Syria Strikes Seem More and More Likely, Congress to Discuss State Marijuana Laws, Feds Help Pay for Detroit Streetcar Line: P.M. Links

• 

  Credit: Geekubator / Foter / CC BY

  By the time you read this, the United States may be launching air strikes on Syria, lack of American public support be damned. Maybe not today, though. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel says the strikes will happen only with international support. Um, what about Congress, guys?

• The Senate will have a hearing, called by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, to discuss the conflict resulting from some states refusing to treat marijuana as a controlled substance in the way the federal government wants them to.
• Wall Street is taking note of the potential for 3D-printing, and at least one analyst expects the market to triple by 2018.
• The federal government is contributing $25 million of the $140 million needed for a 3.3-mile streetcar line in thoroughly bankrupt Detroit. $100 million was actually contributed by 15 private donors, so one wonders why they didn't just build it themselves.
• Zurich, Switzerland, is experimenting with making its legalized prostitution safer (and less visible) with drive-in sex garages.
• New Jersey's attorney general's office worries that their state police are just too corrupt (no, really!), finding problems or mistakes with nearly a third of all traffic stops examined.  

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The federal government is contributing $25 million of the $140 million needed for a 3.3-mile streetcar line in thoroughly bankrupt Detroit.

Is the line to take people out of Detroit?

[playa manhattan]

Yes, in style.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Taking the midnight train going anywhere?

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

I find the dearth of Journey references here disturbing. Thanks for picking up the slack.

[CE]

Isn't South Detroit actually in Canada?

[Pro Libertate]

I think it's to go through Detroit without actually stopping.

[NeonCat]

Just another, uh, "rail-over" city.

[Live Free or Diet]

I was thinking Detroit needs streetcars about like I need an O-scale train set. Maybe I'd like one, but I can't imagine a purpose for it beyond simple entertainment.

[Pro Libertate]

It's part of its secret transformation to a theme park. Disney bought the city last month.

[PapayaSF]

You don't think that New Urbanism can save Detroit, huh? You Teathuglicans are all alike.

[BigT]

Detroit has a 'people-mover' that circles downtown. It's nearly always empty.

[playa manhattan]

Papaya, how's your tap water? Hetch Hetchy is big news right now...

[PapayaSF]

No problems with water or power so far. Apparently the threat to electrical transmission lines is greater.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Zurich, Switzerland, is experimenting with making its legalized prostitution safer (and less visible) with drive-in sex garages.

Jiffy Lube better realize the brand potential here.

[Long Range Boredom]

I'd call my sex garage Rim Jobs.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Chico, don't be discouraged, The Man he ain't to hard to understand...Chico if you try now, I know that you can lend a helping hand....

[Pro Libertate]

I just watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory last night with my younger daughter. The Man is Charlie's grandpa.

[The Last American Hero]

As a child, the behavior of the grandparents in that movie appalled me. Too damn lazy to get out of bed and help out around the house - until they got a winning lottery ticket.

[Pro Libertate]

My daughter actually was wondering what the heck that was about.

[Episiarch]

Well, they were surviving on cabbage soup, after all. They probably needed to conserve their energy.

[Pro Libertate]

You know, it's worse than that. I distinctly recall the mother saying "cabbage water." That's worse than soup.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

An entire room full of old people cabbage farts? And the kid's palette survived well enough to enjoy chocolate instead of being like a WWI gassing victim?

[Pro Libertate]

He wasn't home very much.

[Enough About Palin]

White people are inherently lazy.

[Live Free or Diet]

Pump-N-Pay!

[Old Man With Candy]

My next movie project will be entitled "Sex Garage 5."

[Invisible Finger]

Reminded me of this CD:

http://www.amazon.com/Pay-Befo.....l+anderson

[CE]

Or, from GTA, Pay-n-Spray.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

I had this idea 15 years ago. Combine a service Station with a Brothel
"Get service while your car gets serviced!"

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Party Barn was taken.

[Pro Libertate]

"With a stroke and a smile."

[Adam.]

Kum and Go! (real gas station chain in the midwest)

[CE]

In-N-Out, real hamburger chain.

[?J?? de ?guila]

The ever-so-clever crowd used to change the bumper stickers from "IN-N-OUT BURGERS" to "IN-N-OUT URGE".

[Zeb]

I'm kind of surprised that there would still be so much street prostitution if it is legal.

[CE]

Maybe it's an impulse buy.

[Mickey Rat]

Come to me for service every hundred miles
Baby, let me check your points, fix your overdrive

Talkin' 'bout love

[Metazoan]

Couldn't Congress pass something to specifically forbid intervention in Syria? If they had testicles, I mean.

[John]

Yes they could. And Obama would say fuck you I am CnC and do it anyway. The SCOTUS meanwhile would throw up their hands and say political problem and not do anything.

[Pro Libertate]

I wish that sort of interbranch squabble would happen. Because if Congress got pissed, the shit they could do would be epic in scope. I mean Achilles and Odysseus epic.

[John]

It would. But no one supports this war. But you watch, the Dems are too far up Obama's ass to say anything. They are going to end up owning a really unpopular war. I don't think that will end well for them.

[DontShootMe]

Don't worry, McCain'll make sure the Republicans get their share of credit/blame for this.

[?J?? de ?guila]

Graham, King, McCain and lots of the Ugly War-Swine Republicans have their war hard-ons shoved up Obama's Fetid War-Pig asshole.

[Brett L]

Agamemnon and Achilleus were at odds in the Illiad. Odysseus was the star of the other epic.

[Pro Libertate]

Odysseus plays a pretty major role in The Illiad, but I wasn't using him to highlight the conflict (his was with Telamonian Aias, sort of). I just meant that it would be epic in the sense of that epic poem, not epic as in "cool."

[Almanian!]

I thought you meant Epic, like in "You Want It All (But You Can't Have It"

And - no - I'm not going to include a fucking link. So there.

[hamilton]

Fuck your western privilege. I think it'd be Krishna and Drona epic.

[Pro Libertate]

Same thing.

[R C Dean]

Everywhere is west of somewhere.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Pedant!

[Zeb]

Well, if the president would say that to congress, how the fuck would the SCOTUS stop him even if they wanted to. Congress could at least cut off funding. The court can't do shit.

[CE]

But that would lead to a "Constitutional Crisis" -- a situation which the Constitution clearly spells out how to deal with, but which Congress is afraid of.

[MJGreen]

Are any Congressmen bothering to exploit the situation? Put a bill saying something, anything against attacking Syria? Or is Congress out of session and that's why we're not seeing anything from Amash or Paul or Wyden or whomever?

[DesigNate]

Congress is out of session.

[Thane runs off sobbing]

photo of the day

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

That's great.

[Brett L]

That's just begging for a caption.

"Rape culture you say? I've got just the place for you."

[kinnath]

Fuck Patriarchy -- please, we're so lonely.

[Ted S.]

Is that Hugo Schwyzer?

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Did everyone get to read his epic Twitter meltdown?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Is that one of those ironic t-shirts that I hear so much about?

[hamilton]

Is that Belichick behind the cop?

[Brett L]

New Jersey's attorney general's office worries that their state police are just too corrupt (no, really!), finding problems or mistakes with nearly a third of all traffic stops examined.

The ideal amount of corruption would be 19.72% of all traffic stops.

[Episiarch]

Only a third?

[Zakalwe]

It's a fifth, you idiot. Drink up.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Zurich, Switzerland, is experimenting with making its legalized prostitution safer (and less visible) with drive-in sex garages.

So that's what that calendar at my mechanic's was depicting.

[Pro Libertate]

I don't know why, but this reminds me of "Sex Farm."

Workin' on a sex farm,
Tryin' to raise some hard love,
Gettin' out my pitch fork,
Pokin' your hay.

Scratchin' in your hen house,
Sniffin' at your feedbag,
Slippin' out your back door,
Leavin' my spray.

Sex farm woman,
I'm gonna mow you down.
Sex farm woman,
I'll rake and hoe you down.
Sex farm woman,
Don't you see my silo risin' high, high, high?

Workin' on a sex farm,
Hosin' down your barn door,
Botherin' your livestock,
They know what I need.

Workin' up a hot sweat,
Crouchin' in your pea patch,
Plowin' through your bean field,
Plantin' my seed.

Sex farm woman,
I'll be your hired hand.
Sex farm woman,
I'll let my offer stand.
Sex farm woman,
Don't you hear my tractor rumblin' by, by, by?

Workin' on a sex farm,
Tryin' to raise some hard love,
Gettin' out my pitch fork,
Pokin' your hay.

[Episiarch]

Um, what about Congress, guys?

Who?

[Pro Libertate]

Like I keep saying, this refers to sexual congress.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

SEATTLE:
An advocacy group has called for "Skip Starbucks Saturday" this weekend - a nationwide boycott on Aug. 24, to pressure the coffee giant to amend its current policy, which allows customers to carry loaded guns into Starbucks stores where permitted by state law.

"As a barista at Starbucks this was one of the busiest mornings I have ever experienced! Pretty awesome! One customer came through THREE times all before noon just to show support! I love Starbucks customers!"

[Matrix]

So the nanny fucks call for a boycott on Starbucks, and Starbucks brings in more customers!

Thanks, nanny fucks! Keep up the good work!

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

The mind of a liberal:

I'm boycotting for good...when someone else's rights infringe on my own, that's legal tyranny. I won't buy any Starbucks product again. I have the right in the constitution to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And if in my pursuit of happiness I am uncomfortable in a gunslinging coffee shop they've just messed with my constitutional rights!

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

And these people VOTE. Maybe Heinlein had the right idea in Starship Troopers.

[mr lizard]

You mean the shoulder mounted nukes?

[Matrix]

well, they do have a right to not go to Starbucks because they do not like their policy. They can start their own business that refuse any and all guns on the premises. 'Cause their refusal to allow them means that there will never be an armed robbery there, ever.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

She basically said she has a constitutional right to be comfortable.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Right, it's called 'emotional justice' and it's an actual term used by some left-wingers and feminists/social justice activists.

[NeonCat]

I picture all the advocates for all these... types of "justice", eventually finding that they are in conflict, ultimately degenerating into a shouting, then shoving match, before it just turns into a giant riot.

But that's only because I'm a privileged white oppressor.

[Enough About Palin]

"justice - ism spelled out.

e.g., social justice = socialism

[Redmanfms]

Right, it's called 'emotional justice' and it's an actual term used by some left-wingers and feminists/social justice activists.

Tony made such an argument against the Snowden disclosures in a thread a few weeks back.

"Something, something, the right to not feel afraid, something, something."

[hamilton]

when someone else's rights infringe on my own, that's legal tyranny.

TEAM partisan translation: when someone has the right to do something I don't like even though it doesn't actually harm me one little bit.

[playa manhattan]

This has been backfiring for months, now. Why don't they just give up?

[Episiarch]

Because they never give up, ever? Because if they can't control other people, they haz a sad?

[Brett L]

Because Starbucks keeps poking that beehive every time the honey slows down.

[playa manhattan]

Possibly... A few months ago, probably 10% of my facebook friends had the Starbucks logo as their profile picture....

[Long Range Boredom]

Because a lot of the times even when they fail they still say they succeeded under the context of 'spreading awareness'.

[Not an Economist]

Or the evil KKKorporations conspired to stop them.

Or they just didn't sell it right.

Or the right people weren't in charge.

[John]

God they are stupid. There are more gun owners and gun right supporters who will take the time to go to Starbucks just to tell these people to fuck off than there are morons who will skip for the day. They just made Starbucks a bunch of money.

[shamalam]

personally, I hate Starbuck's coffee. It tastes shit that has been put on a burner to burn for a few days, but I would happily visit a Starbucks and buy the guy in line behind me a cup of coffee just to show my support.

[Brandon]

Buy some tea. It's actually freshly made, and while not as good as what I make at home, it's not as bad as their coffee.

