More Diplomacy on Syria, Teach for America Rocks, Al Qaeda … OMG NEW IPHONE, GUYS!: P.M. Links

• 

  Credit: ~think0

  Syria has agreed to declare its chemical weapons and stop producing them. Israeli officials have joined some American leaders in thinking the agreement by Syria to hand over chemical weapons to Russia is just a bid to buy time. Vladimir Putin says that for the agreement to work, the United States has to abandon the possibility of airstrikes.

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has broken from leadership and has announced that he opposes a military strike on Syria.
• A House bill to delay implementation of the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act for a year would save $35 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
• Al Qaeda is neither "decimated" nor "on the run," and United States intelligence knows it.
• Apple's new, improved iPhone was announced today, and the rest of this sentence doesn't even matter, does it?
• If your kid is fortunate enough to get a math teacher from the Teach for America program, a new study says he or she is likely getting the equivalent of an extra month of instruction over a traditional educator.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Vladimir Putin says that for the agreement to work, the United States has to abandon the possibility of airstrikes.

Putin twisting the knife just a little bit more.

[Sevo]

It takes an Obama to make Putin look like a statesman.

[Slammer]

Nice.

[wareagle]

check out a couple of lefty sites. People thanking Obama for his leadeship, courage, and diplomacy. It would be funny if not so sad.

[Slammer]

Obama is going act like he came up with the whole thing.

[playa manhattan]

Kerry is already taking credit.

[Marshall Gill]

Don’t forget his physical dominance over Putin. He is just soooo dreammy!!

/shriek

[Palin's Buttplug]

You’re right. He should have gone into Syria Texas cowboy style with 200,000 troops to show how macho he is.

[Almanian!]

Shorter shriek: derp

[Tonio]

Don’t feed it, Alma.

[Mainer2]

I would like to visit Almania some day.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

“He should have gone into Syria Texas cowboy style with 200,000 troops ”

Uh…that’s exactly what your peace of shit pres wanted to do. Thank God Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck were there to stop warmongers like you and Yobamma.

I misspelled peace on purpose. I’m just that fucking clever.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Of course you are lying.

But you are a conservative – it is all you have.

Go back and foist some Creationism on someone.

[Gbob]

Hell. I could care less if that nitwit stumbled into a solution or not. For me, I’m just happy we didn’t wind up with a full blown crisis like it looked like a few days ago.

[Pro Libertate]

It suddenly occurs to me how this could get worse and more embarrassing for the U.S. If Obama doesn’t accept the offer to turn over the chemical weapons and illegally attacks Syria, anyway.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Why would he do that? Are you just making shit up again?

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

Because he’s a warmongering imbecile who depends on sheep like you to pretend he’s MLK even after he illegally bombed Libya and then tried to launch an illegal war against Syria to bolster Jihadist savages who are probably responsible for the actual chemical attacks on civilians in the first place?

Just thinking out loud.

[Pro Libertate]

I doubt we’re going to attack now, but this whole episode has been handled so ineptly that I honestly don’t know what to expect. I feel like Crash Davis.

[A Secret Band of Robbers]

But merely turning over what weapons of mass destruction he has remaining is not enough. We now have evidence that Assad’s regime may have allowed Al Qaeda to acquire and deploy chemical weapons against civilians in Syria. If we intend to remain a leader among democracies, we cannot allow this action to go unpunished.

[Pro Libertate]

Huh?

[A Secret Band of Robbers]

I’m imagining what sort of boneheaded thing he could say to fuck this up even further. The best I’ve got is, “I know the situation is resolved and we’re probably going to make it worse, but dammit, I have to bomb SOMETHING!”

[MJGreen]

Why has he been doing any of this shit? Why hasn’t he taken the several previous opportunities to back off?

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Apple’s new, improved iPhone was announced today, and the rest of this sentence doesn’t even matter, does it?

You don’t need a new phone you idiots

[Fist of Etiquette]

I look forward to reading Gizmodo’s review of the prototype they found left in a bar somewhere.

[jesse.in.mb]

Best take on new iPhone I’ve seen.

[db]

That was very good

It reminds me of the Samsung commercial with all the people camped out in front of the Apple Store talking about how great it’s going to be:

“The headphone jack…is on the *bottom* now.”

*other guy makes head-exploding gesture*

[Almanian!]

Those commercials are teh clever

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

I like the MS ad where the iPad is talking about how much it sucks.

[db]

I love how they get Siri to say the lines for them.

[PapayaSF]

Oh, yuck-yuck.

– new fingerprint security sensor
– new 64-bit CPU that’s twice the speed
– new motion co-processor
– better camera
– better flash
– iOS 7
– iWork, iPhoto, and iMovie now free

Apple has a schedule of a new iPhone model followed by an upgrade: 4, 4S, 5, 5S. This is a pretty significant upgrade for an “S”.

[Apple Salesman]

We’ve got a live one over here!

[sgs]

Sad.

[PapayaSF]

Why “sad”? I’ve been an Apple fan since I got my first computer in 1988. They are quite good at what they do: design. And I don’t mean “glitz” or “packaging” or “marketing,” I mean design in the deepest, most profound sense. Many people don’t get it, and Apple products aren’t for everyone, but don’t be snide to the people who do get it.

My iPhone 3GS is coming up on four years old. Only with iOS 7, just coming out, will it not run the latest OS version. And the battery is getting pretty weak. How many four-year-old Android phones can do that? Hell, most new Android phones don’t even run the current version of Android, and will never run anything newer.

[A Secret Band of Robbers]

I agree that Apple is great at design, but you have to admit that their edge is a lot narrower than it used to be in, say, 2002. They’re not doing worse, it’s just that Google and Samsung are not as oblivious to design as Microsoft and the PC manufacturers were.

Apple is not losing to Android. But in a growing set of cases, they’re tied. When did they lose to Microsoft on anything except price and compatibility?

[PapayaSF]

Google and Android are indeed paying more attention, and are now aping Apple in a number of ways, because everyone has noticed how Apple is raking in the bucks. (For 1-2 years now, Apple has made more money from the iPhone than Microsoft makes from everything they do added together.)

Still, though, I’m not sure they “get it,” and even if they do, I’m not sure they can fully replicate it. That’s a whole ‘nother discussion. But Apple is still leading the industry in many ways, and it’s fascinating to watch it all play out. The new A7 processor is very powerful, which will make gaming on iOS even better. The motion co-processor is cool. I suspect that will be important with the rumored iWatch.

[Mickey Rat]

“Many people don’t get it, and Apple products aren’t for everyone,…”

That’s some profound douchebaggery there.

[VG Zaytsev]

Many people don’t get it, and Apple products aren’t for everyone, but don’t be snide to the people who do get it.

Translation: It’s not nice to make fun of retards.

[Ted S.]

Shouldn’t that be iDiots?

[Zeb]

What’s a Diot?

[Almanian!]

An aDiot is a person who doesn’t belieb in Apple.

Whereas an iDiot…

[Ted S.]

Man speaking into his IpHone: I’m looking for information on cults.

Siri: I see four Apple Stores in a 10-mile radius of your present location.

[Thane of the Candy Kingdom]

#HOLO or GTFO

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

A movie blogger irate about cellphone usage during a Toronto International Film Festival screening called 911 to report the offence.

[playa manhattan]

Using his cellphone?

[andarm16]

Of course.

[Ted S.]

That was not I.

[Marshall Gill]

Anal Vanneman?

[MP]

From the same country who calls the cops for NHL hits.

[Almanian!]

and the pussification of Ontario continues

[Fist of Etiquette]

A House bill to delay implementation of the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act for a year would save $35 billion over 10 years…

Delaying Obamacare is a red line that cannot be crossed!

[andarm16]

I love how Obama care is the disaster that keeps on giving. If only the mainstream media paid attention.

[Damned Fool]

If your kid is fortunate enough to get a math teacher from the Teach for America program, a new study says he or she is likely getting the equivalent of an extra month of instruction over a traditional educator.

But my progressive friends say that TFA is bad for the childrenz!

[playa manhattan]

Yeah, the union is trying to kill it by cutting off access to emergency teaching credentials in CA…

[Root Boy]

I’m sure Holder will be along soon enough to sue TFA since he’s all about protecting the childrens

[John]

REally? I thought TFA was a big thing for do gooder liberal kids to do.

And it goes to show that virtually anyone of average intelligence could do a better job teaching kids than the average public school teacher. These kids doing this are not geniuses. They are just good students who decided to spend a couple of years teaching. But that is a huge improvement over your typical education major I guess.

[Damned Fool]

It undercuts teachers’ unions and “is used as a resume filler by people who don’t care about the students,” apparently.

[Zeb]

That was my impression as well. At least when I was in college (which admittedly is some time ago at this point) it was something that liberal do gooders did. Because they did care about the children. And you could get federal loans forgiven.

[playa manhattan]

Bingo. You can major in something stupid at a really expensive private school and make the loans disappear in 2 years.

[John]

And still apparently be a much better teacher than the average union one.

[Acosmist]

Noooope. Where did you get that idea?

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Felipe Massa to leave Ferrari

he never was the same after the car crash in Hungary a few years back

[Mad Scientist]

I love Felipe, but his time has passed. He can linger around the paddock if he likes, but he’d be better of just retiring.

[JW]

Pretty much what you said.

Kimi or Hulkenberg? My guess is Kimi to Ferarri and Hulk to Lotus.

[Derpetologist]

Behold the lengths to which the MSM goes to avoid telling the truth about Islam:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LlLmSTK250

[Root Boy]

And pretty soon they’ll be selling burkhas in Hollister….wait, makes no sense. Trying to smartly mash up two news stories with no success.

