A.M. Links: Al Qaeda Leader Urges "Small" Attacks on U.S., Larry Summers May Be Headed to the Fed, Less-Intrusive (Sort of) TSA Searches

• An Al Qaeda leader calls for "small" attacks on the U.S. to bleed it economically.
• Larry Summers is, reportedly, Obama's choice to head the Federal Reserve. Do we smell a whiff of failure, already?
• Syria says it will join the international treaty on chemical weapons, if the U.S. asks nicely and stops its threats.
• Slide Fire, a Texas company, introduces a semiautomatic rifle designed to nearly match the rate of fire of a machine gun. Save your pennies for ammo—and prepare for the outraged screams.
• The TSA promises less-intrusive screenings for passengers judged to be low risk—according to data mysteriously sourced. That's not as reassuring as they think.
• Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn wants the resignation of the head of a commission investigating allegations of police torture in Chicago. He says the panel failed to tell victims' relatives that it was looking at their cases.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Peeps were starting to get the shakes.

[Tim]

Did it hurt, holding it so long?

[gaijin]

this delay in posting links was clearly a nefarious ploy. A conspiracy to enable Fist to end the week regaining the first post crown after a week of sloppy seconds for him. Clearly Reason is in the pocket of Big Fist!

[db]

Well, they already shilled for Big Milk Enema...

[Lord Humungus]

and I had a snarky first post all ready to go...

[Outlaw]

Oh thank god.

[UnCivilServant]

This is not a good thing.

[Outlaw]

When JD posts, it's always a good thing.

[Fist of Etiquette]

An Al Qaeda leader calls for "small" attacks on the U.S. to bleed it economically.

Why don't they just run for Congress, maybe up the federal minimum wage?

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

Hey, run for Congress? They may be fanatical killers and scum, but they have some standards...

[Rich]

"There are some things a *terrorist* won't do!"

[Drake]

This guy is just being redundant.

[anon]

Why congress? Too much scrutiny. DC Council seems to get the job done and nobody gives a fuck...

[Pro Libertate]

They're trolling the administration, with all of its talk of pinpricks and small attacks.

[R C Dean]

Thank God he's calling for small attacks. I was worried about the prolonged aerial bombardment from the AQ Air Force and the followup amphibious landing.

[Gene]

Precisely it's not as if the fuckers have a choice really as far as scale goes.

[Lord Humungus]

Marc Jacobs T-Shirt Pulled for Resembling Neo-Nazi Band Art

aka - Skrewdriver

[BakedPenguin]

From a link there - more T-shirt outrage as people freak out over speech.

[Pro Libertate]

Better ban all DVD sales of House, then.

[Ebriosa]

Wait, wait, how is someone "famously sober" even if that's describing an actress? I'm not sure it's a dig saying that's all she's famous for considering the article, but all I can think of is that she's either the best designated driver ever, or she just never shuts up about being sober.

[BakedPenguin]

That was meant as an ironic comment.

[General Butt Naked]

"You obviously haven't had a son or daughter die in your home from an overdose on prescription pills, as I have and the thousands of other parents have!!!" wrote one outraged mother on the store's Facebook page. "What you're promoting is more prescription drug use and it's just WRONG!!"

CONSIDER MY SUBSCRIPTION CANCELLED AND MY PEARLS CLUTCHED!!one!1

[Apatheist ?_??]

The real outrage is that they are selling a t-shirt for $68.

[Pro Libertate]

What? Does it come with air conditioning?

[wwhorton]

If they throw in the girl I'll consider it.

[MattJ]

Joe Hallenbeck: Leather pants.

Jimmy Dix: Yeah.

Joe Hallenbeck: What's something like that run?

Jimmy Dix: Six-fifty.

Joe Hallenbeck: Six hundred and fifty dollars?

Jimmy Dix: Yeah.

Joe Hallenbeck: They're pants.

Jimmy Dix: Yeah.

Joe Hallenbeck: You wear them?

Jimmy Dix: YES.