[Episiarch]

Washington has one of the highest rates of CCW possession in the US, if I recall correctly. Something like 5% of the people in the state have one.

[Pro Libertate]

Is it high in Seattle, though? I always thought stats like that were more about the rest of the state.

[Episiarch]

It's pretty high. Seattle is where the concentrations of hobos are. And Washington has open carry, except that SPD doesn't look too kindly on it and will give open carriers a hard time. So that makes concealed within the city even more likely.

[Pro Libertate]

Armed hobos? What kind of hellhole do you live in?

[Almanian!]

We call those concentrations of hobos "dunphyvilles".

[Pro Libertate]

The original Skid Row is in Seattle. They invented bums.

[Rhywun]

Then one snow day they all moved down to SF and stayed.

[Enough About Palin]

Tangential - there's a hole in the fence around the cemetery near my house. The grave you see has a simple, home-made stone that reads UNKNOWN HOBO.

[FYTW]

This is another excellent reason to consider leaving California for Washington.

[Rabban]

And it seems higher than that. It is really easy to get.

[Ted S.]

I don't go to Starbucks, but mostly because I'm a fucking cheapskate and will drink standard-issue drip coffee. Black, without sugar.

And "chai" is just the Russian word for "tea". It's not an excuse to add flavors and sell the stuff for $37 a cup.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

"Old Man Yells at Cloud"

[playa manhattan]

Get off my lawn!

[Pro Libertate]

I thought "chai" was Hindu.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Both "chai" and "tea" are originally from the Chinese. Chai comes from the Mandarin "cha"; whereas "tea" comes from the Southern Min "te".

[jesse.in.mb]

Hindu is a religion or adherent to a religion, not a language. Hindi maybe?

/pedant

Who am I kidding, the pedantry never ends.

[Pro Libertate]

No, that's fair, because I thought the same thing after I posted the comment.

[Almanian!]

It's pedants all the way down

[Xenocles]

Glad you made it out of the fire.

[jesse.in.mb]

Sadly, no Forest Service firefighter husband.

🙁

[Zakalwe]

This is marginally smarter than the "don't buy gas on day X" stuff I heard about ten years ago. I couldn't make the proponents understand this had zero effect on oil company profits unless they didn't drive on a particular day.

[paranoid android]

By far the best was those people who wanted to stage a boycott to protest "consumerism" or whatever, by trying to convince people to buy absolutely nothing at all on a single day. Which would have been silly and asinine enough, except then they had the bright idea to do it on Black Friday.

[paranoid android]

Huh. I live in Seattle and completely missed this. I was actually down by Pike Place Market (where the original Starbucks is) and saw the usual line out the door, but no protestors or anything.

Even if I agreed with those people's aims, however, could they have picked a more senseless target? By what logic, even crazy-logic, could such a change of policy do anything at all to prevent a violent incident?

[Pro Libertate]

That original Starbucks is lame--looks like most any other Starbucks.

[MJGreen]

And they have another Starbucks right across the street!!

[Almanian!]

It's Starbucks all the way down

[Corning]

Buddies of mine would buy whipit nitrus canisters there to get high.

This was before starbucks was anywhere but Seattle....and the starbucks logo lady had nipples.

[Pro Libertate]

I like to think the first Starbucks was named after Starbuck from Moby-Dick, with the store full of whaling references, including drinks named after characters from the book.

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

I thought it really was named after Starbuck.

[Pro Libertate]

Whether it was or wasn't, this is my preferred belief. And all of the employees had to talk like whalers.

[Agammamon]

What, you mean like people from Bahstan?

That sort of thing isn't anywhere near as amusing as talking like a pirate.

[Pro Libertate]

"Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!"

[CE]

I always assumed it was named after the dude in Battlestar Galactica.

[Brandon]

I never put any thought at all into where the name came from.

[Francisco d Anconia]

They had that thing several months back about paying with two-dollar bills to support SB's CC position. Wife and I actually went to the bank to get a couple and the barista had no idea what we were talking about.

I was bummed. Course it's Montana. Most carry to church.

[Pro Libertate]

Wait, they have Starbucks in Montana? That disappoints me for some reason.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Yew betcha. Even got indoor plumbin in sum places.

[Pro Libertate]

Look, I've been there, I'm not attacking it for being uncivilized. But with the small cities and everything. . .well, one hopes Montana isn't all corrupted with American stupidity.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Well, if it's any consolation, the closest one to me is 35 miles away.

[Pro Libertate]

You drove 35 miles to get burned coffee? Now I'm really concerned.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I drive 30 miles to put gas in my truck.

[Pro Libertate]

Huh, I always thought you Montanans drilled and refined your own oil and gas.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Been thinking of getting an electric car. I can make it to town and back if I push it the last three miles.

[Pro Libertate]

We've been thinking about going to the western mountains next year, probably in Wyoming, though some have made the case for Glacier. I love it out there.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I think Glacier is a lot more beautiful than Jellystone. Crowds aren't as bad either.

But Yellowstone does have the geothermal attractions that are very cool.

[Brandon]

Glacier is infinitely cooler than Yellowstone.

[Brandon]

I'm more interested in why the bank had a barista?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

But with three accidental shootings inside Starbucks stores the last two years, the local chapter of Moms Demand Action says guns do not belong there.

THREE accidental shootings! In TWO YEARS!

Clearly this calls for a nationwide ban on all firearms.

Oh, and Moms Demand Action deserve rape.

[Rasilio]

"New Jersey's attorney general's office worries that their state police are just too corrupt (no, really!), finding problems or mistakes with nearly a third of all traffic stops examined."

If I were a defense attourney in New Jersey I would use a copy of this report as evidence in every single case to establish a pattern of police corruption and therefore no evidence coming from the police department being trustworthy.

[Matrix]

Even animals are getting fatter

[NeonCat]

I read some of the comments. WHY DID I READ THE COMMENTS?!

[Matrix]

it's best not to with Gawker related sites, unless its Kotaku and not related to politics.

[Long Range Boredom]

Eh Kotaku's not that great either, but their crap journalism is worse than their comments.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I attribute this to AGW.

[PapayaSF]

This is a huge clue. I'll bet lab animal chows underwent a formulation change 25-30 years ago that's related to human diet. A different strain of wheat, or different carbs of some sort?

[Agammamon]

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FRANKENFOODS!!!!111!!1

[PapayaSF]

I doubt it was GMO due to the timeline, but it could be (say) wheat bred to be different in some way (I think Taubes thinks this), or corn bred to be sweeter, or something like that. But it's not that lab rats are watching too much TV compared to 30 years ago.

[CatoTheElder]

Global climate change.

[Enough About Palin]

Global fatting.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Mass Transit!
Man shoots and wounds two passengers on train - then himself - after becoming enraged when woman says he can't fall asleep on her shoulder

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Responses to my review of Jesse Walker's book on Amazon:

... I like your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter....

...This is a strange review, though I agree that "Reason" is a publication full of warped, illogical (and irrational) ideas. And, incidentally, American Intelligence and the Military Industrial Complex would be delighted to have us believe that our only threat today lies with international terrorists, and that President Kennedy was murdered by a lone, Marxist gunman. Give it up!! ...

[Matrix]

links!

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Here

[Redmanfms]

Your review was hilarious:

Jesse Walker is merely attempting to dismiss conspiracy 'theory' to further Reason's laissez faire conspiracy to enslave the human race to the pan dimensional being who takes on the 3D avatar that humans without the proper sunglasses see as a leather jacket usually worn by the lizard people's representative to the human race, Nick Gillespie, who the Reptilians have placed as editor of Reason Magazine so he and Walker can get themselves invited to the proper cosmopolitan cocktail parties where their monocles are polished using the tears of a human/sheep hybrid named Tony, who supplies their needs for tears, milk, wool, and inane left wing commentary. Don't be fooled.

I'm thinking the second comment might actually be an example of Poe's Law...

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Matthew Yglesias: Why cities should choose buses over LRTs

[Mike M.]

I bet this bearded blowhard hasn't been on a bus in ten years.

[John]

Actually the little retard finally made a little sense. He should be proud.

[MJGreen]

His brainfarts smell rosy every now and then. He's pretty good on licensing laws, for instance.

[andarm16]

Wow, Yglesias making sense has to be one of the signs of the apocalypse. That article could ALMOST double as something from the AntiPlanner

[Juice]

Um he's advocating building special highway lanes just for buses or closing off existing lanes for bus-only traffic because that would be "more efficient." He's saying that (obviously) buses would move more people than private cars so ban private cars from certain lanes (fuck those people, right?) and then those people will just start signing up for the buses en masse.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

He's saying that (obviously) buses would move more people than private cars so ban private cars from certain lanes (fuck those people, right?) and then those people will just start signing up for the buses en masse.

As Colorado's similar experiment on the Boulder Turnpike shows, putting in "bus-only/carpool" lanes to incentivize such activities doesn't have much impact when your population continually expands.

Progs have no understanding of the limits of human scale.

[Fist of Etiquette]

By the time you read this, the United States may be launching air strikes on Syria...

Obama totally heard through the electronic grapevine that the United Nations won't do anything about it.

[Brett L]

11 Signs you are dating a sociopath. I'll add #12: Your date has won an election for public office.

[Andrew S.]

What if he's the mayor's aide?

[Brett L]

Probably. All I can see in Martin Short's character from Mars Attacks.

[MJGreen]

There's only one thing the mayor's aide can't do: Fail the mayor.

[Agammamon]

Does he have a goatee?

[Redmanfms]

RED FLAG #5. Staying eerily calm in scary or dangerous situations.

Uh. Maybe he's just not a nail-biting pussy.

[jesse.in.mb]

That's bullshit. I use up all my worry on insignificant things so when big things happen I can be the stone-hearted authoritarian everyone needs to get through a crisis.

[Zakalwe]

Yep. I famously wig out during trivial admin snafus that make me look bad, but when something unexpectedly explodes (sometimes literally) I'm pretty blase.

[Coeus]

Count me in in this as well.

[mauricegirodias]

That's actually in the Way of the Samurai. Also, parenting manuals--you're pissed if your kid left spilled milk in the fridge, you're OK if she's pregnant after a weekend of meth.

[Agammamon]

"A sociopath might not be anxious following a car accident . . ."

Yeah that's weird - I know people *do* freak out in the aftermath, but for me - the accident is over, the danger is gone and running around screaming doesn't help anyone else.

[Long Range Boredom]

Wow, that's less 'a guide to sociopaths' and more 'a guide to people in public office.'

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

I think I have at least 7 or 8 of those...

[Almanian!]

Well....duh

[Francisco d Anconia]

I have 8.

[Agammamon]

That's a pretty useless list. *I* have half those traits and I'm pretty close to being as opposite to a sociopath as you can get - If anything, I'm *too* empathic.

[kibby]

Will Graham?

[Coeus]

Ditto. Many of those traits are ones i purposely cultivated because I'm too empathic.

[Zakalwe]

Wall Street is taking note of the potential for 3D-printing, and at least one analyst expects the market to triple by 2018.

You know who else relied upon at least one analyst?

[Ted S.]

Mrs. Sigmund Freud?

[Almanian!]

Martin Blanke?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Wall Street is taking note of the potential for 3D-printing, and at least one analyst expects the market to triple by 2018.

Can regulation be far behind?

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

WHITENESS

One of the founders of Idle No More, Sheelah McLean, is an academic who specializes in the study of Whiteness.

You read that right. Whiteness.

Whiteness is an actual field of study into---well, being white.

That's a bad thing, according to the specialists of Whiteness. You see, white people are privileged because they're white and they benefit from the fact that whites make the rules of society. So even if they claim to be "do gooders", they're bad because they're whites and they don't even realize they're actually racists.

[Heroic Mulatto]

"The Black Rod"

*snicker*

[Longtorso, Johnny]

snicker

Racist!!

[Heroic Mulatto]

Snegro? Is that better?

