A.M. Links: Israel Conducts Missile Test With US, McCain Says Assad "Euphoric" Obama Will Seek Congressional Approval For Syria Strike, Dennis Rodman in North Korea Again

Credit: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom / ABr

• Israel says that it has conducted a missile test with the U.S. in the Mediterranean.

• Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has said that Assad is "euphoric" about Obama's decision to seek Congressional approval for a military strike against Syria.

• Dennis Rodman is in North Korea again to meet his "friend" Kim Jong-un.

• Brazil and Mexico are asking for answers after a Brazilian news program reported that the NSA has spied on both Presidents Rousseff and Peña Nieto.

• A TEDx conference will be held in Mogadishu this Saturday.

• Ronald Coase, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, died yesterday at the age of 102.

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Comments

[Lord Humungus]

Fistivus Outivus!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Dennis Rodman is in North Korea again to meet his "friend" Kim Jong-un.

They can talk about girlfriend porn stars.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Texas female cyclists can get in gear with comfortable panties for smooth ride

[DontShootMe]

Will. Not. Click.

[kinnath]

Your loss.

[wwhorton]

You should totally click. Seriously.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I'm beginning to think people don't trust me. Have I ever let you down? Am I the Cleveland Browns, serving as your pall bearers?

[gaijin]

"and their bicycle seats smell like strawberries"

[Lord Humungus]

I clicked.
I lived.
I'll be in my bunk.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

There's something I can get behind

[sarcasmic]

Oh my!

/George Takei

[KalkiDas]

McStain is frothing at the mouth for an opportunity for another war.

[gaijin]

The idea that McCain would claim to know how Assad feels speaks to McCain's own depravity. I guess projection isn't just for lefties anymore?

[some guy]

McCain may be a militant authoritarian ass, but at least he is consistently so.

[CatoTheElder]

No doubt: McCain is a war-mongering lunatic imperialist, but nobody voted for him thinking otherwise.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Brazil and Mexico are asking for answers after a Brazilian news program reported that the NSA has spied on both Presidents Rousseff and Pe?a Nieto.

Why can't they just be flattered that Obama considers them to be worth spying on? That puts those presidents on par with the average American citizen.

[Rich]

It's like the AT&T family plan!

[gaijin]

Give a while new meaning to 'referring' a friend or family member.

[DJF]

I don't see why they would be surprised, the purpose of the NSA is to spy on non-Americans.

[Hyperion]

Maybe if Brazilians and Mexicans would stop flying planes into buildings and doing suicide bombings all over the world, dear leader would quits spying on them?

Obama probably just needs to see if they are saying mean things about him or if they truly adore him as they rightfully should, him being the supreme ruler of the planet that he is.

[some guy]

I don't think they are surprised, they just know they have to act indignant because it is expected of them. All the world's a stage.

[Zeb]

Yeah, everyone spies on everyone that they can get away with spying on.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

In One Chart, Here's Why the Anti-War Movement Collapsed
...In 2011, Professors Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas published a study titled: The Partisan Dynamics of Contention: Demobilization Of The Antiwar Movement In The United States 2007-2009 which looked at nearly 6,000 surveys of anti-war demonstrators between January 2007 and December 2009. This one chart basically tells the whole story. The percentage of Democrats attending anti-war protests collapsed at the end of 2008, and in early 2009....

[some guy]

So what they were really protesting was Republican wars, or perhaps just Republicans in general.

[Snark Plissken]

Next up, a chart showing the burning of presidential effigies, also known as a rectangular pulse function.

[Lord Humungus]

And now for some sporting news:

Former All Blacks beat Thai ladyboys in elephant polo match

The ex-rugby stars team, captained by Robin Brooke, and included Olo Brown and Charles Riechelmann, went trunk to trunk with the Miss Tiffany Beauty Queens in Thailand at the weekend.

After a rousing haka which was faced down by the glamorous and tidily-attired opposition, the retired sports stars proved too big and too strong, running away with the opening match of the King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament in the Thai seaside resort of Hua Hin, 7-2.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Co-ed blows .341 at a football game, promptly becomes an Internet sensation

[NoVAHockey]

I didn't see the decimal point and took that to mean something else entirely.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

That comes later.

[Swiss Servator - past LTC(ret)]

"37 dicks?! In a row?!"

[db]

Try not to suck any dicks on your way through the parking lot!

[Troy muy grande boner]

Epi's penis?

[Live Free or Diet]

I didn't see the decimal point and took that to mean something else entirely.

Me too. I was thinking that a line that big to go under the bleachers could not have escaped notice!

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Aim high

[a better weapon]

Jeez, that first comment is a real buzzkill, isn't it?

[some guy]

No one with a BAC of .341 would be capable of tweeting about it. The equipment must have malfunctioned. Still, she'll have a great story to tell people until she's old enough to be ashamed of it.

[Dweebston]

This was posted over the weekend, and someone knowledgeable (or apparently, anyway) made a case for it. Routine binge drinkers can apparently become quite functional drunks, such that numbers like .341 may be their baseline.

[some guy]

I guess. Either way, this was a rarity. A statistical outlier. Most breathalizers are accurate, but a few are not. Most people would be in a stupor at .341, but I guess a few might not...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

This week in anal hazing in American high schools
As The Daily Caller reported in June, anal hazing has apparently become some kind of bizarre ritual in American high schools. In the past year, there have been more than a dozen hazing incidents around the country involving at least 40 high school boys who have been sodomized by other boys using foreign objects or their fingers.

This week brought two fresh stories which follow the primary pattern: older male high school athletes decided it would be a good idea to sexually assault younger male high school athletes....

5 Insane Scientific Charts You Won't Believe Actually Exist

[gaijin]

at least 40 high school boys

omg. an epidemic.

[BardMetal]

Seriously what the fuck?

[Rich]

Police break up 'drug-fueled orgy' at Masonic Lodge

You know who else was a Mason?

[Eduard van Haalen]

George Washington?

Yeah, try to erase that image from your mind.

[wwhorton]

My father-in-law. Not an improvement.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Both my grandfathers, too, but if they had drug-fueled orgies, they never let on.

[alittlesense]

The last time I checked, the membership at most Masonic lodges was so ancient, the only drug I can imagine fueling anything like an orgy would be Viagra, assuming the membership could even remember what the point of an orgy was.

[Zeb]

Well, apparently, it was just at the lodge and wasn't hosted by the Masons. I'm a little disappointed.

And I fail to see why consenting adults shouldn't be allowed to have a sex party.

[Ted S.]

Raymond Burr?

[Marty McFly]

Jar-Jar Binks?

[Eduard van Haalen]

That *would* explain how he got the role.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Dixon's partner?

[invisible furry hand]

they guy who built Gothic cathedrals?

[gaijin]

the drummer from Pink Floyd?

[Wizard4169]

How'd you get that big ol' Harley up on that hi-dive?

[Drake]

So John McCain believes that Assad has a literal interpretation of the Constitution? I'm starting to like this Assad guy.

[Hyperion]

That was my thought.

Foreign dictator has more respect for US Constitution than US Senator, news at 11...

[Fist of Etiquette]

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has said that Assad is "euphoric" about Obama's decision to seek Congressional approval for a military strike against Syria.

Inside information. They must still be Facebook friends.

[DontShootMe]

So, McCain's argument is that he (McCain) should be irrelevant? Make it so, then.

[Wizard4169]

Nah, he's just thinking "McCain 2016".

[DontShootMe]

Great, now I'm not going to be able to sleep for a week.

[wwhorton]

If the President goes to Congress for approval to launch an attack against another country, the terrorist have won.

[Lord Humungus]

White House Considers Awarding Obamacare Subsidies, Intended For The Uninsured, To Labor Unions

A few weeks ago, I discussed the fact that labor unions have been increasingly vocal about their objections to certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare will "shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class," wrote three labor leaders in July. Now, according to a report from InsideHealthPolicy, the Obama administration is considering offering insurance subsidies?intended for the uninsured?to labor union members who already have employer-sponsored coverage.

[a better weapon]

Obamacare will "shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class," wrote three labor leaders in July.

Nothing more irritating than assholes not sleeping in the bed they helped make for the rest of us. Fuckers.

[CatoTheElder]

"destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week"

The progressives always said they wanted to make the US more like France.

I guess they meant high unemployment rates and a two-tier employment opportunity reality of France. The lucky and well-connected get lifetime 35-hour/week employment and the rest, a large fraction of the work force, scrapes by with a lifetime of part-time or intermittent contract employment.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The Washington Post Adopts Slate's Outrage-Trolling Business Model: Hey, Maybe Teachers Should Rape Their Underage Students
...To the best of my knowledge, these situations were all consensual in every honest meaning of the word, even if society would like to embrace the fantasy that a high school student can't consent to sex. Although some feelings probably got bruised, no one I knew was horribly damaged and certainly no one died....

...The point is that there is a vast and extremely nuanced continuum of sexual interactions involving teachers and students, ranging from flirtation to mutual lust to harassment to predatory behavior. Painting all of these behaviors with the same brush sends a damaging message to students and sets the stage for hypocrisy and distortion of the truth....

...If religious leaders and heads of state can't keep their pants on, with all they have to lose, why does society expect that members of other professions can be coerced into meeting this standard?...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Quick Update on Betsy Karasik, The Woman the Washington Post Humiliated By Publishing Her Idiotic Babblings In Order to Troll for Outrage-Clicks
Someone pointed out to me her website-- she quit being a lawyer in order to become a painter.

If you don't remember Betsy, she embarrassed herself by fulminating at the Washington Post that statutory rape by teachers of minor children was no big deal and no one dies so why are you being such big meanies about Love, anyway?...

...I work at my Dupont Circle home/studio in Washington, D.C., in the company of three cats and, on occasion, the elusive and multi-talented EMT, musician and environmentalist, Bob Fener. I am largely self-taught, although I have studied with several very gifted Washington area artists including Annette Polan (portraiture), Patrick Kirwin (realism and illusion), and Mary del Popolo (color).

Like most artists, I paint because I have to; the paintings are lined up inside my head demanding to be realized. ...

[Eduard van Haalen]

So you didn't find the law sleazy enough, eh? Gotta fantasize about Abelard and Heloise?

"Well, baby, you got a C in Latin, but you earned in A in lovemaking. Here, let me pin that grade to your chest...ha ha, that joke never gets old."

[invisible furry hand]

The inside of her head is a depressingly stupid and amateurish place.

She's a long way from these masterpieces

[Eduard van Haalen]

Where are the pictures of her having sex with the presidents of every law school in the country?