Joe Hallenbeck: They don't, like, have a TV in them or something?

Jimmy Dix: Nope.

Joe Hallenbeck: I am very old.

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

At least it has an honest time stamp...

[Lord Humungus]

Killer robots and crippling cyber attacks: How the world is going to end - according to super brains such as Stephen Hawking

Led by the Astronomer Royal and Cambridge don Martin Rees, famous thinkers such as physicist Stephen Hawking and former Government chief scientist Robert May have formed a society to draw up a doomsday list of risks that could wipe out mankind.

From crippling cyber-attacks by terrorists using the internet to cause havoc, to the release of engineered diseases and killer computers, they warn the future is far from rosy.

[Pro Libertate]

Full immersion VR with haptic interfaces. That's it, that's our doom.

[UnCivilServant]

At elast it'll be a pleasant way to go.

[Pro Libertate]

Beats being slaughtered by robots.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The robots will slaughter us after they realize we have been raping them.

[Pro Libertate]

We'll never know, being too far into the simulation.

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

eWarty will live on, of course.

[Pro Libertate]

As a VR virus.

[Lord Humungus]

eWarty, king of the robots, looks down from his throne and onto the pebbled floor made of crushed human skulls. A tear made from hydrogen peroxide runs down his metallic cheek. He misses the real Epi, instead of the simulacrum that has taken his place.

[Pro Libertate]

Hah! There is no real Episiarch. He's a mindfuck construct of some obscure archivist with sugar-processing problems.

[Warty]

See, science fiction only works when it's believable. No one would miss Epi.

[Pro Libertate]

He's so implausible and lacks any internal consistency.

[Killazontherun]

Its consistency that makes me the most suspicious of any given posters plausibility. Does Tony's chicken scratch , for one, ever feels like he is winging it?

[Killazontherun]

Hey, that missing apostrophe in me first sentence plopped down in the middle of the second and became a random comma.

[Don Mynack]

They'll use poisonous gases to poison our asses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1BdQcJ2ZYY

[gaijin]

formed a society

I'd think they should include science fiction writers in their mental masturbatorium. Seems like they've been more prescient about what comes to pass than scientists...especially Government scientists (which is most of them now, right?)

[Heroic Mulatto]

Isn't Niven actually part of a think tank that does the same thing here in the States?

[gaijin]

I think you are right...sort of. Looking at his bio, it seems he and Jerry Pournelle formed a group to advise DHS on threats to the homeland.

[Pro Libertate]

Moties--fuckers.

[Rasilio]

Well they did use the idea of a group of consulting Sci Fi writers advising the government on how to deal with alien invaders in Footfall.

That said I didn't realize that Pournell was sober enough for anyone to take his advise seriously these days

[Kaptious Kristen]

I thought Stephen Hawking was a killer robot.

[Outlaw]

lmao

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

He's more machine now than man.

[Azathoth!!]

He's slowly morphing into Davros--no wonder he's on about killer robots.

[Rasilio]

Um, so their list of "existential threats" contains a bunch of stuff which could never be an existential threat such as cyber attacks and food supply sabotage, even Nuclear war is highly unlikely to result in the extinction of the Human Race.

The bulk of the rest of the issues they study are highly unlikely to occur scenarios.

The only 2 real existential threats I see on their list are the threat of an asteroid impact or the release of an engineered pathogen that runs amock.

Why is it that I think these guys are spending the funding they are getting on beer and blow laughing about the stupid politicians they are pranking the whole time?

[UnCivilServant]

Because they just rooted around the old SF junk drawer for well trod tropes to fill their report?

[Clich? Bandit]

Even the pathogen example is difficult to imagine as extinvtion level. Look at pesticides today. You can kill all the roaches in a house but not on a whole block. There are 6 billion people with varying resistances to iocane substances, I find it unlikely one pathogen could get them all.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn wants the resignation of the head of a commission investigating allegations of police torture in Chicago. He says the panel failed to tell victims' relatives that it was looking at their cases.