[Long Range Boredom]

This has been the logic of Indian Affairs in Canada for years. Especially when people expect native leaders and councils to take responsibility for their corruption. We should expect accountability for white politicians, but Indian ones are untouchable. Spence is a prime example of that. They really act like corruption is some kind of acceptable cultural expectation.

[John]

The same is true of inner city black communities.

[Long Range Boredom]

The difference being that under Canadian law Indian leaders distribute 'property' (technically Indians can't own property on reservations, thanks racist Indian Act that we never fixed) to the members of the community. So the majority end up in crappy slums while the elites, their relatives, and their cronies spend federal money on themselves. During Idle No More Spence actually forbid people in her community from talking to reporters. And they listened, because she controls both their property and limited livelihood.

[Enough About Palin]

"whites make the rules of society."

Then explain what Obama and company are doing, because it sure looks like a shit-ton of rule-making.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I wanted to comment on the latest Warty Hugeman story, but that required me to allow the site to run scripts and I was afraid of getting a virus. A biological one.....

"LSD orgy!" Warty screamed as he dived into the pile of entangled limbs and swollen genitalia. He swatted away jutting penises as he pulled himself over the undulating surface, toward the upraised buttocks of a Checkerboard Lady. The tangled delight of her labia reminded him of the optical art seat cloth in a Porsche 928. Warty had experiences a singular night of unsurpassed passion with a sentient Porsche 928 on the Planet of Living Fuck Cars and he was eager to relive the orgasmo-visual disorientation.

As he pulled himself through the grunting, rutting, squirting, spurting, farting, queefing, climaxing, wilting, re-engorging and flaccid fuck pit, Warty loved the feel of skin-on-skin after so much time in the timesuit...

[Long Range Boredom]

I'm new here so may I ask what the fuck?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I've been here for years and ask the same question LRB.

[hamilton]

Yeah, What the fuck? probably ought to be in the byline, frankly.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

They should replace "Free minds and free markets" with "What the fuck?". That or "Please buy our fucking books".

[kibby]

...Who wrote a book?

[Long Range Boredom]

Christ, it's like someone smooshed Philip K Dick and Bukowski's brains together with a meat tenderizer.

[Brett L]

Well, Warty is one of our longtime commentors that another has written some slashfic about. This is actually, and I think everyone will back me up here, extremely tame. Its mostly in good fun, but if this disturbs you, just hang around for a year and your soul will burn out like everyone else's.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

you think it's fiction?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

AT, let Brett think anything that allows him to sleep at night.

[Episiarch]

Yeah, NutraSweet hasn't gone on any tears with his Pelosi slashfic in a while. He needs to give us more.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

NutraSweet hasn't gone on any tears

Those stories make me want to cry, too.

[jesse.in.mb]

And that, LRB, is Episiarch proving that he is the platonic form of misanthropy given flesh and bone.

[SugarFree]

All you people do it take and take and take.

[runs off sobbing]

[Episiarch]

Way to go, jesse, you scared him off. Now I have to wait.

[jesse.in.mb]

How is this MY fault, Episiarch!? He's responding to your callous demands for more Pelosi slashfic. You know how corrosive thinking of Pelosi's rime encrusted genitals is to one's soul...or whatever SF's soul-equivalent is.

[Episiarch]

It's your fault because nothing is my fault. Also, because I said so.

[Long Range Boredom]

First person who makes me think of Pelosi naked gets shot.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Nancy Pelosi On San Francisco's Public Nudity Ban: 'We Have Our Standards'

Speaker Pelosi dances naked to Idioteque by Radiohead.

[hamilton]

First person who makes me think of Pelosi naked gets shot.

Damn, LRB, you are new.

[Long Range Boredom]

Yeah I was asking for it.

[Lady Bertrum]

This is the most not sexy thing I've ever read. Can I please have my 30 seconds back?

[SugarFree]

No. It is mine now.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

That, and just a tiny bit of Lady B's soul.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you."
-- Oscar Wilde

[Steve G]

"Mediocre looks, a sense of humor, and a time machine and you'd have a chance with me."
-- Olivia Wilde

[Brett L]

Hey bro, how 'bout some professional courtesy.

Police got a report of a lost pig, which they thought was a joke. Not long after, the previously absent oinker simply showed up next to officer Jeremy Huffman's car and was rescued.

[R C Dean]

"Don't braise me, bro."

[shamalam]

+1 pork rind!

[Brett L]

Nice. That's better.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Pennsylvania girl who fought Kathleen Seebelius in court over organ donation rule, is expected to be released from the hospital

Sarah Murnaghan, who has end-stage cystic fibrosis, received two lung transplants this summer at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia after a federal judge intervened in her parents' lawsuit challenging national transplant rules that put her at the end of the waiting list for adult lungs.
On Sunday, she said her daughter was taken off oxygen, although she still gets support from a machine that helps her to breathe, and had started to walk with the aid of a walker, even venturing outside.
[snip]
Her parents sued to change a national transplant policy that put her at the bottom of the adult list for patients 12 and older. After the federal judge intervened, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network ? the private nonprofit group that manages U.S. organ allocation ? added Sarah to the adult list.

The case raised questions among some health specialists and medical ethicists about how organ donation rules are developed and under what circumstances they might be disregarded.

But remember, the State knows more than you and should be allowed to make life and death medical decisions.

[Brett L]

I think the subtext of this story on Millenials not wanting to serve in government is that job security and longevity may actually help the anti-government types demographically.

[Juice]

This story should have more exposure on this blog.

51 percent of Millennials believe that when government runs something it is usually wasteful and inefficient, up from 31 percent in 2003 and 42 percent in 2009: "Hardly a ringing endorsement for a bigger government providing more services." There's more: 86 percent of Millennials support private Social Security accounts and 74 percent would change Medicare so people can buy private insurance. Sixty-three percent believe free trade is a good thing. Only 38 percent of Millennials support affirmative action.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

That's actually pretty impressive considering the years of brainwashing they've received.

I don't think the Boomers realized that their "Fuck Authority!" attitude would ever extend to themselves.

[John]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem.....rists.html

Old broads now traveling abroad to pay for sex. But what about human trafficking?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yes, the author of that article is completely unbiased. Absolutely impartial.

[NoVAHockey]

what's nasty is the "sick person" calls from nursing homes that likely turn out to be STDs. "i burns when i pee." "okay, don't need to see your dick. put back and get on the cot."

[NoVAHockey]

what's nasty is the "sick person" calls from nursing homes that likely turn out to be STDs. "i burns when i pee." "okay, don't need to see your dick. put back and get on the cot."

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I drink lighter fluid and piss over a lit candle. It burns, but is way cool for the fetish site.

[NeonCat]

Shouldn't you use a catheter to fill your bladder with lighter fluid instead of drinking it?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

What kind of Beta pussy do you think I am?

[robc]

I mentioned it off-topic in an earlier thread, but it fits better here. My city just finished its fiscal year 16% under budget.

Suck it Detroit!

[Auric Demonocles]

So how many people died? 32% of the population?

[robc]

Im sure we had a few. They arent lying in the streets, the city does a decent job of keeping those clean.

[NeonCat]

Government cover-ups!

[Auric Demonocles]

I trust it's orphans who are removing the bodies?

[Francisco d Anconia]

I trust it's orphans who are removing eating the bodies?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Liberals accuse GOP congressional candidate of masturbating at work

[Brett L]

On the one hand, its just too convenient. On the other hand, "no politician could be that stupid" is a losing bet. On the gripping hand, thank FSM I don't live in San Diego. (Until after the purges. Jesse needs to get on that shit.)

[jesse.in.mb]

California for CALIFORNIANS, Brett.

I suppose we can get you a conditional residency visa if you promise not to turn into a troll of a baby boomer as soon as you get here.

You'll also have to wear flip-flops in public on a semi-regular basis if you're going to fit in.

[Brett L]

You'll also have to wear flip-flops in public on a semi-regular basis if you're going to fit in.

Please, job interviews and funerals are the only places where flip-flops are out of bounds without prior invitation in my part of the world. And chemistry lab, although the lab TA usually has to bounce a couple of girls and give them zeroes to get the point across.

[jesse.in.mb]

Hmm. You're 85% complete with your application. On a cold day 58-65F) do you:

a) dress appropriately for the weather

b) dress in flip-flops, shorts and a tshirt, but throw a sweatshirt over the top

c) consider answer b to cover answer a quite neatly

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

You guys are sickos who should clearly not be allowed out in public.

[jesse.in.mb]

MY CULTURE IS JUST AS VALID AS YOUR CULTURE, NICOLE!

I'm actually in flip-flops at work today, which is technically verboten, but as I tore off the backs of both of my heels on a hike, so I have special dispensation for a day or two.

Nicole, I'm wearing a button-up shirt, khaki slacks, and army green Old Navy flip-flops as I'm typing this. My fashion perversity knows no bounds!

Also I didn't die in the Yosemite fire in case anyone was wondering/hoping.

[Brandon]

ut as I tore off the backs of both of my heels on a hike...

Do your Chacos not fit properly?

[Brett L]

Well, at 58F, the Miami kids are in snow suits, but I'm a jeans and t-shirt or jeans and sweatshirt guy. But flip-flops, still. Because how much heat can you lose through your feet.

[jesse.in.mb]

Welcome to CA, Brett, I hope you enjoy your stay here.

Do your Chacos not fit properly?

I wore hiking boots I'd done an 18-day backpacking trip in 12 years ago (Vibram I believe). I'd forgotten that wearing them for a few days before hiking was more about breaking in your feet than about breaking in the shoes and am suffering accordingly. Next time I'll pregame for a few days and have some moleskin on hand.

[Fist of Etiquette]

One of the accusers is a woman. What was she doing in the men's bathroom?

[NeonCat]

THERE WAS A LINE!

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

An interesting twist is that the guy is an openly gay Republican.

[Goldwin Smith]

That makes him an Auntie Tom.

[jesse.in.mb]

Which is why he was good enough to abuse himself instead of his pages like a closet case would.

Who (allegedly) rubs one out at a urinal?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Who doesn't?

[jesse.in.mb]

People who aren't looking to attract new "friends" and/or cops?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Masturbation isn't about other people.

[Killazontherun]

Let he who has not jacked it in the company restroom throw the first cum stained paper towel.

[MJGreen]

So did anyone else see The World's End? Both it and Hot Fuzz are pretty damn individualistic and anti-communitarian, though I suspect both Simon Pegg* and Edgar Wright are fairly typical Hollywood/British progressives. I wonder if, like Joss Whedon, they can't help but write libertarian-friendly stuff. That said, Pegg has been vocal about onerous taxation driving out smaller pubs in England (and it's mentioned in the movie), so they might get it. Or part of it.

Oh, and the movie's funny and a blast, though not as much as either of its predecessors.

*supposedly, Pegg's thesis in film school was a Marxist analysis of something in Star Wars, or some bullshit like that

[Long Range Boredom]

I always thought Joss Whedon's libertarian-ish stuff was because he tends to work with Tim Minear, who is one. All I could find on Pegg is that he supports Scottish independence.

[Brett L]

All I could find on Pegg is that he supports Scottish independence.

Oh, I'm sure the English will just walk off and let the Scots keep the North Sea gas fields, right?

[R C Dean]

Well, North Sea production is down something like 20%, so it could happen.

[Goldwin Smith]

How many of the British rock stars who emigrated to avoid high taxes weren't big fans of Labour?

[Almanian!]

Marxist analysis of something in Star Wars

Maybe he did it ironically.

Of course, then he'd just be a hipster. Never mind.

[Corning]

I just realized something a few weeks ago.

Hipsters are not only the only 20 somethings still listening to Rock and Roll they are only ones actually making new Rock and roll songs.

You guys should stop trashing on them.

[John]

If they are making good enough rock and roll to make a living, they are no longer hipsters. The essence of hipsterdom is living a subsidized lifestyle doing idiotic shit like playing the ukelele.