[Andrew S.]

I’ve had an iPhone for 4.5 years now. First a 3, then a 4, and then a 5.

For the first time, I couldn’t care less about the new announcement. It’s nothing new. I’m getting whatever iteration of the Galaxy is out by the time my contract is up.

[Fist of Etiquette]

TRAITOR.

[Fist of Etiquette]

No, wait… iTraitor!

[Andrew S.]

I am the very definition of an Apple loyalist. I use a MacBook Pro and an iPad. I have an iPod Classic for music in my car. My wife uses an iMac, has an iPod nano in her car, and has an iPhone 4S.

But the phone… meh. Plus my brother’s (ex?) girlfriend has a Galaxy, and I have to admit I like it a lot.

Forgive me, Steven, for I have sinned.

[Jerry on the boat]

iPostate.

[BakedPenguin]

nice.

[andarm16]

I have the worlds cheapest most god awful droid, and I still love it. Of course, my last phone was a Symbian. So, make what you want of my endorsement of Android.

[C. Anacreon]

I love me my Samsung Galaxy 4. It makes my wife’s iPhone look like a chalkboard eraser.

[Cytotoxic]

Welcome to humanity Andrew. You don’t have to be an iTool forever now.

Android KILLS Apple anything. It is just superior in every way.

[PapayaSF]

And yet iPhone share grows in the US and a number of other countries, with many more Android users switching to iPhones than the other way around.

[sgs]

Oh my god you actually are one of those.

[PapayaSF]

BOO!

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Guys, let’s not fight. We can all come together in incredibly mean and petty ways to denigrate Windows Phone users, after all…

[Invisible Finger]

NSA feels the same way.

[Agammamon]

I’ve got the Galaxy SII and haven’t seen the need nor had the desire to upgrade – and now they’re rolling out the SV and I’m all ‘meh’.

Maybe its age, but I don’t feel the need to always have the best/fastest electronics anymore. I expect that one day soon I will just lie down to go to sleep and never bother to wake up again.

[Ska]

I had the first Galaxy S up until last month, when the power button was just too fucked up with dust particles and wasn’t responsive. I think I had the phone for a good four years, no screen cover, no case, and it worked absolutely fine until a month ago.

I picked up the S4, it’s great – but it’s not some monumentally different device than what I previously had. I did put a cover on it this time though…

[Coeus]

Just make sure you get the newest android OS. The new jellybean is lightyears ahead of any other android product. Freaking laundry list of features. I now no longer need a laptop for my personal life.

[Invisible Finger]

My next phone purchase, hopefully more than 5 years away, will be based on which company is least cooperative with NSA.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Al Qaeda is neither “decimated” nor “on the run,” and United States intelligence knows it.

I find a 10% reduction in Al Qaeda’s effectiveness plausible.

[jesse.in.mb]

I always thought it was destroy all but a tenth. Looking this up, I see I was wrong. Thank you FoE, I’ve learned something today because of you.

[Ted S.]

You’re wrong about a lot of things. :-p

[jesse.in.mb]

That’s hurtful Ted.

[Ted S.]

Don’t blame me. That joke wrote itself. 😉

[jesse.in.mb]

Oh, well then, I’m sorry I claimed you were being hurtful, Ted. I hope there are no hard feelings.

[Pro Libertate]

Al Qaeda is like an MLM scheme, where people just buy a franchise and the right to use the brand.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Sportscaster squeezes 41 Seinfeld references into his sportscast

[Almanian!]

What’s the deal with sportscasters?

[Nikki twerks hard for the $]

Buncha fast talkers.

[Slammer]

What the hell is going on with all the polls? I have to go with Christopher Hitchens on this one: Polls in and of themselves are not news. Using them to support a position is O.K. But to report a poll itself is not newsworthy. Who gives a shit what any number of people think about a particular subject at any given time?

[Ted S.]

They’re trying to gin up buzz to get page hits. Or something like that.

[Zeb]

No one is forcing you to read it all.

[MJGreen]

They paid good money for those polls!

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Darth Vader In A Kilt ? On A Unicycle ? Playing Bagpipes

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

We can all do without seeing your bizarre Canadian mating ritual, Archduke.

[Eduard van Haalen]

This answers two questions at once: What could make bagpipes more annoying, and what could make Darth Vader more evil?

[jesse.in.mb]

Mr. Vader needs to do more calf raises and get some sun before he goes out in a kilt again.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has broken from leadership and has announced that he opposes a military strike on Syria.

Code Red, Code Red! The Turtle is out of its shell! The Turtle is out of his shell!

[Fist of Etiquette]

He had that finger in the air long enough, I guess.

[andarm16]

This is one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

[Marshall Gill]

How in the fuck does the Minority Leader break from himself?

[robc]

I think he is the only leader in either party, in either house, to oppose the war in Syria.

[ant1sthenes]

Well, technically, Prince Thing-From-Below is the party leader.

[Drake]

Are they still going to debate this shit? Sounds like it’s all over except the embarrassment.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry published this lead essay at Cato Unbound:

The Libertarian Case for National Military Service

“…Libertarians often hold up Switzerland as an example, and they are right to. Outside of some microstates, Switzerland is easily the richest country on Earth. It has been at peace for almost all its history. It is a shining example of democracy.

“Switzerland also has mandatory military service.”

http://www.cato-unbound.org/20…..ry-service

If this isn’t comment bait, I’m not a master baiter.

[John]

WTF? Really? CATO is now shilling for the draft? Wow.

[PapayaSF]

A “lead essay” is not necessarily an official position.

[John]

It is on their site. If they don’t endorse it, don’t put it there.

[PapayaSF]

I don’t think the Reason Foundation officially endorses the position taken by every article here, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think Cato does on their site, either.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

It’s Cato Unbound. It’s a debate forum. They once published an essay by PZ Myers. Call off the dogs.

[MJGreen]

Sigh. Come on John.

Cato Unbound is a monthly debate. It’s an opinion piece to start the argument, not an endorsement, and the first reply (sure to be against) is by the editor of the journal.

[Agammamon]

Even the best think-tanks hire someone who writes derpy articles every once in a while.

I got in an argument with Ben Southwood at the Adam Smith Institute on whether or not the state has a right to your organs after death – he’s all for it.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Cato Unbound /= the Cato Institute.

[Slammer]

There’s nothing like having someone to defend your life who resents the whole deal.

[Derpetologist]

Odd that a country that has the least need for a military has a draft.

Also odd that the a country founded on the principle of not having a standing army ended up with one of the largest ones ever.

[Generic Stranger]

To be fair, the Swiss haven’t needed a military precisely because they have the draft. The fact that a large percentage of the population is ready to go Rambo on a moment’s notice, combined with the terrain, has made Switzerland an extremely unappealing place to attack.

There’s an apocryphal story from WWI that goes something like this:

Shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: “You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?” The soldier replied: “We will shoot twice and go home.”

They’re poster children for the “walk softly and carry a big stick” policy.

However, with our much larger population, we don’t really need a draft for the same deterrence factor, just a large number of armed citizens. Even untrained, several million people taking potshots at your invading army is going to make occupying damn near impossible. Quantity has a quality all its own.

[Stormy Dragon]

I’m glad that the Koch Brothers takeover in CATO has in no way resulted in the organization gradually being packed with neocons who only pretend to be libertarian.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Yeah Stormy, that’s what happened.

This is conspiracy stupidity worthy of Rockwell’s site.

[Cytotoxic]

SD is one of our dumber commenters.

[Stormy Dragon]

Not really a conpiracy. They got tired donating money to an organization that was more worried about ideological consistancy than winning elections, so they replaced board members with people whose background was in Republican Party mechanics rather than libertarian theory.

Next thing you know, CATO is backing the draft and gun control.

[Cytotoxic]

they replaced board members with people whose background was in Republican Party mechanics rather than libertarian theory.

1) Citation needed 2) Allison has no background in party mechanics.

[RBS]

Shorty Stormy: It’s not a LRC conspiracy because I say it isn’t.

[John]

And CATO was so not beltway before all this. Seriously, do you even think sometimes?

[Cytotoxic]

Or CATO was having these problems long before KocHS took over which you’d know if you weren’t dumb.

[John]

The funny thing about that article is the guy who wrote it wouldn’t last five minutes in basic training. If there ever was an argument against the draft, it is that it would include drafting guys like him.

[Root Boy]

I hate when people use Switzerland or Sweden as an example to support their policies. Worst analogies ever. But I do like telling people Denmark has a private health insurance market.

[Root Boy]

I hate when people use Switzerland or Sweden as an example to support their policies. Worst analogies ever. But I do like telling people Denmark has a private health insurance market.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Switzerland has an interesting system that has been good for them… but no.

They are an alpine, landlocked state with numerous (formerly bellicose) neighbors. Defense strategies that maximize attrition — such as an armed citizenry — are good for that circumstance.

That strategy makes no sense for a nation with a long coastline and whose only neighbors are 1) friendly and 2) are in no way peer competitors.

As stupid as Ron Paul’s comment about being able to defend America with a few subs was, it’s less stupid than this suggestion.

[John]

The Swiss also have what amounts to a citizens’ militia where large numbers of people keep assault rifles in their homes ready for use. I don’t think this douche bag would like that very much.

[Irish]

It’s Cato, not Salon. He might actually be totally okay with people keeping guns in their homes. Doesn’t make him less of a douchebag.

[Bill Dalasio]

I’m by no stretch of the imagination a believer in conscription, but I’d say the Swiss case is unique

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C…..witzerland

In practice, it looks a lot more like a citizens’ militia training.