[Atanarjuat]

Amateurish? This is fine art!

[Eduard van Haalen]

Ah, so the *good* pictures are locked up inside her heart and won't be let out?

[Plopper]

So instead of attacking the woman's argument, you make fun of her art and make other ad hominem attacks?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

So instead of attacking the woman's argument, you make fun of her art and make other ad hominem attacks?

The argument is one posited by a hare-brained hedonist who doesn't have to live with the consequences of the ideas she promotes. It's not even credible as a middle-school journal entry, much less something that should be taken seriously by a stable society.

[Rich]

The Museum of Bad Art

Good stuff.

[Plopper]

What was so idiotic about what she said again?

[Plopper]

What was so idiotic about what she had to say again?

[Rasilio]

While she may not have picked the best case to illustrate her point, it doesn't change the fact that he point is quite valid.

Not all student teacher sex is coercive and very rarely should it be legally equivalent to rape

[Lord Humungus]

80-year-old Springs weightlifter busted for doping

The agency that brought down Lance Armstrong announced a two-year suspension for Don Ramos of Colorado Springs, Colo., who tested positive for steroids while attempting to set a world record in his age group at the Pan American Masters Weightlifting Championships in June.

USADA was contracted to test at the event for athletes 35 and older. The suspension means Ramos can't compete again until July 2015.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

US Climate Getting Much Less Extreme Than It Was 80 Years Ago
In 1936, there were 14,793 record maximums and minimums set at all 862 long-term US HCN stations. So far this year there have been only 2,903, and the trend is for a much less extreme climate in the US....

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Warmist Off Deep End: 'Will climate change kill-off humanity? Unlikely, but we may wish it had.'
...Which means the question may not be so much "will we die out" as "will we wish we had." If humans were to go extinct, the earth would at least have a chance to repair itself, evolve new biodiversity, and move on. But having the globe sprinkled with scattered bands of a few hundred survivors, each desperately scraping whatever sustenance might come from the planet their ancestors ruined? That's a much more frightening prospect for both the planet and our great great grandchildren....

[mad libertarian guy]

It's much better that our species die than use natural resources!

To this I say, "you first, asshole."

These people are sick.

[SugarFree]

This is impossible. joe assured us over and over that no environmentalists long for human extinction.

[Pro Libertate]

What's odd is this idea that Gaea will somehow manage to scrap by after barely surviving our tenure on Earth. No offense, humanity, but far bigger disasters than us have befallen this planet.

If there is any danger, it's to us.

[Clich? Bandit]

the lack of perspective is stunning

[Atanarjuat]

Global warming: the living will envy the dead!

[T]

Until the global warming brings the dead back to life. Then we'll all be equal and no one will envy one another!

[UnCivilServant]

Actually, it gets harder to keep setting new record extremes. In the 30's a lot of those recording stations were relatively new, so there were no records to break. I'd wager we still haven't esatblished a climate baseline worth of data

[gaijin]

you mean all data series do not show a straightline increase, forever?

[some guy]

In this case the term "record" means most extreme measurement over the entire data set (1895-2013), not most extreme measurement at the time of the measurement. So it's different from the "records" that are reported every day in the news.

[UnCivilServant]

I stand corrected.

[some guy]

I'm still not sure that the data indicates the US climate is getting less extreme. Making inferences from extreme measurements is notoriously difficult.

[UnCivilServant]

I stand by my statement that we still don't have a baseline for climate data with the amount we have collected thusfar.

[some guy]

I agree whole-heartedly. 40 years of accurate global (satellite) data. ~100 years of accurate sparse (weather station) data. And the rest is nearly worthless proxy data that barely qualifies as anecdotal. This is the data set with which we are trying to understand a chaotic system driven by forces that operate on timescales ranging from hours to tens of thousands of years. Anyone who thinks this is adequate needs to have their science license revoked.

[some guy]

In 1936, there were 14,793 record maximums and minimums set at all 862 long-term US HCN stations. So far this year there have been only 2,903, and the trend is for a much less extreme climate in the US....

Not sure what to make of this. Is the difference statistically significant? The statistics of outliers is not what most people expect.

[invisible furry hand]

Police investigate Aussie Rules footballer who set fire to a dwarf

http://www.news.com.au/sport/a.....6709338729

[Rich]

Clinton Jones ... will make a donation to a children's charity.

Emphasis added. Now, that's a little offensive!

[Ted S.]

He should have set fire to Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott instead.

[Clich? Bandit]

What is the aussi version of NSA? cause they comin for you.

[db]

But America is a brutal and violent culture because one Australian got shot in the U.S. by thugs.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Polyamorist Michael Philpott killed his children in pursuit of welfare benefits.
recent case in Derby, an industrial city in the English Midlands, has ignited controversy. An unemployed man, Michael Philpott (now 56), fathered 17 children by four women, all of whom he treated violently. For ten years, he lived in one house with two of these women: his wife, Mairead, with whom he had six children; and his concubine, Lisa Willis, with whom he had four. Tired of Philpott's abuse, Willis left him in 2012 and took her children with her. Philpott, furious at this insubordination, wanted the children back. He, his wife, and a friend hatched a plot: they would set fire to the house in which his six children by his wife were asleep; Philpott would rush in and save them, showing himself to be a heroic and devoted father. He would then blame the departed Willis for setting the fire, which would result in her going to prison and his winning custody of her children. But the plan went catastrophically wrong: the fire got out of hand, and all six children died, five by asphyxiation and one by burns.

The bizarre plot was quickly exposed. It also came to light that all involved had long lived on government subsidies. ...

[CatoTheElder]

Perverse incentives incentivize.

[CampingInYourPark]

"Kerry's cosy dinner with Syria's 'Hitler': Secretary of State and the man he likened to German dictator are pictured dining with their wives at Damascus restaurant before civil war broke out"

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

[Pro Libertate]

"Listen, I may refer to you as Hitler sometimes, but don't take it personally."

[db]

Kerry's "Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand moment?"

[Lord Humungus]

I'm glad some attention is finally being paid to the real threat.

Squirrel Power!

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say ice. Some say coordinated kamikaze attacks on the power grid by squirrels.

Power outages caused by squirrels are a new hobby of mine, a persnickety and constantly updating data set that hums along behind the rest of my life the way baseball statistics or celebrity-birthing news might for other people. It started in April, after I read about a squirrel that electrocuted itself on a power line in Tampa, Fla., cutting electricity to 700 customers and delaying statewide achievement tests at three nearby schools. I was curious, just enough to set up a Google news alert: squirrel power. But as the summer progressed, and the local news reports of power outages caused by squirrels piled up in my in-box, my interest in power outages caused by squirrels became more obsessive.

[Ted S.]

cutting electricity to 700 customers and delaying statewide achievement tests at three nearby schools.

They couldn't do the tests during the day without the lights on?

[SugarFree]

Reveal in the seething economic ignorance of Gawker.

Favorite comment:

Z_T
I must say, it does surprise me to think that there haven't been any successful assassinations of billionaires in recent years (the ones who own "legitimate" business enterprises, that is). I'm not necessarily saying that I'm in favor of such a thing; it's just that, with all the wealth worship, one would think that there'd be enough like-minded folks of the opposite inclination to pick up the proverbial pitchfork.

Maybe the potential assassins are just lazy. Which might explain why they are so poor and disgruntled in the first place.

[invisible furry hand]

why do you hate stupid people Mr Free?

[SugarFree]

They make me ill.

[invisible furry hand]

Brainist!

[UnCivilServant]

Assassins in the modern era are motivated by fame or insanity (often clinging to famous figures as the focus of their madness) and as such, target visible figures. Billionares tend to be very low-key individuals and for the most part, when named, the reaction would be "who?"

[Pro Libertate]

"I'm not necessarily saying that I'm in favor of such a thing. . . ." Um, yes, you are. You're just saying you want someone else to do it.

The hatred motivating the left is a serious danger to us all.

[CampingInYourPark]

"Assad in 2010: I Trust John Kerry"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hhWUf4fSok

[CatoTheElder]

Maybe Assad really is stupid enough to have launched a sarin attack in a sector adjacent to his own forces.

[Lord Humungus]

What's the Difference Between U.S., Chinese Corruption?

If the feds are going to target wheel-greasing in China -- where it can be difficult to get business done without bribing somebody -- does this mean we need a Domestic Corrupt Practices Act, too? In Colorado, JPMorgan used to employ Chris Romer as a banker. His father, Roy Romer, was the state's governor for 12 years. Did that help Chris Romer get hired? It couldn't have hurt. Do we need a law against this? Of course not.

There are certain facts of life that aren't worth bringing in the FBI to check out. When rich people with teenage children give millions of dollars to elite universities, there's a good chance they want special attention from the admissions office for their kids, if not an outright guarantee they will get in. And when owners of companies hire senators' kids for internships, they probably would like to meet the parents someday.

[CatoTheElder]

U.S. officials disguise their corruption far more cleverly than their Chinese counterparts and are far more expensive.

Bill Clinton never held a job that paid more $35,000/year until he got into politics. He is now worth about $50 million.

Clinton isn't mentioned in the following show, but many interesting Republican examples are:

http://billmoyers.com/episode/.....d-capital/

[Longtorso, Johnny]

I could give you a Heartiste post. I could give you the Heartiste "Beta of the Month" one, where they jockey for position of most-Alpha-of-All. I, however, am much more generous.

Behold my children!

Heartiste "Beta of the Month", with additional commentary by Kim du Toit!!

[Gbob]

At least we can be assured that neither people from heartiste nor jezzebel will ever breed successfully outside of captivity, solving the problem of both sides within a generation or two. (Like pandas, however, we should keep examples from both in a zoo for the sake of future scientists.)

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Maybe we can breed them with each other, like horses and donkeys.

[Irish]

Then their children would be sterile, right? I'm liking this idea.

[alittlesense]

We could refer to the offspring as "Dorkeys".

[Lord Humungus]

Golf Manor police say a man in custody smoked a crack pipe while in interview room

Golf Manor Officer J. Gilbert suspected Watkins, who was a passenger in the car, gave him a fake driver's license. So the officer brought Watkins back to the police station and placed him in an interview room with a sign on the door reading "audio and video surveillance on duty at all times."

Court documents state "the subject produced a glass pipe and lighter, and lit the pipe and attempted to smoke the remaining crack." There were three different cameras inside the interview room.

[Rich]

It's just his little way of sticking it to The Man.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

MoveOn admits: "[I]f younger, healthier people don't participate, then costs will skyrocket and Obamacare will fail."
...[R]ight-wing groups have launched a multi-million-dollar campaign to torpedo Obamacare before it even gets started. Their plan: Mislead young people about how the law works so they get scared and don't enroll. The problem is that it really could work because if younger, healthier people don't participate, then costs will skyrocket and Obamacare will fail.