[NeonCat]

Maybe traditional rock and roll is played out. If I never hear another screeching guitar solo again it won't bother me a bit.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Hipster music is all the same

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Wait, what? I thought the Indie music scene was mostly about twee acoustic bullshit.

[Auric Demonocles]

I almost watched it yesterday afternoon, but ended up seeing Elysium because there was less of a wait before it started.

[Not an Economist]

I saw it. Loved it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Senate will have a hearing, called by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, to discuss the conflict resulting from some states refusing to treat marijuana as a controlled substance...

Leahy is a snake. Somehow this will result in the reaffirmation of the supremacy clause in legislative form, and he'll call it the Freedom of Substance and Privacy Act or something.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Is economics a science? Maybe not. But we totally know free markets is a bunch of crock

A key component of the above is the part of economics that I think is the most important: identifying market failures. The best and most useful economists these days are the ones who spot ways in which markets are working badly or not at all. How financial bubbles, output gaps, high unemployment, and poverty can be avoided or offset. How taxing carbon could internalize a negative externality. How financial market regulation could reprice risk that's underpriced by markets. How investments in disadvantaged families and children could offset the opportunity deficit they're born into in ways that rob both them and the broader economy of their realized potential.

There's irony to all this. The most useful economists today are the ones who can most clearly see through pseudo-scientific evidence purporting to show that unfettered markets will self-regulate and that interventions will do more harm than good. In this regard, our best economists are the ones who look upon today's economic science with a very jaundiced eye.

I'm guessing he don't think highly of/is even aware of Mises and Hayek.

[John]

Every time a market fails it is because markets are inherently bad. They never fail because the government intervenes and causes such.

The whole idea of "market failure" is nonsense. Markets are what they are and function along pretty iron clad laws. They no more fail or succeed than a waterfall does. Markets just are. If you don't like the results of them, take a look at the various interventions that have no doubt produced those results.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

There is, of course, no such thing as "government failure".

[T]

Always remember: just because you can't buy what you want at the price you'd like to pay doesn't mean the market has failed.

[DesigNate]

Yes. It. Does.

/Tony

[Brett L]

I think markets require a certain level of trust and information to function. For instance you can trade Bedouin/Nubian style where you pile goods and they pile goods until one side takes the others, but that doesn't really work retail. But given that a person can reasonably predict their risk, markets work in an iron-clad manner.

[John]

That doesn't mean the market is failing. It just means the market is dealing with a situation where information is limited. The market will price accordingly. It is no different than when people buy abandoned storage sheds without seeing what is inside of them.

[Brett L]

Maybe its a corollary, but there are plenty of examples of markets freezing because there wasn't enough trust in a group of economic actors (people but not necessarily a society?) to facilitate transactions.

[John]

That is not the market failing. That is the market doing what it does. If anything "failed" it is the actors who failed by destroying trust. But again, sometimes trust doesn't exist. and when it doesn't, the market is going to behave a certain way. It is not a failure any more than water freezing when it is cold is a failure. It just is.

[robc]

Markets just are.

This. A million times this.

Market failure is a bullshit concept.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

That depends on your definition of market failure, robc.

[PapayaSF]

I don't mind the term so much as the fact that it is usually misused. E.g., expensive health care in the US is not a "market failure," it's a government/regulatory failure.

[NeonCat]

Listening to the Braves game on the radio yesterday announcer and former Dodgers pitching great Don Sutton extolled the virtues of the free market, including it's self-correcting mechanisms.

I love listening to baseball on the radio. They always talk about so much more than the game.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

That was total gibberish.

[MJGreen]

A great example of having everything completely backwards.

The progress of economic science can best be tracked by how much we better understand human ingenuity and decentralized order. Proposals about how the government can "avoid or offset" financial bubbles, output gaps, unemployment and poverty - and why "the market" is incapable of it - not only date back to before economics: economics was a reaction to such thinking.

Anyone who thinks that these are fresh ideas being explored by economists, 80 years after Keynes (and 200 after Malthus, and 400 after Colbert), should be laughed off the Internet.

[Irish]

This reminds me of the Atlantic article from a few months back where they spent the entire article basically arguing that economists have no credibility and there is no evidence that listening to them is better than a coin flip, and then ended the article by attacking Austrian economists for arguing that economists have no credibility and there is no evidence that listening to them is better than a coin flip.

It's like liberals will periodically come so close to making that next step, realize that this would mean they're EVIL LIBERTARIANS!, and then refuse to go where the evidence leads them.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I'm not an Austrian, but isn't the guy above basically saying that he would like it if economics were a pseudo-science like the various Aggrieved Studies rather than an academic discipline proceeding from axioms rather than empiricism, which is what Austrians would prefer? I don't endorse either viewpoint, but of the two Austrians are at least suggesting a valid methodological approach rather than merely bitching about the results of current economics' methodology and casting about without any sort of quality control for an alternate.

[CatoTheElder]

Jared Bernstein, former Obama Admin economist.

'nuff said.

[Brandon]

Jared Bernstein
Fmr. Obama administration economist; CNBC and MSNBC contributor

This is a totally objective and unbiased source.

[The Late P Brooks]

New Jersey's attorney general's office worries that their state police are just too corrupt (no, really!), finding problems or mistakes with nearly a third of all traffic stops examined.

I assume they just mean the cops should be finding more and better ways to upcharge motorists and funnel their money in the state cashbox.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

A reader writes:

I used to be promiscuous. I had sex with loads of men and was really into BDSM and the kink scene. I loved the danger and thrills. Then I found a very normal guy and quit the scene. I lost my friends because I moved from a very underground world to a more normal one. After two years I'm incredibly happy but my sex drive ? for him or anybody else ? is zero. I'm not sure how I went from being a rampant sex addict to being completely uninterested.

[John]

Because you managed to connect your sex drive to being deviant. So now that the deviance is gone so is the sex drive?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I suspect her cause and effect is backward - she burned out on sex then found some 'normal' guy to pay her bills.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Or, for Epi's benefit, the term is "Alpha fucks and Beta bucks".

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

People who talk seriously about Alphas and Betas are, to the man, Betas IRL.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Gamma and proud of it.

[T]

Omega. I'm the fucking end game. This is where humanity come to die.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

how about the notion that she just got old?

[califernian]

That poor bastard.

[The Late P Brooks]

I wish that sort of interbranch squabble would happen. Because if Congress got pissed, the shit they could do would be epic in scope. I mean Achilles and Odysseus epic.

At this point, an armed assault on the White House by the Capitol Police (or a mercenary army hired by Congress and paid for with Head Start funds) would be fine with me.

[Pro Libertate]

Uniformed SS versus the Capitol Police--who would win?

[Almanian!]

Pfffff - SS, every time. Those motherfuckers were BADASS.

[Pro Libertate]

I meant the Secret Service. They have uniformed guys.

[Almanian!]

Oh....sorry....

*hides Swastika tattoo*

[Brett L]

You know, I finally saw the 3rd Dark Knight, and the most realistic part was how the cops were just another mob of enforcers at the end of the day.

[Andrew S.]

Balko did an AMA on Reddit today.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/c.....ve/cbvpwmx

Which one of you asked this question? Because I'm terribly disappointed it wasn't answered.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Nick asked it.

[Brandon]

There goes the rest of my day.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I slept with your boyfriend/husband. Sorry I'm not sorry

[A]s I got older, this view of relationships, among other things, got complicated. I've been married, separated, divorced, monogamous, polyamorous, celibate, and in recent years I've once in a while been the "other woman."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going out looking to f*ck guys who have girlfriends. And when someone tells me they have a girlfriend, I never pressure them to sleep with me. I don't even disregard their relationship with some sort of "I don't care if you don't care," or "she'll never know." Usually I ask them what her name is and how they met. Sometimes they show me pictures.
[snip]
My lovers have been in complicated relationships that are basically over but they can't break up, and they are exhausted and need the kind of nurturing that you can only get when you are getting ridden hard and kissed passionately. I've had lovers with agreements that are unclear and undefined, with no way to clarify before one of us left town. I've had lovers who were very newly and casually trying out monogamy with someone and found that our long term friendship carried more strength, connection, healing and passion than their new quasi-relationship did. More than once I've had lovers who were separated, but not divorced, and we kept things under wraps for legal, or emotional purposes.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I'm sure some women will read this and worry about being friends with me. Up until now I've never slept with one of my friend's boyfriends. I can't imagine a situation in which that would feel right in my body. There are a whole other set of promises and agreements between me and my friends. Maybe we don't have a promise to not f*ck each other's partners, but we do have promises around caring for each other and if I thought my friend would be upset, I suspect I wouldn't be turned on. But if for some reason I am there with my friend's boyfriend, and we have a crazy intense connection and sleeping with him doesn't feel wrong in my body, I might do it. I feel the need however to emphasize that despite an incredibly vivid imagination, I can't actually imagine any scenario in which this would happen.

And yet she's convinced she's not a bad person? Where's Nikki or Kaptious? Someone fem-splain this to me.

[Pro Libertate]

She is a bad person. I have issued my ruling.

[Auric Demonocles]

Whoa whoa whoa. What do you think you are doing? It's her sex life. That means you can't ever judge her for it.

[Pro Libertate]

Fuck that. I'm waiting, watching, judging.

[Auric Demonocles]

I was considered a bit of a jerk by my group of undergrad friends because I rejected this notion, and said "No, these are the standards of behavior I think people should be held to. If you don't, I will judge you." (And if I don't, I will judge myself too) They didn't think I was a jerk because I was going out of my way to berate people or anything, but just because I judged them at all.

[Pro Libertate]

I rather suspect we could use more sitting in judgment on people than less. We have some fucked up standards as a culture these days.

[PapayaSF]

Ah, but all is relative in our postmodern world.

Except, of course, for white male capitalist racist sexist homophobia. Those are objective.

[Pro Libertate]

Asymmetrical Moral Relativism.

[PapayaSF]

You should start a social justice Tumblr promoting that concept.

[John]

But imagine if one of the guys she bang posted asking for some nonjudgmental therapy.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Meh. In cheating relationships I've always sorta blamed the involved person. After all, the 3rd party never made any commitments.

[Auric Demonocles]

It's bad enough if she doesn't feel bad about helping a random guy cheat on his partner... But she wouldn't even if she was friends with the person being cheated on?

[Brett L]

"I'm sorry I gave you herpes through your boyfriend/husband."

[Heroic Mulatto]

But if for some reason I am there with my friend's boyfriend, and we have a crazy intense connection and sleeping with him doesn't feel wrong in my body, I might do it. I feel the need however to emphasize that despite an incredibly vivid imagination

NOTHING MUST GET IN THE WAY OF MY FEELZ!!!!

[Auric Demonocles]

By the time she knows if sleeping with him feels right "in her body", isn't he already in her body?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Well, time-based causality is rape culture, straight up.

[Lady Bertrum]

This whole article is an extend piece of bullshit. This isn't the person she actually is; it's who she wishes she were.

She's likely a skank-ho (not that there's anything wrong with that) who bangs anything walking but likes to pretty it up with her idea of "ethics".

[John]

And she likely has banged fewer husbands than she dreams of banging.

[Lady Bertrum]

+1 I saw a survey recently that showed women don't like being friends with sluts. Uh, yeah, no shite.

[jesse.in.mb]

She's likely a skank-ho

Epi, get on pretending you have a GF and you might have a shot with her.

[John]

Goes back to my theory. The problem with cheating on your wife or girlfriend is that unless you can hide the fact from the woman you want to bang, only really crazy pathetic chicks are going to go for it.

[kinnath]

A variation on Groucho Marx -- I wouldn't want to fuck anyone that would want to fuck an old married guy like me.

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

Dude how did you not mention she's a freaking dating coach?!?

[Lady Bertrum]

And by dating coach, she means hooker.

[Azathoth!!]