[James Redford]

My reply to Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry’s article “The Libertarian Case for National Military Service” (Cato Unbound, Sept. 9, 2013) is at the following link:

JamesRedford, “The Libertarian Case for National Military Service”, Reddit, Sept. 11, 2013. http://reddit.com/r/Libertaria…..y_service/

[John]

http://www.khou.com/video/feat…..74081.html

Deputy beats up entire family while on dash cam. Actually charged for it. It is funny how whenever there is a rape at a frat house the media does nothing but talk about the larger meaning and the culture. Or if some soldier or Marine does something bad in a combat zone it is always indicative of something larger. We love to talk about larger meanings and “culture of this or that” in this country. That is except when it comes to cops. A cop beats, murders and or terrorizes someone bad enough to make the news and often get themselves charged with a crime nearly every day in this country, every single day. And no one, other than Radly Balko ever asks if maybe there is something wrong with the culture of law enforcement in this country.

Look at this tape. The guy is a total maniac. That doesn’t just happen or come out of nowhere. Either he was a complete nut and the department didn’t care or they created an environment where he thought this kind of behavior was acceptable.

[Andrew S.]

I’m surprised he was charged… but he wasn’t charged like a non-officer would have been charged doing the same thing (“Official oppression”? Really?) and nothing else happened to his fellow officers who stood around and watched him and did nothing.

[John]

How do you do that? It would be like me deciding to go MMA on the next store clerk who gives me the wrong change. It is so violent. It is so over the top. You don’t just wake up one day and decide to do that. That builds up over time. That is the result of being in a culture where casual violence and total dehumanization of the populace is both condoned and encouraged.

[Andrew S.]

And if you decided to go all MMA on the next store clerk who gives you the wrong change, you’d be looking at a whole lot worse than 1 year in jail.

And yes. I’m not sure if it’s encouraged (though their hiring practices indicate that it might be), but it’s definitely condoned. It’s not going to stop unless a majority of people wake up to this stuff; but unfortunately, most people are of the “cops can do no wrong” or “he/she deserved the beating” mindset.

[BakedPenguin]

There was a post here about a year ago comparing two different police recruiting videos. One was basically a come-on for adrenaline junky thugs who like to smash things, and the other was for actual peace officers. The contrast was stark.

[John]

One of my friends used to teach at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center down in Georgia. He said that nearly all of his students were basically bullies who wanted the job as a way to bully and get paid.

[BakedPenguin]

Here’s the link to the Balko story. Looks like your buddy’s students would avoid Decatur.

[Raston Bot]

nothing else happened to his fellow officers who stood around and watched him and did nothing

This is where law enforcement culture causes the most damage. Instead of intervening, they cover-up afterward. I would like to see their official statements of what happened. There is no doubt in my mind this would have gone nowhere if not for the dashboard camera.

[C. Anacreon]

Yep, look what they did to Serpico.

[Coeus]

As we’ve seen before, intervening is the only thing that can always get them fired.

[Slammer]

I can never figure out why all the cops who claim to serve and protect the people never tackle and handcuff, or tase, or shoot other pigs who are doing that shit on the spot.

[Marshall Gill]

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to rationalize it.

[Zeb]

“Official oppression”

Seems appropriate. That’s a capital crime, right? (In my fantasy world, the death penalty is reserved for government agents who abuse their power)

[Juice]

mmm, China

[Rich]

“Reasonable jurors could determine that by offering Khan one option — to remove her hijab despite her religious beliefs — Abercrombie acted with malice, reckless indifference or in the face of a perceived risk that its actions violated federal law.”

The company, which focuses on hip casual wear for consumers aged 18 to 22, has a policy against head covers of any kind for its employees.

So, Jews & Muslims should boycott A&F.

[John]

They market to a group. You couldn’t get a job there if you were an old bald fat white guy either. You have to be a young douche bag to work there because they sell to young douche bags. It is their move. They should be allowed to make it.

[db]

So did she wear it during her interview?

[Rich]

*Excellent* question.

[Rich]

As an “impact associate,” she worked primarily in the stockroom. At first she was asked to wear headscarves in Hollister colors, which she agreed to do. However, in mid-February, she was informed that her hijab violated Abercrombie’s “look policy,” an internal dress code, and was told she would be taken off schedule unless she removed her headscarf while at work.

“Get back in the kitchen!”

[Marshall Gill]

Without reading the article, why in the fuck can’t a business have a dress code which excludes burkas? Or crosses or Stars of David for that matter? Even for employees hidden way in the back? Can you disallow Swastikas?

[Pro Libertate]

When the government controls everything, then its rules apply to everything.

[Eduard van Haalen]

And they seem to apply more effort to *violating* religious freedom at private businesses than they do in protecting it.

[Pro Libertate]

Anti-discrimination laws are one of those areas where the slippery slope indeed seems quite frictionless.

[Bam!]

MadTV had an epic Abercromie skit.

[Andrew S.]

Back when Congress was debating all those stupid gun control measures, the progressives were all talking about how since such an overwhelming %age of people were for “common sense gun control”, Congress had to pass something, and that by failing to do so they were failing the people, or something like that.

Why aren’t they making the same claims with respect to the upcoming Syria vote?

(rhetorical, I know)

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

The Countess of Carnarvon, chatelaine of Highclere Castle, where ‘Downton Abbey’ is filmed, says the drama has the etiquette all wrong. But is she right?

[Ska]

I was there. I was up to my knees in rice paddies, with guns that didn’t work! Going in there, looking for Charlie, slugging it out with him; While pussies like you were back here partying, putting headbands on, doing drugs, and listening to the goddamn Beatle albums! Oh! Oh! Oh!

[NeonCat]

And using the wrong fork, don’t forget that.

[Mad Scientist]

…the equivalent of an extra month of instruction over a traditional educator.

That’s an awfully low bar to hurdle.

[C. Anacreon]

Hurdle? That bar is impossible to limbo under.

[Marshall Gill]

The collectivization of “education” is a human right!

[Mad Scientist]

OK, I’ll admit it’s more of a tripping hazard than a hurdle.

[db]

Vladimir Putin says that for the agreement to work, the United States has to abandon the possibility of airstrikes.

What will it say for the state of American constitutional republicanism if the President of Russia has more influence over the President of the United States than the Congress of the United States does?

[John]

Sure Vlad. We promise not to bomb. Trust us. Whatever. God, I wish Obama would just shut the fuck up and stop this shit.

[RBS]

His presidency needs to end. Preferably quickly rather than this long, slow death he’s subjecting the country to at moment.

[John]

He has left us with the choice of being punked as a nation by Putin or fighting a totally pointless, dangerous and illegal war.

[Pro Libertate]

I said this elsewhere–we need federal recall.

[db]

Get yoah ahss to the polls!

[Pro Libertate]

We should just spontaneously do it. Send in your recall vote to the White House petition site.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

More men buying sex toys

[Slammer]

I thought buying women was illegal.

[OldMexican]

Racist!

No, wait.

Sexist!

[Ted S.]

You forgot to add that this is why there are no female libertarians.

[jesse.in.mb]

So there are no libertarian women because the regulatory climate does not allow libertarian men to buy women and tell them they are now libertarians?

Market failure!

[Coeus]

Ten to one, there will be an article on Jezebel about this, calling them losers, or some such.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Premium-grade projection, courtesy our favorite feminist:

In their heart of hearts, many to most conservatives clearly believe the country belongs to them, and that the rest of us are interlopers. That’s why there’s so much resistance to the Medicaid expansion, for instance. Excluding people that aren’t “real Americans” from the health care system matters more than saving money. That’s why the election of Barack Obama has created such a meltdown, with the specific focus on gerrymandering and voter ID laws to reduce the amount of representation of people who aren’t older white conservatives.

“When they don’t just uncomplainingly do all the things I want and believe all the things I believe, that’s tyranny!”

[John]

Goes back to what I said on the other thread. She is a totalitarian. To a totalitarian nothing can exist in opposition to her world view. The mere fact that conservatives dare to exist, is them imposing their will on her. Everything that is opposed to her world view must be assimilated or destroyed.

[Damned Fool]

Manichean thought for the win!

[Slammer]

In their heart of hearts, many to most conservatives

Nice writing.

[Irish]

In her defense, that’s the best sentence she’s ever written.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I posted that earlier. The blog post is one giant non-sequitur since she moves on to harp about ‘Red states’ having higher teen and unplanned pregnancies?

Gee, maybe because more people are moving there for better economic opportunities?

[John]

It is not a non sequitur if you remember that she thinks that the entire world is made up of the state and everything in the world either conforms to her ideology or must be destroyed.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I think she mixed up her talking points in her handbag — earlier today, she posted an OP about how “hysteria” about teen sex was overwrought due to declining teenage birth rates.

[a better weapon]

The blog post is one giant non-sequitur since she moves on to harp about ‘Red states’ having higher teen and unplanned pregnancies?

Is that supposed to validate her belief in the hypocrisy of Red States or that conservative children are clueless about sex? To me, that just means there are less people getting abortions in a red state vs a blue state.

[OldMexican]

many to most conservatives clearly believe the country belongs to them, and that the rest of us are interlopers.

“Poor souls, they realize not that the country really belongs to US and that THEY are the REAL interlopers, so they should pay for your birth control.”

[Andrew S.]

Sometimes, when she wants to be a brat, my daughter will start crying/whining, saying “You’re not doing the things that I want you to do!”

I expect her to grow out of that. Apparently Ms. Marcotte didn’t.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Like a lot of other shitlibs, her philosophy can be summed up with “FUCK YOU, DAD!”

