wrong?

[KDN]

We wouldn’t even need these if the electric companies actually cared, there has been a device built that when you put in electricity more than what went in comes out but the electric companies would go broke if they used these as electric prices would be astronomically low, the guy who came up with this invention died shortly after he went public with it, same thing with petrol a bloke invented a way to run the car on water, when the military (American) tried to buy this from him he refused as he wanted it to be used by the general public, he also mysteriously died quite soon after and his invention never came on the public market.

NEVER read the comments.

[sarcasmic]

Just when you think you’ve reached peak derp.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Hahaha, I haven’t heard this one in a while.

[a better weapon]

Cut your electric bills in HALF with the one weird trick!

Utility companies HATE this guy!

[BakedPenguin]

“This perpetual motion machine she made just keeps going faster and faster.

Lisa, in this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!”

[a better weapon]

To this day, that still ranks as the funniest moment in the Simpsons long run.

[robc]

Its up there, but I think I would go with the rake scene, specifically, the one on the boat.

[mad libertarian guy]

Nope.

Stoners Pot Palace is the best.

“Maaaan, that’s just flagrant false advertisement.”

[robc]

Utility companies HATE this guy!

My utility company keeps trying to get us to use less. Then jacks up the rates when they succeed.

[Enough About Palin]

That’s not true.

[Lord Humungus]

holy run on…

[Pro Libertate]

It’s so stupid, anyway. You know how much a water-driven motor would make you. Eleventy bajillion dollars.

[Brett L]

You know how much a water-driven motor would make you.

We call those hydro-electric generators. Or water-mills depending on whether they are wired to the grid or power the work mechanically. Unfortunately, you need a pretty good head, which is why we build dams.

[some guy]

A chicken in every pot and a dam in every car!

[Pro Libertate]

I was thinking more magical water power. Because I don’t think they mean hydroelectric or using hydrogen extracted from the water.

[KDN]

I think Captain Retard does mean hydrogen extracted from water, though he doesn’t know that it’s what he meant.

[Pro Libertate]

And that process is supposed to be more cost-effective than gas? Not to mention, there’s the issue of containing the hydrogen and not blowing up.

[KDN]

I don’t think he’s the kind of guy to have thought these things through. Though I bet he believes the corporations have solved these problems and simply won’t let us in on the secret.

[mad libertarian guy]

If corporations didn’t want people to have access to secret energy producing technology, why would they even work on it? The whole point of a corporation is to make shit that people want to buy, not make things that would make a fortune only to hide it from the world and make nothing off of it.

[Pro Libertate]

They don’t work on it, apparently. They just kill people who make fusion motors in their garage and burn the designs and the prototype. Or use it for their own nefarious purposes.

These ideas lack even the internal consistency of the wild beliefs of your average psychotic.

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

You actually can make a motor run on water. You just have to get it really hot first.

[Pro Libertate]

Good point.

[Rasilio]

” same thing with petrol a bloke invented a way to run the car on water, when the military (American) tried to buy this from him he refused as he wanted it to be used by the general public”

Why yes, because we have never seen things developed for the military get used in civilian life. Things like computers, plastics, teflon, GPS, carbon composites, and lasers, they just don’t exist.

[sarcasmic]

Kate Moss is back at Stuart Weitzman! The ‘perfectly imperfect’ supermodel poses in hot pants and thigh boots for fall campaign

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem…..paign.html
Can you say “airbrush”? I knew you could.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The U.S. Army has banned access to The Guardian on its computers.

The Daily Mail, I could see…

[LTC(ret) John]

Hey?!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Yeah.

[Brett L]

What’s that? You want a man who looks like a kilted Mad Max refugee playing Thunderstruck on a set of flaming bagpipes?

Happy fucking Friday, my friends.

[gaijin]

that guy should be playing with the Red Hot Chili Pipers.

[a better weapon]

20 years ago. He’s way to hardcore for them now.

[Pro Libertate]

Flame-emitting bagpipes. He’s not actually playing bagpipes that are on fire. I am disappointed.

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

I can die now.

[sarcasmic]

Why Black People Understand Rachel Jeantel by Christina Coleman

http://globalgrind.com/news/wh…..leman-blog
Summary: White privilege!

[Irish]

She used the word retarded on the stand, lied about writing a note that is of huge importance to the case, and didn’t go to the cops for days when she supposedly had information about a homicide.

The fact that people have sympathy for this girl is unbelievable.

[Brett L]

I’m very sympathetic to her. Because of poor decisions of people around her, as well as her own, she has unintentionally undermined the case of whether the man who killed her friend did so criminally or not. That’s gotta suck. I hope she will use this experience as motivation to improve herself such that if she is ever in that position again, she will be educated and thoughtful enough to be an asset to the side for whom she is testifying.

[AlexInCT]

Most people prone to bad decisions, when defended by those that like the status quo, tend to latch on to whatever the exuse du jour that allows them to claim victim status is, rather than realize the power is with them to change things.

My bet in this case is that this young lady will eat the whole “White privilidge” nonsense up, and not do anything that will improve her lot a bit.

Tragic.

[CampingInYourPark]

I hope she will use this experience as motivation to improve herself such that if she is ever in that position again, she will be educated and thoughtful enough to be an asset to the side for whom she is testifying.

Yeah, only a lawyer could tell a convincing story about hearing grass move on a cell phone call.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why shouldn’t idiots have sympathy for one another?

[free2booze]

Read the comments section for some real brain damage

[sarcasmic]

Comments are blocked by the filter.

[a better weapon]

Anyone care to pick out a good one? One of the few links my work filter picked off.

[free2booze]

Sorry, I was thinking of the comments section to a similar article

What White People Don’t Understand About Rachel Janteal

This comment won’t produce brain damage, but it is telling as to how some black folks somehow think they can relate to the struggles of blacks who lived in this country 100 years ago

With all due respect my Canadian friend, I do not think you truly understand the race dynamic in the United States. Just look at the comment right above mine, smh. Remember, we were risking our lives to get to Canada while Whites in the US were still enslaving us and hunting runaways like dogs…and I’m not even going to go into all the lynchings, wrongful convictions, voting suppression, etc that has happened and continues to happen after the abolition of slavery in the US. While this person’s claim of “most white people” in America being prejudice may be a stretch, unfortunately, a substantial number of whites in the United States are prejudice on one level on another. Furthermore the American south almost condones racism as a part of the southern way of life (ie. Paula Deen).

[some guy]

Remember, we were risking our lives to get to Canada while Whites in the US were still enslaving us and hunting runaways like dogs…

Wow. The commenter must be really old to have been a part of that…

[Irish]

This is why I despise the British so much. While they were eating just fine in England, we were starving to death in Ireland and being forced on an arduous journey to the United States.

NEVER FORGET!

[MJGreen]

I distinctly remember a moment in a high school lit class, when the teacher claimed that Toni Morrison believes black Americans still suffer a psychic wound from slavery.

Even as a stupid teenager, I immediately thought, “Huh!?’ But then white privilege is timeless.

[free2booze]

Distrust in police stems from decades of being disenfranchised and treated unfairly by those who were supposed to protect us. And yes, I’m taking it there…distrust in white people.

It’s OK for black people to distrust white people, but it’s not OK for George Zimmerman to have a distrust towards black people.

[AlexInCT]

RACIALIST!

[John]

It is funny how they will bend over backwards to defend black people for sins they would absolute destroy a white person for. If a white person showed themselves to be that poorly educated they would be a laughing stock and liberals would get into a feeding frenzy.

[sarcasmic]

Soft bigotry of low expectations.

[BigT]

Probably W’s most insightful comment ever. (I’m sure he didn’t write it.)

[Spoonman.]

It was David Frum. So, David Frum’s most insightful comment ever.

[Ed]

“Black people and police officers don’t mix.”

Talk about racial stereotyping. Every majority black city where the mayor’s had to cut the police force the people complain about it. They don’t celebrate, they protest.

[Mike M.]

There are no black police officers anywhere in America, apparently.

[Ted S.]

White people and police officers don’t mix, either.

[General Butt Naked]

Note: Disrespect to elders in the black and especially Caribbean communities is almost as bad as cursing the Lord.

Ummm, this is a pretty racist sounding stereotype here. “Oh lawdy lawdy massa, we’s a shhoooo luv usselfs some jezus!”

Nobody has done more bad for black people, in general, than these supposed intellectuals that obtusely and intentionally misconstrue poverty and poor education with culture and race.

[a better weapon]

Disrespect to elders in the black and especially Caribbean communities is almost as bad as cursing the Lord.

Is he serious? Has he really missed the daily cell phone videos on youtube of black youths sucker punching and stomping old men on subway trains?

[AuH20]

It’s like the black people of Senegal- we just are racists for expecting them to be rational and scientific and not cling to outdated cultural and religious traditions.

Holy fucking shit are these people racist.

[AuH20]

Hey, buddy, I got the corner on posting retarded shit by feminists. You’re a dick.

[sarcasmic]

You can stop sucking my dick now.

[AuH20]

You wish! I’m charging you for a Z-job!

[Invisible Finger]

It’s okay to rat when it’s whitey.

[Tonio]

So let’s cut to the chase. Any attorney, jury member, judge or white person in that courtroom is not going to understand Rachel Jeantel. And I don’t expect them to.

I can’t even begin to catalog how this is wrongheaded and unproductive.

[Tonio]

And the very next paragraph: In fact, I certainly, like my fellow writer Rachel Samara, understand why white people wouldn’t like Rachel.

Double standard.

[Irish]

It’s not a double standard. Non-whites are always totally able to understand white people, although white people can never understand anything about a non-white because of privilege.

You should know this by now. It’s basic logic.

[Tonio]

Pitch perfect.

[some guy]

This Salon editorial by Joan Walsh is on a similar line of thought. She also wrote a book titled “What’s the matter with white people”. I’m sure that book is a gem.

[KMA Too]

How could she even type that crap with chips that big on her shoulders?

[KMA Too]

I was referring to the anti-craker article, not the book. But, if the shoe fits…

[Agammamon]

“unintelligent” (read multilingual).”