MoveOn.org footnotes a Washington Post article, which explains that last sentence. From the Post Wonkblog article by Sarah Kliff: "Young adults tend to have lower medical bills, which would hold down premiums for the entire insurance market. If only the sick and elderly sign up, health costs would skyrocket."...

[UnCivilServant]

Cost will skyrocket regardless, the question being who foots the bill?

I'd rather bill the patient, burn down the bloated insurance companies and let it sort itself out.

[wwhorton]

Wait, so healthy people's premiums will largely pay for the costs of older, less healthy claimants? Why, that sounds like some other government program I've heard of lately...

[Night Elf Mohawk]

"Mislead" young people about how they'll have to pay in more than they get out so they get scared and don't enroll.

[CatoTheElder]

Bernie Madoff felt the same way about financial advisers who steered their clients away from his hedge funds.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Student Loan Forgiveness Program Available To Millions Who Aren't Utilizing It, CFPB Says
WASHINGTON -- More than 33 million workers qualify to have their student loans forgiven because they work in schools, hospitals or city halls, but too few take advantage of the options because the programs are overly complicated and often confusing, the government's consumer advocate said Wednesday.

Roughly a quarter of the U.S. workforce could take advantage of federal rules that give favorable loan repayment options to those in public service fields, including the military, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency recommended Congress review the loan forgiveness programs and encouraged employers to make sure their workers know they are available.

"Teachers, soldiers, firefighters, policeman ? public sector careers invariably involve some effort, some inconvenience or some sacrifice. People give up higher incomes to serve their city, their state or their country," said Richard Cordray, director of the CFPB. "We believe that people who contribute part of their talents, part of the benefits of their education, to society as a whole should not be mired in debt because they stir themselves to the calling of public service."...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Graham: Prez out to inflate college tab
..."The president has proposed allowing all student borrowers to cap their federal student loan payments at 10 percent of their monthly [discretionary] income ... and forgives any remaining debt after 20 years of payments."

So if Susy Science majors in a challenging STEM program (Science, Technology, Engineering or Math) and gets a good-paying job, she'd be on the hook for her entire student loan bill. Because she did the right thing.

But if Paulie Pompous parties his way to a degree in liberal arts before starting his job in "currency exchange and comestible retailing" (a.k.a. "Want fries with that?"), he'd end up paying back just a fraction of his loans....

[Doctor Whom]

Fucking incentives, how do they work?

[Auric Demonocles]

I can't really blame her, but my sister just started her first job and since she qualifies for the public service option (social worker at the VA), she has switched to the 30 year repayment plan. This means that even though the total loan amount will be much higher than if she paid back quickly, she'll get so much of it forgiven at 10 years that she saves a bunch of money.

Meanwhile, I am paying off as fast as I can to avoid interest since I went into engineering/software. Should finish by the end of the year.

[mad libertarian guy]

Teachers, soldiers, firefighters, policeman ? public sector careers invariably involve some effort, some inconvenience or some sacrifice. People give up higher incomes to serve their city, their state or their country

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

[Rich]

"Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"Because you didn't do well in high school?"

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Most of them couldn't get hired for a minimum wage job outside of government.

[Snark Plissken]

I heard someone say this exact thing a few weeks ago.

He is a retired teacher.

[Swiss Servator - past LTC(ret)]

And I enlisted as a huge sacrifice of future income in the mercenary market?!

What a foolish sentiment that is.

Oh, and show me a teacher, cop or firefighter with an EBT card.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Oh, and show me a teacher, cop or firefighter with an EBT card.

Show me a teacher, cop, or firefighter* without massive bennies that are unheard of in the private sector.

Welfare is welfare dude.

*Volunteer firefighters excluded, of course.

[Rhywun]

THIS IS WHAT THEY ACTUALLY BELIEVE.

[The Late P Brooks]

Great- idiot is on Bloombrg right now arguing we should not build Keystone pipeline in order to create an artificial shortage which will force people to ride their bicycles to work, or some such bullshit.

[DJF]

If more people ride bicycles to work then Bloombergs limo with police escort will have an easier time getting around NYC

[Lord Humungus]

Stork Held In Egypt On Suspicion Of Spying

A stork has been detained by police in Egypt on suspicion of spying.

The bird was put behind bars after a man fishing in the Nile in Qena, some 280 miles south-east of Cairo, spotted an electronic device attached to its feathers.

Thinking it was an undercover agent, he captured the stork and took it to a police station near his home, said Mohammed Kamal, head of security in the Qena region.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

To pee or not to pee: Women sell positive pregnancy tests on Craigslist for $25 each. . . and there is no shortage of motivated buyers
A number of women across the country have listed their positive pregnancy tests for sale on Craigslist.

One expectant mother in the Buffalo, New York area is selling her used sticks for $25 each, The Daily Dot reports.

Another New Jersey mom writes: 'Wanna get your boyfriend to finally pop the question? Play a trick on mom, dad or one of your friends?

Scrolling through the site, there appears to be no shortage of sellers- and many are aware that their customers could be using the tests for dubious reasons.

'I'm pregnant and will sell you my positive pregnancy test for $20,' one woman on Manhattan's Lower East Side writes. 'I don't care what you need them for.' ...

[John]

But women never lie about rape or anything involving their bodies.

[WTF]

And if they do it's men's fault.

[invisible furry hand]

The po-po gonna check your pee-pee

Officials in Shenzhen, China, will fine public toilet users 100 yuan (?10;$16) if they are deemed to have failed to urinate accurately in city facilities.

New laws that come into force next month in the southern city do not specify what amount of spilled urine would be classed as a violation.

more

[Snark Plissken]

How the mighty have fallen.

Microsoft buys Nokia phone division.

So who wins and who loses from this deal? Nokia shareholders may be breathing a sigh of relief. Yes, they are only getting $7 billion for a business that had a market capitalisation of $150 billion in 2007.

...

For Finland and for Europe as a whole, this must be seen as a sad day. It is hard to remember just how recently Nokia was Europe's technology superstar, with a 40% share of one of the world's fastest growing industries and a proud record of innovation.

Surely the EU ought to intervene with some subsidies to help Nokia back on its feet.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Great, between them they can fix the problem that makes my fucking Windows phone randomly shut itself off.

[robc]

The fix is to not have a windows phone.

Its the Cleveland Browns pallbearers of phones.

[robc]

Nokia failed to hook up with the proper smartphone software companies.

[Doctor Whom]

We need a penaltax on all of the companies that left Symbian-powered Nokia smartphones in the dust. It must be unfair competition and not the fact that Nokia's products were battery-hogging, outdated, and generally craptacular compared to what was happing around Nokia.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I use to contract design/manufacture basestation equipment for Nokia. Their "inspectors" were notorious poonhounds. When they came to visit our plants, the inspection would last about a 1/2 a day, then they would find the local strip joint, run up a huge tab (5 to 10K), and bill it back to us.

[invisible furry hand]

Stringer Bell knew better

[Lord Humungus]

Why Is Vladimir Putin Acting So Crazy?

Since reclaiming the presidency in May 2012, Putin has become the biggest impediment to the Obama administration's foreign policy aims. That's undoubtedly played well with Russians yearning for the days when the country was a superpower. Yet beneath Putin's swagger lie weaknesses at the core of the economy that threaten Russia's future?and with it, his power base. And for that, he can blame a familiar nemesis: the U.S.

His difficulty has nothing to do with intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles?and everything to do with natural gas that's cooled to -260F at normal pressure, condensed into liquid form, and transported on special tankers to markets around the world. America's surprising return as an energy superpower is complicating life for the Russian petro state.

[John]

Don't worry, Obama is working as hard as he can to end that. If Putin were half as smart as he thinks he is, Putin would be doing everything he could to help Obama succeed on the world stage. He will never get a President more likely to keep America from producing energy than Obama.

[Palin's Buttplug]

OF course US energy production is at all time highs under Obama but don't let a fact destroy your myth, John.

[Gene]

US energy production is at all time highs under Obama but don't let a fact destroy your myth, John.

If so it is only despite him. Could he be any more retarded about the Keystone and it's economic benefits?

[KDN]

Are you truly that shortsighted? The structure of the industry is such that any changes in regulation take a long, long time to be seen in the market; the spike in energy was far more likely caused by BOOOOSH's policies than Obama's. Likewise, the squeeze put on the sector by the current administration will be a problem for the next (which you and your proggie bedfellows will assuredly blame on him, assuming he's a Republican).

[gaijin]

Putin has become the biggest impediment to the Obama administration's ...

Wait, I thought it was obstructionist republicans?

[robc]

Obligatory:

COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE
COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE
COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE
COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE
COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE
COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE
COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE
COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE
COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE COASE

[John]

Such a shame. And to think nitwits like Kruginuts and Sunstein prater on.

[robc]

I dont think living to 102 is exactly having his life cut short.

[Palin's Buttplug]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/02/.....m-johnson/

Dakota Johnson chosen for chick rom-porn movie.

She has promise.

[John]

When Bush wanted to go into Iraq, he was able to over the course of about a year methodically rally public opinion, reach out to his opposition and get a significant number of them to vote for military action, which the public and Congress by and large supported. Regardless of what you think of Iraq, from a technical standpoint that is what being an effective President looks like.

Obama in contrast sat his ass for over a year and never made the public case for action in Syria, never reached out to his opposition, didn't create any public support for it, and now is unlikely to get Congress to authorize it. But remember, Bush was the stupid incompetent one and Obama is the light giver political super genius.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Because Obama knows the Middle East is a fucking basket case - Bush still doesn't know that.

[John]

He just didn't make the case to the public because he was too busy playing golf or looking for the guys who did Bengazi or something.

Obama is an incompetent President. He can't do the basic things that are required for the job. Forget about big stuff. It doesn't matter whether he is right or wrong about Syria. He is too incompetent to implement his policy right or wrong. He is a complete political disaster incapable of rallying public opinion, coopting or working with his opposition or doing much of anything but ruling by degree and by fuck you that is why. He could be a Libertarian and still be the most incompetent President since Andrew Johnson. Even the worst Presidents of the past knew how to get a little bit done. But not Obama.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Why assume that he wants to implement policy as his goal? I think Obama's goals are political. Who cares about passing immigration reform when you can use its non-passage as a wedge against Republicans? As a politician he (or rather his handlers) are far from incompetent, and I think that is all that is valued.