Interesting to watch the puritanism ooze out, here and at huffpo. Like discovering a beautiful smile hides maggot-ridden teeth.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

This week in cult of personality:

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro makes no secret of his devotion to the late leader Hugo Chavez - and now he has admitted he sometimes sleeps in the mausoleum where his mentor's remains are kept.

Mr Maduro, who served as Mr Chavez's vice president, was named by him as his successor before he died.

He said he likes to be close to the former leader's remains so he can "carefully consider" his actions.

Mr Maduro went on: "I sometimes come at night. At times, many times, I sleep here."

Sometimes, he brings an entourage: "We enter at night and we stay to sleep. At night we reflect on things here."

Does he... do anything else while he's all alone with Chavez's corpse? Inquiring minds and all that.

[Andrew S.]

I think we all know the answer to that one. As much as we wouldn't want to.

[Almanian!]

I sometimes come at night.

He spelled it right out for everyone.

[Mike M.]

John "The Gigolo" Kerry: we have our pretext for war, and here it comes whether you like it or not.

[Bam!]

Was he against going to war with Syria before he was for it?

[Matrix]

Dems sponsor bill for 20% tax on guns and 50% tax on ammo.
Good luck getting it passed, though.

[Episiarch]

This has been their stealth BAN BONER dream for some time now. If they fail to get the sweeping gun control they want, try to put the pain on the ammo.

[Auric Demonocles]

I have personal experience from nerf wars that you can pull of a successful heist entirely without ammo.

[Episiarch]

Nobody wants to hear about your faggy panty raid parties, Auric.

[Auric Demonocles]

I'm just saying, a lot of the utility of a gun involves the threat of it.

[Auric Demonocles]

But requiring a photo ID to vote (and provided them free of charge) is a racist poll tax, designed only to stop voting!

[Pro Libertate]

Perhaps the NRA should launch a charitable foundation that gives free guns to the poor.

[Auric Demonocles]

GUN TRAFFICKING!

[Almanian!]

The government already did that - "Fast and Furious", yo!

[Pro Libertate]

Free guns to poor Americans. Meaning U.S. citizens.

[Brett L]

You know that there is a group in Houston giving shotguns (and training!) to poor single mothers, right?

[Pro Libertate]

See? Great ideas are contagious.

[Mike M.]

If the republicans had any brains to speak of they would immediately create a national ad campaign informing the entire country of what these guys are trying to do. And they would be sure to point out that this comes within days of an 88 year old World War II veteran being beaten to death on the streets and becoming the poster boy for being armed.

[Almanian!]

If the republicans had any brains

...aaaaaand I stopped reading right there.

[Goldwin Smith]

Now I know why the Walking Dead is unrealistic.

[Res Publica Americana]

Conservative PAC Hits Mitch McConnell From the Right

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is getting some heat today from the right.

A conservative political action committee, The Madison Project, will begin airing a radio ad in Kentucky today going after McConnell, something they call the "first of many attempts to unveil the truth about Mitch McConnell's failed leadership in Washington."

Listen to the Radio Ad Here

The Madison Project, led by former GOP Rep. Jim Ryun, was an early endorser of McConnell's Republican challenger, businessman Matt Bevin.

"Career Washington politician Mitch McConnell claims to be a conservative," the narrator of the ad says before unleashing a series of assaults on McConnell, including asking if a "conservative" would support issues including immigration reform, citing McConnell's votes for immigration reform in 1986 and 2006. "No, but Mitch McConnell did," the narrator repeats throughout the ad.

McConnell voted against the most recent comprehensive immigration bill, which passed the Senate in June.

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc.....17816.html

[The Immaculate Trouser]

This week in Marcotte Un-self aware statements...

Yes, yes, I know you want it?to feel scandalized. But may I offer an alternative, one that may be less immediately exciting but ultimately more fulfilling? Try not caring.

Physicists have determined that the irony-antiirony reaction that would come from placing this statement in close proximity to any of her other columns may very well destroy the universe. Sweet dreams!

[John]

But her wanting to feel victimized by every single thing in the universe is just so totally different.

[The Late P Brooks]

the ones who spot ways in which markets are working badly or not at all. How financial bubbles, output gaps, high unemployment, and poverty can be avoided or offset.

For some reason, I do not think I agree with his "solutions" to those phenomena.

[The Late P Brooks]

just because you can't buy what you want at the price you'd like to pay doesn't mean the market has failed.

Nice.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Left-wing media pissed off that Zimmerman's family is using their publicity to comment on stuff

Meanwhile, his brother jumped on the bandwagon of white grievance-mongers playing up the alleged racial angle of the murder of Australian baseball player Chris Lane, who was killed by three young men, two black and one white. "Mainstream media is side stepping the fact that one of the alleged murderers openly professed on social media to 'hate' white people," Robert Zimmerman told the Daily Caller. "Which one of these three teens looks most like Obama's theoretical son?"

I'm sorry, America, we're stuck with the Zimmermans. They won't go away. Rather than recoil from his status as the man who shot an unarmed 17-year-old, George Zimmerman is enjoying his celebrity, while Robert Zimmerman continues to collaborate with the right-wing media-entertainment complex to make his brother out to be the real victim in Sanford, Fla., last year ? the victim, first, of "thuggish" Trayvon Martin, and then of civil rights leaders like the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, as well as Martin's parents.

Well Joan, maybe you shouldn't have turned this case into a proxy race war.

[Episiarch]

It's hilarious. They turn him into a cipher of hatred and then whine when that publicity gives him and his family a soapbox.

[John]

They fucked up so bad. The last thing the liberals want is an honest conversation about interracial crime. They have avoided having one by getting whites to not say anything for fear of being called racists.

The Zimmerman case ended that. It is one thing to say that it is racist to point out the huge disparity between black on white and white on black crime. It is quite another to claim that it is black youths who are actually in danger from whites. That is so ridiculous and insulting even white people were not going to take it. So now they have a problem.

[Heroic Mulatto]

It is quite another to claim that it is black youths who are actually in danger from whites

White "civilians" or White cops?

[John]

White civilians. But black youths are in much more danger from each other than even white or black cops. The statistics are what they are. The Chicago cops are not killing dozens of black youths every weekend.

[Lady Bertrum]

Or black cops?

[Heroic Mulatto]

But don't let it be a black and a white one/Cuz they slam ya down to the street top/Black police showin' off for the white cop

[Mike M.]

They have avoided having one by getting whites to not say anything for fear of being called racists.

No kidding. There are even some commenters right here at Reason who will pull that shit on you if you dare to say something.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Racist!

[PapayaSF]

John is totally correct. The current leftist worldview on race is now totally exposed as insane. On the one hand an Hispanic Obama voter shooting a black kid assaulting him is supposed to symbolic of white racism. On the other hand dozens of cases of black thugs attacking whites (and Asians and Hispanics), even with supporting evidence of racial motive, is not only entirely meaningless, but it's "racist" to even mention it.

[Coeus]

The Zimmerman case ended that. It is one thing to say that it is racist to point out the huge disparity between black on white and white on black crime. It is quite another to claim that it is black youths who are actually in danger from whites. That is so ridiculous and insulting even white people were not going to take it. So now they have a problem.

There is was a black proggie at work who tried this tac. I have always been very careful to only dispute his political rants when they didn't involve race. But this was absolutely insane. I hit him with the interracial violent crime stats, then finished it off by reminding him that black on brown violence was included in those already ridiculously disproportionate stats.

He was pissed, but had no rejoinder. I didn't even have to tell that I have twice been jumped (once severely injured) by groups of black males yelling racial slurs. Though I did ask him if he had ever been jumped by white guys (he had not).

[John]

The liberal butt hurt over conservatives having the nerve to point out black on white crime is just fabulous. Maybe making the race of the victim an issue is a really fucking bad idea. They are so stupid and arrogant it never occurred to them that whites would tire of being called racist and start to bring up the huge number of black on white crime, something liberals are loath to discuss. If you don't want to discuss black on white crime, perhaps you ought not to use a single case of white on black crime as a proxy to show how every white person is really a racist and black youths are in danger from whites.

[Derpetologist]

I don't think they can help themselves. If you do a search for "Trayvon unarmed black" on the NYT site, you get about 200 results:

http://query.nytimes.com/searc.....k/365days/

[John]

No they can't help themselves. And they are totally butt hurt that whites would have the nerve to point out inconvenient facts and won't just fess up to being racists like they should.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I think the white backlash is deplorable as it is understandable and totally predictable.

The media owns the current state of race relations, which is epically fucked up.

[John]

Yeah the media owns it. But I am not so sure the backlash is a bad thing. We have a huge problem in this country. Young black males are menace that everyone black, white and other black males are terrified of. We never talk about it. We just pretend it doesn't exist. I am not sure that is a very good idea. The problem doesn't seem to be solving itself.

[PapayaSF]

The stats (Obama administration, too) are that black males 14-24 are about 1% of the population but about 27% of the murderers.

So to a liberal, a chemical that increases your risk of cancer by 10% is a huge risk, but "profiling" a group that's 27 times more likely to be murderers is a grossly unfair overreaction.

[Mike M.]

Some of the left-wing media dickheads are actually now claiming that the reason Martin/Zimmerman deserved to be a national story is because Zimmerman wasn't arrested right away, whereas the killers of Christopher Lane were arrested right away and so his murder is not as newsworthy.

Yes, these guys actually have this much contempt for us and think we're all that stupid, that people would actually seriously believe a claim so ludicrous.

[Juice]

Isn't that why everyone went apeshit, though? Isn't it because Zimmerman was let go?

[robc]

Who went apeshit? I didnt.

The cops got something right for a change.

[Coeus]

He was at the station all night and cooperated fully. I garentee that the vast majority of these people, if you get them to explain what they really wanted, it would be something like that.

Misinformed outrage. It's what's for dinner.

[Mike M.]

They also went apeshit when he was acquitted after the national media covered every second of his trial gavel to gavel, remember?

Zimmerman being arrested, charged, and given a fair trial was NEVER enough for those people. They wanted his blood regardless of what the actual facts of what happened were.

[Calidissident]

Liberals though Zimmerman should have been arrested and convicted for what happened that night. I'm not saying either should have happened, but had he been arrested, the story would not have become the huge national debate that it turned into. The reason it got so much attention was because of the controversy; it wasn't clear what happened, and people disagreed on whether he should have been found guilty. The media was looking for something to divide people; if it was just about white on black crime, there are/were far more egregious and clear cut examples of it than the Zimmerman case.

This is why I think both sides are stupid when it comes to comparing cases to the Zimmerman case. I've seen leftists compare a case up in Wisconsin where an old white guy shot a 13 year old black kid, who was not attacking him in any way, to the Zimmerman case, even though they shared no similarities aside from the fact that a white(ish) guy shot a black teenager. And BTW, that case would have been a much better example of a heinous white on black murder, but it hasn't received anywhere near the attention of the Zimmerman (or even the Lane case for that matter). Wonder why that is?

[Calidissident]

Similarly, the Lane case (or the 88 year old guy beat to death) is nothing like the Zimmerman case either, as much as conservatives say it is. Had the Zimmerman case gone down like the Lane case (Zimmerman shoots Martin on a drive-by, and is soon after caught, arrested, and gives a confession) it would have received very little attention at the national level. The Lane case has already received far more attention than the overwhelming majority of murders (most of which, regardless of the race of the victim, are intraracial) do

[PapayaSF]

I think there are several reasons why conservatives are comparing these cases. One is to counter the left's preferred narrative about Martin: that he was just an innocent black "child," and Zimmerman should not have "profiled" him. So now we have cases that show how dangerous black "children" can be. It's an anecdotal argument, but the statistics I mentioned above back it up.

Another is to point out the disparity in social outrage: while Martin's death was promoted as of social importance (because of white racism), even in the now-disproven PC scenario: "Unarmed black men are always being shot down like dogs by racist white Hispanics!" Um, no.