I’m confused by this. By calling her “multi-lingual” I’m assuming that the author means she can speak more than one *dialect* of English? Which isn’t actually multi-lingual, but whatever. If she can speak regular English then why did she choose not to during the trial?

She knows that regular English is the lingua fraca of “official” America, why make things difficult.

Maybe its because she can’t actually speak it and isn’t “multi-lingual by any definition?

[sarcasmic]

Georgia May Jagger: ‘I’m worried I’ll turn into a weird old woman with scary teeth!’ Jerry Hall’s daughter on ageing gracefully

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem…..-Edit.html
Golly. I wonder why.

[Brett L]

Because her dad already has?

[sarcasmic]

The final frontier: Nasa’s Voyager 1 on the verge of entering interstellar space

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci…..space.html
Veeger?

[Ted S.]

How many times have they claimed this already?

[sarcasmic]

fta

Scientists believe it remains in a transition area which has been dubbed the ‘magnetic highway’ and that it could still be some time before it breaks out.

‘It could actually be anytime or it could be several more years,’ said chief scientist Ed Stone of the Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission.

Stone first described this unexpected zone at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union last year

[Fist of Etiquette]

They really should get a space survey team out there to space draw some concrete space boundaries before a neighboring system tries to space encroach on our space property.

[Tim]

Or put up a fence.

[robc]

What do you think Vger is?

[NeonCat]

It’s a big verge.

[Tonio]

Ted and Fist. This spacecraft is going places we’ve never been before. Everything we “know” about the edge of our solar system and interstellar space has been based upon observations made from earth (or very close by), or from models.

We’re now getting actual data from that region, and it looks like a lot of the models are going to be revised. That’s how science works.

[Auric Demonocles]

Not climate science.

[Tonio]

Good one, Auric.

[Fist of Etiquette]

LEAVE ME OUT OF THIS. Ted is the space imbecile, not me.

[Auric Demonocles]

Hey Pro Lib, how long since Voyager last left the solar system? 2 months?

[Auric Demonocles]

And how long since someone pointed this out already?

[Pro Libertate]

It’s been reported off and on for at least a couple of years, maybe even longer. And, as we’ve discussed before, it’s a questionable claim, anyway.

[Clich? Bandit]

I thinks what they are finding is pretty cool…that they don’t know shit. And what is even cooler is they admit it. “We no longer have any idea what is coming next. our models were all wrong.”

THAT is what science is supposed to look like.

AND, the “solar system” often means beyond the Oort cloud which is estimated to be about 1 LY in radius.

[Pro Libertate]

That’s my measure. The heliosphere is significant, of course, and worthy of note, but there’s a lot of matter out there that’s part of the solar system by any rational measure. So there’s a long way to go.

[Auric Demonocles]

I basically subscribe to “the point where most of the stuff is orbiting the Sun” definition.

[gaijin]

hasn’t it been on the verge for like 3 years now? NASA needs to get it’s act together and figure out just where interstellar space begins.

[Zeb]

I think that’s what they are doing now. This is really the first opportunity to do so. There are lots of theories about the boundaries of the solar system, but very little in the way of observation.

[Pro Libertate]

I think there’s an energy barrier that will give Voyager godlike powers. Like in “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” except with the solar system instead of the galaxy.

[Auric Demonocles]

I think it will get picked up for speeding, then busted for having some pot in the trunk.

[Tim]

Yeah it returns to earth but doesn’t recognize us as its’ creators because we’re all so fat now. So we get exterminated.

[Tim]

” This is Admiral Kirk. I am going to attempt time travel to the year 1977 to find a skinny person and bring her back”.

[DontShootMe]

I’m going to laugh when this thing bonks into a painted wall. Er guys? The universe is a LOT smaller than we thought.

[Zeb]

Must be some kind of prismatic painted wall, or something, to make that parallax stuff to work.

[some guy]

Or maybe God is doing it with magic just to screw with us.

[Ted S.]

For the world is hollow, and I have touched the sky.

[Pro Libertate]

Jesus, could science reporting be worse than it already is? This story has been running for years, and it’s arguably not true.

[Tim]

On the bright side, it’ll be 100,000 years before we start getting conflicting stories about it entering a new star system.

[thom]

Within 100,000 years, it will be picked up by human scavengers and sold for a very high price.

[Pro Libertate]

If I independently and secretly designed and built an FTL drive, went and picked up Voyager, have I committed a crime or a tort? Is Voyager mine? Would I have to go put it back if not?

[thom]

Right now you’ve probably committed theft. But 50,000 years from now the US Government will be long forgotten and Voyager will just be another historic relic. Sure, there will be times when there are strong governments who try to prevent looting of such relics, but there will also be other times where looting such relics is perfectly legal.

[robc]

If you have the ability to pick it up, there is NOTHING a court could do to you.

Because if you can pick it up, you can drop an asteroid on the earth too.

And thus, you have reached supervillain status.

[Xenocles]

“We will throw rocks at them, Man.”

[Pro Libertate]

It’s good to be the king.

[Tonio]

It can always be worse, ProL, but I agree that the state of science reporting is pretty lamentable even among the science press (ie, those with actual degrees in scientific subjects).

[Pro Libertate]

BIG MEN DISCOVER BIG THING. MAGIC.

[Sevo]

Sell a catfish, go to jail:
“Man arrested for selling catfish on Craigslist”
“The sale of the fish in this case is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days behind bars and a fine between $250 and $1,000.”
http://www.sfgate.com/news/cri…..632585.php

[Caleb Turberville]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/…..z2XTaICTVy Read and weep.

[Ted S.]

Why do you want to torture us? Can’t you give us a brief synopsis? 🙂

[Caleb Turberville]

Honestly, I need to know if I’m reading this right myself. Is the argument that Zimmerman’s attorney is white-splaining at Ms. Jeantel ?

[Irish]

Essentially. And they are ignoring that she lied about sending the letter to Trayvon’s parents and that she lied about most of the things she supposedly heard over the phone.

She’s been lying under oath and leftists are trying to turn this into a white privilege issue.

[VG Zaytsev]

Oaths are racist.

[Tonio]

VG, I expect that statement, or something which boils down to that, will actually be trotted out in the near future. “Cultural differences.”

[MJGreen]

You don’t understand. Black people have so often seen oaths promised to them broken by white people, especially in conservative institutions like the justice system. It is to be expected, and in some ways celebrated, that black Americans have little respect for these so-called oaths. If whites are going to continuously ignore them when they would benefit blacks, why should blacks respect them for the benefit of a white (Hispanic)?

[Marc F Cheney]

You are really flirting with Poe’s Law there. Well done.

[KMA Too]

Yeah, that turn-about IS fair play…

[itsnotmeitsyou]

TL:DR version

Derpity derp derp. Jeantel is a saint and a brave woman who handled that mean old defense attorney like a champ. Zimmerman killed a saintly little boy and you’re all racist.

The end.

[VG Zaytsev]

Thank you, Rachel Jeantel.

[Irish]

I do not understand what is going on. Are liberals really attempting to make a lying nutcase who says the word ‘retarded’ on the witness stand into some kind of icon?

[VG Zaytsev]

Yep,

No doubt she’ll be trotted out on progressive talking head circuit as the victim of racist defense attorneys.

[Zeb]

I doubt it will go that far. Won’t make for good TV.

[Tonio]

Yes, she’ll be praised as a hero, but it will all be others talking about her. She’ll go on Oprah and the other human-interest shows, but will never get on the sunday morning circuit.

[a better weapon]

I’m sure she’ll “write” a book too before long.

[Tonio]

Well, most of those “my story” books are ghostwritten anyway.

[AlexInCT]

Will it be in cursive script?

[Zeb]

Yeah, that really doesn’t seem like a good move.

[Tonio]

I think “nutcase” is unfair, Irish. She’s basically just a kid thrust into the national spotlight as a result of a tragedy.

[Invisible Finger]

Can’t we just fast-forward to the Negro riots already?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, if SoCons really needed a hobby horse besides the scourge of men pounding other men in the ass, they should be trying to implement Biblical punishments for bearing false witness, typically receipt of whatever punishment the victim of the false testimony would have received as a result of the lies.

[Enough About Palin]

“Others on the Right have been making similar predictions of how African-Americans will react to a Zimmerman acquittal which most observers believe is likely at this point in the trial. Helter-Skelter has long been a racist fantasy of the Right.”

Charles Manson was a Republican?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano of the Vatican Bank was arrested as part of an investigation into money laundering and corruption.

The charge? Fallibility.

[Irish]

Ecuador doesn’t give a fuck about your trade, America.

Ecuador unilaterally cancelled its trade deal with the United States on Thursday and offered to give the country $23 million a year to help with its “human rights” education in the latest twist in the two countries’ showdown over NSA leaker Edward Snowden…”Ecuador gives up, unilaterally and irrevocably, the said customs benefits,” Alvarado said, according to Reuters. “What’s more, Ecuador offers the United States economic aid of $23 million annually, similar to what we received with the trade benefits, with the intention of providing education about human rights.”

China and Russia having no respect for American diplomacy is to be expected, but it’s might impressive when the president manages to screw up foreign policy so thoroughly that Ecuador does something like this.

[gaijin]

all the hypocrisy is coming back at US

[LynchPin1477]

Remember when Obama was going to improve our image in the world? I wonder if they’ll ask him to give back his Nobel Prize…

[MJGreen]

Our standing in the world has been improved immeasurably after the disaster that was Bush. This is the reality that libertarians (ie conservatives) can’t bear to admit.

It’s a fact, OK?

It is.

Yarp.

[VG Zaytsev]

So socialist retard restricting trade is a now good guy or something.

[Irish]

That wasn’t my point, and I’m not calling the Ecuadorians ‘good guys.’ It’s about the lack of respect even less powerful nation’s have for America.

[VG Zaytsev]

I suspect that it has more to do with his idiotic belief in socialism than outrage over Obama’s spying.

[Marc F Cheney]

More precisely, it’s about earning street cred with the other Latin American socialists.

[Careless]

Hey, offering to give us $23 million? I’ll take it

[robc]

We accepted the money, right?

Please, please tell me Obama cashed the check.

After all the foreign aid we have sent out over the years, we deserve to get some back.