No investigation is complete without tear-soaked testimony from people who didn't witness dick.

[Jerryskids]

I wish they had made it clearer here that the victims Quinn is referring to are not the victims of police torture but the victims of the victims of police torture. Those would be the ones most likely to approve of police torture who fail to consider that torturing a confession out of someone leads to a reasonable suspicion that the confession might be a false confession.

[Snark Plissken]

JD, how's the hangover?

[gaijin]

part 3 sucked

[Lord Humungus]

Portugal's post-coup Constitution foils government

Dressed in full-length black robes, the judges ruled that the government's plans to cut spending by more than 3 billion euros ($4 billion) were unconstitutional because they would infringe on workers' rights, including equality and job security.

Since coming to power two years ago, the government hasn't won a single economic argument with the court and has had to scramble to make up the budget shortfall, largely through higher taxes. Those increases have cost many people the equivalent of more than a month's pay this year.

welcome to our future...

[UnCivilServant]

Time for a new coup?

[some guy]

So ever higher spending is actually written into Portugal's Constitution? That sounds like a recipe for guaranteed epic failure.

[Drake]

What kind of shit Constitution requires a bankrupt country to keep spending at unsustainable levels?

[Raven Nation]

A constitution of "positive rights"?

[R C Dean]

One that talks about general welfare, necessary and proper, and interstate commerce?

[John]

It is a good thing libertarians haven't helped enable this happening over here by being totally okay with courts inventing the "right to gay marriage".

[anon]

Come on, John. Just because one recognizes a person has the natural right to "marry" (I use the term loosely here) whoever the fuck he/she wants does *not* mean that person recognizes a "right to equality."

[Zeb]

Yeah, it's still an equal protection thing, not about material equality.
And I really don't think the courts give a fuck what a few libertarians think.

[John]

Yes they will. How can you have a right to marry when being gay was illegal at the time of the Amendment? Sure states can create gay marriage if they choose. But no way was the amendment ever intended to create a right to gay marriage. They only said it did because they liked gay marriage. Well, a future court is going to like the minimum wage or welfare or social security and they are going to create a right using the exact same logic.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Sure states can create gay marriage if they choose. But no way was the amendment ever intended to create a right to gay marriage.

Leaving aside intent for a moment, if you read what the amendment actually says, it's pretty hard to argue that it doesn't protect gay marriage, isn't it?

[John]

it's pretty hard to argue that it doesn't protect gay marriage, isn't it?

It is not hard at all if you understand what it means. Equal protection doesn't mean the state can't make distinctions. It means it can't make distinctions for reasons that are irrational or are designed strike at a protected class of society. Gays were never intended to a protected class. Being gay was illegal at the time. So why are they a protected class now? Because SCOTUS decided so. And they can just as easily decide inner city school kids are a protected class and thus them not getting the same funding as any other kid is a violation of equal protection. They could decide public employees are a protected class and thus cutting their salaries violates equal protection. You name it. Once unmoore the amendment from its original meaning, it has no meaning anymore beyond what the Court happens to like.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Where does the 14th mention protected classes? It says, "...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It doesn't say, "...nor deny to any person who is a member of a protected class within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws

You're begging the question, not reading the text as it is written.

[VG Zaytsev]

They could decide public employees are a protected class...

The courts already did that when they invented the concept of qualified immunity.

[Clich? Bandit]

Well, a right (in the Natural sense) is the ultimate personal authority to perform some act. And since the constitution doesn't apply to people but only to the government I don't see how it isn't a right nor how it isn't protected under the constitution.

[DesigNate]

It was also illegal for a white man to marry a black woman at the time.

How do you not see this as an equal protection case (seeing as how the fucking amendment makes no mention of having to be a protected class to get that equal protection)?

[R C Dean]

What's being argued about isn't even the right for gays to marry. They've always had that. There's your natural right.

What's being talked about is a right to a state license for that marriage. Not a natural right.

[CatoTheElder]

The living constitution murdered the written Constitution, and rendered it a dead letter.