[John]

Why assume that he wants to implement policy as his goal?

[gaijin]

knows the Middle East is a fucking basket case

And yet, he still felt the need to teleprompt about red lines and calls to bomb.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Well said. Provocative ultimatums are foolish if you really think the Middle East is a basket case.

[Palin's Buttplug]

A no cost gambit failed. So what?

[R C Dean]

A no cost gambit failed.

Only if you think the loss of credibility, as both a nation and a President, is "no cost".

Here's the deal: when we have credibility, we don't actually have to, you know, bomb and drone and shit nearly as much to accomplish most goals (leaving aside whether those are good goals or not).

By bluffing and having his bluff called, Obama has set us up to actually have to pull the trigger more, not less. At least until we either rebild our credibility or completely redo our foreign policy.

[CatoTheElder]

Actually, Obama gave a speech back in 2009 that explicitly states that the Middle East and Islam:

- "carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment"

- "demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality"

- "is an important part of promoting peace."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06.....d=all&_r=0

Of course, he also said in the same speech that he was going to close Guantanamo in a year.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-he was able to over the course of about a year methodically rally public opinion, reach out to his opposition and get a significant number of them to vote for military action

You may have left out 'manufactured or at the least deceptively used intelligence data'

[robc]

That is a case in which I think the intelligence was really that incompetent.

[John]

If the intelligence was fabricated, why didn't the Russians and French say so? They never did. Basically, the intel was reading Saddam's mail. It is like trying to reconstruct the life of a pathological liar by reading his diary.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Do you have a citation that French intelligence was certain of Saddam's WMD's?

[DJF]

Since all the intelligence agencies pass the same information around like teenage school girls trade gossip would it matter. The British quote the Americans, the Americans quote the Italian, the Italians quote the French and around and around it goes.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

That is hardly a citation.

[DJF]

I agree, I don't trust these intelligence agencies since they use their secrecy to hide their incompetence.

I was just pointing out that they are not independent sources so just because the French say something does not mean that the information was based on fake information put out by someone else.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I see, and I agree. Sorry for any misreading.

[VG Zaytsev]

If the intelligence was fabricated, why didn't the Russians and French say so? They never did. Basically, the intel was reading Saddam's mail.

Exactly,

So this is what happened.

Saddam created false intelligence that he had WMDs, thinking that would prevent Bush from attacking and his generals from rebelling.

It's was a colossal miscalculation on his part.

[CatoTheElder]

However, this time the Russians are saying that the intelligence was fabricated.

[John]

I left that out because that is not what happened. The entire world, including France and Russia believed that Iraq had WMDs. Indeed, they most likely did right up until before the US invasion when they were sent to Syria. There was nothing manufactured about the case. That is just a lie liberals tell themselves to explain why they supported the war for the entire decade of the 1990s, voted to invade in 2003 and supported it right up until it became politically advantageous to be against it.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I think there was much more doubt about that than you present. Subsequent congressional investigations concluded that there was questionable handling and presentation of information. Remember the 'yellowcake' debacle?

[Drake]

And all the reports that chemical weapons components were trucked down to Syria on the eve of the U.S. invasion? Are the liberals still claiming that was bad intel?

[John]

Yes they are. And of course what they found in Iraq was a complete WMD program waiting to be re-activated once the heat was off. Saddam's life depended on him having or at least people thinking he had WMDs.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Fox News reports or Bush administration lies? No one else believed Saddam moved his chemical weapons to Syria.

[Drake]

Never heard a report that Syria had a homegrown program capable of producing nerve agents as sophisticated as Sarin.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Are you claiming Syria's current chemical WMD's are Saddam's? That is pretty incredible.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Are you claiming Syria's current chemical WMD's are Saddam's? That is pretty incredible.

A myth perpetuated by Fox News - primarily Hannity and Beck.

[Drake]

And satellite photography.

[DJF]

They got the tech from the Soviets back before most countries joined the Chemical Weapon ban

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I thought that was an old Bushite myth (the WMD's were just taken to Syria, that's why we did not find them!').

[Drake]

Nobody here is going to prove it one way or the other. There were sat photos of convoys moving out of Iraq into Syria right before the invasion kicked off.

What was in those trucks is very debatable.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The entire world, including me, thought Iraq would have SOMETHING. Even I was surprised Bush & Co. couldn't hunt down a can of Raid in one of Saddam's palaces as retroactive justification.

The question isn't did people think he had some toxic chemicals - the question is who else thought the 'risk' was high enough to warrant an immediate invasion.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-This was a bi-partisan majority report (10-5) and "details inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities conducted by the DoD's Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department." It concludes that the US Administration "repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed." These included President Bush's statements of a partnership between Iraq and Al Qa'ida, that Saddam Hussein was preparing to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups, and Iraq's capability to produce chemical weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....onclusions

[DJF]

So the incompetent Bush Administration did not put forth the evidence for this. And instead said they were wrong about Iraqi weapons.

Also why would Syria want the weapons, they had their own. Syria and Iraq were not friends, Syria joined the anti-Iraq collation, even sending a armored division to Kuwait

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Nothing but ideology and liberal guilt prevents people from recognizing that Obama is less intelligent and more arrogant than Bush - and I say that as an unrepentant Geo W. Bush hater.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Among non-partisans Bush is considered a complete dimwit. Nothing you can do now will change that.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Bush is even hated amongst most conservatives-nowadays.

[R C Dean]

Perhaps. They are pretty much tied as far as approval ratings go. Excellent date-to-date comparison of Bush and Obama approval ratings here:

http://www.realclearpolitics.c.....roval.html

[gaijin]

Among non-partisans Bush Obama is considered a complete dimwit. Nothing you can do now will change that.

I'm sure you agree?

[John]

Maybe he was. But that doesn't change the fact that Obama is by any objective measure a much more incompetent President. Bush may have been a dimwit, but he had a better understanding and handle on the basic skills necessary to be President than Obama. So Obama is whatever comes in lower than dimwit. Retarded perhaps?

[tarran]

Bush wasn't as stupid as people made him out to be....

He very clearly suffered from terrible stage fright when it came to public speaking, and much of what people cited as evidence of his stupidity was really the product of his coping strategies for managing his stage fright.

He *was* incredibly un-intellectual; he also focused on people and really didn't understand or care about principles.

But he wasn't stupid.

[John]

He *was* incredibly un-intellectual; he also focused on people and really didn't understand or care about principles.

Maybe he was. But that certainly goes against the charge that Bush was a raging Neocon. Being a Neocon who wanted to change the middle east into a democracy was hardly unintellectual.

Bush is and was a voracious reader and by all accounts of the people who dealt with him a very serious thinker. When people say he wasn't "intellectual" they are just saying they don't like what he did. If anyone is "unintellectual" it is the Chocolate Nixon. I have never heard him utter a single accurate or interesting word about policy or history. He seems only capable of delivering platitudes and meaningless talking points.

[RBS]

Take away the accen, the squinty eyes and his habit of getting a little tongue tied and there goes the "unintellectual" thing. Mostly the accent though, his biggest crime was being a Republican "from" Texas.

[tarran]

But that certainly goes against the charge that Bush was a raging Neocon.

Bush wasn't a neocon. Several people remarked on an exchange he had with his dad the ex-president during a thanksgiving gathering (2002 I think it was) where he asked his dad to explain what neocons were. His dad flippantly said something to the effect of them being water carriers for "Israel uber alles" and Bush the younger, irritated, chucked the paper he had been reading on the couch and strode out of the room.

I should retract what I said about Bush not understanding principles, since I have no conclusive evidence of that. But I will stand by my assertion that Bush focused entirely on people and when the needs of principle clashed with the needs of people, he inevitably came down on the side of people over principle.

He might have gotten away with it if he were a good judge of people, but he wasn't, and his presidency was a disaster. It looks good now because Obama has every failing Bush did, but dialed up to 11. Obama also has some failings that Bush lacked, most notably a case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: insecure subtype (albeit not at Ayn Rand levels).

One thing that I do tip my hat to Bush over, having left office, the dude seems sincerely to be trying to follow the Christian path - something that other Presidents would do well to emulate.

[Juice]

the dude seems sincerely to be trying to follow the Christian path

By giving up all his possessions?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Shorter PB - Agree with me or you're a partisan.

Weak trolling.

Fuck off.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

That does not strike me as a fair reading of his argument.

Partisans on both sides have reason to view figures in a biased manner. PB's point is that among non-partisans Bush is widely seen as incompetent.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I think it was exactly his argument. It's his passive-aggressive schtick.

[Lord Humungus]

George W. Bush is smarter than you

one man's viewpoint...

[robc]

He isnt smarter than **ME**

[CatoTheElder]

Nothing but ideology and liberal guilt prevents people from recognizing that Obama is less intelligent and more arrogant than Bush - and I say that as an unrepentant Geo W. Bush hater.

You are not alone in this opinion.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Remember back in 2003 Bush was told about sectarian Islam and he asked "You mean they is two kinds of Muslims?"

[Drake]

Remember back in 2013 when Obama was going to bomb Syria to help Al Queda for some reason without Congressional approval? What a fucking moron.

[Palin's Buttplug]

"Help Al Queada"? That is some Glenn Beck moronic CT.

Obama has decimated Al Queda.

[Drake]

Well, 1 in 10 might be dead.

[CatoTheElder]

But the each dead guy inspired ten others to fight the infidels.

[Drake]

Then we'll decimate them again!

[Lord Humungus]

decimated? wrong use of the word.

A cohort selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten; each group drew lots (Sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning or clubbing. The remaining soldiers were often given rations of barley instead of wheat for a few days, and required to camp outside the marching camp.

/stickler

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I learned something today. I'm assuming this was a Roman practice.

[Jordan]

Yep. Coincidentally, Total War: Rome 2 is out today. Can't wait to get off work.

[Drake]

Yes - during slave rebellion led by Spartacus, Crassus ordered Roman units that fled the battlefield decimated.

[Lord Humungus]

I love Roman history - and used to collect artifacts from that era - coins, rings, and pins. My wife still wears two 4th century Roman rings.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

The meaning of words do not stay stuck in the time of their origin. Decimate is not frozen to its latin use. Modern dictionaries routinely list definitions for decimate as more general destructive actions.

[Jordan]

Your pedant routine is tiresome.

[Lord Humungus]

^this^

[Bo Cara Esq.]

So it is not pedantic to point out that someone has used a word 'wrongly' because they did not use it in accord with the original, historical latin sense of the word, but it is pedantic to point out that such a sense hardly governs modern use? Interesting.