[PapayaSF]

Yeah, because Democrats and progressives are such foes of gerrymandering!

[Irish]

Who ever heard of the Democrats gerrymandering a district?

[PapayaSF]

The official federal “civil rights” practice is to gerrymander to create “minority-majority” districts like that. Republicans go along with it because it concentrates Democrats, but it’s Democrats who push it the hardest.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Yep my district (Sheila Jackson Lee) looks like that. The Democrats incumbents here in Texas definitely work with the Republicans to protect their asses.

[Boisfeuras]

That is not the case in Maryland, which has been a virtual one-party Democrat state since the 1890s. The 3rd district is majority white, and several other MD districts look just as bad. The reason is that Baltimore and everything between it are solid Democrat, so all the districts tuck into that area to ensure a safe Democrat edge. Maryland’s latest gerrymandering was to dilute conservative panhandle voters in the 6th district to get rid of Roscoe Barlett.

[Boisfeuras]

*Baltimore and everything between it and DC

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Matt Yglesias has a Twitter, wherein — what the fuck?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIS FACE

Yglesias’ Twitter profile pic

Tommy Wiseau

See the difference? Me, neither.

[db]

“He has a catcher’s mitt for a face!”

[Andrew S.]

“Yglesias” should be a banned word on Reason. Or at least it should carry a trigger warning. Same with “Marcotte” and “Krugman”.

[db]

So you’re saying a sentence like

“Yglesias used a turkey baster to inseminate Marcotte with Krugman’s seed.”

would be a problem for you?

[Damned Fool]

*Wilhelm scream*

[db]

Frankly I’m hoping SugarFree will run with this.

[SugarFree]

Even I have a gag reflex.

[Andrew S.]

I dislike you.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

“His own name is a killing word.”

[John]

He is not right.

[Coeus]

I am getting ridiculously sick of the purposefully shitty studies done by feminists.

Ten thousand men from six countries took part in the survey.

It is the first multi-country study to examine how widespread violence against women is and the reasons behind it.

Of those who admitted rape, just under half said they had done so more than once.

The prevalence of rape varied between countries.

In Papua New Guinea, more than six out of 10 men surveyed admitted forcing a woman to have sex.

It was least common in urban areas of Bangladesh, where it was just under one in 10 and Sri Lanka where it was just over one in 10.

In Cambodia, China and Indonesia it ranged from one in five to almost half of all men surveyed.

Men were asked questions like:

Have you ever had sex with your partner when you knew she didn’t want to but you thought she should agree because she’s your wife/ partner?

Never once asking if they obtained consent

They are bound and determined to make the regular give and take of sex in a relationship rape (but only for men, They never ask this question of women).

[OldMexican]

“Have you ever had sex with your partner when you knew she didn’t want to but you thought she should agree because she’s your wife/ partner?”

“Huh? What?”

“That would be a ‘Yes’. Thank you for participating!”

And that is how polls are done.

[Coeus]

It would be trivially easy to do a real survey, not to mention a whole hell of a lot more useful to their cause. This shit is fucking blatant.

[C. Anacreon]

Yep. The recently passed, coercive central-planning scheme Plan Bay Area (everyone should live in apartment buildings near transit, houses with yards are “inefficient land use” and should be bulldozed and replaced with apartments via eminent domain) was met by over 90% opposition at the “public input” meetings. So they decided to disregard all public input and contracted for a telephone poll instead.

The poll asked only one question: “Plan Bay Area is a plan to increase housing choices, improve transportation, and reduce unemployment, while also lowering greenhouse gases emissions. Do you think such a plan is important? Yes or no.”

No more information or specifics about the Plan were given. Unsurprisingly enough to such a question, over 75% said “yes” that such a plan was important. Never did they even say they would support this plan, only that it sounded important.

The people behind Plan Bay Area then went out and said over 75% of Bay Area people support Plan Bay Area (which in fact doesn’t do any of the things it said in that question, in fact, mostly the opposite.) But of course, the statists that dominate all local media (which is either left-wing or extreme left wing) all reported nothing but that — over 75% of locals support this wonderful plan, and anyone opposed is either ‘uninformed’ or one of those drooling tea-baggers.

[Mickey Rat]

That question is ambiguous as to whether a respondant considering the plan important should be considered support.

[ant1sthenes]

It would be trivially easy to do a similar poll in the U.S., but turned around (“Have you (male) ever had sex with your (female) partner when you didn’t want to, but you thought you should because of the wishes of your wife/ partner?”)

Then trumpet the percentage of men who have been raped by women.

[Thane of the Candy Kingdom]

Speaking of iPhones, are Occupiers going to boycott Apple now?

Apple purchases connecters for its blockbuster-selling mobile devices from Molex. Sales to Apple accounted for some 14% of Molex’s total revenue of $3.62 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30.

Now Koch can absorb Molex and become a supplier to Apple.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

THE health benefits of drinking wine have long been argued and now new research suggests a glass of red may be even more better for you than first thought.

[Ted S.]

And yet if you were to try to advertise your wine this way, the “public health” advocates would have a screaming fit.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Has Nikki been posting her lately? If not, *lights Nikki signal*

Penguin chicks go on display at Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.

[playa manhattan]

I’m taking my kids to see them after school today. And possibly seeking out delicious BBQ in the process…

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Naples Rip Company is pretty good.

[playa manhattan]

Reading up on Yelp right now. Just found out that Porky’s closed. Shame, I think I was the only non EBT customer they ever had….

[BakedPenguin]

I’m taking my kids to see them after school today. And possibly seeking out delicious BBQ in the process…

hey, Hey, HEY!

[Bobarian]

Hmmm…

Barbequed penguin

/Homer drooling sound

[Ted S.]

Has Nikki been posting her what lately?

[ducking]

[Nikki twerks hard for the $]

I like you, Ted S. That was good.

[Ted S.]

See, Right Honorable Serious Man? I know how to get Nikki to show up here. 😉

[Thane of the Candy Kingdom]

I like you, Ted S.

*Nikki and Ted, sitting in a tree*
*K-I-S-S-I-N-G*
*first comes love*
*then comes marriage*
*then comes Warty*
*in a rapey carriage*

[Mad Scientist]

Did he get that back? I thought it was still in the shop getting the bars reinforced.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

A GEORGIAN mother devastated at the death of her son has kept his mummified remains preserved for the past 18 years.

[jesse.in.mb]

Aww, that’s so sweet!

NEXT UP ON BODY HOARDERS…

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Warty was the premiere episode.

[OldMexican]

Does not pretend that she’s talking to him or anything, thank God!

[Aloysious]

“Rock legend speaks out against the oil sands and Big Oil at a conference in Washington, calling Fort McMurray, Alta., a ‘wasteland'”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com…..e14213715/

Not really a surprise…

[John]

Can we please stop pretending Neil Young is any good? He is a legend in his nitwitt boomer fans’ minds.

[Killazontherun]

There once was a Neil Young fan who inhabited the same body as I. I don’t know how he ceased to be, or came to be for that matter, except for the possibility of a future self going back in time, strangling him, and excising the positive Neil Young thoughts from his brain through nano-surgery and reviving him back to life. Must have fixed some tone deafness while he was at it, as I can’t stand to hear his voice now.

[John]

I don’t care about his politics. It is just that I woke up one day and one of his songs was playing and it just dawned on me how lousy his voice is and how much he sucks. His music doesn’t swing at all. It is always just the same bland, gungy shit. I really fucking hate it.

[Zeb]

I’m not a fan, but I wouldn’t say he’s no good. Maybe a bit overrated.

[ant1sthenes]

Well, I don’t need him around, anyhow.

[Slammer]

The “Let’s Roll” guy?

[Killazontherun]

Record Breaking 3:29 Minute Mile Causes Mathematicians To Throw Traditional Calculus Out The Window:

It was never suppose to happen this way. For over a hundred years, statisticians using the tools Leibniz and Newton gave them, have been able to track the extent of asymptotic limitations to the feasibility of records being broken. Alan Webb earlier this week rendered the prevailing assumptions useless when he was clocked at 3:29.41, beating out his previous fete of 3:46.91.

Commenting on the growing controversy, Professor Garold Davidson, Dept. of Applied Mathematics at Northwestern stated, ‘This goes well beyond an internal dispute within our sometimes hermetic seeming community. From the conclusions we have been forced to reached, so far, we have been extremely, mind bogglingly lucky with every computation that has been applied to augment human decision making. What this means for moon shots, autopiloting jet planes, precision guided missiles . . .’ At this point in the conversation, Dr. Davidson stood blankly with a pencil pressed to his lip. ‘Oooooh, there never has been such a thing. Lies! Damn, lies!’ He stammered off ignoring our inquiries at that point.

Asked for a clarification from a colleague, the twice winner of the top honors for mathematical research placed a finger between his lips and started flipping the bottom one while repeating ‘bu bu bu bu bu bu.’

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Linky no worky.

[Killazontherun]

What’s there to link to? I just like the color red.

[robc]

Appears to be a completely bogus story, as Webb’s best time is 3:46.91. Google knows nothing of this 3:29 bullshit.

[John]

No one is running a 3:29 mile. And if they did, it would be a problem for physics not calculus.

[Killazontherun]

Nope. Physics could deal with it just fine so long as it under the speed of light.

[John]

But there are limits to what the body can take and do. That would butt against that in a big way.

[Killazontherun]

Calculus is the study of asymptotic limitation, physics butts up against it calculus is applied.

[Killazontherun]

BTW, Doherty had a post on Barry Malzberg, today. I thought it would be nice to do a little slash fic to ape his style.