John, Rand Paul, and anybody else can make all of Constitutional arguments they want, but it's in vain. The written Constitution is dead. The constitution is whatever the President, Congress, and the courts say it is.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

That's quite the reach, John. I had no idea your ass was so far from your hand.

[John]

No it is not. The SCOTUS said that people have a right to gay marriage, when gay conduct was illegal in most or probably all states at the time of the drafting of the 14th Amendment. If you believe that, you believe that what is a "right" protected under the Constitution changes with society's tastes and mores. And if that is true, there is no reason why the BOR shouldn't protect the minimum wage or spending on public education or whatever else our overlords decide it should.

Sure gays have a right to government recognized marriage, just like every child has a right to a decent education and every worker has a right to a living wage. That is where this leads.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I need to go read some Amanda Marcotte. I figure the only way to purge something this dumb is to go deeper.

[John]

If you don't agree, fine. But can you please make an argument? Why is that dumb? That happens all of the time in courts. If someone had said in 1968 that the Supreme Court finding a constitutional right to buy birth control would cause it to later invalidate the sodomy laws, people would have said that was crazy. But of course that is exactly what happened. And indeed a few people said at the time that would happen.

Please explain to me why the logic used for gay marriage can't be used for every other right? Don't tell me you don't think it should. Yeah well good for you. But you are not on the court. The question is, can it. And if it can, history suggests it will be. You either embrace a limited reading of the document or you don't. Once you walk away from that, there is going back or saying "well we will just do this for the good things".

[Zeb]

The examples you give all have to do with equal protection, which is pretty clearly in the constitution, and privacy, which is a bit more of a stretch, but something I am pretty happy to have read into it. A right to welfare or whatever would need a very different justification.

[John]

No it wouldn't Zeb. All you are telling me is you don't like welfare but like gay marriage. That is nice. But others really like welfare and view the right to a minimum standard of living as the hallmark of equal protection.

[VG Zaytsev]

John's not even cutting edge with this assertion. A court in the 1970s (I think it was )Missouri seized control of school district under the guise of anti-discrimination and proceeded to dictate funding levels and unilaterally impose taxes to cover those funding levels.

[WTF]

A court in the 1970s (I think it was )Missouri seized control of school district under the guise of anti-discrimination and proceeded to dictate funding levels and unilaterally impose taxes to cover those funding levels.

Courts in NJ have gone even further with their rulings on urban 'Abbot Districts', requiring state-funding of pre-school in addition to imposing funding from statewide taxes and imposing funding levels. All based on anti-discrimination.

[Zeb]

Gay marriage doesn't require taking something from one person and giving it to another. Doing that is the opposite of equal protection. If the court is just going to say that black is white, then my opinion and precedent don't matter at all.
I'm going to base my opinions on what makes sense, not on what a corrupt court might do some day.

[Cyto]

It is simple. Just because they didn't intend for this to be the consequence at the time doesn't mean that the language isn't there.

I'd say that marriage is covered under free association. All of the laws that have existed that outlawed homosexuality were unconstitutional on their face at the time. But because everyone just "knew" that sodomy was a sin, nobody would have made such an argument.

There's lots of things that are quite obviously at odds with the constitution that haven't been struck down. Heck, the obscenity standard is an obvious one. For the entirety of the nation there have been exceptions to free speech allowed even though the constitution does not allow for any exceptions whatever. Not on campaign speech. Not on sexual speech. None. Yet judging by common usage this was not their intent.

It should be "tough noogies" to that. If the law says we have freedom of association then we should have freedom of association for whatever reason we choose. And if it says that this protection is communicated to the states via the 14th amendment, then so be it.

But nobody wants to actually follow the language of the law. Particularly because doing that would invalidate probably 90% of what the Federal government does.

[wareagle]

ah, the noogies clause.

[Heroic Mulatto]

They already declared that every child has a right to a "decent" education. You've heard of the legislative concept of FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education), and it's implications on school district funding, yes?