[Jordan]

Yes, I'm sure he was deadly serious. Unlike you, he doesn't have a history of obnoxious nitpicking.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Again, it is interesting that you see my post as nitpicking but his as not.

[Jordan]

Again, I'm basing this on post history. I see his as tongue-in-cheek.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Oh, I am certain you see it that way, it is part of what is interesting to me.

[Jordan]

Why is it interesting? He doesn't have a history of being a tiresome pedant and you do.

Now, it appears I misjudged the tone of his post, so fair enough. I'll give him a free pass just as I gave you about a dozen.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-Now, it appears I misjudged the tone of his post, so fair enough. I'll give him a free pass just as I gave you about a dozen.

Also interesting.

[Lord Humungus]

words are words are words... but I try - and often fail - to use them correctly. I wouldn't use the word decimate to describe wholesale destruction since it means something different - historically speaking. And I love history.

If others feel free to misuse a word, that doesn't make it the best use, consensus or not. Another example is the word presently, which is often used incorrectly.

/and now I'm feeling pedantic

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-I wouldn't use the word decimate to describe wholesale destruction since it means something different - historically speaking.

No, no, please do not ruin Jordan's basic premise that you did not mean what you wrote.

To the main point, it is extremely pedantic to insist that words only be used as they were originally. Word usage evolves and we are centuries from Roman times. Many Roman words are used today, and have long been so used, to mean things somewhat different than their original usage.

[Lord Humungus]

that's nice. That still doesn't make it the best choice.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-Most people have a linguistic pet peeve or two, a useful complaint about language that they can sound off about to show other people that they know how to wield the English language. Most of these peeves tend to be rather irrational, a quality which should in no way diminish the enjoyment of the complainer. A classic example of this is the word decimate.

The complaint about the word typically centers on the fact that decimate is used improperly to refer to 'destroying a large portion of something', when the 'true' meaning of the word is 'to put to death (or punish) one of every ten'.

There are several problems with this complaint. The first, and most obvious, is that language has an ineluctable desire to change, and there are almost no words in English which have been around for more than a few hundred years without taking on new meanings, changing their old ones, or coming to simultaneously mean one thing and the opposite (a type of word known as a contronym).

But the claim that decimate should be used to mean naught but to 'put to death (or destroy) one of every ten' has deeper problems than that. For it is not at all clear that this punitive sense is indeed the earliest definition of the word.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.....one-tenth/

[Swiss Servator - past LTC(ret)]

Your schtick is wearying....is that better?

2L indeed.

[Lord Humungus]

2L... ha!

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Again, I think this says a lot.

People are talking and someone uses a word as it is commonly used today (and has been for quite a long time).

Another person chimes in and insists the word usage is incorrect because it is inconsistent with the original, Roman use of the word.

One of the people talking rises to the criticized person's defense saying 'come now, it is not incorrect, word meaning is not frozen in time.'

And it is the latter person that is being 'pedantic' or 'wearying.'

This says a lot more about your biases (libertarians that lean to the right) than anything else. I do not think anyone lacking such a bias would assess the situation so.

[Jordan]

Any strike which helps the rebels, helps Al Qaeda because they are part of the rebels.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

There is that binary thinking PB noted...

[Jordan]

So, what was wrong about that statement?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Would it be obnoxious nitpicking for me to explain what the phrase 'binary thinking' means?

[Jordan]

Better yet, explain why it's relevant. Shriek disputed that striking Syria would help Al Qaeda. I corrected him.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Shrek did not dispute that, he said that it is hard to argue that Obama acting against Syria could be interpreted as motivated by a desire 'to help Al Qaeda' seeing as how Obama has aggressively 'taken the fight' to Al Qaeda in many ways and in many areas. Your 'correction' was to present a simplistic 'if you act to strike Assad you must be acting to help his enemies, and his enemies include Al Qaeda.'

[Jordan]

No, my correction said nothing about Obombya's motives, nor did Shriek's post.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

You are yet again incorrect. Here is the comment PB was responding to:

'Remember back in 2013 when Obama was going to bomb Syria to help Al Queda for some reason'

And he said: '"Help Al Queada"? That is some Glenn Beck moronic CT.

Obama has decimated Al Queda.'

He is clearly responding there to the 'Obama was going to bomb Syria to help Al Queda for some reason' which preceded his comment.

[CatoTheElder]

Does anybody really think that His Oneness can direct a strike that aids only the moderate rebels to the exclusion of the Wahhabi Sunni rebels?

And, by the way, just what is a "moderate" rebel? I don't usually associate violent rebellion with "moderates".

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictur.....392983.jpg

[CatoTheElder]

I remember that a Democrat partisan -- J.K. Galbraith's son -- alleged that Bush was unaware of the multiple sects of Islam and said something like this in a private conversation.

That statement was not on the record, and it was not confirmed by third parties to my knowledge.

Do you have a link that has third party confirmation

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

Of course he doesn't.

[Guillotined]

Lets be honest here. All Bush needed to say was "9/11". The job was practically done for him.

[John]

Not for Iraq. If it had just required 9/11, he could have invaded a year earlier.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Not if he wanted to invade Afghanistan first.

[robc]

He didnt want to invade Afghanistan at all. That was kind of forced upon him by the situation.

Iraq was just waiting for a good excuse.

[Drake]

It is amazing how lazy and indifferent this Administration is. All words, no work. Are Jarrett and the rest also this incompetent, or can they just not get Obama and Biden to do anything?

I've worked with people like that - who think if they say it, it's done. I like to help them out by providing them with a Gantt mapping out exactly what they need to do to make their wishful thinking into reality.

[John]

That is the amazing part. It doesn't matter whether he is right or wrong about Syria. He is too politically incompetent to implement his policy. He lacks the basic political skills it takes to be President. The job of being President is first and foremost about building a ruling coalition in Congress and rallying political support for whatever it is you want to do. If you can't do that, you can't be a good President regardless of how right or wrong you are about policy. And Obama can't do that.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Yep, you are a real conservative.

You don't understand uncertainty. Everything is binary to you people - good/evil or black/white.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

Bertrand Russell

[John]

Yeah, Shreek, the fact that Obama can't rally public opinion and is such an assclown he can't get even the most craven Republicans to work with him is totally the result of everyone just now seeing the nuance.

Sometimes I think you are just a sock puppet repeating talking points. But then you post something like this that reminds me just how profoundly stupid and irrational you actually are.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I do not think Obama is good at rallying public opinion or working across the aisle. But let us not pretend that there are not some pretty important differences between today and when Bush was building his coalition. Call them 'nuances' if you want, and perhaps they do not ultimately undermine your overall point, but they should be considered as relevant.

[Drake]

I agree - but John is right, Bush did the leg work. Obama just hasn't bothered even though he has the press in his pocket.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I am only saying it is easier to do the successful 'leg work' of rallying public and political opinion towards military action when much closer to an event like 9/11. Also, at the time, Bush had a differently composed (more favorable) Congress to deal with.

[Gbob]

Anyone who doesn't view Obama as a miracle worker has overlooked his greatest miracle. He's been able to make Bush look competent, wise and focused. This is a much more difficult achievement than merely making the water levels of the sea lower.

Bush was wrong, but he went about it the right way. He sought allies. He sought UN approval, and he reached across the aisle to form a bipartisan consensus with congress.

[John]

Bush had the understanding and the basic political competency to function as a President. Obama doesn't.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Not here. I remember the financial crisis in 2008. Bush was clueless and didn't understand it according to underlings. Hank Paulson and Obama/Geithner handled the whole thing.

Bush was nowhere to be found.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

It is not as if Obama, or his underlings, have demonstrated any understanding of or ability to deal with the financial crisis either.

[Palin's Buttplug]

That is not true.

They put together the Supervisory Capital Assessment Program to rightsize the capital in the big banks and when that happened the market regained confidence in the financial system. LIBOR shrank and interbank lending returned.

Obama resisted calls to nationalize banks. He is restricting prop trading and in general nursed the banks back to record profits despite their pushback.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Of course there are other important indicators you are leaving out.

[Jordan]

The big banks were making record profits before the housing bubble burst too.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Yes, they were. In a mortgage bubble that had no connection to realistic valuations it is expected you would make record profits.

The bubble has popped and millions of writedowns have occured while capital cushions and loan loss reserves are way up.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-bubble that had no connection to realistic valuations it is expected you would make record profits

And none of the current profits you are trumpeting are likely the effect of current Fed and other agency practices that are likely fostering unrealistic valuations and such?

[Palin's Buttplug]

All valuations are ephemeral to some extent.

So yes, the Fed's ZIRP policy has pressured interest rates downward and helped assets return to non-distressed levels.

But that is a good thing. We have tamed inflation and tempered valuations to realistic book.

[VG Zaytsev]

Bush bubble - Baaaadd

Obama bubble - goooooooddd

[R C Dean]

All bubbles are good until they burst.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-The event, held at the FRC's Washington D.C., headquarters, was officially titled "Porn in the Dorm," and aimed to highlight supposed negative effects FRC perceives of viewing pornography.

"For college students, the use of pornography is especially problematic," said Fagan. "[W]atching porn has the potential to "destroy their [students'] education, their relationships and their future."

At the event, Fagan also advised students to engage in "good dances, not erotic dances."

Fagan was appointed deputy assistant secretary for family and community policy for the Department of Health and Human Services by President George H.W. Bush.

http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=4856

[John]

The military is making porn in the barracks illegal. No kidding. They are telling a bunch of 18 to 22 year old males they can't look at porn, because it creates a rape culture. Feminists and evangelicals are the unholy alliance from hell on such things.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-Sexual assaults in the military: porn is part of the problem

-Academic research and the documented evidence of law enforcement officials leave little doubt that pornography consumption is a significant motivator of sex crimes. It only makes sense then, that to reduce sexual assaults, the Air Force must work to limit or prevent the consumption of pornography.

Many may scoff at such an approach.

But it would be foolish to ignore the well-documented risks associated with pornography consumption. As with any other highly addictive substance, the prudent course would be to warn our military members about these risks. The military, serving the paternal role it does, already deals with alcohol and narcotic consumption in similar and ordered fashion. Leadership should also take action to help those already addicted to pornography before their lives or careers (or the lives of others) are ruined by this addiction.

The time is now to begin this anti-pornography training campaign before more of our heroes are lost to this dangerous drug.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ne.....e-problem/

[John]

As I said, evangelicals and feminists are the unholy alliance from hell. DOD is full of evangelicals and feminists at the highest levels.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I am betting evangelicals hold a lot more sway there. Feminists are using the 'crisis' of sexual assaults to get a foothold, but evangelicals have long held prominent sway (especially in the Air Force).