[Brett L]

1200 people in the NHS system starved to death (or died of dehydration) in UK hospitals since 2008. But don’t tell me its because they’re exempt from lawsuits!

[Ted S.]

Of course those people didn’t die because they’re exempt from lawsuits. Who was making that argument anyway? :-p

[Spoonman.]

That’s a pretty common way for people who are old and unconscious to die – they just aren’t intubated/given IV fluids, only medicines to make them not hurt.

[VG Zaytsev]

Somtimes it’s better to take the pill instead.

[AuH20]

Wait, seriously? I always thought IV fluids were just fucking standard.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

IV fluids? Bourgeois luxury!

After 70 years of socialism, 57 percent of all Russian hospitals did not have running hot water, and 36 percent of hospitals located in rural areas of Russia did not have water or sewage at all. Isn’t it amazing that socialist government, while developing space exploration and sophisticated weapons, would completely ignore the basic human needs of its citizens? —Yuri N. Maltsev

[Brett L]

Its how my grandmother went. In the hospice with 24 hour care by a team of nurses who were not too busy to feed her at the direction of her next of kin. The second sentence is a key modifier of the first.

[NoVAHockey]

malnutrition is serious problem. and it’s going to get worse here, thanks to a new Medicare program that will be expanded on Monday. if you’re really interested, i’ll go into it.

[ant1sthenes]

Are you sure it wasn’t euthanasia?

[Tonio]

There’s a large gray area there Ant. Once they stop eating (stop being interested in being fed, lose ability to swallow) you can tube feed them which only prolongs the inevitable.

Nobody wants to talk about this except when a worst-case scenario like Terry Schiavo comes up; which is the worst time to have the discussion.

[a better weapon]

SF’d the link.

[Brett L]

fucking fuck.

[AuH20]

Hey! Small business owners! Jezebel has nothing but contempt for you and your worries that being forced to give employees sick days will hurt your business

New York will join Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut in requiring paid time off for at least some workers. Advocates say New York will serve as an example so that more cities will make companies give employees the paid time off they deserve.

“The catalyst will have been the successful struggle we waged here in New York City,” Dan Cantor, the national executive director of the Working Families Party, told the AP.

“But small companiesssssssss,” whined critics. Under the new law, only employees of businesses with 20 or more workers get up to five paid sick days a year starting in April 2014; businesses with 15 to 19 workers will wait a year and a half more. All other companies just have to provide five unpaid sick days a year. So: not perfect yet. But it’s a massive, monumentous start.

[Ed]

How long before Jezebel gets sued for not providing employees their sick days?

[Brett L]

Employees? Please. I’m sure Gawker has learned their lesson and is making all of their writers contractors after the internship debacle.

[Tonio]

It’s Jezebel, Ed. They wouldn’t sully themselves by something as bourgeoise as exchanging money for services (teh evul Kapitalisms); they selflessly contribute their articles.

[mad libertarian guy]

It’s Jezebel, Ed. They wouldn’t sully themselves by something as bourgeoise as exchanging money for services (teh evul Kapitalisms); they selflessly contribute their articles.

And then likely turn around and complain about market failure because no one will pay them for their “work.”

[Sevo]

(Hand to forehead, peering off in middle distance)
I see many more sandwiches ordered off a keyboard in your future!

[Irish]

I think it’s hilarious that they are now admitting their disdain for small companies. It used to be that they’d at least pretend that they hated ‘big business’ but were still pro capitalism.

Now they’re basically arguing that any company is evil and must be destroyed by any means necessary.

[Tonio]

Not defending them, but it seems like their definition of “small company” may be five or fewer employees. Given their worldview, they probably see that employee with twenty (!) people as a mid-size or big business. Srsly.

[Irish]

Between this and rightfully pointing out that I was unfair when I called Jeantel a nutcase, you’ve really hurt my feelings, Tonio.

You should let me say things that are wrong, because if you don’t then you are ignoring the value of my lived experiences.

[Tonio]

I’m sorry I “othered” you Irish. I’m an asshole. Just ask anyone here.

[Enough About Palin]

True, but your our asshole.

**pats Tonio’s back**

[John]

Has anyone told t he Jezzies that the majority of small business owners are women?

[Sevo]

“Has anyone told t he Jezzies that the majority of small business owners are women?”

Well, as I understand it, if they can’t run a business well enough to give the employees what they ‘deserve’, they should go out of business.
I mean, the only reason a business exists is to pay the help, right?

[John]

Yeah. And the person you would have hired is better off not having a job than working for anything less than gold plated benefits. I mean being unemployed is great. Why would you trade that for an honest living that didn’t meet your standards?

[tarran]

I suspect that the Jezzie writers hate women who run businesses; after all they make a million accommodations to their customers who tend to be 50% men…

[John]

As much as they hate men, they hate other women more. They are nothing but a female version of the KKK. The KKK hated black loving white people more than they hated any black person.

[mad libertarian guy]

As much as they hate men, they hate other women more. They are nothing but a female version of the KKK. The KKK hated black loving white people more than they hated any black person.

Kill that man-loving bitch!

[Xenocles]

A big part of this is that women-owned businesses can get an advantage in federal acquisitions. So you put your wife on the charter and suddenly you’re “woman-owned” even if she has nothing to do with the company.

[Zeb]

If you work for a company with 21 employees in NYC, you’d better make sure you are a valuable employee.

And what the fuck is this “deserve” shit? That’s not how economic transactions work.

[Rasilio]

Hmm, 5 paid days off out of a 260 day a year work schedule?

5/260 = 2%

Ok, so no pay raises for 3 years ought to balance things out nicely.

If they think for one second that anyone will actually get these days off paid they are morons. They will appear to be paid, wages will just be suppressed enough to counteract the effect

[invisible furry hand]

A man who posted photos of marijuana deal bags and infant child covered in cash on Facebook has denied he was selling drugs – and says the bucket bong shown on his profile was not his – it was at his mum’s house.

more

[Brett L]

Why don’t people born after 1985 understand that pictures are evidence? My gf asked me why I don’t have any pictures from college (the first time). Its because I didn’t want photographic evidence of my activites. I’m not ashamed of them, but I don’t want a hostile attorney going through them either.

[AuH20]

Larger question: What is with these assholes who have to photograph everything when they go out for a night on the town? Their booze, them standing next to signs…

A) Who gives a shit?
B) Seriously, do you not have this thing called memory?
C) Seriously, who gives a shit?

And for whatever reason, at least in college, women did this bullshit WAY more than men.

[Zeb]

I’m glad I went to college before digital cameras were common.

[Lord Humungus]

Police: Women lure Wash. robbery victim by grabbing his crotch
http://www.kboi2.com/news/loca…..17321.html

A Seattle man was lured into a robbery by two women using little more than their natural charm and a simple crotch grab, according to the Seattle Police Department.

According to the police report for the incident, the victim is a caretaker and was helping his patient move out of a building in Bitter Lake June 18 when two women pulled up in a blue Ford Bronco and called him over to their car.

The woman in the passenger seat reportedly grabbed the victim’s crotch by way of a greeting, which apparently led the three to chatting for a bit and agreeing to meet for coffee the next day.

[LTC(ret) John]

“The woman in the passenger seat reportedly grabbed the victim’s crotch by way of a greeting, which apparently led the three to chatting for a bit and agreeing to meet for coffee the next day.”

Understated Writing of the Year.

[Ted S.]

Police: Women lure Wash. robbery victim by grabbing his crotch

Please please please let it be Dunphy.

[NeonCat]

Does he call his crotch “The Sting Operation”?

[Lord Humungus]

How Junk Food Can End Obesity
Demonizing processed food may be dooming many to obesity and disease. Could embracing the drive-thru make us all healthier?
http://www.theatlantic.com/mag…..ty/309396/

If only the McDonald’s smoothie weren’t, unlike the first two, so fattening and unhealthy. Or at least that’s what the most-prominent voices in our food culture today would have you believe.

An enormous amount of media space has been dedicated to promoting the notion that all processed food, and only processed food, is making us sickly and overweight. In this narrative, the food-industrial complex?particularly the fast-food industry?has turned all the powers of food-processing science loose on engineering its offerings to addict us to fat, sugar, and salt, causing or at least heavily contributing to the obesity crisis. The wares of these pimps and pushers, we are told, are to be universally shunned.

[Spoonman.]

This article is awesome.

[Citizen Nothing]

Ditto.

[a better weapon]

The Times Magazine gave its cover to a long piece based on Michael Moss’s about-to-be-best-selling book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

I don’t know who Michael Moss is, but with a title like that, I already know I want to hit him in the face with a cricket bat. Its sickening how many bad choices people have been absolved from just to get a few shots in at Kochpurashunz.

[a better weapon]

My wife has a pretty serious gluten allergy so we go to these health stores often and its shocking how gluten free products are advertised as “healthy” and 90% of the time they are far worse than their processed Kraft or General Mills counterparts.

The level of deception at Whole Foods and Central Market and other “fresh/healthy/organic” markets would never be tolerated if it were done by Big Food.

[Lord Humungus]

ja – I know a number of people who are going “gluten free” in an effort to lose weight, not because of a gluten allergy.

[a better weapon]

She actually lost a lot of weight after discovering what was making her sick, but that was because she cut out everything that had gluten in it, which is typically not healthy and calorie dense (pastries, breads, beer, etc)

The problem most people doing a GF diet make is that they just replace it with stuff equally as bad for you, but gluten free because they use buckwheat or tapioca flour.

[Xenocles]

If you are sensitive to gluten, substitutes are certainly not “equally as bad for you.” They don’t help with weight loss, but they aren’t poisoning you either, which gluten is doing to you if you’re sensitive to it.

[Lord Humungus]

my wife’s sister is overweight… and not by a small margin.

She’s always wondering why, since she eats “healthy” food – whole grain pizza (gag!), fresh grown fruit, smoothies, etc.

When we visit, she just doesn’t get how my wife and I stay so thin, even though I eat steak, eggs, bacon, and all the other meaty goodness. When I try to explain the low carb thing, she just ignores it, even though the physical evidence (her sister) is right there.

[LynchPin1477]

Cuccinelli, you rascal. The GOP is luck to have you. Sic semper tyrannis, indeed.