[Heroic Mulatto]

*its

[anon]

a right to government recognized marriage

Hey now, I said a right to marriage; I did not say a right to the government recognizing -any- marriage.

[R C Dean]

And gay people have always had the right to get married, provided they could find a priest to do the job (voluntarily).

[Zeb]

Except that's not what most people mean when they say "get married". They mean the legal status. Which is why we are talking about laws here and not theology.

[R C Dean]

I get that, Zeb, but its just symptom of creeping totalitarianism.

"Nothing outside the state . . . ."

[R C Dean]

I get that, Zeb, but its just symptom of creeping totalitarianism.

"Nothing outside the state . . . ."

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

So do we stick with Plessy because the Fuller court was so in tune with the intent of the authors of the 14th?

[John]

The writers of the 14th didn't intend separate but equal. They intended the exact opposite. Read Judge Harlan's dissent in Plessy. He explains it beautifully. It is one of the great under appreciated pieces of legal writing in American history. It is the decision and the reasoning that should have happened in Brown.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

7-1, John. The science was settled.

At any rate, this is why I'm a literalist and not an originalist. It's possible that the people who wrote it didn't understand the full implications of what they were writing. It's my chief complaint with the Constitution, actually. The framers underestimated the ingenuity of the people they were trying to stop.

[Rhywun]

This is why there are no gay libertarians.

[tarran]

You criticize me for pointing out all of FDR's policies that added some additional grease to the skids of World War II, and then you come up with this tenuous shit? 😉

[John]

See above. If there is a right under the 14th Amendment to do something that was illegal at the time of the drafting, then what exactly constitutes a right under the amendment?

Are you really so fucking stupid that you think you can get your pony but future courts will never use the same logic to give other people theirs?

[tarran]

Are you really so fucking stupid that you think you can get your pony but future courts will never use the same logic to give other people theirs?

No. But apparently you are so stupid as to think I am. Which amuses me.

[John]

Then why are disagreeing with me? If you agree future courts are going to use this precedent to give all sorts of other rotten things, then you agree. I am not saying anything tenuous. I am just pointing out a reality you don't like. Well tough shit.

[Ebriosa]

I don't think anyone could argue that future courts won't try to use this precedent for idiotic things. I think using slippery slope arguments to argue against logical arguments is stupid, though. There are so many better ways we could have had gay marriage recognized legally, but doesn't mean it shouldn't have been. i.e. Roe V. Wade = terrible decision, but abortion = yessss pls

[tarran]

I suggest, John, that you take a dump in one hand, and put all the libertarian political influence on the U.S. government in the other, and then you go back and read what I actually wrote while being mindful of which hand is bearing more weight. 🙂

[Andrew S.]

This is Tony/Shreek level derp, John. You're smarter than this.

[John]

It is not derp at all. You guys are just so in love with the fucking culture war, you are okay with any means getting it. The results in an individual case are not what is important. What is important is the logic used to get there. And if you take the logic of Constitutionally protected gay marriage, you can pretty much find any right you want to find. All you have to say in response is "but gay marriage is a good right and this other stuff is bad". That is nice, but future courts are unlikely to agree with you. And you won't have any intellectual credibility in objecting since you are were okay with the same thinking when you liked the result.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Equal protecting arguments = positive rights?

This is fucking retarded. You climbed out onto a really stupid limb and now you're too stubborn and obstinate to climb back. I'm not going to sit here and stroke you while you dig your hole deeper.

[John]

Equal protecting arguments = positive rights?

Gay marriage a positive right you half wit. The court forced states to give recognition. States were not saying gays could be 'married'. They were saying the states wouldn't recognize their marriage. And the court said they had to.

That is no different than states saying that old people get welfare but young people have to work after a certain period. The courts then come in and say no if you are going to have welfare, everyone has to get it.

You don't like the logic, because you don't like the result. Well, neither do I. But once you start reading shit into the document that was not there and start saying the document protects shit it was never intended to protect, you are done.

Scream insults all you want. But that is what that case is opening the door too.

[Andrew S.]