[John]

You are betting wrong. Chuck Hegel is not an evangelical. It is not the evangelicals in Congress that are killing DOD over this. It is the feminists.

The administration runs DOD. They set the tone. If you think evangelicals have the power to do this with this administration, you are deluding yourself.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

The branches and the DOD have had longstanding heavy influence by evangelicals.

And if I recall correctly, Hagel had a pretty solidly evangelical voting record as a politician in Nebraska.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Yes, the fundie zealots running the Air Force Academy are Obama/Hagel plants, don't you know?

[UnCivilServant]

But the emperical evidence shows that where there is more porn, there are fewer assaults and rapes. Wouldn't one want to fight an assault problem by increasing the availability of porn to provide an outlet other than their co-workers?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Sinner!

(Points Donald Sutherland finger)

[UnCivilServant]

And blasphemer, heretic and hypocrite.

But my conscience is clear.

[Drake]

So porn is the problem - not women in the field with combat units? Hmm.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

I'm not saying porn is the problem, but typically the rape victim is not considered to be the root cause of the attack.

[Troy muy grande boner]

But it would be foolish to ignore the well-documented risks associated with pornography consumption.

So, then, why isn't Utah the rape capital of the world?

http://www.newscientist.com/ar.....iX1Rj-YWUk

[R C Dean]

Academic research and the documented evidence of law enforcement officials leave little doubt that pornography consumption is a significant motivator of sex crimes.

Sounds like another "scientific consensus" that conveniently supports the political agenda of those claiming it exists.

Academics, of course, is rotten with radfem hogwash. And exactly what qualifications and methodology do the po-po bring to this subject.

I would be hugely surprised if sexual predators aren't big porn hounds. Its the causation (porn causes rape) that I have a really, really hard time with.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Feminists and evangelicals are the unholy alliance from hell on such things.

The "Baptist and Bootlegger" long term alliance has always sucked.

For you, John (seriously - you might like this blogger).
Dalrock - Thoughts from a happily married father on a post feminist world.

[tarran]

Oh wow! That's not going to turn out badly!

[John]

They will just end up making criminals out of a bunch of people. And young men will stop joining just like they have stopped going to college. Good luck with a military made up of gays and feminists.

[Hyperion]

Nothing to worry about, once the military is totally comprised of gays, feminists, and ultra beta boy males, the radical Islamists will back down.

[tarran]

I don't think young men will stop joining.

Wha twill happen is that they will hide the girlie magazines. And their chain of command will

a) turn a blind eye to it
b) go apeshit over it
c) turn a blind eye to it until it is convenient to use it as an excuse to sandbag someone they want to get rid of (kind of how prosecutions for adultery were used in my day).

[John]

Letter C is a very likely result.

[Rich]

porn in the barracks

Nice band name.

[Hyperion]

Throw in soccer moms and you have the axis of evil.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Even from the hedonistic perspective, why are male college students wasting their time with porn when there's more coeds than males in your average college? Can't they find a chick with low enough standards rather than jacking it to images on a computer screen?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

For most male college students I do not think there is an 'either/or' dilemma there.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Why not use your college years to see if you can find an attractive, intelligent, non-insane spouse? No guarantee of success, of course, but at least the search will have its enjoyable side.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Again, I am sure all three (random hookups, gratification to porn, and searching for a good spouse) are going on for many college men.

[sticks]

Pretty surea relationship will consume more time (time that could be used to study) than masturbating.

[Rasilio]

Porn videos don't accuse you of rape 6 months after you watch them

[mad libertarian guy]

Porn is bad for college students?

Where the fuck do they get this shit from?

[John]

All of the pictures of Hillary and Kerry wineing and dining with Assad are really just too priceless aren't they? What about smart power and smart diplomacy? I thought Assad was a reformer. You know, the kind of authoritarian thug we could work with?

[UnCivilServant]

Well, the US has a long history of working with authoritarian regimes, so not really anything shocking there.

[John]

But these clowns were supposed to be different. They convinced themselves and the world that soft power could do all this great stuff. And here they are bombing people. How is that smart diplomacy working out?

[Ted S.]

Apparently, we missed the World Testicle Cooking Championships over the weekend.

They've even got an official site.

[Eduard van Haalen]

No.

[Ted S.]

They're not looking to cook your testicles, Eduard.

[Eduard van Haalen]

There isn't a pan big enough.

[Ted S.]

Deep-dish testicles?

[Rich]

Entering a testicle cooking championship really takes balls.

[AuH20]

I'm too tired to be an activist because I have to work, for, like, money and stuff!

Yesterday, I came across the above picture of the Energy Exodus, a six-day march for renewable energy currently taking place south of Boston?which I'd take part in, if I weren't so exhausted from my current job situation. My friend Bethany of Granite Bunny posted it along with the comment, "This looks like fun, which means it's probably the right thing to do."

I couldn't agree more. Especially since there's a prominently featured golden retriever, and I am nothing if not a golden-lover. Any political action endorsed by a sweet, fluffy golden is something I can get behind. (Ok, that's probably not technically true. But, fluffy!)

Everything about the march sounds amazing?like a cross between an Occupy encampment and an art festival.

[Snip]

can't help but think about energy in all its forms.

The coal that destroys mountaintops in West Virginia and lungs in Southeastern Massachusetts so that I can power my laptop, my lights, my life.

The immense promise of renewable energy, which could power the world in 20-40 years using today's technology (if only we can round up the political will).

[AuH20]

Perhaps even greater, the potential energy stored inside all of us who are struggling to get by?or just plain struggling with work that feels meaningless. As Bethany says, "[T]here is an enormous amount of passionate energy tamped down under pressure in all the cubicles and ordinary jobs of the world. "

Like her, I don't know whether to be happy that so much passion exists, or heartbroken that it is so tightly contained. And to be honest, I'm not sure the passion-under-pressure metaphor works. Sometimes, if you keep passion in a box long enough, it explodes?but other times, it just fades away. It gets worn down, like stones on the beach.

Does that mean it becomes something beautiful and smooth? Or is that just putting a pretty face on an ugly reality?

Maybe it's less like water-worn stones?or my favorite beach-combing find, sea glass?and more like blisters on feet. Feet that have been standing all day. Feet that are really, really fucking tired.

My feet are tired.

I wish they were tired from marching, from putting my body where my values are. From making art, building community, learning and connecting, petting golden retrievers, singing, forging the alternatives that Martin talks about. Forging a new path forward.

Instead, they are tired from work.

[Ted S.]

Perhaps even greater, the potential energy stored inside all of us who are struggling to get by?or just plain struggling with work that feels meaningless. As Bethany says, "[T]here is an enormous amount of passionate energy tamped down under pressure in all the cubicles and ordinary jobs of the world. "

But is that energy renewable? And how long would it power our homes?

[Atanarjuat]

Why do SWPL types worship the ground artistic types walk on (places artists live are seen as desirable, etc), when they are in fact immature morons?

[UnCivilServant]

Because the primary skill of the artist is bullshit, and they worship bullshit and the ability to generate it convincingly.

[invisible furry hand]

art is about feelings which are warm and comforting, like the smell of your own farts in bed. Thinking is for meanies

[Eduard van Haalen]

"My friend Bethany of Granite Bunny"

Well, *I* have a friend named Muffy at Cute Puppies!

[Hyperion]

This looks like fun, which means it's probably the right thing to do

This isn't a serious post, right? This has to be a joke because no one is stupid enough to write this.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

(if only we can round up the political will).

Always a frightening set of words

[Bardas Phocas]

Debbie "The Derp" Wasserman Schulz says "dozens of countries" are behind the Obama war. Don't you doubt it.
She doesn't actually name them.
http://livewire.talkingpointsm.....to?ref=fpb

[Rich]

Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer which countries would use their own military power to attack Syrian targets when she had last washed her hair, Schultz said she was "not at liberty to say."

[John]

It is the coalition of the countries to be named later.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

All you Bushfags are always going on about how each state is like a country, right? So when this goes down there will be like 50 countries behind it. That's quite a coalition.

[AuH20]

From the same as before, an update on her life

2.) I am tired. I'm working long hours at my current temp job, which is also physically exhausting, and leaves me with little energy to do anything but crash when I come home. I miss yoga and running errands and generally having a life.

3.) Due to aforementioned exhaustion and long hours, I won't be able to make it to the Energy Exodus next week.

I barely have the emotional energy to care that Yosemite is burning. I'm mostly just trying to get through the day, put one foot in front of the other.

I hate feeling like I've flaked out on all the people I started connecting with in the climate movement.

I hate that there are so many things I want to do, for both myself and the world; so many ways I want to contribute to building a stronger, more equal, more durable society. There are posts I want to write, projects I want to collaborate on, actions I want to attend, art I want to make, places I want to see. Instead, I just have to survive.

4.) This is how unjust systems perpetuate themselves: by making people too tired to act up and change things.

5.) I could write a million posts ranting about the economy, the job market, the insecurity and instability that's being sold to us as normal. It's not normal. It's not ok. It's chronic, life-force-sucking, soul-grinding stress.

[AuH20]

6.) At the same time, I'm aware that I have a lot of privilege. I'm luckier, economically and otherwise, than a lot of people. I know that what seems like a new, harsh reality for middle-class people like me is nothing new to those who grew up poor and working class. I know that having shitty options is nothing new to people who never expected anything better. I know that even when the economy was "good," a lot of people were hurting.

7.) I want that to change. There is so much promising work being done to work toward a better and fairer society (and oh yeah, to ward off planetary destruction). I wish I had the energy to plug into it. I wish that there were jobs that addressed all the work that needs doing. Hell, I wish there were jobs.

8.) I'm tired.

[UnCivilServant]

I have no empathy for a whiner like that.

[Atanarjuat]

Not too tired to write a long blog post, unfortunately.

[Hyperion]

I could write a million posts ranting about the economy

Gee, I just can't wait to hear her views on the economy.

[Rasilio]

So she just wrote a 381 word blog post whining about how she is too tired to write a blog post about climate change.

Why the hell didn't she just write a 381 word blog post about climate change?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Her navel must be huge, with all the staring it gets.

[Snark Plissken]

My name is Boris Balkan and I once translated The Charterhouse of Parma. Apart from that, I've edited a few books on the nineteenth-century popular novel, my reviews and articles appear in supplements and jour?nals throughout Europe, and I organize summer-school courses on contemporary writers. Nothing spectacular, I'm afraid. Particularly these days, when suicide disguises itself as homicide, novels are written by Roger Ackroyd's doctor, and far too many people insist on publishing two hundred pages on the fascinating emotions they experience when they look in the mirror.