On the other hand, the recent deaths of these white guys at the hands of ruthless teen killers? Just a few of thousands of black-on-white assaults? The official left/media view: "Nothing to see here, no larger message, move along (unless you're a racist)." Jesse Jackson's statement that he "frowns upon" such murders didn't help.

What astonishes me is that so many people don't seem to have paid attention to the trial. Self-defense looks pretty obvious, given the evidence. But the urge to see white racism in the case is strong enough to put many in denial.

[Azathoth!!]

But he was arrested right away. He was arrested at the scene, handcuffed and taken in. He was questioned, cooperated fully, and his story checked out. And it was decided that there was no crime commited--that the shooting was justified. That's why they let him go.

He was arrested AGAIN later.

[Long Range Boredom]

Yeah, Zimmerman's parents are definitely enjoying his celebrity status. As were the 5 'woods' that young man apparently attacked.

[Irish]

Nothing makes you enjoy your celebrity status like death threats from a crazed left-wing lynch mob.

[Goldwin Smith]

Well I guess King Zero has solved the debt ceiling issue.

[Res Publica Americana]

http://news.yahoo.com/chicago-.....49621.html

Chicago stands watch as kids return to school

CHICAGO (AP) ? Busy, unfamiliar streets were made a bit friendlier Monday, the first day of school in Chicago, thanks to hundreds of newly hired safety guards. But some parents expressed doubt the effort would protect their children, who now must cross gang boundaries to get to their new classrooms after their old ones closed.

The Safe Passage program guards in neon vests lined city streets in neighborhoods with closed schools, the most visible sign of what's at stake for the nation's third-largest school district, which is struggling academically and financially.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who called Monday "a new beginning" for the district, planned to join students walking to O'Toole Elementary in the West Englewood neighborhood on the city's South Side.

---------

Let's prohibit self-defense and the means to effect it. "Safety officers" will work just fine.

[Heroic Mulatto]

But...but...once a woman was able to talk down a batshit crazy guy with a gun in school! So, it will work every time a batshit crazy guy with a gun enters a school!

[Invisible Finger]

At least the city is no longer hiding the fact that schools are essentially nothing more than coerced holding pens.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Little Matty continues to report from some alternate universe where reporters are social cripples who go out of their way to avoid having even the slightest understanding of the topics they're supposed to cover on a daily basis.

Oh wait, that's our universe. Damn!

A couple of readers wanted me to say more about why I say there are no real qualifications to serve as a nonexecutive director of a major corporation. The main issue is that nobody has any idea what a board is supposed to be doing.

No Matty, *you* don't understand what a board of directors does. That is because you are a 20-something moron who has never had to be accountable for making yourself a burrito, much less something that people actually care about.

[Pro Libertate]

There are lots and lots of rules about directors of publicly traded corporations. It's not just some random gig. Also, aside from the rules, selecting total idiots can be a real problem in the market. Some companies have individual idiot board members, but they're offset by people who have some credibility.

[John]

Where does this clown thing shareholder's derivative suits come from? The Board and the management have a lot of responsibilities. And when they don't meet them, the shareholders can sue.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

No way, John. The Board of Directors sit in their corporation buildings, and, and see, they're all corporation-ey, and they make money.

[Pro Libertate]

They can run people over with cars on the way to board meetings, and, because of "limited liability," they cannot be charged or even arrested.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

That's retarded yet coherent enough to be a decent urban legend.

[Pro Libertate]

I figure people could confuse stories about diplomatic immunity with limited liability and directors sufficiently to buy this.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

It's true, limited liability gets you out of anything. I once had sex with a hooker and refused to pay her, but it was cool because I yelled out "limited liability" when I orgasmed.

[Pro Libertate]

You know how people can basically incorporate themselves into so-called S-corporations? You know what the "S" stands for? "Scot-free." Ever hear about an S-corp. getting arrested or convicted? Can't, because of, you guess it, limited liability.

This is why most famous people never seem to do time. When they do, it's because of bad advice from accountants and lawyers. True story, you can look it up.

[NeonCat]

"Then she tore my nuts off, yelling 'limited liability' as she did it. It hurt, but we both laughed and laughed. Then I passed out from the pain and woke up without my wallet as well as my balls."

[Pro Libertate]

Ever wonder how come "escort services" seem to get away with prostitution, while street walkers don't? That's because they aren't escort services. They're S-corp. services.

[Brandon]

As long as it is concurrent with the orgasm and documented, this is totally true. And that's why I had the camera in the hotel room, officer.

[John]

The main issue is that nobody has any idea what a board is supposed to be doing.

There is a rather large body of securities law governing publicly traded companies that says otherwise. God he is a fucking retard.

[Irish]

A couple of readers wanted me to say more about why I say there are no real qualifications to serve as a nonexecutive director of a major corporation. The main issue is that nobody has any idea what a board is supposed to be doing.

Business and Economics blogger.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Business and Economics Correspondent, Irish. A mere blogger couldn't come up with the stuff that Yglesias excretes on a daily basis.

[Episiarch]

Pretty amazing, isn't it? It's almost like Slate has no interest in its own credibility.

[Pro Libertate]

Credibility and the media could be a PhD thesis if J-schools cared about credibility.

[CatoTheElder]

Congress? We don't need no steeenking Congress.

[Pro Libertate]

I was scanning the radio dial this morning and heard someone say that Bloomberg said something like the Congress and the executive weren't "coequal" branches. Might've been Beck--not sure.

[R C Dean]

Congress and the executive weren't "coequal" branches

Well, not any more, they aren't.

[Pro Libertate]

Not in practice, certainly. However, Congress still holds the power, if it cared to exercise it. I don't think we're quite so far gone that the executive could win that battle, though we're definitely headed that direction.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The Wit and Wisdom of Matt Yglesias, Pt... Well, I'll Let You Know When There's a Pt 1

The vast majority of Americans, regardless of gender, are never going to serve on a Fortune 500 company's board of directors. Consequently the gross gender imbalance in board seats is not necessarily something that the woman on the street spends a lot of time fuming about. Nonetheless, the imbalance is striking, and I think people ought to pay more attention to it.

So this is an issue that affects pretty much no one, but people should be paying "more" attention to it... for some reason. Great lede, asshole.

BTW, isn't it telling that Matty's approach to high-level work positions that they are all basically fungible and irrelevant to the outcome? Might it possibly reflect how he feels about his current work output?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Bonus moron points for including a chart that undermines the point you're trying to make in your OP.

[Episiarch]

You know what, TIT? I used to think you were a masochist for reading this shit. But I understand now: you're actually a sadist who loves torturing the rest of us. You're like the Hannibal Lecter of comments.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Have you ever considered that I'm a sado-masochist, torturing you only because it is the only way that I can find release from torturing myself?

Just kidding; watching you all suffer is my greatest delight.

[Episiarch]

You're pure, concentrated evil. I respect that.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I used to put my depraved indifference to the suffering of children on my resume as a "skill", but then I realized that it was really more of a hobby than anything else.

[NeonCat]

So, no teaching jobs, that's what you're saying?
Maybe you could become an assistant principal.

[Invisible Finger]

You're pure, concentrated evil. I respect that.

If he had a vagina he could run Google.

[Auric Demonocles]

Don't you kind of have to be an asshole and also put no effort into family to be a Fortune 500 boardmember?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Pretty much. I would hate to have to live that lifestyle.

[Auric Demonocles]

So their complaint is that women are too nice and care about other people?

[Pro Libertate]

Not necessarily. Neil Armstrong served on a number of boards, and he was a nice guy by most accounts. Though he harbored bitterness for the person or persons who attacked the mailbox of a great American.

[Episiarch]

Maybe he should have properly secured his mailbox.

[Pro Libertate]

I hope that aliens, admiring Armstrong's accomplishments, secretly abducted him, made him virtually immortal, and gave him a power ring so he could hunt you down and make you suffer.

[Episiarch]

Hope for that all you want, ProL. I'm not really worried about it to be honest. I'm much more worried that aliens will stealthily take over and we won't be able to see what's going on without special glasses.

Put the glasses on, ProL.

[Pro Libertate]

Not this year!

[Auric Demonocles]

I think it is fair to consider the man to first walk on the moon (a feat that has never since been equaled), to be a reasonable exception to almost every rule.

[Brandon]

You just made Aldrin's enemies list, Auric.

[Andrew S.]

This is such a pain in my rear. Yglesias is, unfortunately, not the only person paying attention to this. The SEC is too (I'm talking about the Securities and Exchange Commission, not the college football conference with a higher salary cap than the NFL). So every time I put together a proxy statement, I have to put in a paragraph explaining the Board of Directors' commitment to diversity.

[John]

Because the SEC has nothing better to do than count noses and vaginas on boards.

[Invisible Finger]

Sounds to me like Yglesias is longing for his mother's love that he never got because she ignored him and spent her time on corporate boards instead.

[R C Dean]

The vast majority of Americans, regardless of gender, are never going to serve on a Fortune 500 company's board of directors get paid for writing opinion pieces. Consequently the gross gender imbalance in board seats political journalis is not necessarily something that the woman on the street spends a lot of time fuming about. Nonetheless, the imbalance is striking, and I think people ought to pay more attention to it.

[Fatty Bolger]

Magic Beard

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

They sequenced Warty's genome.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

German film students make fake Mercedes Benz advertisement where speeding Mercedes runs over young Adolf Hitler

The quality is surprisingly good, to the point where it looks like an actual commercial.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Pig thinks he's a duck

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

A long-haired Aaron Paul auditions for the role of Walter White's meth-cooing sidekick for AMC's Breaking Bad. He obviously nails it.

[Fatty Bolger]

17 GIFs That Tell You All You Need To Know About Miley Cyrus & Robin Thicke's MTV VMAs Performance

(Warning: Contains animated GIFs)

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I need a shower and some antibiotics.

[Slammer]

She's got an amazingly long tongue.

[Heroic Mulatto]

3,4-methylenedioxy- N -methylamphetamine is a hell of a drug.

[Episiarch]

What the hell was she thinking?

[Pro Libertate]

She's thinking that Lindsay Lohan can't own Fucked-Up Former Child Actor of the Decade forever.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I think even the dumbest pop culture hanger-on can discern rank attention whoring like Cyrus's.

[Episiarch]

Yes she can, as long as she still looks good.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Robin Thicke's song sucks. This is the worst summer for music ever.

[Brett L]

I think you forget 1999.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Aaaaand... now Managua is the tackiest city in the Americas:

http://telenocheonline.com/monumento-a-chavez/

Q: Why must socialists have the ugliest, most tasteless forms of art known to man? It it some kind of inside joke I'm not getting?

[Goldwin Smith]

He told the USG to fuck off so what is your problem?

[John]

He was a totalitarian asshole who ruined his country?

[Goldwin Smith]

I guess Putin saved his country so he is better than Chavez?

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I think I would get my money back on that lobotomy if I were you.

[John]

I would say Russia is in better shape than Venezuela. But even if it is not, that doesn't make Chavez any less of an asshole. He destroyed democracy in that country and caused untold misery by his idiotic economic policies. He is an anti-democratic thug and economic ignoramus and thief. He deserves nothing but contempt. Shame on you for trying to defend him.

[Goldwin Smith]

I was being sarcastic. I hate Chavez. I found it interesting that reason posters defend Putin because he opposes the US while they hated people loving Chavez for the same reason.

[Irish]

Who defends Putin?

[John]

I am not sure anyone likes Putin on here. I certainly have nothing good to say about him.

[Fatty Bolger]

reason posters defend Putin

They do?

[Goldwin Smith]

http://reason.com/archives/201.....nt_3957594

http://reason.com/blog/2013/08.....nt_3959023

[Goldwin Smith]

http://reason.com/archives/201.....nt_3957865

http://reason.com/archives/201.....nt_3957461

[Irish]

The quotes in question:

Putins a total asshole and a tyrant.

But somehow, I still know that I would enjoy it if he punched Obama in the mouth.

Why? Because right now, Obama is much bigger threat to my liberty that Putin can even dream about being.