[Lord Humungus]

‘Hell to pay:’ Residents angry as RCMP seize guns from High River home
http://www.calgaryherald.com/n…..story.html

RCMP revealed Thursday that officers have seized a “substantial amount” of firearms from homes in the evacuated town of High River.

“We just want to make sure that all of those things are in a spot that we control, simply because of what they are,” said Sgt. Brian Topham.

“People have a significant amount of money invested in firearms … so we put them in a place that we control and that they’re safe.”

That news didn’t sit well with a crowd of frustrated residents who had planned to breach a police checkpoint northwest of the town as an evacuation order stretched into its eighth day.

[invisible furry hand]

Behold, the IKEA flatpack refugee house

[SugarFree]

$500? Can I buy one to use as a garden shed?

[Sevo]

So long as you’re zoned for one.

[SugarFree]

If my wife kicks me out, aren’t I basically a refugee?

[KMA Too]

Anyone notice the pic of the moose to the right of TFA?

Think it bit anyone?

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Yeah, but only once.

[John]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelli…..eaker.html

General Cartright, meet the bottom of Obama’s bus.

[DontShootMe]

He’ll never see it. Hidden by all the bodies under there already.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The government of the United Kingdom will draft regulations allowing three-person IVFs for the baby making.

Seems like the less fun method of threeway baby making.

[Guy Laguy]

It’s official: Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) has been deemed the “most evil corporation” of 2013 in a new poll that has the biotech giant beating out rivals like McDonald’s and the Federal Reserve by a wide margin.

[John]

They are keeping billions of brown people alive. Progressives hate that. They are supposed to help create a new paradise of all white people and a few approved groovy brown people kept around for color and flavor all living in a per-industrial state of nature.

[Guy Laguy]

I trust farmers not agribusiness. Farmers feed us while agribusiness will kill us like it is killing farmers in India.

[Sevo]

Guy Laguy| 6.28.13 @ 9:27AM |#
“I trust farmers not agribusiness. Farmers feed us while agribusiness will kill us like it is killing farmers in India.”

Way to GO, GL! Off to a great Friday start!

[John]

That is comedy cold Guy. +100

[Zeb]

You know, there might be better things that poor people in India could do besides subsistence farming.

[RBS]

Organic subsistance farming. It’s so noble. The only people claiming this shit are fucking upper/middle class progressive who have never actually experienced poverty/hunger.

[Auric Demonocles]

Or farming.

[LTC(ret) John]

FRANKENFOODZ!!1!!

/derp

[Rasilio]

You don’t have to have a problem with GMO’s to hate Monsanto and consider them to be one of the most evil corporations in existence.

I’m all for GMO’s and don’t have any issues with pesticide use and still from a libertarian perspective I rank Monsanto as the worst megacorporation in the US (Debeers may actually be worse on a global scale).

Their blatent abuse of patent law makes the RIAA look like pirate bay anarchists, they have mastered regulatory capture to a level that even the banking industry is in awe of, and to top it off they are so successful at milking corporate welfare from congress that it makes the defense industry blush

[Palin's Buttplug]

Looks like they only polled progressives.

Conservatives express their hate for Google, Apple, Disney, GE/NBC, Berkshire, and various other gay-friendly companies founded by liberals.

[WTF]

CHRISTFAG!!!BUSHPIG!!11!!!!

[ant1sthenes]

As a libertarian, I love all corporate people, no matter who they are.

[NeonCat]

As a spiritualist, I love discorporate people.

[Lord Humungus]

The woman who accused a stranger she found on Facebook of rape – and how it ruined her victim’s life
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..-life.html

For Philip, a polite and quietly spoken 26-year-old father-of-one, was plucked out of the blue by a total stranger who spotted his picture on the social networking site and decided to falsely accuse him of rape.

In an act of inexplicable viciousness, 31-year-old fantasist Linsey Attridge chanced upon a photograph of Philip and his then 14-year-old brother James and used it to back up a story she’d concocted. She’d done it, apparently, in order to win some sympathy with her boyfriend, when she feared his affections were waning.

It led to Philip, a wholly innocent chef, being harassed in the street and shunned at the school gates. He is still fighting, two years later, to salvage his battered reputation.

[AuH20]

So I did my every-few-monthly check of Sweetheart Video (which I highly recommend btw; its lesbian porn with femme-y bi and lesbian porn actresses, and the orgasms are supposedly real- at the very least, they are not horribly and badly faked like in most porn. Seriously, I have watched a lot of lesbian porn, because I’m not into all the weird shit like facials that seems to go with dudes in porn, and this is some the best) and am downloading porn.

There is something awesome about just getting to watch two naked women fuck for free. Or two dudes, for those into it. Every time you read a nut-punch cop story, or a story about some statist twat, remember that live in an era where, with minimal effort, you can choose multiple representations, from porn to erotica, of two naked people fucking however you want. As bad as it gets… life is good sometimes.

[Auric Demonocles]

Seriously, I have watched a lot of lesbian porn, because I’m not into all the weird shit like facials that seems to go with dudes in porn

I am not really into porn (unless you count the redhead stretching in front of me in gym class), but I never understood why straight guys would want to see another guy’s penis/cum.

[AuH20]

I am in full agreement. If I wanted to see a bunch of cock, I’d bat for the other team, NTTAWWT.

[invisible furry hand]

i thought the idea was that a guy watching it doesn’t want to see another guy’s face wants to be able to imagine himself as the porn actor, and shots of his face etc get in the way of that illusion. So how do you show ejaculation in a way that doesn’t get in the way of that illusion? Not the O-face but the facial.

[Auric Demonocles]

Why would I want to see ejaculation in the first place?

[AuH20]

Also this. I do not find the male form to be attractive, and thus do not find male ejaculation to be a beautiful process. The female orgasm, for me, is beautiful. Luckily, women see it the other way, so I have people to have sex to.

But really, what if appealing about the male orgasm? It is very messy!

[RBS]

I don’t get why so much hardcore porn is focused on the dude’s nutsack. Show the woman, it’s enough for to know she’s getting fucked.

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

It is very messy!

That’s what makes it fun!

[SugarFree]

To inspect it for flecks of blood, of course. Fucking amateurs.

[Zeb]

I like to see straight fucking, but I really don’t get the cumshot thing, or even watching blowjobs, really.

[Lord Humungus]

I hate the closeup on the guy’s face.

of course I generally hate pro porn. I prefer (good) amateur stuff, bad lighting and all.

[John]

I agree. I don’t like seeing naked men. I am not uptight about it. But it just doesn’t work for me. For that reason real hardcore porn has never done a single thing for me.

Naked pictures of women in contrast, is perfectly okay. Have you seen the Esquire site Me In My Place? It is like Playboy from the 1950s. It is semi nude or sometimes nude attractive women who don’t have any silicon and are not photoshopped. Sometimes it can be hit and miss. They get women in there that have way too many tattoos and such. But they also get some very attractive women who look like the girl next door as opposed to some silicon enhanced hooker.

[AuH20]

It’s less the silicon look and more that in so much hardcore porn, the sex looks and feels so staged, like there is someone flashing cue cards at the actors to change positions, fake orgasming, etc.

Once again, why I sought a specific, slightly alt studio to download pretty exclusively, and why I avoid a lot of the YouPorn stuff (I mean, the amateur is not bad, but the quality tends to suck).

You seem more a “Playboy in the 50s/60s” guy though John. I mean, I’ll check it out as a nice pin-up style thing, but I’d take erotica over still images. I don’t mind them for anything but porn, but in porn they seem so lifeless.

[John]

Check it out. It is different. Sometimes they will get some really well known model or actress. But mostly it is just attractive 20 somethings who need a pay check. It really is the girl who served you your coffee this morning running around in her underwear, which is nice.

[Citizen Nothing]

This is why nobody takes heterosexual men seriously.

[John]

LOL. Because we like to see random women take their clothes off?

[BakedPenguin]

I asked a friend who was really into it, and he said he identified with the guy in the video. I suspect that’s the most common thing.

As for me, I agree with you and Goldwater.

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

This came up on the “porn around the world” thread and I asked my bf about POV and his thoughts, because I find it weirdly disoriented. It’s like playing a video game, but you don’t actually control it, so it’s disorienting. Also, seems like a lot of the time the dude talks, and I would rather not hear that. Just weird, disorienting, and distracting.

[John]

And dudes are usually not particularly attractive. The women get chosen for their looks, since it is marketed to men. The men are chosen for their dicks and ability to stay up.

People say they are living the guy watching it. But I wonder if they are not living through the girl and just don’t quite want to admit it to themselves. NTTAAWWT

Think about it. How much porn is just a close up of a woman giving a blowjob? You can’t even see the woman’s body, just the cock and the woman’s head. How is that a turn on? Seems to me the show in that scene is the guy.

[Auric Demonocles]

“The female body is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. It’s for gettin’ around. It’s like a Jeep.”

[Rasilio]

Not to mention the spitting. I mean I get that spit is a useful lubricant at times but I don’t need to see 2 girls spitting into each others mouths.

[John]

And while the house may have housed slaves, they were likely those belonging to the family who lived there, rather than slaves intended for the trans-Atlantic passage, according to numerous publications as well as three historians of the slave trade interviewed by The Associated Press.

Even though historians have debunked the memorial, calling it a local invention, and despite reams of scholarly articles, treatises and books discussing its dubious historical role, the pink building has become the de facto emblem of slavery. It’s the place where world leaders go to acknowledge this dark chapter and in addition to Obama, the museum has hosted former Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush and Pope John Paul II. Its guestbook is bursting with the emotional messages from African-Americans who made their own pilgrimage here in an effort to make peace with their ancestors’ roots.

“There are literally no historians who believe the Slave House is what they’re claiming it to be, or that believe Goree was statistically significant in terms of the slave trade,” says historian Ralph Austen, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago who is the author of several articles on the issue. “The debate for us is how loudly should we denounce it?”

http://m.startribune.com/?id=213357501

Remember Obama went to Harvard. He is erudite. David Brooks and WFB’s idiot son told me so.

[Fluffy]

But it’s their FEELINGS about it that matter.

Have you no FEELINGS?