The Club Dumas, Chapter I, Arturo Pervez-Reverte

[Hyperion]

This is all the proof needed that stupid people should be made to work for a living, even if we need to make up something that is trivial enough to keep them busy.

Hey, fat girl, sort those widgets!

[invisible furry hand]

even if we need to make up something that is trivial enough to keep them busy.

It already exists. It's called blogging

[Hyperion]

I meant something that they can do to actually support themselves instead of going on welfare, which will result in them having time to annoy the rest of us.

[invisible furry hand]

some of them do get paid, as astonishing as that might be.

No matter how stupid an activity is, someone somewhere will pay you to do it. It's the wonder and glory of free markets.

[AuH20]

A very revealing passage from the most recent Lexington article about Obama

Among Obama fans the idea is taking hold that the president cannot reasonably be expected to work with Republicans on Capitol Hill. This triggers dismay, but not yet disillusion. In Buffalo, Ms Peters conceded that she had "definitely" expected more change in Washington after the president's re-election. But she trusted her president's values and instincts, declaring: "From a young, female college student's perspective, he's the best person out there." In Obama-country people say things like this all the time. Unprompted, they pinpoint their precise place in his demographic coalition: ie, whether they are urban voters, educated women, young people or minorities. He is astute to woo students, said a trainee nurse: "We're the first to do petitions and rallies." The president's heart is in the right place, a string of supporters argued: he is just being stonewalled by opponents.

[robc]

Continueing to double down works just fine until you hit the table limits.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

You can only double down once per hand.

[robc]

I was making a Martingale joke. Sigh.

[robc]

And yes, technically correct is the best kind of correct.

[John]

Maybe after he lies to you and kicks you in the face for the 20th time, you might want to reconsider if his heart is in the right place.

Talk about pure racism. This is it. He is a black man so he must mean well.

[Damned Fool]

It's my fault, please don't do anything, please don't do anything...

[Lord Humungus]

Rangel: 'Of course it's embarrassing'

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Monday said "of course it's embarrassing" that President Obama warned Syria of a red line for using chemical weapons but then didn't move forward immediately with a military strike.

Rangel, who opposes a military strike against Syria, also said Secretary of State John Kerry must be even more embarrassed after making an aggressive speech calling for a military strike on Friday, and then seeing Obama delay it to ask Congress for authorization a day later.

[UnCivilServant]

Charlie should know a thing or two about being embarassing given how much he's embarassed the state of new york.

[Zakalwe]

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has said that Assad is "euphoric" about Obama's decision to seek Congressional approval for a military strike against Syria.

You know who else was euphoric over the unwillingness of a democratic people to go to war?

[Rich]

Timothy Leary?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Al Quaeda?

No, never mind, they would be euphoric about an American intervention in Syria.

[The Late P Brooks]

The time is now to begin this anti-pornography training campaign before more of our heroes are lost to this dangerous drug.

It would be a tragic waste if our fine young cannon fodder washed out on morals charges before we can get them shot by their local "partners" or killed or crippled by roadside bombs.

Oh, the horror.

[Lord Humungus]

How the NSA Misleads the Public Without Technically Lying

If you read the statement quickly, it seems like the NSA is disputing the WSJ story. But on careful reading, they actually do not deny any of it. As we've shown before, often you have to carefully parse NSA statements to root out deception and misinformation, and this statement is no different. They've tried to deflect an accurate story with their same old word games. Here's a breakdown:

[AuH20]

Gawker would like you to know that Labor Day is a crock of shit

This is the worst part of Labor Day, for those who want to think about it:Nearly all remaining jobs will be eliminated, probably in your own lifetime!The American-led destruction of the labor movement has been remarkably successful,and three decades of aggressive anti-union propaganda has made the few remaining trade unions with their pensions and vacations seem decadent and greedy to people struggling with a shift at the Del Taco followed by a shift at the Walmart,leaving children and elderly parents with whatever member of the casual family is without paid work of any kind.

The management massacre of 2008 and 2009 was just a way to get rid of dead-weight white-collar workers.Those jobs will never return.Most everything that anyone does can be done better and more cheaply by computers, and the price of robots is dropping just as the price of mainframes plummeted 20 years ago with the introduction of cheap but powerful PCs.

The next mass movement,if it ever happens, will not be about increasingly scarce laborers,but about people in general. Nationalism,oxycontin, despair,television,alcohol and slob propaganda have all done a very good job of keeping the 80 percent of Americans who are "financially insecure" too worn down and miserable to realize they've got a common enemy.

[gaijin]

Most everything that anyone does can be done better and more cheaply by computers,

We must rise up against the machines!

[John]

This is the worst part of Labor Day, for those who want to think about it:Nearly all remaining jobs will be eliminated, probably in your own lifetime!

So we will have 100% unemployment? I know Obama is working towards that goal. But I kind of doubt it will work out that way.

Places like Gawker and Slate really have only one business model; publish the most ridiculously stupid things imaginable in hopes of trolling people into coming to the site and thus driving ad revenue. To do this they have hired a group of retards and nuts and enabled all of their stupidity and insanity. It is really exploitative but in some ways genius.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

The management massacre of 2008 and 2009 was just a way to get rid of dead-weight white-collar workers.

At least someone was learning from the bad judgements of the Big Three.

[Snark Plissken]

Nearly all remaining jobs will be eliminated, probably in your own lifetime!

That's the dystopia socialist Kurt Vonnegut was writing about 60 years ago.

[AuH20]

Wait, you mean focusing all the time on privilege can hurt ME too?

I'm tired of these sites being white-washed. At Feministe, we women of color constantly defended ourselves and reminded others that we are not, in fact, white. It is exhausting, at best, and violating, at worst, to constantly have your identity completely ignored or erased by readers, critics, commenters, other bloggers, whoever.

It should never be the case that a woman of color writing for a mainstream feminist site should 1) be presumed to be white or 2) become so frustrated by the regularity of this presumption that it is one reason for her leaving the site.

{Snip}

It's absurd to consider starting every piece of writing listing every privilege I have, and equally absurd to list all the ways in which I'm a minority. "Single, 25-35, Latina, immigrant, cis, formerly-engaged, BA in psychology & women's studies, preference for non-monogamy, depression, ambiguous sexuality?" A bit long for a byline. The more I felt I had to justify my identity in posts and in comments, the less I engaged.

We're not helping anyone by continuing this practice ? you think I'm white and some form of the enemy, I feel ignored and defeated until I'm totally over it and stop engaging altogether, then there are only white women left.

[Jordan]

you think I'm white and some form of the enemy

And there it is. Racist much?

[gaijin]

preference for non-monogamy

See, even weirdos have qualities worth exploiting,er, I mean exploring.

[Eduard van Haalen]

"preference for non-monogamy, depression, ambiguous sexuality"

I'm guessing that means "unmarried."

[John]

She doesn't realize that feminism is a movement made up of upper middle and upper class white women? It is almost like she doesn't understand that the whole movement is for a certain class of women's benefit of something.

[Ken Shultz]

"It's absurd to consider starting every piece of writing listing every privilege I have, and equally absurd to list all the ways in which I'm a minority. "Single, 25-35, Latina, immigrant, cis, formerly-engaged, BA in psychology & women's studies, preference for non-monogamy, depression, ambiguous sexuality?"

Starting every piece off like that would probably be unwieldy, but every time she goes out, I think she has an ethical responsibility to tell her dates what kind of hell-hole, tar pit they're about to step into.

[invisible furry hand]

IKEA's product names more fucked up than you thought

[The Late P Brooks]

Everything about the march sounds amazing?like a cross between an Occupy encampment and an art festival.

I'll bet she thinks Burning Man is the pinnacle of Western Civilization.

[UnCivilServant]

I can't agree - there's no mass burning of the atendees inside the effigee.

[Eduard van Haalen]

The wholesome, healthy atmosphere of an Occupy encampment combined with the humble, nonpretentious atmosphere of an arts festival? I'm there, dude!

[The Late P Brooks]

I hate that there are so many things I want to do, for both myself and the world; so many ways I want to contribute to building a stronger, more equal, more durable society. There are posts I want to write, projects I want to collaborate on, actions I want to attend, art I want to make, places I want to see. Instead, I just have to survive.

This should definitely be her profile on sugardaddy.com.

[John]

That gives me a idea. Set up a web site for poor 20 something prog wannabes to beg for money from rich lefty idiots. If you want to change the world, come to my site where you can fund this hipster dipshit who wants to do ukelele music education in under privileged schools. Or you could fund this nitwit who is cataloging all of the graffiti art in Brooklyn. I could skin a few percentage points off the top as a fee for running the website. That just might work.

[robc]

Sort of a kickstarter for losers.

[John]

Exactly. You would have to sell it as a brand. This is where all of the right thinking people go for their money. This is well meaning money. You could give a little bit of your millions to some dipshit cause to make sure they all knew you were not making any evil profits from this. I am serious, why hasn't anyone done this?

[UnCivilServant]

Because they can just siphon of tax dollars instead. Your idea requires innovation.

[John]

But that is harder to do than you think. Getting a government grant requires filling out a bunch of paperwork and navigating a huge bureaucracy. My service would be for the people who are too stupid even for that, of which there are a lot. And also, left idiots need somewhere to put their money for the cause.

[Atanarjuat]

Most people who inherit money seem to be guilt-ridden leftists. Relieving them of their wealth and guilt at the same time! Genius.

[Ken Shultz]

"Dennis Rodman is in North Korea again to meet his "friend" Kim Jong-un."

We're saved!

Now if only we could get him to go to Syria.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Texans Cheerleaders Jumping Into A Pool

[Troy muy grande boner]

If they had a 24 hour channel of this..... my floor would be even slicker.

[The Late P Brooks]

three decades of aggressive anti-union propaganda has made the few remaining trade unions with their pensions and vacations seem decadent and greedy to people struggling with a shift at the Del Taco followed by a shift at the Walmart,leaving children and elderly parents with whatever member of the casual family is without paid work of any kind.

Del Taco serves breakfast? Sweet.

[Snark Plissken]

They are still in business?

[robc]

So did anyone else's opponent ask for a continuous clock for the 4th quarter this last weekend?

Personally, I dont see the value in playing a team you can beat by 70, but, thats life.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

My freshman year you guys beat us 77-7. We only scored because you put the third string in.

[robc]

You were a freshman in 1904 at Florida Ag College?