It's pretty fucked up when you have US citizens seeking asylum in Russia, to escape from the tyranny here.

There was a time when I never thought I would see times like this.

This is not pro-Putin. It's an acknowledgement that Putin is less of a threat to an American's freedom than our own government.

Goldwin Smith| 8.22.13 @ 8:10PM |#|?|filternamelinkcustom

Um aren't there libertarians praising Putin for RT, Snowden and being anti-US?
reply to this

HTuttle| 8.22.13 @ 8:24PM |#|?|filternamelinkcustom

We're not praising his actions, just acknowleging that he's competent, unlike our own leader.

This guy is too pro-Putin for my tastes but even he simply differentiates between competence and being in favor of Putin's actions.

Neither of those are actually pro-Putin nor does either advocate Putin's style of governance.

[Irish]

timbo| 8.23.13 @ 9:37AM |#|?|filternamelinkcustom

Who cares already? Despotic rulers and Marxist scum abhor freedom of any kind. The neo-cons(here and abroad) and marxist leftists in Washington, think that they have a solution, which is big government. It will get bigger while things like this become unfortunate incidents along the ride to idiocracy. If defenders of gay rights don't see something like this happening here, they are sadly blind. During this debate, we will not here about the power of unfettered free markets as a simple solution to suppression of freedom of any type, thrives on limited government, affects equal opportunity for and rights for all. This is an exposure the dangers of nationalism and big government. The same thing going here with global warming. The entire populous has accepted as fact a theory that cannot be proven and is willing to suppress the freedom of the market to breath a magical clean air that they are already breathing. Climate change has become our nationalism.

At least Russians do not have to watch the incessant pandering to fruits in skinny jeans and fedoras like we have to suffer through here.

This guy's a dipshit. I cut his comment for length since the rest is just an anti-gay rant. He's not a regular though. He's just some nutter off the street and is therefore hardly an example of the general thought process around here.

[Irish]

I just read Duke's comment in your last link and he doesn't even mention Putin's name and at no point advocates a pro-Putin position.

None of the quotes you posted actually so what you say they show.

[Goldwin Smith]

They show the "he tells the USG to fuck off so he can't be all that bad" attitude and "he's competent and for the people unlike our rulers" which when applied by defenders of Chavez would get people here angry.

[Fatty Bolger]

So a tiny minority of Reason posters sorta kinda might have defended Putin a teeny little bit? Wow, you got us. GUILTY AS CHARGED.

[Pro Libertate]

I'd never defend Putin, since I oppose autocrats like him, but he is my favorite dictator. He's like a Bond villain come to life.

[Slammer]

Russian Army sings Skyfall

[Pro Libertate]

They're just glad they aren't the bad guys in the Bond movies anymore.

[John]

Socialists hate people. They don't view people as anything but props in their own little historical drama. If you hate people and don't look at them as full formed humans, you can't make good art. Look at socialist art sometime. It is totally inhuman. Everyone is a two dimensional cut out.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

It is really horrible. Libertarians like to talk about how awful the USSR was at hard sciences, but there were plenty of Nobel Prize winners in the hard sciences who came from the USSR. In contrast, can anyone name much of anything good in the arts that came from the USSR outside of Battleship Potemkin? At least the Nazis had Wagner and Riefenstahl.

[robc]

In contrast, can anyone name much of anything good in the arts that came from the USSR outside of Battleship Potemkin?

Ayn Rand?

[jesse.in.mb]

I really like Soviet propaganda art. This hangs in my room.

My mother freaked out that I was a communist until I pointed out that capitalism was so cool we left communism in the dust and could by their propaganda, mass-produced, over the internet with next day shipping.

[Derpetologist]

I think it would be more accurate to say they want to make themselves gods on the earth. Hence all the monuments and anti-religious stuff.

[John]

But the monuments are horrible. Monumental art doesn't have to be bad art. It is only bad when socialists do it because it is so inhuman.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Step One: Open TIT's link in one browser window.

Step Two: Open this link in another window.

Step Three: Switch back to the first window with the picture of the Chavez memorial.

Step Four: !!!

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Que genial...

[JEP]

Shostakovich wrote some good stuff...but he wasn't actually socialist.

[Brandon]

Q: Why must socialists have the ugliest, most tasteless forms of art known to man? It it some kind of inside joke I'm not getting?

See Jubal Harshaw's treatise on art from Stranger in a Strange Land.

[Coeus]

New trend of companies offering 'unlimited' time off turns into nightmare for employees

They're pissed that the option is there. Any time that choices have consequences, proggies get pissed.

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

It does kind of suck though if you have a work ethic and work with a bunch of people who don't. I know I take less time off now that we have an unlimited policy and my boss doesn't email me in November to remind me to finish off my three weeks before the end of the year. I also know that's my own fault.

[NeonCat]

"Cool, I'm taking December off, see you next year."

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Yeah right. If you're anything like me you'll have an anxiety attack you're going to get fired.

[Juice]

Why? It's their freaking policy.

[Coeus]

I just find their hatred of responsibility to be their most prominent characteristic.

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

Yeah, it pretty much is.

[robc]

A friend of mine's company changed to that this year. He said last weekend that he realized he wasnt properly abusing it, so it starting to take advantage (he gets an insane amount of work done, Im sure, so he isnt actually abusing it).

[Brandon]

Be valuable enough that taking time off won't be incentive for your employer to fire you.

[Brandon]

Actually, this is the crux of the complaint: The United States is the only wealthy country in the world that has set no national policy on vacation days.

It's scary and not centrally-planned!

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Batman needs to be a doofus

Under the guise of gritty realism, Nolan and Miller give us a cheerful, libertarian, cowboy power fantasy ? billionaire savior as Bernhard Goetz. The '60s television Batman, on the other hand, presented fantastically wealthy would-be do-gooders as helplessly square busybodies, fighting crime less out of sober obsession than as a kind of decadent game of dress-up. When those stately Wayne bookcases slid back to reveal the Batpoles, you got the sense that crimefighting and/or the entire society in which crime occurred was a kind of amusement park for the obscenely rich.
[...]
Batman here is not competent, efficient, or smart. He's just some bumbling fool who's decided to take justice into his own hands...He breaks the law, treats other people as chits in his dunder-headed game plan, and causes a load of pointless death and suffering. And yet, as far as he's concerned, it's basically a successful case, albeit one with a couple of regrettable loose ends. For Haney, the unjust, the petty, and the callous triumph so thoroughly that they aren't even forced to realize that they're unjust, petty, and callous. It's a small, stupid world, and self-appointed heroes mostly work to make it smaller and stupider.

Batman is dangerously individualistic and runs afoul of the government. He's anti-progressive and illiberal.

[Episiarch]

Wow, this guy really doesn't get the camp Batman at all.

[Irish]

This is some stupid bullshit right here.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Batman's so popular because people like to think of themselves righting wrongs and dispensing justice with a grim determination and a grimmer sneer. As with many popular things, though, the meme gets overplayed ? in part because it's deceitful. The grim, the powerful, and the (supposedly) omniscient aren't cool avengers who are willing to cut corners to save us. They're jackasses who mostly make a mess of things, a la Dick Cheney or George Zimmerman or, I'd unfortunately have to argue, the current occupant of the White House. I wish Ben Affleck were a Batman who could get that point across. But, alas, he's no Adam West. And even if he were, Zack Snyder and Zack Snyder's audience clearly want the comforting, popular Bat thing. The doofus we need is not the doofus we want, nor the doofus we're going to get.

You mean superheroes and comic book characters provide escapism for an audience? Why that's just crazy! Clearly our culture shouldn't dare look up to people who try to accomplish things on their own initiative!

I'll bet this guy was appalled by the message of 'The Incredibles'.

[Derpetologist]

"The grim, the powerful, and the (supposedly) omniscient aren't cool avengers who are willing to cut corners to save us. They're jackasses who mostly make a mess of things"

This person is coming perilously close to understanding the nature of politicians and bureaucrats.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

True, but I suspect he'll make a distinction between the Top Men in government and the little people who can't be trusted to make their own decisions in life.

The Top Men have the mandate of society to act, us peons have to just obey.

[Irish]

Upthread I mentioned that liberals periodically come close to realizing how frequently libertarians are right about politicians, but will then retreat and not go where the evidence takes them.

This person will never return to this thought and realize its implications for his worldview. He isn't self-aware enough.

[Goldwin Smith]

Well yeah. The populists and OWS had lots of good critiques of the government but their solution inevitably is "We need to give more power to the right TOP MEN!"

[MJGreen]

So... let's make a movie about a protagonist that just messes things up? Good luck with that.

[NeonCat]

I believe they were called The Pink Panther films.

[Lady Bertrum]

Batman's so popular because people like to think of themselves righting wrongs and dispensing justice with a grim determination and a grimmer sneer.

Part of the appeal of Batman is his environment. Gotham is corrupt, dirty and cynical.

People like Batman because he's fighting an irredeemable system. We like him because we hate the system.

[Lady Bertrum]

Goofy Batman removes him from the context of an evil social system. Then he's just fighting comic book bad guys. Progressives would prefer we don't view society and government as evil.

[Brandon]

Everything is politics.

[Omni]

I had this shared with me today from a couple days ago...

http://www.miamiherald.com/201.....about.html

I have to love the idea pushed here that Blacks can't get by without the government whatsoever. And that whooshing sound you hear is that last statement from MLK she quoted going right over her head. I don't think it means what she seems to think it means...

[Heroic Mulatto]

Isn't having Big Bird pen an editorial for a domestic newspaper a violation of the Smith-Mundt Act?

[Slammer]

Wait! Today was Go Topless Day and I stayed in the house all day? Based on some of the video I've seen, that was probably a good idea.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Most people shouldn't go topless.

But it's also National Women's Equality Day and National Dog Day.

[Coeus]

We must continue to deny reality. If we don't, the patriarchy wins.

"One of these accusers said that he grabbed both of her hands and asked for a date. If you took out the words 'Bob Filner' and inserted the word 'Ryan Gosling,' you wouldn't have a problem."?CNN contributor and criminal defense attorney Darren Kavinoky, discussing the Filner harassment case with Faith Jenkins and Don Lemon, who both told him he was an asshole. (I'm paraphrasing.)

Sexual harassment is not a compliment. And it is not determined by how "cute" someone thinks a harasser is.

It is determined by consent (or the lack thereof), by safety (or the lack thereof), by what is appropriate in a professional setting. If Ryan Gosling grabbed a female member of a film crew without her consent, and held her in place while he asked her out despite her evident discomfort, she'd feel sexually harassed, and it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference how cute he is.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Shakesville is so bad it's almost cheating to pull quotes from there.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Anyone want to take bets on what "Melissa McEwan" looks like? I call dibs on white, overweight, glasses, vaguely lesbianic.

[Goldwin Smith]

Well if that picture in that comment is anything to go by...

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Ahh, I have NoScript on. Turns out I was right.

[Heroic Mulatto]

You forgot "has Down's syndrome".

[Juice]

ach! My eyes!

[Irish]

You definitely cheated.

Her picture is right next to her name in that article!

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I just told you I didn't see it. I swear I didn't. Damn you NoScript! This is reason's fault...

[Lady Bertrum]

Ryan Gosling grabbed a female ......

Tell me more.

[jesse.in.mb]

If Ryan Gosling grabbed a female member of a film crew without her consent, and held her in place while he asked her out despite her evident discomfort.

That's rather the point though, no? Bob Filner is creeptastic and Ryan Gosling is attractive if severely over-hyped. If Bob Filner even vaguely considered entering my personal space bubble I'm going to be on high alert while Gosling is going to have to work much harder (I'm sure he boils bunnies in a charming way) to freak me out. So it is inherently determined by "how 'cute'" the harasser is.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Unions: Is there anything they can't do?