[Killazontherun]

Didn’t mean to confuse anyone, well too much!

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Income inequality: Top 1% took home almost 20% of national income in 2012

The top 1% of earners in the U.S. pulled in 19.3% of total household income in 2012, which is their biggest slice of total income in more than 100 years, according to a an analysis by economists at the University of California, Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics at Oxford University.

The richest Americans haven’t claimed this large of a slice of total wealth since 1927, when the group claimed 18.7%. The analysis is based on data from Internal Revenue Service data.

One of the economists behind the research, Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, is a top researcher in the topic of wealth and income inequality. He won the John Bates Clark medal last year. The Clark medal is awarded to the most promising economists under the age of 40. Past winners have includes Paul Krugman of Princeton University, Lawrence Summers and Steve Levitt, co-author of “Freakonomics.”

Sounds like he gets paid to think of different ways to harp on the same data points.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Sort of kills the argument for a flat tax.

[John]

Only if you look at taxes as a way to steal as much as possible.

[OldMexican]

Ah, Shrieky – Another economically illiterate baboon.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I know right? Since the tax system is currently flat and not embedded with preferences and distortions, this proves it!

[Invisible Finger]

The top 1% received 100% of the bailouts shreek was in favor of.

[ant1sthenes]

Why, was the flat tax sold as a way to address income inequality? Shit, I forgot that I was talking to someone incapable even of sophistry, much less actual logic.

[OldMexican]

One of the economists behind the research, Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, is a top researcher in the topic of wealth and income inequality.

Which pretty much is the working definition of “charlatan”.

The richest Americans haven’t claimed this large of a slice of total wealth since 1927

Maybe because there’s no such slice. There had to be a TRADE that led to that income, you economically iliterate baboons.

[Invisible Finger]

The idiot (which could be the journalist writing this shit) uses “income” and “wealth” as synonyms.

[Drake]

Even worse, he equates “reported income” with income. What the Kennedy’s make in Fiji and what they report in the U.S. are very different.

[andarm16]

I want to know what percent of the tax burden those one percenters paid. Something tells me it’s way over twenty percent, considering the large number Americans that pay no taxes.

It’d probably also to know how big that one percent was then and now. Something tells me, that there are a lot more people on that list. This isn’t the nineteenth century anymore, where everyone who was anyone could fit in one ballroom.

[OldMexican]

Re: andarm16,

I want to know what percent of the tax burden those one percenters paid

Leave that aside. How can this so-called economist reconcile “The richest Americans haven’t claimed this large of a slice [sic]” with economic reality? The economy is not a pie one carves but an ever-increasing smorgasbord.

[BakedPenguin]

What percentage of wealth did they create?

[Pro Libertate]

Unfair! Unmutual! Report to the camp! And not the nice one!

[BakedPenguin]

*sigh* That’s what I get for asking pertinent questions.

[Pro Libertate]

The only pertinent question you’ll be asking from now on is whether that’s water coming out of the shower head!

[Derpetologist]

A rare moment of truth from Chomsky:

“there are plenty of people who don’t want students to think”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEgCQyE9qE

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Yeah, but you know that to Chomsky that just means that we aren’t teaching kids to hate the Zioni–JOOOOOOOOOOS enough or to realize that Pol Pot was just an all-around great guy.

[Derpetologist]

I recall Sowell saying something like stupid ideas tend flourish in places like universities because in those places, there is no attempt to connect ideas to results.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Wisconsin golf course apologizes for advertising 9/11 special

A Wisconsin golf course offered special rates to golfers who made tee times for Wednesday, the 12th anniversary of the September 11th attack. Tumbledown Trails put a coupon in the Wisconsin State Journal that advertised a $9.11 rate for 9 holes and a $19.11 rate for the full 18.
[snip]
This is the third year the golf course has offered a 9/11 promotion, but the first year anyone complained about it.

There’s no outrage like hollow outrage.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Do they charge extra to have some asshole politician stand on some rubble and yell into a bullhorn?

[C. Anacreon]

No, but you have to pay extra to play from the red line tees.

[Ted S.]

It only took me about three days to get sick and tired of the “everything has to come to a standstill for 9/11” attitude.

The NCAA let the individual conferences decide whether or not they were going to play games that weekend, and all of them decided to reschedule that week’s games — except the SEC. The “OMG how could play football at a time like this” shrieking from the northeast coast-based sports writers more or less bullied the SEC into not playing.

Frankly, by that Friday I wanted to get back to some semblance of normalcy.

[a better weapon]

My brother lives down Mineral Point road from this place. Just golfed there in June with him the morning of his wedding.

Shit course, but this… this will bring me back at least one more time.

[Invisible Finger]

Can I play 2 9-hole rounds and save even more?

[Bill Dalasio]

Honestly, I don’t get it. If we’re over 9/11 enough to provide air support to Al Qaeda, we should be over it enough to have 9/11 sales.

“Let’s roll…back prices!!”

[Derpetologist]

Oh jeez, on Syrian TV, journalist suggests US and Israel be attacked with chemical weapons. Ballsy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqglEK2oI4A

[Andrew S.]

They can try it. I’m not sure they’d like the results. Especially if they did it to Israel. I’m not sure there would be anything left of Damascus, and that would only take a day or two, assuming the US didn’t step in and screw things up (which would almost assuredly happen)

[andarm16]

We’d kill more folks in thirty to thirty five minutes then Assad could kill in a lifetime, hands down. (That’d be counting the American, British and other Nato country civilians killed in Russia’s response to our nuclear launch though.)

[John]

Yeah. There wouldn’t be a Syria left to debate over. We would have to. You couldn’t let it be known that everyone gets a free WMD shot at the old USA.

[Pro Libertate]

I doubt we’d do that when we could rather easily topple the government. Now we might put Assad on the outside of a rocket and launch him into space in that situation, but I doubt seriously we’d kill a lot of civilians in response.

[Generic Stranger]

Any response would kill civilians. The only difference would be how many. Even as precise as our weaponry has gotten, there still isn’t a way to completely eliminate civilian casualties.

[ant1sthenes]

Russia isn’t going to nuke us over bombing Syria to rubble. The sheer scale of the atrocity will make us an international pariah, which counts as a win for them. Russia will bribe its way into the good graces of the people that colonize Syria, and the anti-Israelis will finally get their way if Israel is involved.

[ant1sthenes]

Oh, our nuclear launch. Misread. Still, doubt it.

[Bill Dalasio]

I’m not so sure about the U.S. as international pariah part. If a nation gets attacked with WMDs, it’s pretty well a given that they have the right to retaliate in kind. And frankly, none of the Great Powers are going to be willing to throw that standard under the bus. If they did, the Russians have a lot more enemies than we do that might then start to look at evening up their relative disadvantage with conventional weapons.

[Drake]

Always been U.S. policy to reserve the right to respond to a nuclear, biological, or nuclear (NBC) attack in kind. In other words, nukes.

[ant1sthenes]

I doubt it. I mean, it depends on how many people die here, obviously. But at least under a sane administration there is no chance we will risk Armageddon over a couple hundred people dying in a gas attack. We might conventionally do some serious fucking damage, though.

[Tejicano]

“under a sane administration ”

Since when have we had one of those?

O’Bozo was frothing at the mouth for a chance to lob a few cruise missles into Damascus over the reports that somebody had been using chem weapons there. If he had iron-clad proof that Syria had dumped chem weapons in the USA O’Bozo would have a war-boner big enough to embarass an elephant.

I’m not convinced he would go full-blow nuclear immediately but of the past 5 administrations I would put his near the top of the list of those which would.

[Drake]

I doubt Obama would use nukes if soldiers in the field were gassed. (there would not be many casualties anyhow)

A chemical attack in the U.S. by another country, Obama probably would. Any other President and it would be definite and the Russians and Chinese wouldn’t do anything – because their response would be the same.

[Bill Dalasio]

Exactly. And it would have to be the same. The Great Powers have a huge advantage in conventional weapons. That’s precisely why they find breaking out the WMDs unacceptable.

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

A health-care advocacy group says a dementia patient at a long-term care home in southern Alberta is recovering after a staff member found mice nibbling at her face.

[Damned Fool]

Coming soon to facilities near you!

[NeonCat]

Look, they brought in the mice to eat the bedbugs that have been infesting the place for nine months. Things just got out of hand, that’s all. As soon as the requisition for the cats to eat the mice is approved this problem will mostly go away.

[Root Boy]

Can’t wait for a Hill-dog and Fauxahontas cat fight in 2016:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/a…..o-now.html

Plus, have H&R commentors ever discussed if Daniel Gross is more punchable than Klein and/or some of the other Obama fluffers?

[Palin's Buttplug]

No one has a more punchable face than uber douchebag Tucker Carlson.

[Root Boy]

Maybe so, but Gross was the classic recovery summer! asshole for the last few years. But I hear you agree with that.

[Irish]

His face is very punchable. Let’s have a vote: Tucker Carlson or Ezra Klein.

I posted a picture of Tucker without his bow tie because the bow tie would have made everyone immediately want to punch him, even though it has nothing to do with his face. I feel like that would skew the results. It’s the same reason I left off the picture of Ezra Klein wearing a fedora.

[Nikki twerks hard for the $]

The bow tie makes me want to kiss him. Just putting it out there.

But anything makes me want to punch Ezra Klein.

[Irish]

God, first Ted and now Tucker Carlson?

Keep it in your pants, hussy.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I posted a picture of Tucker without his bow tie because the bow tie would have made everyone immediately want to punch him

Fuck. You.