Im assuming you were at Naval Academy in 2001, but that was only 70-7.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

Was it really? I lost track. I wasn't actually at the game, since I got stuck with wandering the dorm aimlessly duty. Someone had the game on in the common room and I remember every time I walked by it seemed like GT got another touchdown.

[robc]

We havent broken 70 since 1919. The only two times we have hit 70 since then was Navy in 2001 and Elon on Saturday.

Best tweet of the weekend: For most schools, a 70 pt victory would at least be close to the school record.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

That was a miserable year. But on the plus side I got to be part of the last class to see a loss to Army as midshipmen.

[Pro Libertate]

It's hard to live up to 222, huh?

[robc]

Most coaches arent as big a dick as Heisman.

[trshmnstr]

It's all about the cash. When the team brings you a 7 figure paycheck, losing by 70 ain't that bad of a plan

[robc]

$250k.

Elon is a cheap whore.

[trshmnstr]

oops, read it wrong. Playing powderpuffs is a good scrimmage to get some of the kinks out and get some live fire hitting in before it actually matters. Especially when you get just as much credit in the BCS system for this win.

SOS should still be a major factor in rankings.

[robc]

There is talk that these games are going to be worthless next year with the playoff committee, but we shall see.

[R C Dean]

Worthless, hell. The majors should be penalized in the BCS for these games.

[The Late P Brooks]

That gives me a idea. Set up a web site for poor 20 something prog wannabes to beg for money from rich lefty idiots.

They call those NEA grants.

[UnCivilServant]

The difference here is that it wouldn't be general fund tax moneies, but the personal money of the rich dipshits who want such crap.

[John]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-G.....he-AFL-CIO

Longeshorman quitting AFL-CIO over Obamacare. The funny part is that they say they want single payer. But then they are pissed that Obamacare is taxing their really good healthcare. Good for them for being able to get their employers to pay for really great insurance. Far be it from me to object to that. But they honestly seem not to realize that single payer will be a one sized fits all crappy system that won't allow them to benefit from their work and skills that enabled them to get their great insurance. Either the membership is insane or the leadership is a bunch of a socialists who are totally happy to screw their members in the name of the cause.

[robc]

Why cant it be both?

[John]

It can. But my guess is that the membership is just totally negligent and uninformed about what their leadership does or even if they are not are stuck in a closed show where they can't do anything about it anyway.

[Hyperion]

Drudge Report has a poll up to vote on:

'GIVE OBAMA AUTHORITY TO CONDUCT MILITARY OPERATION IN SYRIA?'

YES, NO

Go take a look at the results. It doesn't quite add up to the 50% support that Fox News is droning on and on about.

[John]

It is not a scientific poll. And giving him the authority doesn't mean you support him doing it. If you add together the people who support the war with the people like Shreek who just want Obama to be dictator, you might get 50%. But that doesn't mean 50% will support the resulting war.

[Ken Shultz]

I think it may indicate that Drudge readers skew to the right and are against giving Obama the authority to do much of anything.

I'd love to think that was an indication that the right is coming around on the downsides of warmongering, but I suspect the poll would be reversed if it were a Republican in the White House trying to do the same thing Obama is doing.

[John]

http://christopherfountain.wor.....-realized/

IRS, now enabling identity theft in the name of open borders.

[tarran]

If people are submitting an SSN that doesn't match their name to get a job, they're not engaging in identity theft. Yes, it can fuck up the SSN holders credit, and cause him problems down the road, but the fact that he can point out that the name isn't his will go along way to clearing up the mess.

A better idea is to stop requiring people to submit an SSN to the IRS to get paid. My guess is that this fraud is so widespread that the IRS can't enforce the rule any more than East German guards could hold back the flow of people into Western Berlin on November 9 1989. And that's a lovely thing.

In a free country you shouldn't need a government ID number to get a job.

[tarran]

Also the IRS isn't facilitating it, ie making it easier or assisting people in doing it. Rather they are turning a blind eye to it.

If the IRS were publishing SSN's for the use of the fraudsters *then* they would be facilitating it.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

I think if it's an agency's job to enforce a law and their policy is to openly not enforce that law, they are facilitating the breaking of that law. More people will do something if they believe there will be no consequences.

[John]

Rather they are turning a blind eye to it.

And when your job is to enforce the tax laws, turning a blind eye to it is facilitating it. Once people know that the IRS won't do anything about it, you will get more of it.

And I don't think you are doing the open boarders cause much good by telling natives that you are totally okay with illegals using the SSN number and fucking them over.

[tarran]

And I don't think you are doing the open boarders cause much good by telling natives that you are totally okay with illegals using the SSN number and fucking them over.

Noted.

[sarcasmic]

What do you mean? Freedom means asking permission and taking orders.

[John]

Freedom means the freedom to defraud someone else and run up debts in their name and ensure they can't file their taxes or get any tax return they are owed. Freedom means letting the politically correct brown people steal your shit.

[John]

You don't need someone else's SSN number to pay taxes. The IRS will happy give you a tax ID number and let you pay taxes and never report you to ICE.

Someone using your SS number can totally screw you. If they file their taxes first, you can't file yours. The IRS will kick it back and accuse you of fraud. If you are sick and don't work and don't file taxes or are in school and don't file taxes for a few years and one of these scum bags uses your SS number, you are screwed. Good luck getting the IRS to recognize you as the actual person.

Turning a blind eye to it is allowing illegals to totally fuck people. I know the Reason line is that no illegal ever does anything wrong and that there are no downsides whatsoever to illegal immigration. But I guarantee you the people being victimized by this would disagree. But what do they know? Don't they know that it is their job to suffer for the cause?

[tarran]

Turning a blind eye to it is allowing illegals to totally fuck people.

No, it is the IRS that is fucking people.

The Internal Revenue Service.

They create the incentives for people to commit the fraud. They're the ones who fuck over the innocent.

Nuke the IRS, and this sort of fraud becomes a non-problem.

[John]

So people who steal other people's identities are not screwing people over. Can you send me your SSN tarran? You won't mind me filing taxes in your name or running up a few debts will you?

[tarran]

Dude, using my ex-wife's tactics to obfuscate an argument isn't going to get you very far with me.

You're a elementary school chess-champion to her Kasparov.

All the problems you cite are created by the IRS's policies.

And, pointing out that cracking down on SSN fraud is doomed to failure is no more saying that I want people to get their lives ruined than pointing out the futility of drug prohibition means I want to inject your wife with a fatal dose of heroin I picked up at CVS.

The fact that the IRS is breaking down and failing to enforce its regs cheers me up because its a necessary step to living in a freer society; the politicians will never vote to reduce their power, instead, like its brother the Soviet Union, the US will grow more unwieldy and people will defy its edicts more and more, until eventually it collapses from an unwillingness of people to continue the charade of obeying it.

Do I like people having their credit ruined? No. But the only way to end it is for the IRS to stop demanding that employers give it a number for every person they hire.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

That would be a very good way for it to end, but it is far from the only way. You can say that they're forced into their fraud all you want, but at the end of the day there's still someone being defrauded. These may be artificial crimes but they aren't victimless.

[John]

And yes, it is the IRS's fault for not enforcing their own rules because they agree with you that it is every American's duty to let an illegal rob them.

[robc]

True open borders wouldnt need identity theft.

You could properly identify yourself.

You have contradicted yourself. Not surprising.

[John]

True open borders wouldnt need identity theft.

Yes they would, unless you plan to let criminals in, which last I looked open borders people swore they wouldn't let happen.

If you have even a single rule, someone is going to want to get in and not be able to and we will be right back where we are.

The bottom line is that you guys think it is everyone's duty to take it up the ass in the name of the holy grail of immigration.

[robc]

True open borders have no checks at all. Hence, open.

I dont favor that.

But criminals in the US use identity theft to cover up who they are too. So it isnt the immigration part causing that.

If you have even a single rule, someone is going to want to get in and not be able to and we will be right back where we are.

Do you not understand scaling issues? Reducing a problem by 98% doesnt eliminate it, but its good enough.

[sarcasmic]

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

Business student, 28, sues Los Angeles police officers after shattering her jaw during fall from moving patrol car while handcuffed

According to a paramedic report, the police officers said they were traveling at 10mph when the prisoner fell on to the road. However, the surveillance appears to capture the car traveling at a faster speed.

Golly. I wonder what else they lied about. And I wonder what will happen to them. Same thing that would happen if you or me lied in a similar situation? Haaaaaaaa ha ha ha ha! I see medals in the future for those brave liars. Medals and promotions.

[invisible furry hand]

Crikey!

Stingray named Steve Irwin attacks owner

[RBS]

Isn't that kind of asking for it?

[Snark Plissken]

"don't worry, they usually don't swim backwards."

[The Late P Brooks]

What incentive does the IRS have to refuse to accept payments?

I, for one, hope there are dozens of Mexicans (or Lithuanians) industriously contributing to my Social security account.

[John]

I, for one, hope there are dozens of Mexicans (or Lithuanians) industriously contributing to my Social security account.

When you go to file your taxes and the IRS refuse to take it and then start assessing penalties against you for not paying your taxes or refuse to give you your tax return and just keep your money because they won't accept your filing, you won't feel so good anymore.

Actually you might, As a Libertarian you should be happy to take it up the ass in the name of open boarders. Check your privilege Brooks.

[sarcasmic]

Open boarders?

[Eduard van Haalen]

"I think if I were a member of Congress I would vote against an authorization to use force here. I don't think it is in America's interest. I don't think we should in effect take sides in the Syrian conflict" - John Bolton, notorious appeaser and blame-America-firster

http://www.politico.com/story/.....96195.html

[VG Zaytsev]

Being betrayed and undercut by a fellow warmongering neo-con oughta send McCain into a rage.

Hopefully he'll stoke out from it.

[tarran]

*John Bolton*?!?

McCain has to be crying into his little pillow!

[The Late P Brooks]

McCain has to be crying into his little pillow!

"Oh, Lindsey, how could they do this to us?"

[Kaptious Kristen]

Cops + boats = good times

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

The owners were later arrested for interfering with an investigation.

[The Late P Brooks]

Open boarders?

The worstest kind.

And let's have some hate for those idiotic motherfuckers in Congress who actually write the tax laws the IRS may or may not be enforcing. We could start by ending this moronic fiction that Social Security is anything but a Ponzi scheme which is a subcategory of welfare payment. Stop pretending your payments go into some sort of personal account, and you don't need a SSN.

Of course, once we have our secure electronic national identification numbers and internal passports, in the form of an embedded RFID chip in our necks, all this will become moot.

[The Late P Brooks]

The owners were later arrested for interfering with an investigation a cover-up.