Don’t you CARE about slavery?

[John]

Someone put up a quote from Ayn Rand yesterday about that. I am not an objectivist and have my issues with Rand. But my God did she have leftists nailed. Basically it said that after World War II when the left realized the reality that socialism would never provide a better standard of living and there was no rational case for it anymore, they abadoned reason and embraced feelings. If it wasn’t the case that a single factory could give everyone in the world shoes, they would abandon shoes and go barefoot. Old Marxists who spent their lives devoted to “reason” and “science” were encouraging the next generation to embrace feelings and emotions.

I am not doing the quote justice. But it was one of the best things I have ever read.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

I posted it yesterday after the comments died off, so here it is again:

There is a significant change in the leftist-liberal ideology of today, a difference between the old left and the new ? not in essential goals or fundamental motives, but in their forms ? and the Time article is an unusually eloquent demonstration of it?

The old left had spent years of effort, tons of print, billions of dollars and rivers of blood to maintain an Apollonian mask. Old-line Marxists claimed that they were champions of reason, that socialism or communism was a scientific social system? they predicted that the progress of Soviet technology would surpass that of the United States?

That mask crumbled in the aftermath of World War II…

In full view of the fate of industry and the standard of living in Soviet Russia, in socialist Britain, in the communist countries of Europe, no on can claim very loudly or very effectively the technological superiority of socialism over capitalism?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

There was a time when the necessity of industrialization was the crusading slogan of Western liberals, which justified anything and whitewashed any atrocity, including the wholesale slaughter in Soviet Russia. We do not hear that slogan any longer. Confronted with the choice of an industrial civilization or collectivism, it is an industrial civilization that the liberals discarded. Confronted with the choice of technology or dictatorship, it is technology that they discarded. Confronted with the choice of reason or whims, it is reason that they discarded.

And so today we see the spectacle of old Marxists blessing, aiding and abetting the young hoodlums (who are their products and heirs) who proclaim the superiority of feelings over reason, of faith over knowledge, of leisure over production, of spiritual concerns over material comforts, of primitive nature over technology, of astrology over science, of drugs over consciousness.
The old-line Marxists used to claim that a single modern factory could produce enough shoes to provide for the whole population of the world and that nothing but capitalism prevented it. When they discovered the facts of reality involved, they declared that going barefoot was superior to wearing shoes.
So much for their concern with poverty and with the improvement of human life on earth? –Ayn Rand

[John]

Thanks. It is amazing. And it is more true today than it was when she made it (I assume sometime in the 60s or 70s). Forty years on it is just as relevant.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

It’s from one her essay collections, the 1971 The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. In my opinion there’s an overfocus on Rand’s fiction and her other work is superior, and I’d recommend this in particular.

Bonus amusing comment I came across looking up the link that I instantly knew was pre-recession: “Rand bibliographer Mimi Reisel Gladstein said the book’s topics ‘seem dated’, but ‘as Rand’s predictions about the negative results of some of the practices she rails against come about, one begins to appreciate the perceptiveness of her logic.'”

As someone who’s recently re-read through it “dated” would be the furthest word from my mind.

[BakedPenguin]

Yeah, her non-fiction is often very insightful and (sorry, Objectivists) almost always better written than her fiction.

[Invisible Finger]

I think Rand wrote fiction because she knew that was the only way to reach some leftists. Fiction is all they embrace.

[Marc F Cheney]

I think Rand wrote fiction because she knew that was the only way to reach some leftists. Fiction is all they embrace.

I can see why you’d think that, but it’s actually backwards.

She thought of herself as an author, first and foremost. She was just the sort of person who couldn’t write the kind of novels she wanted to write until she’d fleshed out a theory of aesthetics, and to do that she needed a theory of ethics, and to do that she needed a theory of epistemology, etc.

So, strangely–and I think the biographical material will back me up on this–she developed Objectivism (at least, in her head first) so that she could write Atlas. She didn’t write Atlas in order to spread Objectivism.

[VG Zaytsev]

Socialism was always primarily a religious movement, that expropriated major themes from christianity.

They just transferred the appeal to authority from God to ‘Science’ and ‘the people’. What they embraced was pseudo scientific post hoc rationalization for their preceding religious (emotional) beliefs.

Jettisoning those rationalizations when they became untenable.

We are seeing this play out today with the AGW hysterics. Who have used pseudo science to argue for enacting the same policies that they have advocated for the last 150 years. We will soon see them abandon those arguments when they become untenable due to the intrusion of reality.

However, they will not change their advocacy for the policies that are supposed to remedy the crisis, instead we will see a new post hoc rationalize arise.

[Tonio]

OK, even if the history of the house doesn’t fit the narrative, if people want to designate this the world monument to the african slave trade, so what?

[Lord Humungus]

Can Your Car Be Hacked?
http://www.caranddriver.com/fe…..ed-feature

Not too long ago, securing a car meant popping the faceplate off the CD player, slapping a Club over the steering wheel, and locking the doors. As vehicles’ electronic systems evolve, however, automobiles are starting to require the same protection as laptop computers and e-commerce servers.

Currently, there’s nothing to stop anyone with malicious intent and some ?computer-programming skills from taking command of your vehicle. After gaining access, a hacker could control everything from which song plays on the radio to whether the brakes work.

[John]

Unless it has some kind of connection to the outside, blue tooth maybe or some kind of Onstar system, I don’t see how.

[Tonio]

There is nothing to keep someone from surreptitiously installing a radio receiver. Basically once you demonstrate hackability as a proof of concept, the implementation is trivial.

[Ted S.]

How long until the government mandates a backdoor into the cars’ electronics for their own sake?

[John]

Not long. I am shocked they haven’t already done that. You could eliminate high speed chases. You just put a back door in so the cops can shut off the engine. What could possibly go wrong?

[Invisible Finger]

Nothing. A few extra dead people just means more charges for the prosecutor.

“Cash For Cars without tracking systems.”

[Brett L]

Pretty sure they’ve tried this before.

[Tonio]

What do you mean “until”?

[ant1sthenes]

Recent events suggest yes.

[Lord Humungus]

China asks if ‘happy ending’ services are illegal
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s…..8-07-02-13

China’s law enforcers are having an unusually public debate about a delicate topic: Do paid sexual services known as “happy endings” at massage parlors count as crimes if they don’t involve actual sexual intercourse?

While prostitution is illegal in China, its boundaries are being discussed with rare candor by courts, police and state media – even the usually stodgy flagship newspaper of the Communist Party.

[Tejicano]

I doubt this discussion will have an, er, enjoyable outcome.

[LTC(ret) John]

“Say, anybody know where you can go in this town for a rub and a tug?”

/CCP official

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Algore seen booking trips to China. He’s, uh, yeah, going there for a climate thing, yup.

[Lord Humungus]

The Criminal N.S.A.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06…..l-nsa.html

It didn’t help that Congressional watchdogs ? with a few exceptions, like Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky ? have accepted the White House’s claims of legality. The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, have called the surveillance legal. So have liberal-leaning commentators like Hendrik Hertzberg and David Ignatius.

This view is wrong ? and not only, or even mainly, because of the privacy issues raised by the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics. The two programs violate both the letter and the spirit of federal law. No statute explicitly authorizes mass surveillance. Through a series of legal contortions, the Obama administration has argued that Congress, since 9/11, intended to implicitly authorize mass surveillance. But this strategy mostly consists of wordplay, fear-mongering and a highly selective reading of the law. Americans deserve better from the White House ? and from President Obama, who has seemingly forgotten the constitutional law he once taught.

[John]

The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, have called the surveillance legal. So have liberal-leaning commentators like Hendrik Hertzberg and David Ignatius.

That list really kind of speaks for itself. Even if I did think it was legal, I would probably change my mind simply because I wouldn’t want to be associated with it.

[Invisible Finger]

Those who can’t do, teach.

Really, the fact that Obama was a teacher disqualifies him from holding any other public office.

[Lord Humungus]

Naked man on motorcycle arrested in OK
http://www.foxcarolina.com/sto…..sted-in-ok

A naked man was arrested driving a motorcycle wearing only a strategically placed shoe.

Police said Billy Buckley told them his clothes were taken at Lake Chickasha where he admitted part in a $50 bet that involved him riding the motorcycle naked.

[Lord Humungus]

Minor League Team to ‘Celebrate Life’ by Offering Fans Free Funeral in Ballpark Giveaway
http://nesn.com/2013/06/minor-…..-giveaway/

The Lehigh Valley IronPigs are taking the ballpark giveaway game to another level. The Phillies Triple-A affiliate is offering up a free funeral this summer to one “lucky” fan who submits an essay about what their “dream funeral” would include.

The fan who wins is promised a free funeral or memorial service by Reichel Funeral Home, which is the business behind the “Celebration of Life” night at Coca-Cola Park.

[AuH20]

Heroic Mulatto, an explanation please: What White People Don’t Get About Trayvon’s Girlfriend

I cried when she described the feeling of realizing she was the last person Trayvon spoke to, cringed at her blatant honesty, laughed when she spoke back to the attorneys and even had to turn my volume down throughout different phases of her testimony because of sheer discomfort.

Rachel was authentic, nervous and extremely herself. She did, after all, hear her friend, a minor, get killed in cold blood. And her involvement, from what we can tell, became dragged out beyond anything she ever wanted.

Her hostility is making more sense now.

Rachel’s collision with Zimmerman’s attorney Don West was uncomfortable to watch. They didn’t get each other. I even thought at one point they were going to call in some type of translator. Yes, she mumbled, but the amount of times she was asked to repeat herself, speak up and slow down proved that they were indeed speaking different languages. But let’s be honest. Rachel Jeantel’s attitude is exactly what I would expect from someone from the hood who has no media training and who is fully entrenched in a hostile environment.

As a non-white person, could you share with me the super secret information you got at the last meeting about Trayvon Martin’s girlfriend?

[John]

But remember, any white person who didn’t go to college or owns a gun is an ignorant, bitter clinger.

[Irish]

The left really is unbelievably racist. If some white hick did the same things on that stand that Jeantel did, they would not in a million years defend him, despite the fact that all the arguments about him having ‘no media training’ and being ‘fully entrenched in a hostile environment’ would be equally true.