–Bow-Tie Wearer since 1989

[BakedPenguin]

Pretty sure Sheldon Richman approves of your comment, too.

[Generic Stranger]

Ezra Klein. Hands down.

[Raston Bot]

Is Hillary in serious contention? Seems like she fucked up quite a lot lately.

[Root Boy]

Among Dems, I think she’s still golden (except for that mean article on Clinton Foundation in the NYT). She’s the best SOS ever according to some.

[Art Vandelay]

IT’S A WOMAN’S TURN!!!!!1!!!!

[Tejicano]

Yup, the position of POTUS is now a drinking fountain.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Study indicates that men with smaller testicles are more nurturing and attentive fathers

Their new study shows that men with smaller testicles tend to be more nurturing fathers, more willing to change a diaper than their counterparts toting larger testes.

“Our data suggest that the biology of human males reflects a trade-off between investments in mating versus parenting effort,” James Rilling, an associate professor of anthropology at Emory, said in a statement.

For the study, published Sept. 9 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers recruited 70 fathers who had a biological child between ages 1 and 2, and who lived in a home with the child and its biological mother.

Matching up biological families was crucial because the researchers were testing the “Life History Theory” of evolution, which says that males only have a finite amount of resources to allocate towards reproduction. Therefore, differences in fathers’ parenting skills may reflect an evolutionary trade-off between putting greater resources towards being a father or towards mating. For example, promiscuous primates that have to compete with other males to spread their seed tend to have larger testicles than monogamous primates in pair-bonded relationships

Anyone want to own up to that?

[OldMexican]

Study indicates that men with smaller testicles are more nurturing and attentive fathers

My sons must really hate my guts…

[Certified Public Asskicker]

researchers recruited 70 fathers

This must be true then!

[C. Anacreon]

I’m having a hard time picturing the board reviewing the grant application for this study, much less taking it seriously. Except if they all had tiny testicles, I guess.

[Tejicano]

I’m not sure what they were measuring against. And how do they simply infer that hanging around means a better parent? Definitely better than running off and not caring but I don’t see how the study controls for other reasons a father might not be there.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The Bush administration called, Matty. It wants to know where you were when they needed a Press Secretary…

Spying on foreigners is at the core of the NSA’s mission. With regard to people who aren’t Americans, there’s nothing illegal or improper about snooping on them without warrants or probably cause or really any kind of procedural checks. And the reason Edward Snowden is in Russia rather than enjoying celebrity status here in the United States, is that the federal government is very seriously committed to the principle that the exact foreign surveillance capabilities of the NSA should be kept secret.

[Irish]

Spying on foreigners is at the core of the NSA’s mission. With regard to people who aren’t Americans, there’s nothing illegal or improper about snooping on them without warrants or probably cause or really any kind of procedural checks.

A run on sentence and he can’t even spell probable cause. He just continues to impress.

[John]

He is right that spying on foreigners is the NSA’s job and they don’t need a warrant. He just forgets the fact that thanks to Snowden, we now know they were not just doing that, but spying on Americans.

I know he is a hack who makes his living spewing out whatever talking points the White House sends him. But good God. That is amazingly stupid and dishonest even for someone as mentally challenged as he is.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

This one’s a doozy, folks. Matty likes banning usury; medieval economics Part XVII

The Michael Bloomberg who banned trans fats in New York City restaurants would have a very different take on this[…]

But in the real world Bloomberg-the-paternalist knows that it doesn’t work that way and sometimes what makes sense is to act collectively on behalf of the research-based conclusion.

It seems to me that this kind of somewhat snobby, elitist, and paternalistic brand of politics is exactly what’s been missing from the financial regulation debate in the United States. Arguments such as If you do X, it’ll reduce lending and/or raise borrowing costs have been treated like trump cards in the debate. The missing perspective has been the Bloombergian notion that we know perfectly well that people won’t always do the research. We know that left to their own devices, people will excessively engage in debt for consumer purposes and that politicians will find debt-financed consumption growth to be a politically appealing alternative to the harder but more rewarding task of increasing incomes.

Please, man with no experience or apparent understanding of markets despite his job being reporting on such things, tell us more about how much you hate it when people don’t do research according to your lofty standards.

[Derpetologist]

My irony meter exploded and the springs are embedded in my ceiling.

[NeonCat]

Broken windows irony meters! The economy is improving!

[Tejicano]

This must be the best example of circular irony I have ever seen. It’s like a snake that nibbled on its tail until it swallowed itself.

[Irish]

We know that left to their own devices, people will excessively engage in debt for consumer purposes and that politicians will find debt-financed consumption growth to be a politically appealing alternative to the harder but more rewarding task of increasing incomes.

Why does he admit that too much consumer debt is bad but consistently argue in favor of the federal government using debt to finance consumption growth?

[John]

We know that left to their own devices, people will excessively engage in debt for consumer purposes and that politicians will find debt-financed consumption growth

This from the same person who writes daily about the need for consumption to drive all growth and how the government can borrow anything it wants.

He is such a nasty little fuck. My God. He just wrote that the little people can’t be trusted to be allowed to borrow money. I honestly wish him ill. I hope someone mugs him for his iphone and worn out single gear bike tonight.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

You think he has an iPhone? John, Yglesias has a Sony Walkman from the 90s and one of those really old cellphones; all the better to hipster with while he’s out on a night in the town sampling the finest microwaved burritos.

[Irish]

It’s important that it be a night on the town though because he is on record as hating the sun.

[C. Anacreon]

Ever since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.

[Invisible Finger]

If he would at least admit that those same nasty little people shouldn’t be voting, then I might at least have a grain of respect for that goddamned Nazi.

[OldMexican]

The missing perspective has been the Bloombergian notion that we know perfectly well that people won’t always do the research.

“People are stupid, which is why people must be cared for by those people that are smart and privvy to all the important information.”

Somehow, I see the ghost of Plato over all of this.

[John]

And is there anything more pathetic than the idea of Yglesias as philosopher king of retard land?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

107 year old man proves we need to adopt gun licensing laws

You can see the dilemma here. It’s a bad idea to categorically bar the old and infirm from owning guns. But there also ought to be some way for states to weed out people like Isadore whose various health problems might make them a danger to others. This is basically the case for handgun licensing, which Arkansas does not have. In New York state, for instance, you have to apply for a license before you can carry a handgun; licensing officals look at each individual application, and, on a case-by-case basis, approve or deny permits based on their own discretion. This isn’t a perfect system, and it’s certainly subject to abuse, but it probably would have worked well enough to stop an easily disoriented, legally blind, 107-year-old man from buying a handgun, firing it at police, and dying unnecessarily.

Won’t you gun nuts think of the 107 year olds who will have their young lives tragically cut short?

[Tejicano]

I would bet most window-licking retards feel pity for this author.

Might it ever occur to him/her/it that somebody who is 107 freaking years old might have had time to acquire that gun long before there were gun laws anywhere in the entire country?

This level of stupidity has to be hard won through experience and effort. I cannot imagine it came naturally.

[Bill Dalasio]

You know, I’d really love to see a lawsuit against New York State claiming blacks are disproportionately denied handgun licenses. Although I would need to get some tarps to keep clean from all the brain goo of progressive heads exploding.

[Derpetologist]

Holocaust denial/ignorance rampant in Egypt. Hold on- I’m sure my surprised face is around here somewhere-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwmw6fkzPtw

[Mike M.]

August deficit was $146 billion, bringing the total deficit for the first 11 months of the fiscal year up to $753 billion, which is a good bit more than the worthless Congressional Budget Office just told us it would be just a few weeks ago.

[John]

But it is down from over a trillion and a half and that totally makes Obama a fiscal conservative. That is of course unless we are talking about the need to increase spending, then anything less than doubling the budget makes you an evil nihilist who wants to destroy the world via austerity.

[Almanian!]

This was…unexpected.

[Palin's Buttplug]

But, at the same time, according to the U.S. Treasury, the federal debt did not increase at all during the month.

This is what I have been trying to explain to the Peanut Gallery. Debt is a reflection of how much is borrowed – not simply the deficits added together.

[John]

So if we have the fed print the money, it doesn’t count.

[OldMexican]

Re: Palin’s Buttwipe,

This is what I have been trying to explain to the Peanut Gallery. Debt is a reflection of how much is borrowed – not simply the deficits added together.

The funny part is that you really believe that the deficit was only 146 billion and that no money has been borrowed:

In fact, according to the Daily Treasury Statements that the Treasury publishes at 4:00 p.m. on each business day, the debt subject to the legal limit has remained at exactly $16,699,396,000,000?or about $25 million below the legal limit?every day since May 17.

http://cnsnews.com/news/articl…..t-was-146b

In other words, Lew’s Treasury Department have been playing tricks with the accounting, not unlike bending the minute hand before it reaches 12. It’s all a trick to fool economically-illiterate baboons such as yourself.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Go back to your Fed Conspiracy Theories, you retard.

Of course they are playing accounting tricks – all of us finance/accounting people do.

Clinton ran a surplus back in 1999-2000 and there is a 1/20 chance Obama will in 2016. He has the AEI shitting their pants that Bush’s trillion dollar deficits will be bookended with Dem surpluses.

[Cytotoxic]

You just admitted you’re a liar, then you repeat a lie (Clinton = surplus), then you make a transcendentally ridiculous prediction about surpluses that will never be. It’s a PB trifecta.

[OldMexican]

Re: Palin’s Buttwipe,

Go back to your Fed Conspiracy Theories, you retard.

Is that supposed to be your counter-argument?

Of course they are playing accounting tricks – all of us finance/accounting people do.