The court has not forced states to give recognition. The court forced FedGov to federally recognize marriages where they were already legal by state law.

[VG Zaytsev]

The court has not forced states to give recognition. The court forced FedGov to federally recognize marriages where they were already legal by state law.

The CA proposition that banned the state from recognizing SSM was overturned by federal courts. That is de facto, 'the courts' imposing SSM on CA against the express wishes of a majority of the population as expressed by the initiative.

The proper way to enact SSM in CA would be through another initiative or via legislative action. Which should not be a problem since the states is so blue.

[Andrew S.]

But it was not overturned based on federal law. It was overturned based on state law.

[Zeb]

It might actually be interesting if a court declared that if anyone gets welfare, then everyone must get the same. And that could be an equal protection argument.
But declaring that welfare for the poor must exist is pretty well the opposite of equal protection.

[VG Zaytsev]

When has reason and logic prevent the courts from expanding state power and curtailing liberty?

[Zeb]

When has reason and logic prevent the courts from expanding state power and curtailing liberty?

Not very often. Which is why it is silly to base your opinions on gay marriage or abortion or whatever on what else the courts might do with the precedent. They are just going to do whatever they want anyway. So celebrate the decisions that increase freedom and justice and condemn the ones that don't.

[sloopyinca]

The court forced states to give recognition. States were not saying gays could be 'married'. They were saying the states wouldn't recognize their marriage. And the court said they had to.

Um, the courts said states had to recognize legal marriages performed in other states. They never said they had to recognize all gay marriages...just legal marriages performed in other states. There's a big fucking distinction in reality and what you're trying to portray as reality, John.

[John]

Sloopy,

It is settled law that states can not recognize marriages from other states when it finds those marriages to be against public policy. So for example, if Utah went off the reservation and recognized polygamy, other states wouldn't have to recognize those marriages.

The court wasn't affirming the general principle that states must recognize other state's marriages. It was saying "gay marriage is not a permissible reason for a marriage to be against public policy". They were saying gay marriage is a right.

[sloopyinca]

So for example, if Utah went off the reservation and recognized polygamy, other states wouldn't have to recognize those marriages.

Maybe before the latest SC ruling, but the precedent now pretty much says that one state is required to recognize a legal marriage contract from another state, regardless of who the parties to the marriage are. I'm pretty sure if a polygamy case made it to the SC under your scenario, the sta e would be required to recognize the marriage.

[R C Dean]

Nah. If polygamy made it to the SCOTUS, we would be treated to 90 pages of non-legal reasoning on why its totally different than gay marriage.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

That seems kind of opposite to that full faith and credit stuff written into the Constitution.

[wwhorton]

How is gay marriage a positive right? You're not causing gay people to get married, you're not keeping it illegal. You're making a ruling that pushes the government to do less in order to comply. It is the definition of a negative right.

[R C Dean]

No, I think it boils down to a positive right to get a marriage license.

[Zeb]

I think it boils down to a positive right to get a marriage license.

So you think that if a state stopped legally recognizing all marriages the ruling would force them to do so?

[R C Dean]

Could be, sure. There, the "unequal protection benefit" would be that all the other states license marriage, so it is disciminatory for a state to deny such licenses to its residents, which are apparently essential to the exercise of the right to marry.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Larry Summers is, reportedly, Obama's choice to he the Federal Reserve.

Summers? We knew Bernie Madoff isn't available but what about Barney Frank?

[Palin's Buttplug]

Oh, we get it. All three are criminals. Yuk yuk.

[gaijin]

Oh, we get it. All three are criminals.

Actually, incompetent, smug, demagogues would work.

[some guy]

Bernie Madoff should run Medicare or Social Security, given his past successes with Ponzi schemes.

[Snark Plissken]

Larry Summers is, reportedly, Obama's choice to he the Federal Reserve. Do we smell a whiff of failure, already?

No, a strong stench of misogynism!

[Rich]

Hey, Larry can't help it if math is hard!