Adam Schefter ?@AdamSchefter 1m
Minutes ago, NFLPA filed grievance against the Patriots to collect $82,000 in workout bonuses from Aaron Hernandez's terminated contract.

[robc]

If he went to the workouts before they dropped him, they owe him the money.

[Brett L]

Maybe. I was under the impression that you had to show up and suit up for a game of some type to collect a check.

[Coeus]

Tha fuck?

This is a pattern that moves beyond selling women's bodies as sex objects and sells sex objects made of only pieces of women's bodies. It's like women are not just objects themselves, but they are inanimate collections of separate parts with extraneous bits that can be pared down and discarded for the sake of focusing on only the sexy pieces. As if they are pieces of art that exist in vacuum and can be altered or reduced at the whim of the beholder. These are not human beings, they are objects to be modified and sold for maximum titillation (of the presumed straight male viewer who sees women as inanimate collections of pieces to be rearranged at will).

These are literally pieces of women's bodies being sold as (literal) sex objects. I'm out of words at this point to express how disturbing, how unsettling, how utterly dehumanizing I find this collection of bodies (and body parts) for sale. I wonder how many people (and specifically men) buy these as loving adornments for their houses. I wonder how many people I walk by on the street everyday see my face, my feet, my hands, the front or the back of me, all of my body above the knee as nothing but surplus flesh, as a waste of material between them and their sexual gratification.

Mimicry of greek statuary is horribly oppressive to women..

[Derpetologist]

I was traumatized and humiliated by the bulging biceps on Arm and Hammer detergent.

I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!I'M A VICTIM!

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

So when she says they are "being sold as (literal sex objects," what she really means is "being sold as tacky decor." Because that's...totally the same thing.

[Coeus]

Maybe she just knows a bunch of Agalmatophiliacs.

[Lady Bertrum]

Then there's this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzht2_41caU

[Lady Bertrum]

I wonder if she's equally as disturbed by dildos. Does that count as objectification?

[Coeus]

Feminists, hate that argument. But the answer is, as always, because patriarchy.

[Derpetologist]

Here is a video from Larken Rose that I thought was entertaining:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngpsJKQR_ZE

[robc]

Im only 1:09 into it, but I like it.

Not sure why it drags on for 10 minutes, did he learn nothing from Monty Python.

[Coeus]

Actresses aren't known for their memory, I guess.

My character, to judge from the popularity of Web sites and Facebook pages devoted to hating her, has become a flash point for many people's feelings about strong, nonsubmissive, ill-treated women.

Yes. It's because she's strong. Not because she blamed Walt for getting cancer and nagged him about it for the entire first season.

Common, this is willful obtuseness.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

You know, I just rewatched the first season and...I think Skylar's behavior is a lot more justified than I thought it was.

She didn't nag him for getting cancer. She nagged him for refusing treatment, which is a completely understandable reaction. She nagged him because he would disappear for HOURS and HOURS at a time without explanation. It's normal to be pissed off at stuff like that.

Don't get me wrong; I love Walter White as only one straight man can love another, but Skylar gets a bad rap.

[Coeus]

I specifically remember her blaming him for getting cancer.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I don't think so. She conjectures that it may have happened at a lab he used to work at, but that doesn't mean she thinks it's his fault.

[Coeus]

I watched it a few months ago. She nags and complains about every damn thing he has to do involving the cancer. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a clip on the cutting room floor where they had her saying "Why did you have to let your hair fall out? You know I like it better the way it was."

I'm not personally motivated by the like of the protagonist, either. He crossed the moral event horizon when he poisoned the kid. Skyler is a much better person. But that bitching at him for every damn thing he had to do involving the cancer is what people responded to. And for most people. once you don't like someone, everything they do is offensive.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I am going to disagree with you again. At the outset, the fact is that Skyler acted as a restraint on Walter's acceleration to "bad ass". That's the real reason people didn't like her then.

[Coeus]

She nagged him because he would disappear for HOURS and HOURS at a time without explanation.

Pity, his coming to terms with his mortality put her off so. If you have to check in with your wife before you go anywhere for a few hours, get a new damn wife.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Except that wasn't what he was doing. He was out cooking meth and killing people. He had a second phone to do this more successfully.

And it wasn't just once or twice; it was every night with no explanation...all night.

Sorry, but if you put up with that shit from your wife, I'd call you a fool or a pussy or both. There's no reason to expect she should just give him carte blanche to be gone all night every night.

[Coeus]

There's no reason to expect she should just give him carte blanche to be gone all night every night.

Agreed. So what's the excuse for her doing it every time, including the first? If I came home and got the third degree for not texting my location for a few hours, I would be pissed. If it happened the second time, I would make it a point to never check in again (provided there was not a prior obligation).

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

You're really reaching here. I would urge you to watch the first two seasons again. She's a bit irritating, but the Internet Hate is completely out of proportion.

[Goldwin Smith]

but the Internet Hate is completely out of proportion.

Film at Eleven

[Coeus]

Could be. I'm not exactly normal, so I shouldn't be surprised if my reactions are not shared by the general populace. But what I've outlined is definitely the reason I don't like the character.

Maybe it really is "dislike of a strong woman", for most people. But, for me, when there is such an obvious reason for the dislike besides that. Especially since that, blaming someone for stuff that's out of their control doesn't really seem like something a "strong" person would do. It seems more like whiny impotence.

[Invisible Finger]

She nagged him for refusing treatment, which is a completely understandable reaction.

No it isn't.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Oh this is where the Asperger's Crowd comes in to say it isn't understandable to be upset the love of your life isn't fighting cancer.

Jesus fucking wept.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Huh? If someone you love has cancer and doesn't want to fight then it is understandable to be upset with them.

It's selfish, but understandable and human.

[Mr Whipple]

So, you live in the UK? You think you own your home? You think your credit card debt is unsecured?

Think again.

http://rt.com/news/uk-regulati.....order-718/

[Derpetologist]

Harry Reid explains how taxation is voluntary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6q0slMhDw8

[NeonCat]

I'm not going to watch the link, I'm just going to hope Wesley Snipes beats the shit out of him.

[Coeus]

Feminists suddenly discover deeper analysis when told that they shouldn't do something.

We have repeatedly explained why we use "douche,""douchebag," "douchebaggery," and many related variations. But, just for good measure, we'll do it again right now. The products involved in douching have historically functioned to scare women into believing that their all-natural ladyparts are dirty, smelly, unpleasant, and unfresh. These same products have actually rendered many a woman's perfectly wonderful ladyparts unhealthy, painful, and infected by their very use. (Check out some vintage ads that touted Lysol as the cure for lonely, dateless, stanky ladies if you'd like some visual proof of the ways women have been shamed into using these unncessary products.)

Douches and douchebags are a pointless, irritating, unfortunate, and generally toxic enemy of women throughout history. A Tool of the Patriarchy. A menace to women's autonomy and well-being. Something that should not come into contact with a smart, self-respecting woman's body. Tell us again why we shouldn't use the term to refer to people who share those same characteristics?

Yes, we understand that not everyone is in the know, and that plenty of people think that calling someone a "douchebag" is denigrating the female simply because of the association.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The products involved in douching have historically functioned to scare women into believing that their all-natural ladyparts are dirty, smelly, unpleasant, and unfresh.

Yes, "dirty, smelly, unpleasant, and unfresh" are certainly never words that would describe the Jezebel crowd.

[Coeus]

Frankenstein's monster turns upon him:

And what that also means is that you don't need to attack us for using the term. Just because you don't agree with our stance on the phrase doesn't mean it's the wrong stance, or that we haven't considered the pros and cons of it. We love and value our readers and their opinions, but having the same back-and-forth every week is no longer useful and, from a logistical perspective, is taking valuable time away from our bloggers and website staff

How dare they!

[R C Dean]

I suppose that soap and water also "are a pointless, irritating, unfortunate, and generally toxic enemy of women throughout history. A Tool of the Patriarchy. A menace to women's autonomy and well-being. Something that should not come into contact with a smart, self-respecting woman's body."

I mean, if cleaning one part of your body is all those things, why isn't cleaning any of your body all of those things?

[All-Seeing Monocle]

We have repeatedly explained rationalized why we use "douche,""douchebag," "douchebaggery," and many related variations.

[Fatty Bolger]

A Tool of the Patriarchy. A menace to women's autonomy and well-being

Holy fuck, could she be any more ignorant? Douching was a form of birth control, and even though it wasn't effective, the women using it didn't know that. However, it was advertised as a hygiene product because birth control was illegal. So far from being a "tool of the patriarchy," it was an expression of female independence. The "hygiene" advertising started going over the top when truly effective birth control methods started to become available.

[Coeus]

+1 croc poop

Sorry, deep any non specious analysis is only for stuff that they like to do.

[Derpetologist]

Politician is asked if it is wrong to start violence; responds by stealing reporter's tape:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObebwaznpLE

[?J?? de ?guila]

WarPig Obama has a War Boner for yet another War-of-Choice.

Like Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Iran on the horizon, etc etc.

[R C Dean]

OT: How many crimes were committed against James O'Keefe at Tulane:

http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=5017

I count at least two: assault (from the book being thrown), and false imprisonment (from being detained by campus security).

Even better, they were committed by or under the direction of a former federal prosecutor who tried to bring a case against him and failed.

[sticks]

tossing a book at someone is assualt?

[Atanarjuat]

I got agg. assault and "launching a deadly missile" for throwing a beer bottle at someone, both felonies. Ironically, my old work partner was a reformed gang member charged with the same for a shootout he was involved in.

Like a beer bottle, a book can do some serious damage. (Some books more than others of course).

[robc]

On a related note to the "market failure" discussion, one of my favorite lines:

Sometimes the invisible hand is a bitch slap.

[Francisco d Anconia]

DAMN!

18 Everyday Products You've Been Using Wrong

[robc]

Callback to earlier thread: Looks like its going to be too hot (mid-90s) for a picnic on Sunday, so other plans are being discussed. Question of appropriateness of pirate or leprechaun hasnt been finalized.

[paranoid android]

Hey, is there anyone here who lives in Seattle who knows what the deal is with all these military helicopters over the city? Last week there were two Ospreys (I think) flying in a circular pattern over the city and the sound, just now a Chinook (I think) and an Apache (I think) flew past my office.

Mobilizing in preparation for the inevitable strike on Syria? Hunting Bigfoot? What's the deal?

[CatoTheElder]

Feds looking for grow houses.

[Episiarch]

I've heard those too. And I swear that on Friday I heard fighter jets too.

Is it Fleet Week or something? Nope, that was a couple weeks ago.

[mad libertarian guy]

Uniform costs include more than $5,000 for annual replacement items and almost $2,500 for cleaning, as well as more than $2,700 for new uniforms for a new full-time officer and a new part-time officer.

Hold the fuck on. Why are uniform cleaning fees coming out of the city budget? Who the fuck is "losing" $5k worth of police equipment per year? Why the fuck does it cost $2700 to buy the uniforms for 2 goddamn police officers?

And, the biggest question of all, why does my town of 3700 people have 15 fucking cops (3.75 cops per thousand - calculated at 4k residents) when the national average is 2.5 per thousand? There is virtually no serious fucking crime in this town, yet we warrant 50% more cops per capita than the rest of the country. Cut the force down to 10, and make those fuckers pay for the shit they lose, and for their own cleaning fees. FInd a cheaper alternative to $2700 for uniforms for 2 goddamn cops.

[Enough About Palin]

Came home from work to hear Chris Matthews teach me that Barack Obama and Jackie Robinson are exactly the same in that both were, or are, up against people who wish their failure because they are black. Too funny!

[mad libertarian guy]

Yes. I and the vast majority of federal staffers are racist because we know that Obamacare sucks the big one.

[Brandon]

Chris Matthews has out-derped Friedman. I didn't think it was possible.

[Enough About Palin]

The federal government is contributing $25 million of the $140 million needed for a 3.3-mile streetcar line in thoroughly bankrupt Detroit.

A Streetcar Named Bizarre