You stop reporting liabilities for months? Tell me it ain’t so!

Clinton ran a surplus back in 1999-2000 and there is a 1/20 chance Obama will in 2016.

The only “trick” here is thinking that you know finance. There was NO surplus in 1999-2000. Counting the Social Security IOUs as “assets” is NOT creating a surplus.

[Mike M.]

The “official” debt didn’t move because we’ve been up against the debt ceiling for months. But you already knew that Weigel, you fucking dickhead.

Now do us all a favor and go run into the middle of the Beltway.

[Bill Dalasio]

Of course they are playing accounting tricks – all of us finance/accounting people do.

Really? I’ve been in finance for the last fifteen years. And I can’t say I’ve ever played “tricks”. Generally, most of the accountants I’ve worked with would say that “playing…tricks” amounts to misleading investors, the users of financial statements. So, how long have you been a fraud, shriek?

[ant1sthenes]

It looks like we’ve found the cure to all our problems. Now we never have to worry about the federal debt limit again.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Was today’s headline ghostwritten by the World’s Funniest Human (TM)?

[Ted S.]

No, I didn’t write it.

[Tejicano]

As they say – looks aren’t everything.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

The new narrative is in! Barack Obama reminds us all that he’s not Bush

It may come to naught — calls for peace so rarely still the drums of war — but there was a moment Monday when the odds for sanity seemed to finally stand a chance of prevailing. It came when President Obama acknowledged the Russian proposal for Syria to avert war by agreeing to destroy its chemical weapons stock as “a potentially positive development.” It was quintessentially an un-Bush moment when suddenly this presidential “decider” seemed possessed of a brain capable of reversing his disastrous course.

Jesus Christ. Bush did not invade Iraq in spite of widespread opposition. He had Congress, the UN, and a substantial number of Americans, many of them in his Republican base.

If Obama enjoyed 1/10th of the support Bush did for Syria we’d be bombing them right now. He didn’t think better of it, he was forced into a corner and humiliated by Putin.

But whatever, his base will view him as Solomon.

[Irish]

And now Putin is apparently backing out of the deal unless Obama promises that we will never bomb Syria. Putin fucking owned Barack Obama over this but Obama’s puppets will never admit it.

[Sevo]

Up-thread, shreek was doing victory laps since it looked like Putin saved his sorry ass. Or as shreek has it, ‘Obama, in his wisdom, decided not to bomb’.

[John]

Putin is just fucking with Obama. He made the offer so Obama would go out and humiliate himself taking it only to see Putin then put a poison pill in it forcing Obama to walk back from it and explain to Congress and the US why we still have to go to war.

This is what amateurism looks like.

[Palin's Buttplug]

The fact that Putin came out of left field yesterday with this new offer tells me he has the weaker hand.

[John]

You are such a fucking retarded shill. Just stop it. No one here is that stupid. Putis is publicly humiliating Obama and making the entire country a laughing stock. Go put your talking points up somewhere else. Tell your handlers we want a new sock puppet.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Why do you conservatives love Putin so much? Reason has an article on it from two weeks ago.

It can’t be Obama – Bush saw Putin as his soulmate.

Is it your love of Stalin?

[Irish]

ITT Putin pisses down Obama’s leg, PB claims that it’s raining.

[John]

I don’t have to love him to realize he is making Obama look like the idiot he is. And yes, it is killing me to see Obama piss all over the country like this. Fuck you and every other retard who voted for that fucking dangerous idiot.

[Cytotoxic]

You see us libertarians aren’t too angry to see Putin pissing all over America if most of the stream hits Obama. And it is.

[OldMexican]

Re: Palin’s Buttwipe,

Why do you conservatives love Putin so much?

Go ask a few conservatives if you want to know their opinion.

I just find hilarity in seeing an old-guard Communist beating the shit (intellectually) out of the wet-behind-the-ears community organizer (and communist) from Chicago who has never met a single person that ever said “No! You can’t do that, Barry!” to him.

[BakedPenguin]

“I’d like to thank our new Secretary of State, Vlad Putin, for finding a way to peace. He may be a complete authoritarian, but at least he isn’t totally incompetent, like the last 2 to hold the position.”

[Bill Dalasio]

If he has the weaker hand and he’s still playing Obama like a Stradivarius, that doesn’t exactly recommend Mr. Obama.

[Irish]

But I thought that the lefty talking point was that Obama secretly came up with this idea and that Putin had nothing to do with it.

So if Obama came up with the idea, it shows his genius, but if Putin came up with the idea, then obviously Obama scared him into submission! My God, Obama can do no wrong!

[Sevo]

“But I thought that the lefty talking point was that Obama secretly came up with this idea and that Putin had nothing to do with it.

So if Obama came up with the idea, it shows his genius, but if Putin came up with the idea, then obviously Obama scared him into submission! My God, Obama can do no wrong!”
———–
You don’t know the half of it! It was Bush on the magic phone that made Obama say that stupid ‘red-line’ comment!
He really didn’t want to do that, sort of like he really doesn’t want to throw all the dopers in jail. He just can’t help it! Bush calls, says the magic words, and there he goes again!
Right, shreek?

[OldMexican]

Re: Palin’s Buttwipe,

The fact that Putin came out of left field yesterday with this new offer tells me he has the weaker hand.

Or, rather and more likely, Putin called Obama’s transparent bluff.

Unfortunately for him, Barry is now dealing with real men instead of fawning little girls such as you, Buttwipe. The result would be hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous.

[ant1sthenes]

Alright, Baghdad Bob.

[Not an Economist]

Kerry came up with it first, and then Putin ran with it. Of course, Kerry was speaking off the cuff and did not consult with anybody.

[Derpetologist]

Chomsky, Zinn, and Zappa play Imagination Time.

Did you know Fascism was caused by corporations?

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

[Sevo]

And now we’re informed that “Nancy Pelosi a “team player” on Syria”.
Nose-rings work on certain breeds of pig.
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05el…..-on-syria/

[Raston Bot]

http://espn.go.com/mma/story/_…..hting-cage

Transgender MMA fighter competes against women.

http://espn.go.com/mma/story/_…..n-magazine

96% of anonymously polled MMA fighters say he should not be allowed to fight women.

[Eduard van Haalen]

And in a public poll, 96% said they totally supported a transgender/female matchup because gender is an arbitrary oppressive construct and please don’t boycott us!

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Time to bring back Andy Kaufmann’s Intergender Wrestling Championship.

[johnl]

And in public, a lot of fighters comment on this as well. Matt Mitrione was very critical and ended up getting suspended for it. Ronda Rousey has been critical, as has Ann Marie Rousey de Mars (Ronda’s mom).

[Derpetologist]

Clip from popular Arab TV show “Khaybar”. Khaybar was a Jewish oasis conquered by Mohamed. The Jews were conquered, robbed, and later expelled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqzqxt-XxrY

[Eduard van Haalen]

Did they hire Mel Brooks and Monty Python for the wardrobes of the Jewish characters?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Anti-abortion extremists are dangerous closet murderers

Antiabortion activists are descending on Albuquerque, N.M., picketing not just clinics but the city’s Holocaust Museum, and targeting local abortion providers as “killers.” Despite the rhetoric, the protests are so far nonviolent. But if the past is any guide, we may be headed for something worse.

Awfully nice of her to negate her argument so soon.

The point isn’t that antiabortion activists are right to kill abortion providers. The point is that they can’t have it both ways: It cannot be that abortion clinic providers are the moral equivalents of Hitlers and Eichmanns, committing mass murder and crimes against humanity, and also that it’s 100 percent wrong to kill them. Antiabortion activists cannot use language like “Holocaust” and “genocide” and “mass murder” and “Nazi” that is intended to incite violence, knowing that many Americans believe it morally acceptable to kill mass murderers or genocidal maniacs or Nazis, and also have any cause to believe that they are not inciting violence and vigilantism. Antiabortion groups cannot look at the historical ways violent rhetoric has been followed by real-life violence and still claim that they have no intention of anyone getting hurt.

Wait, what? If I call someone Hitler I’m justifying killing them?

[John]

It cannot be that abortion clinic providers are the moral equivalents of Hitlers and Eichmanns, committing mass murder and crimes against humanity, and also that it’s 100 percent wrong to kill them.

Ah the categorical imperative is on the phone and would like to speak with you.

How dare these fundies not have situational ethics.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Notice that Eichmann got a *judicial trial* before he was killed, so even Eichmann wasn’t treated they way they want Eichmann treated.

[John]

Last I looked going around shooting people without trial or due process is not considered ethical by well pretty much anyone. But maybe this is how she would like to deal with her enemies so she assumes everyone else is the same.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Well, I’m tempted to say that anyone capable of killing helpless babies, and rationalizing it as just, is capable of practicing vigilantism against enemies. At the very least, I would throw the consistency argument in their faces – why don’t *you* take *your* principles to their logical conclusion and openly advocate the deaths of anyone you find inconvenient? Or if you’re worried about inciting people to violence, imagine the influence of your speech – won’t it encourage more abortion?

[Eduard van Haalen]

It’s the latest meme – they know that “prolife violence” is very rare, so the new line is that prolifers are either (a) not serious or (b) incipient terrorists. It’s also probably serious projection – these fellows must have some major murderous impulses toward their opponents, and they assume that their opponents must be brooding in a similar way.

[Killazontherun]

Wouldn’t it be easier and less taxing or straining of credulity to take it as a given that the majority of those opposed to abortion do so because they have a problem with the practice of abortion, and not because they are violence prone supporters of a nebulous patriarchy? I’m pro-choice, anti jail time for most human activities, but I would be lying if I said I don’t understand the other side in terms of the veracity of their argument.