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

9:30? Imma call bullshit on that one. Where's Ted S. when you need him?

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

I expected a Stalinesque airbrushing of the time.

[John]

He says the panel failed to tell victims' relatives that it was looking at their cases.

How does one investigate allegations of torture without talking to the alleged victims? It is not that they failed to tell relatives. It is that they don't seem to be investigating.

[Lord Humungus]

Milton Friedman on the Drug War

I have long been opposed to the prohibition of drugs?whether it's marijuana or other drugs. The major basis for my opposition is not that prohibition has caused more harm than good, it's been primarily a moral opposition. We have free speech and free assembly. But I think the same thing goes with respect to what I put in my body. I do not think the state has any more right to tell me what to put in my mouth than it has to tell me what can come out of my mouth. Those two are essentially the same thing, and they are both essential elements of freedom.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Nope. Wrong. You can only put penises and abortion tools in your body freely. Anything else must be approved by The State.

[R C Dean]

EDG, you're overstating. Everyone knows you have a right to put sex toys in your body.

[Cyto]

Actually, under "community standards" prosecutors around the country love to raid local sex shops and confiscate pieces of silicon rubber for being molded into the wrong shape.

Adam and Eve was one of the original mail order supply companies for this sort of stuff. Based in Carborro North Carolina they were frequently targeted by local prosecutors looking to make a name. They'd bring in the local TV stations to cover their "raids" and cart of boxes of rubber penises and videos. Goofy as it gets. You'd have some local TV babe doing a standup in front of a bunch of cardboard boxes intoning about "offensive" materials found inside, when you know she's got a couple of their products at home in her BOB drawer. Really goofy.

[invisible furry hand]

Unca Milty's pretty chatty for a dead guy

[Fist of Etiquette]

Slide Fire, a Texas company, introduces a semiautomatic rifle designed to nearly match the rate of fire of a machine gun. Save your pennies for ammo...

Yeah, with the cost of ammunition, this means only the very rich will be able to mow down their enemies. Time to attack this from a class warfare angle!

[UnCivilServant]

She weighs 150 kilograms and fires $200 custom-tooled cartridges at 10,000 rounds per minute. It cost $400,000 to fire this weapon...for 12 seconds.

I guess they got one thing right.

[Drake]

The one on their website is a .22.

Anyone who has done much shooting with full-auto rifles and machine guns kind of loses interest in doing it on his own dime. Full-powered rifles are pretty uncontrollable without practice and only in short bursts then.

[Steve G]

Yes, having done it on the job a few times (and carrying is not even my job), it's long lost it's luster.
Silencers on the other hand, that I'd like to play around with in the future...

[Drake]

WHAT?!??!

I might be able to hear if suppressors were legal.

[Steve G]

They are, but just like full auto, gotta pay The Man...and sign your rights away, or what's left of them.

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

Place your selector switch on "burst" and ...watch your lane.

[anon]

If Larry Summers is Fed Chair, we are 100% fucked.

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

We aren't already?

[UnCivilServant]

It's only five nines at the moment.

[SIV]

Would you prefer Yellen pledging negative interest rates until we have 0% unemployment?

[anon]

I'd prefer no Federal Reserve, but that's besides the point.

Larry Summers is a fucking whacko proglodyte. I'd put him on Shriek levels, as evidenced below.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Exactly. Yellen is more dovish than Summers.

Gold is falling because Summers is seen as the imminent choice.

[CatoTheElder]

"Yellen pledging negative interest rates"

For those who haven't been paying attention, SIV is not being hyperbolic here. Yellen has advocated for negative interest rates, whereby a CD or savings account will have less money at the end of the term than it started with.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Because he is more Laissez-faire than Bernanke is?

[some guy]

Is he more Laissez-faire than Bernanke?

Also, what does Laissez-faire even mean in the context of the Fed?

[Palin's Buttplug]

The Fed is a primary regulator (except in the Greenspan years).