In other words, black people should not be expected to comport themselves well on a witness stand but white people should, even if they’re of similar backgrounds. They’re basically arguing that white people are smarter than black people, and they’re too stupid to realize how racist they are.

[Hash Brown]

How do you like your grits – regular, creamy, or al dente?

[Dunphy (the real one)]

What a bunch of crap in that article. It’s also a bunch of racist crap. There is no special understanding that blacks have that white people don’t. At least the article could make the point about different backgrounds, but it has NOTHING to do with race. A white juror from the hood has similar understandings to a black juror from the hood. And a black middle class person has a similar understanding to a white middle class person. Again, it has NOTHING to do with race. And Jeantel’s race certainly doesn’t excuse her dishonesty.

Crap

[Zeb]

Almost everything that people talk about in terms of race would make a lot more sense framed in terms of socioeconomic background.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Including jury outcomes! When you account for socioeconomic background, the “racial disparities” in guilty/innocent results largely dissapear.

See: Chris Rock and Orenthal James the murderer

[Anonymous Coward]

That she’s a (barely) functional illiterate and one day life is going to hit her like a ton of bricks?

[Heroic Mulatto]

*shrugs*

Basically, everything you need to know is encapsulated in this video.

[Lord Humungus]

Risk of UK blackouts has tripled in a year, Ofgem warns
The risk of future blackouts has trebled in the last year as Britain is facing an energy crunch that will push up bills, the energy regulator has said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin…..warns.html

Ofgem warned there could be energy shortages in the middle of this decade as the UK has failed to build enough new wind farms and nuclear powers stations to replace old fossil fuel plants.

It also believes demand for energy may not fall as much as originally expected, as fewer households are insulating their lofts and switching to green appliances than predicted.

Ministers are so concerned that factories and large businesses may be asked to switch off their power during energy emergencies in return for compensation from bill-payers.

[AlexInCT]

Must be how the IMF plans to use green policy to creat more jobs….

[Enough About Palin]

Sniffing a kid’s arm is now “street terrorism”.

[Hash Brown]

Corzine gets served:

Federal regulators on Thursday filed civil charges against former MF Global Holdings Ltd. Chief Executive Jon S. Corzine and a top lieutenant for overseeing the misuse of almost $1 billion in customer funds, saying Mr. Corzine “bears responsibility” for the New York commodities brokerage’s 2011 demise.

WSJ has the complaint.

[Sevo]

I guess they just won’t listen to shreek!

[John]

They were able to find and replace 90% of the money that was missing. So it is okay. Shreek actually believes that. It is okay to steal a bunch of money as long as most of it gets recovered.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Of course you’re an idiot with no understanding of finance but this is a legal issue.

This is a civil suit stating clearly that Corzine did not steal but instead ran the company into the ground.

They have a case there.

[John]

This is a civil suit stating clearly that Corzine did not steal but instead ran the company into the ground.

No it is saying he stole. You can be prosecuted civilly for stealing. What is going on here is that Corzine is guilty of stealing so much money even his connections to Obama can’t get him totally off. They have to do something. So they are bringing a civil suit for his theft to keep him out of jail and give liars like you a talking point that something was done.

And you have been saying for years he did nothing wrong. Well, the SEC seems to disagree. He is a thief, just like every other Obama crony. It is what they do.

[SugarFree]

SEC are just a bunch of christfags, John.

[John]

And the ones that aren’t are just leftover Bushpigs!!

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Corzine failed to put the money in the freezer. Everybody knows that if you are a liberal and you are going to steal money, you put it in the freezer, to evade detection and prosecution because then it’s not “stealing stealing”

duh

[Palin's Buttplug]

You’re lying and you know it. The WSJ says all the phone calls were recorded and Corzine was avoiding a run on liquidity by moving funds between accounts inappropriately.

[John]

Yeah Shreek, he is totally innocent. The Obama led SEC is just going after him out of spite. They just hate guys with beards I guess. I mean it happens all of the time the bundlers for Obama are unfairly targeted by the federal government.

You really will defend anything and say anything no matter how stupid if that is what the talking points tell you.

[KDN]

Corzine was avoiding a run on liquidity by moving funds between accounts inappropriately.

So he was borrowing client’s funds without their permission. Totally different than stealing.

[tarran]

IIRC the agreement they signed with their clients didn’t prohibit hypothecation (the fancy word for helping yourself to your clients’ funds). Corzine has been using that fig leaf of a defense.

When you get an investment account, make sure that the agreement contains an explicit prohibition on hypothecation.

[KDN]

FTA:

The CFTC’s 47-page complaint depicts Mr. Corzine as instrumental in making decisions that put customer accounts at risk by allegedly moving money in violation of strict rules prohibiting such transfers.

I’d have to look through the whole complaint and the related rules to know for sure, but it seems like the lack of a prohibition in the client agreements would be moot.

[Invisible Finger]

moving funds between accounts inappropriately.

Otherwise known as stealing.

[Marc F Cheney]

Otherwise known as stealing.

“That money was just resting in my account!”

[KMA Too]

Shit. H/T to Marc

[KMA Too]

Thatmoney was just resting in my account!

[VG Zaytsev]

No it is saying he stole.

He didn’t steal it, you moralizing Christfag, he just borrowed it without informing the owners, and then lost some of it, but there are not guarantees in life.

/ shreeky

[Dunphy (the real one)]

fwiw, i just charged a rather similar case involving a social worker who misused funds belonging to a mentally challenged ward of the state she had been appointed to PROTECT and CARE FOR.

Some “social worker”.

Hypothecation indeed

[Sevo]

For the irony-impaired, here’s a refresher.

Palin’s Buttplug| 6.28.13 @ 9:28AM |#
“Of course you’re an idiot with no understanding of finance but this is a legal issue.”

[Lord Humungus]

Has peak shreek-derp been reached or is it a bottomless well?

[Palin's Buttplug]

KEEP BUYING GOLD FELLERS! PRINTING PRESS HYPERINFLATION.

You guys are always wrong and you hate me for being right.

[Citizen Nothing]

And for being beautiful

[Dunphy (the real one)]

How are PB’s traps? It’s all about the traps for me. Mine are dreemy!

[Lord Humungus]

so it’s a bottomless well. thanks for clearing that up.

[Zeb]

The money was just resting in his account before he moved it on.

[Sevo]

“China asks if ‘happy ending’ services are illegal”
And I think you know what I mean:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/cri…..632254.php

[Ted S.]

Yes, we know what you mean.

[Sevo]

Damn that guy’s fickle fingers!

[Lord Humungus]

just don’t ask me for a happy ending.

[AuH20]

Paula Deen is having a cruise. Send a Jezzie on it. Also, by reading this, you will better understand the appeal of Lindy West

Reasons Why Gawker Media Should Send Me To Cover The Paula Deen Cruise

1. I love me some butter.

2. I have finely tuned survival skills: Should the cruise breakdown into some sort of epic poo-magedon on the high seas, I have seen basically every Roland Emmerich film and am therefor well-versed in how to survive and live to tell the heroic tale.

3. I am basically a buffet expert. Look, everyone knows cruises have the best buffets. And people think that you can just grab a plate, walk up to a buffet and start slapping stuff on, willy-nilly. That is amateur shit, people. You have to know things, OK? You have to be able to calculate, in a split second, the ratio of pasta salad to plate and be able to account to crab leg variables. Sound hard? It. Is. That is why you need a professional, OK?

4. I am also a white Southern lady: I should therefor be able to blend seemlessly in with the many other white Southern and non-Southern ladies who read a lot of Southern Living Magazine who will likely be on this cruise.

By comparison, Lindy West actually IS funny. Also, they call their user blog “Groupthink”. How awesomely unaware is that?

[John]

Paula Dean is going to make more money than she ever did. There are so many people out there who hate the media and popular culture and are willing to buy something just out of spite. This will end up being the best thing that ever happened to Dean.

[AuH20]

Which should be a wake up call to the media, because my reading of the accounts of Deen is that she is kind of racist. But the mainstream media and pop culture have alienated people so badly that, unlike times past, when they reach a conclusion that someone has breached the social mores of society and should be outcast, a significant number of people rally behind them as a “fuck you” to the establishment.

This kind of open contempt should worry The Good and Great of our society more than it seems to.

[John]

It should. Dean is loathsome. But the media has unfairly smeared so many people so many times they have lost the ability to shame someone who actually deserves it. But they are so stupid that will never dawn on them.

[Irish]

Paula Dean is going to make more money than she ever did. There are so many people out there who hate the media and popular culture and are willing to buy something just out of spite.

Didn’t pre-orders for her new book jump several thousand percent in the last week or two?

[John]

Yup.

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

It’s #1 on Amazon at this point.

[BigT]

Who knew that dredging some old nigger comments was a great career move?

[Dunphy (the real one)]

It worked for Randy Marsh

[Irish]

Also, they call their user blog “Groupthink”. How awesomely unaware is that?

No way.

[SugarFree]

And they often promote those stories to the main page. Are they not then to be considered unpaid interns? I wonder how many paid sick days they get…

[Brett L]

They are 1099 Contractors who provide their services for the same rate ($0.00) in comments boxes across the web.

[sarcasmic]

Dean’s products are now somehow worse than they were before people knew about some comments that she made twenty-odd years ago?

Just when you thought you’d reached peak derp…

[Dunphy (the real one)]

I’m not going to get all hot and bothered that she referred to a black bank robber with the “n” word. It’s WRONG, but it’s not exactly earth shattering.

[Marc F Cheney]

seemlessly

joez law?

[LynchPin1477]

Court rules Hobby Lobby can challenge health law, won’t have to pay fines

The U.S. Department of Justice has argued that allowing for-profit corporations to exempt themselves from requirements that violate their religious beliefs would be in effect allowing the business to impose its religious beliefs on employees.

Because the First Amendment was never intended for those who make money.

[John]

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

James Toranto destroys Claire McCaskill.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

With bonus Weigel idiocy about “The Black Louisiana Senator Who Switched to the GOP Reacts to the Voting Rights Act Apocalypse.”

[Ted S.]

Fuck Todd Akin.