[Eduard van Haalen]

If you told them The Handmaid’s Tale wasn’t a documentary, they’d think you were lying.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Personally, I have no problem whatsoever bringing the George Tillers of the world to justice. (I don’t support the death penalty, but if I did Tiller would be a prime candidate IMO.) In that sense, I suppose the OP writer is correct. OTOH, myself and I would guess the vast majority of conservatives/pro-lifers are strongly against vigilantism.

There is also the salient point that not everyone working at an abortion clinic is an abortion provider.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Yeah, there is a major overlapping Venn diagram among prolifers, Christians (with their belief in limiting rather than promoting violence) and law-and-order types (with their emphasis on due process of law over private violence).

Even the left-wing secularist prolifers don’t advocate assassination – or even the death penalty, for that matter.

Why don’t the prolifers kill more people?

[ant1sthenes]

Syria has agreed to declare its chemical weapons and stop producing them.

Then they allow UN inspections, but stop when they suspect that the UN inspections are being subverted in the interests of US espionage, which they are, then US declares their noncompliance with the deal grounds for war, and the Evil president goes on ahead with piss-ant cruise missile no-fly bullshit. Then a future Stupid president naively assumes that our stated goals were our actual goals and gets us into a real shitshow of a war. Just making a prediction.

[mad libertarian guy]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has broken from leadership and has announced that he opposes a military strike on Syria.

He’s had his windsock out for over a week now. Of course he opposes a strike. If anything, McConnell knows how to read the political wind.

[John]

That makes him smarter than the rest of the Republican leadership.

[mad libertarian guy]

Yep. He wants to keep a job, and knows that on occasion the proles will seek to hold him accountable. Rand Paul is the leader in KY. He’s read that in his windsock too which is why he and Rand are all buddy buddy now despite Mitch trying to keep him out in the ’10 election.

[Derpetologist]

? All his thoughts are ‘tarded….

(all his thoughts are ‘tarded)

? And his hair is graaaaay….

(and his hair is graaaaay)

? California proggin’ in such a stupid way

(California proggin’…)

? Califonia proggin’! In such a stupid waaaaaay…..

? ? ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjbPZAMked0

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

I apologize for linking two Salon articles, but…

In a resort town like the celebrity meccas of the Hamptons, a strategy of becoming a mecca for the 1 percent ? and taxing them to subsidize schools and other public services for the local hired help ? might be able to work. But New York City became America’s dominant city and a world economic capital by making and shipping things, not by enticing Wall Street rentiers, Russian oligarchs and Arab sheiks to buy trophy apartments and spend lavishly at overpriced restaurants and hotels.

As a candidate, and possibly as New York’s next mayor, Bill de Blasio has an opportunity to define an alternative to Bloomberg’s move-here/trickle-down economics. And because national trends tend to originate in particular cities and states, a backlash against plutocracy in the American city most identified with it could have far-reaching implications.

New York City’s problem is that it doesn’t have enough taxes, regulations, and ‘visionary’ politicians hatching grand schemes?

[Irish]

But New York City became America’s dominant city and a world economic capital by making and shipping things, not by enticing Wall Street rentiers, Russian oligarchs and Arab sheiks to buy trophy apartments and spend lavishly at overpriced restaurants and hotels.

That’s why we should crank up the taxes and regulations, so that people will make and ship things in Atlanta instead.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

It is not clear that conventional progressives, in New York or elsewhere, are up to the challenge of such a shift toward a more productive economy. For one thing, many well-meaning environmental, consumer protection and disability regulations may propose costs on new businesses. Post-Bloombergian progressives, in power in New York and elsewhere, may have to accept tradeoffs among conflicting values, something that movements in opposition are not required to do. That dilemma, in turn, can splinter coalitions, the way that the dispute over the Keystone Pipeline has divided some members of the labor movement interested in construction and manufacturing jobs related to the pipeline from anti-pipeline environmental activists.

At least Lind is canny enough to acknowledge that you can’t worship at the alter of green tech and climate change and have a productive economy. Of course progressives will ruthlessly eat each other over these issues so I see the movement as perpetually stuck in the Obama phase of talk a good game (to them) and then govern in almost the exact opposite way while expanding the role of the state to placate the base.

[Irish]

My favorite part about Lind is that he calls himself a centrist. Like, he’s against literal Communism, so how dare you call him a crazed statist?

[John]

It worked in Detroit didn’t it?

[Bill Dalasio]

Yeah, someone should explain to Lind that New York = Detroit + Wall Street. Financial services is basically the last remaining industry that has any advantage (network effects) being in New York. Throw that away and the city falls.

[Bill Dalasio]

Remember when I mentioned many New Yorkers have a retarded view of the financial services industry?

https://reason.com/archives/201…..nt_3992926

The days of New York City being a manufacturing center are long, long gone. Hell, even an economic illiterate like John Lindsey was able to grasp that. In the 1960s. But, imbeciles like this would knock down the one remaining pillar holding the city up.

[Bill Dalasio]

Lind’s proposal basically comes down to suggesting that the city should base its economic future on civil servants and manufacturing. To call this retarded would be an insult to retards.

If I’m a manufacturer, what possible advantage does New York City offer me? Do they have a large workforce with the right technical skills? No. There is a very educated workforce in the city. But, it’s a complete mismatch to manufacturing. How about more favorable labor costs? Stop laughing. Access to my customers? No, I’d have a hell of a lot better luck with that upstate. Suppliers? Again, not much.

So, what does that leave? That leaves civil servants. But, the long and short is a city can’t base its economy on civil servants. Even if it taxes them at 100%, the math just doesn’t add up for the budget.

Lind is trying to replace his aesthetics for economic analysis.

[Derpetologist]

? Gimmme that ol’ time religion…

Islamists throw opponents off buildings in Egypt:

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

Secular democracy is just around the corner, guys!

[BakedPenguin]

Be fair, the old Soviets were big fans of defenestration, too.

[NeonCat]

Broken windows good for economy, tovarisch.

[Invisible Finger]

Sooner or later you run out of Jews. Then what?

[Coeus]

Fourth actor reportedly diagnosed with HIV

Weinstein said questions over whether the virus was transmitted on or off set, and the duration and enforcement of moratoriums, distracted from the fundamental issue. “What works is condoms.”

Stop pointing out that these people were dating and the law would have been meaningless.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Headline in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Beer Hall Comeback?”

You know who else had a beer hall comeback?

[Eduard van Haalen]

Let’s be fair – the beer hall thing was a failure, not a comeback. Maybe a comeback *from* a beer hall?

[Pro Libertate]

Maybe he went back to Munich after he won and had a beer?

[Invisible Finger]

Elvis?

[Coeus]

Videographer jostled at Arizona Tea Party Rally.

Except it isn’t. In the same damn article:

Riders United for a Sovereign America ? an anti-immigration biker group ? sponsored the event, along with the Remember 1986 Coalition and the Black American Leadership Alliance.

But the proggies are on autopilot:

AnthonyLook ? a day ago ?
KKK thinks it’s hiding with it’s new name the Tea Party Birther Racists.
Everyone knows, Tea Partiers are Nazi’s, no is being fooled.

Jackson Boot ? a day ago ?
If they’d only just worn their sheets, they wouldn’t be concerned about being identified.

rattypilgrim ? a day ago ?
If they would just put their pointed hoods on they’d have nothing to hide.

There are many more.

[OldMexican]

Re: Palin’s Buttwipe,

Go back to your Fed Conspiracy Theories, you retard.

Is that supposed to be your counter-argument?

Of course they are playing accounting tricks – all of us finance/accounting people do.

You stop reporting liabilities for months? Tell me it ain’t so!

Clinton ran a surplus back in 1999-2000 and there is a 1/20 chance Obama will in 2016.

The only “trick” here is thinking that you know finance. There was NO surplus in 1999-2000. Counting the Social Security IOUs as “assets” is NOT creating a surplus.

[Coeus]

Dads parenting their daughters is bad, because feminism

First, the “Daddy-approved” thing. I get that some teens have dads who are real dicks about the fact that their daughters start to look an awful lot like the grown women they don’t respect. But why does it only matter if “Daddy” approves of how a young woman is representing herself (and, by extension, his parenting skills) when she leaves the house. Is “Mommy” standing off in the shadows stage whispering “Take off your panties if you ever want to find a husband!”? The notion that grown adult men are the stewards of their teen daughter’s sexuality: kinda shuddersome.

[Pro Libertate]

Actually, no, it isn’t. What’s shuddersome is the idea that these skanks could possibly influence anyone whatsoever.

[Juice]

http://www.purityball.com/

[Eduard van Haalen]

Well, to be fair, they’re criticizing something on Fox, and everything on Fox is evil by definition. And it was about “Daddy approved prom dresses,” which presses all sorts of buttons. I mean, can you get any more patriarchal? Hello? And the restriction on teen girls’ sexuality threatens…something.

Now, there *are* those studies showing that having a good father tends to reduce the chance of girls growing up to have repeated extramarital relationships, etc., but that’s a sign of oppression.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Shuddersome? Jezebel- provide peak shit-writing will never be reached.

[JoshSN]

Common Core testing results in NYC Teri Le news for most charter schools.

Previously trumpeted success stories are actually utter failures, worse than public schools.

Lots of TFA teachers involved.

Underlying reason, if you ask me? Education, like the news, is inherently a gift, a public good. Trying to extract profit will forever be contra-indicated.

[Coeus]

Good thing no one did. The underlying reason is that common core is a pile of statist shit.