[John]

That ignorant piece of shit. Fuck the Republicans who voted for him in the primary. McCaskill knew he was a moron and funded ads supporting him during the primary. In addition to having a room temperature IQ, she is a crook. Her husband makes millions on crooked government contracts.

[VG Zaytsev]

He only got something like 35% of the vote in the primary.

The republicans that rallied behind that pos are fucking morons. The guy wasn’t even supported by a majority of rep primary voters but they defended him out of twisted team loyalty.

And fuck the arrogant fuck for thinking that he had an entitlement to be a Senator.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Why didn’t you little punks just support the libertarian running for that Senate race?

(don’t bother – I know you are Republicans)

[Citizen Nothing]

The Plug is why nobody takes libertarians seriously.

[VG Zaytsev]

I’m a small l libertarian.

[Citizen Nothing]

I, on the other hand, have a positively massive “l”.

[WTF]

BUSHPIGS!!11!!!CHRISTFAGS!!11!!!!

[Lord Humungus]

aww…

[mad libertarian guy]

Why didn’t you little punks just support the libertarian running for that Senate race?

(don’t bother – I know you are Republicans)

Said the self-proclaimed libertarian who voted for fucking Obama. Twice.

[invisible furry hand]

Cute bear on the run in France for the sixth day

Go Viviane!

[Brett L]

I thought maybe jesse had offended the French and needed to get home.

[Tonio]

Which jesse? I don’t think either one of ours is a bear.

[AuH20]

The Brazilian Protests just aren’t leftist enough!

This movement was started by people who have been historically denied access to public space, including people of color, the poor, members of the LGBTQ community and women. But now, for the first time in decades, Brazilians of all classes, genders, races and sexualities are learning what these people have always lived with.

Black Brazilians have long known the results of police brutality, watching as their young men are systematically killed through police or drug-related violence. Brazilian women are all too familiar with the fact that their presence in public space is often dictated by the men occupying it at the time. Queer and trans* people in Brazil risk their safety every time they leave the house as out members of the LGBTQ community.

This doesn’t mean that the more privileged don’t have a place within this movement. It just means that our job involves a lot more listening than yelling, a lot more supporting than leading. It means that our privilege makes us an ally in this important fight.

[Ted S.]

This movement was started by people who have been historically denied access to public space, including people of color, the poor, members of the LGBTQ community and women.

Am I a bad person for not being able to read the rest of the quote because I was already convulsing with laughter by this point in the quoted material?

[LTC(ret) John]

No you are not….and I joined you in that.

[Spoonman.]

It’s a pretty conservative movement in broad terms – the protesters are angry about increased taxes and wasteful spending. Pauly Krugnuts must hate it.

[mad libertarian guy]

It’s a pretty conservative movement in broad terms – the protesters are angry about increased taxes and wasteful spending. Pauly Krugnuts must hate it.

That’s half of it. They are pissed that those increased taxes (which are paid by a far smaller percentage of Brazilians than in America) weren’t used to provide them with ponies.

The vast majority of Brazilians who are protesting have lived their entire lives on the dole and have never paid a single penny in taxes. They’re pissed that they didn’t get MOAR FREE SHIT!!

[AuH20]

Remember women: Unless you are progressive, you aren’t a REAL woman

After each election, when we tally the percentage of women represented in each legislative body, there’s always a reasonable op-ed that points out that gender is not necessarily the best predictor of voting behavior. (See: Bachmann, Michele.) As I have written many times, “A woman candidate is not the same thing as a woman’s candidate.” But last night was a gut-level reminder of the power of shared, lived experience in politics ? and what happens when you ask one too many times that women prove their experience is legitimate. This is, to a certain extent, what makes this week’s Supreme Court’s decisions this week so powerful, too. The Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act relied on big-picture statistics that many black Americans felt did not represent their lived experience with race. And the ruling to overturn DOMA, in essence, did the opposite: The justices validated relationships that gay Americans had struggled for years to convey as deeply important in their sameness to an often blissfully ignorant straight majority.

[Irish]

The Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act relied on big-picture statistics that many black Americans felt did not represent their lived experience with race.

We should ignore the facts because random people claim those facts are contrary to their ‘lived experience.’

They are now admitting that they value feelings more than facts.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Facts are racist, sexist, and heteronormative

[John]

Women need to be more like black people and stop worrying their pretty little heads about politics. Just think what their betters tell them to think.

That is what is called “female empowerment”.

[Spoonman.]

What evisceration? That map was a mockery of reason. North Fucking Carolina doesn’t have state-level preclearance, but Alaska does?

[Brett L]

Quit bothering them with facts, dude. They’ve already said they don’t matter.

[mad libertarian guy]

The Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act

Telling Congress they needed to rely on data that’s younger than 50 years old in order to come up with a formula is “evisceration?”

If these people didn’t have hyperbole, they’d have nothing.

[invisible furry hand]

Uh-oh, get ready for some disturbing twitpics: Anthony Weiner is going after the gay vote

[BigT]

I’m sure he’ll go after it through the back door.

[The Late P Brooks]

The Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act

As a white, property owning man, I approve.

[John]

The DOJ has been fined any number of times for abusing that section of the statute. They tried to use it to keep Alabama from collecting DNA samples from convicted felons, who can’t even vote in the state.

The funny thing is that few of the journalists and none of the lefty journalists writing about this know anything about the actual provision. They just see the buzz term “VRA” and have their usual Pavlovian response.

[AuH20]

Well that’s kind of depressing: Black babies cost less to adopt

The Race Card Project spoke with social workers, adoption agencies and adoptive parents about adoption costs based on ethnicity. We discovered that this is not widely talked about, but it is common, Norris tells NPR’s David Greene. “No one is comfortable about this.”

Non-white children, and black children, in particular, are harder to place in adoptive homes, Norris says. So the cost is adjusted to provide an incentive for families that might otherwise be locked out of adoption due to cost, as well as “for families who really have to, maybe have a little bit of prodding to think about adopting across racial lines.”

In other words, Norris explains, there are often altruistic reasons for the discrepancy ? “but people who work in adoption say there’s one more reason, quite simply: It’s supply and demand.”

The fees typically cover administrative costs, but also costs associated with taking care of the mother, like travel, rent, health care and counseling services. Now, some states and agencies are using a different formula to make adoption more affordable for families, with a sliding scale based on income rather than skin color. In that system, lower-income families pay less to adopt. Some agencies are also moving toward a uniform cost system where all adoptive parents would pay the same fees.

[RBS]

The Race Card Project

WTF?

[RBS]

Did they take into count the rush by americans to adopt african babies?

[John]

That is very sad and a result of the decline of the black family. It is a supply and demand issue. More unwanted black babies and fewer black families to adopt them.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Black oow birthrate is approximately 75%. This is hardly surprising.

[Irish]

Some agencies are also moving toward a uniform cost system where all adoptive parents would pay the same fees.

This sounds like a terrible idea. It’s a really sad story and I feel bad for those kids who aren’t getting adopted, but if you set a uniform price wouldn’t that mean fewer black kids would get adopted?

If the reason the cost to adopt black babies is lower is because of supply and demand, then artificially setting the price the same as it would be for white kids would place the price above what most people are willing to pay for a black kid.

Wouldn’t that mean people are even less likely to adopt a black child and more of them would be forced into foster care? I think that’s a worse outcome than there simply being a difference in price.

[robc]

Price fixing leads to surpluses and shortages.

It doesnt matter if its corn, toilet paper of babies.

[robc]

*or* babies.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

You know who made paper products out of babies?

[ant1sthenes]

Charmin?

[Fluffy]

Right, but sentencing those black babies to a childhood of foster care is a small price to pay for protecting the FEELINGS of other African-Americans.

Don’t you know about the importance of FEELINGS?

(See how I can tie sub-threads together? I am so awesome.)

[Fatty Bolger]

The agencies used to be reluctant to allow white parents to adopt black babies. Has that changed?

[Azathoth!!]

No.

[The Late P Brooks]

Some agencies are also moving toward a uniform cost system where all adoptive parents would pay the same fees.

Would anyone like to postulate a completely unexpected result of this?

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Get real. Price fixing can’t have unintended results. Look at rent control. And what a stunning success it’s been, and w/o any unintended consequences.

[Floridian]

The poll, released Thursday, finds 46 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Christie, up 16 percentage points from August 2012. Meantime, his unfavorable rating is down 4 points to 20 percent

Oh please no!

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politic…..z2XWCnNScJ

[John]

I keep having this horrible vision of a Fatty and Nanny Top Men Unity ticket in 2016.

[Floridian]

It will be Democrat vs Democrat lite once again. Although in Christie’s case it may just be Democrat vs Democrat.

[John]

I don’t think Christie could ever win a GOP nomination. There are way to many single issue gun voters in the GOP. Gulliani went nowhere in 08 because of his stance on guns. Take away guns and Gulliani would have had a shot. He was a national hero to a lot of people on the right. He was the guy who saved New York and was there after 9-11. But his horrible record on guns made him a complete no go with at least half of the GOP voters. And when you are only fighting for 50% to start with, you don’t have a chance. Same thing will happen to Christie. Remember, “voters” is not the same as “primary voters”. And even some who have a positive view of him, do so with the caveat that “he is about as good as we could ever get from New Jersey” and would never vote for him for President.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

He was a national hero to a lot of people on the left. I have some VERY leftist family members (new york residents and elsewhere) who considered him thusly. Strange as fuck, but his hero status was far from confined to the left. I agree about the gunz thing, though. An anti-RKBA repub is a no-go. Heck, a dem who is strongly anti-RKBA has difficulties, but for a repub it alienates WAY too many repubs.

[John]

The left loved him because he made new York livable again.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Good point. Even died in the wool liberals lose respect (some) for civil rights when it comes down to simply wanting to walk down the street w.o being mugged and just general quality of life issues.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Wrong. Ruby Guiliani was pro-choice and offended you Aborto-Freaks.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

I’m prochoice fwiw. But repubs are WAY more accepting of pro-choicers than dems are of pro-lifers. Ahnold, a key speaker at the repub convention was pro-life, strongly so. You would NEVER see a pro-life dem as a key speaker representative at a dem convention. Their “big tent” uses it as a litmus test issue much more so than the repubs.

[sarcasmic]

But repubs are WAY more accepting of pro-choicers than dems are of pro-lifers.

Tolerant people have a duty to be intolerant of intolerant people.

Pro-lifers are intolerant.

Thus anyone who tolerates pro-lifers is needs a lesson in tolerance.

[Citizen Nothing]

This is why nobody takes Aborto-Freaks seriously.

[John]

Shreek? yeah no one does. I mean when your goal in life is to ensure as many late term abortions occur as possible, you might not be taken seriously.

It is funny, Shreek is most certainly an aborto freak and yet calls everyone else that.

[John]

You mean like McCain? It was guns dumb ass. Not every issue is partisan. So you don’t have to post a retarded talking point about everything. Didn’t your handlers ever explain that to you?

They probably did but the meds you take only work so well.

[tarran]

STOP ENCOURAGING IT BY INTERACTING WITH IT!!!!!!!

Its obsessive coprophilia has no redeeming value, and we should be casting it out rather than encouraging it to hang around.

[Fluffy]

Giuliani offended me because he struts around like Il Duce and is almost as big an authoritarian swine.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Guiliani was also pretty good on Saturday night live and looks good dressed in drag.

These win him liberal credibility points

[Floridian]

I hope you are right John. I really don’t like Christie.

[invisible furry hand]

How many of the 46% have a favourable opinion of him because they think he’s John Candy?

[KMA Too]

Ohh…too soon, ifh.

Too soon.

[Fluffy]

Dude, don’t worry about this one even a little.

Those numbers just mean that people like Christie more when he’s out of the news for a while and they forget him.

As soon as he’s back in the news, his numbers will go right back down.

[John]

That is an excellent point fluffy. Christie is so loathsome and noxious, people will remember very quickly why they didn’t like the guy.

[Fatty Bolger]

PAGING MR. BARFMAN: Jeb Bush to present Liberty Medal to Hillary Clinton

“Former Secretary Clinton has dedicated her life to serving and engaging people across the world in democracy,” said Bush, the Republican former Governor of Florida, son of a former president and brother of another. “These efforts as a citizen, an activist, and a leader have earned Secretary Clinton this year’s Liberty Medal.”

[John]

And they wonder why the rest of the country thinks they are all just play acting and are really on the same side.

[Floridian]

Jack Johnson: John Jackson’s 3 cent titanium tax goes too far!

John Jackson: Jack Johnson’s 3 cent titanium tax doesn’t go too far enough!

[ant1sthenes]

Maybe he hired a voodoo priest to curse it first.

[Brett L]

“S/He sure does look Presidential” — every swing voter.

[VG Zaytsev]

Why the fuck is Jeb Bush presenting a medal to anyone?

[The Late P Brooks]

Is this Jeb’s unsubtle way of declining the Rethuglitard nomination?

[Dunphy (the real one)]

To get all Loder’esque for a second.

That Oz movie sucked. DESPITE having good actors in it, beautiful visuals, and having Oz as a subject.

My review made under the influence of versed and fentanyl, recovering from surgery, which usually doesn’t result in me being hypercritical. Iow, even half-asleep and gorked out on anesthetics – and as a rental, it sucked.

[Fatty Bolger]

Loder’esque? Needz moar spoilers.

[Pro Libertate]

I’ve got one: Oz is the Wizard of Oz.

[Fatty Bolger]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo wait I knew that.

[Pro Libertate]

And he is not killed in this movie.

Oz did well at the box office, so you think Disney will dare to do a sequel? One, perhaps, involving a young girl named. . .Dorothy?

[Fatty Bolger]

Sacrilege! Outrage! From the depths of Judy Garland’s crypt, I curse you!

Seriously though, I think that was the original plan, but I’m not sure the new Oz did well enough to take that risk.

[Pro Libertate]

It did fairly well, and the story was original. Once they get to The Wizard of Oz (the book, of course, not the musical film), then there are a number of books they can work from.

[Fatty Bolger]

I won’t complain if they do. The books are quite different from the 1939 movie. Ruby slippers my ass.

[Pro Libertate]

That’s right, silver shoes in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

[Fatty Bolger]

Daniel Werfel slammed for ‘incomplete’ report

At a hearing on the report Thursday, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp slammed Daniel Werfel for concluding that politics didn’t play a role in the now-defunct practice of providing extra scrutiny to conservative groups applying for a tax exemption. The Michigan Republican was especially incensed at Werfel’s request for an additional $1 billion in funding for the agency.

[Pro Libertate]

He should be incensed. We should be asking ourselves why we need an agency with such unfettered authority. Yes, I know why the government does, but it we stupid voters would make a fuss, maybe a flat/fair tax proposal could get off the ground.

[Spartacus]

This is terrible for Daniel. A Heisman winner deserves better treatment than this.

[Fatty Bolger]

Typical Gator fan, always blaming everybody but the player.

[Pro Libertate]

What?

[Fatty Bolger]

It’s a joke about the IRS commissioner’s name. Daniel Wuerffel

[Pro Libertate]

I got that part.

[Fatty Bolger]

Alec Baldwin loses his shit – again.

Alec Baldwin has gone on an extraordinary homophobic Twitter rant, threatening a MailOnline reporter over a story published about his wife Hilaria Baldwin.

The 55-year-old actor has since deleted his entire Twitter account.

The shocking outburst came after MailOnline claimed that his 32-year-old yoga instructor wife had broadcast a series of upbeat tweets about shopping for a wedding anniversary present and fruit smoothies during Sopranos star James Gandolfini’s funeral on Thursday.

[Pro Libertate]

Wait, Hilaria?

[Stormy Dragon]

Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, wants the courts to reinstate the state’s ban on oral and anal sex, saying it was an important tool in prosecuting child molesters.

Huh, and yet the commenters here keep telling me I’m just paranoid when I say there’s still a significant number of people in the GOP who want to criminalize homosexuality.

[John]

There is a significant number of people period who want to criminalize homosexuality. A lot of blacks and Hispanics are very religious and would support that. And last I looked they tended not to be Republicans. And I guarantee you the majority of religious Muslims, even in this country, would insist on it.

Homosexual rights are sadly a product of the upper middle class white western society. If that ever goes away, homosexual rights will go with it. Homosexuality is a crime in most countries of the world. Americans forget just what an exception recognition of homosexual rights is.

[Eduard van Haalen]

See my comments above:

http://reason.com/blog/2013/06…..nt_3835669

[John]

Thanks. It is very sad what a lousy job Reason does on these issues. The really are lefties who want to smoke dope. I would expect Reason to have the ability to give any issue a fair hearing. But nope. Reason number one millions why I have very little respect for Gillespie. He is in charge and allows this to occur.

[Fluffy]

OK, I read your comments but it’s still dumb. Sorry.

Why was he not just charged with sexual abuse of a minor?

Because unless there’s a good answer for that, this sounds exactly like John’s scenario of “Well we can’t technically charge this guy with the appropriate crime, so we’re just going to use the catch-all of ‘sodomy’!” which would be crap.

[Eduard van Haalen]

At least you’re criticizing something which approaches Cuccinelli’s *actual* position, as opposed to the OP and many of the comments which suggests he would lock up your girlfriend for giving you a special birthday present.

[Eduard van Haalen]

“Why was he not just charged with sexual abuse of a minor?”

Here we get to an legitimate criticism of the the use of Va’s sodomy law, since in the case or normal sex, a 17-year old in Va has reached the age of consent, meaning (I suppose) that propositioning a 17 y/o for normal sex wouldn’t be a crime (consult a Va lawyer, however, before trying out this theory). So you could argue that the use of the sodomy law in this case was a workaround to avoid the protections of the general sex-abuse law.

However, this is not the criticism being voiced in the OP and most comments, which suggest that the prisons are being readied for an influx of gay lovers and married straight couples.

[ant1sthenes]

I can’t imagine overzealous prosecutors abusing a broadly written statute beyond its intended purposes, and certainly not when they have their own personal vendetta to pursue.

[Sevo]

“the commenters here keep telling me I’m just paranoid when I say there’s still a significant number of people in the GOP who want to criminalize homosexuality.”

Uh, you might be generalizing about the ‘commenters here’.

[Stormy Dragon]

Some of the commenters here. =P

[Stormy Dragon]

Some of the commenters here. =P

[Spartacus]

Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, wants the courts to reinstate the state’s ban on oral and anal sex, saying it was an important tool in prosecuting child molesters.

Two things:

1. Any time a LEO uses the word “tool” (other than in reference to himself), what follows next will ALWAYS be a proposal to expand their power at the cost of your liberties.

2. Apparently, the idea seems to be that he wants to pass a law similar to some that have already been ruled unconstitutional (see Lawrence v Texas), in order to use it selectively against certain groups of people, and he is quite open about this. This, by itself, shows that he is unfit for ANY public office, period.

[John]

As I said above, I am not sure you could even get someone to pled guilty to a consensual sodomy charge with a minor. No judge would take such a plea. In making it the accused would be admitting to rape.

So I am not seeing how this could be an effective tool to get people to plead guilty. At most it is an add on for sentencing purposes. But since when do child rapists not get a big sentence?

The only case where it might make a difference is driving up the sentence of some really borderline case of the 19 year old with the 14 year old g/f.

And come to think of it, maybe he is going for the feminist vote here. If he is not he needs to. He is basically arguing for a new tool in throwing more men in jail for longer sentences. And man will they love that idea.

[Eduard van Haalen]

See my comments above. He’s doing what just about any AG would do – trying to keep a keep a guy in prison who sexually propositioned a 17-year old girl and then told cops she tried to rape him:

http://reason.com/blog/2013/06…..nt_3835669

[Kaptious Kristen]

I think I saw Warty on Wipeout last night….

[itsnotmeitsyou]

I didn’t know there was a rape competition on that show…

[Kaptious Kristen]

If you get through the final Wipeout zone, you get to rape the hosts. All three of ’em.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Simultaneously, I assume. At least that’s the way Warty would do it.

[Slammer]

Was this brought up here?
California schools training kids to “sell” Obamacare to their families

[Fatty Bolger]

It was, yesterday.

[Slammer]

Thanks!

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