Interesting that Greenspan recanted his "hands off" ways and admitted that capital should have been monitored at the big banks.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Fuck off sockpuppet

[Palin's Buttplug]

Please try to write something interesting just once!

Plagiarize if you must!

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Sockpuppet fuck off

[some guy]

The Fed is a primary regulator (except in the Greenspan years).

Meaning? A Laissez-faire Fed would sell off all its debt and let interest rates fluctuate float somehow, rather than setting them?

[Palin's Buttplug]

Interest rates do float. Even the 10 yr Treasury has risen from 1.6% to 2.7% in a year without the Fed moving anything. Mortgages are up 25%.

The Fed's primary responsibility is to make sure the banks have enough capital to service withdrawals and loans.

Several banks had failed there in 2008 and had to be seized.

[sloopyinca]

The Fed's primary responsibility is to make sure the banks have enough capital to service withdrawals and loans.

[citation required]

[some guy]

Interest rates do float.

I'm just trying to figure out what you think a Lassez-faire Fed would look like. Given the context (the Fed) I assumed you would understand I meant the rates directly set by the Fed.

The Fed's primary responsibility is to make sure the banks have enough capital to service withdrawals...

In fractional reserve banking it is, by definition, impossible to "make sure" banks can service withdrawals. All you can do is try to control the mean time to failure.

[BakedPenguin]

Come on, some guy. Don't worry about him being lonely, his mom will hang a ham around his neck and the dog will play with him.

[Don Mynack]

Without the fed (and other gov't intervention), the big banks would not have been able to take over so much market share in so little time.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com.....-year.html

[MJGreen]

The Fed is a primary regulator

So, by definition, not laissez-faire.

[Lord Humungus]

Artist held after Eiffel Tower coq stunt

Tourists gasping and grinning up at the Eiffel Tower in Paris this week got a shock when a notorious artist emerged before them with his penis reportedly tied to a rooster by ribbon, and dressed in a corset and tights.

Epi?

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Surprisingly, no. It turned out to be Timon19. I know, I was shocked too.

[Bee Tagger]

The TSA promises less-intrusive screenings for passengers judged to be low risk?according to data mysteriously sourced.

Unfortunately, citizens judged to be low risk are put on a watch list of people hiding something.

[John]

http://www.commentarymagazine......m-forever/

Podhertz apologizes for calling Marxist what he was. Amazing how easily people on the right are cowed. When are they going to grow a pair of balls and stop caring what liberals think?

[BakedPenguin]

He was apologizing more for the timing than the substance of what he said. He didn't really back off the comparison of Marxism with Nazism.

[Lord Humungus]

Raquel Rolnik: A dabbler in witchcraft who offered an animal sacrifice to (Karl) Marx

Her lengthy CV lists countless qualifications, civic achievements, books and publications ? but Raquel Rolnik makes no mention of dabbling in witchcraft.

Yet the architect and urban planner appears to be an avid follower of Candomble, an African-Brazilian religion that originated during the slave trade.

The academic, brought up a Marxist, actually offered an animal sacrifice to Karl Marx when she was studying for her Masters degree in architecture so 'he would leave her alone' to study in peace.

[John]

It is always funny how professed atheist leftists will believe in the most ridiculous spiritualism.

[SIV]

Leftists are sacrificing non-human animals now? What would PETA say?

[UnCivilServant]

Something irrational and anti-human.

[Zeb]

Well, if Marx won't leave you alone, you have to do something.

It is a funny thing that you see a lot. I don't know how many people I know who say that religion is stupid and bullshit and yet will go on about astrology as if it has anything to do with anything.

[John]

You do see it a lot Zeb. And it is always funny. And the people doing it are never aware of the cognitive dissonance.

[Palin's Buttplug]

You get some nutcases on the left.

I will let Steve Jobs say what is important:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rwsuXHA7RA

[#]

"You get some nutcases on the left."

The first signs of PB being self aware?

[Rich]

Slide Fire "loophole closure" legislation in 3, 2, 1, ...

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

Legislation? Please! We have the ATF.

[Tim]

So, was the New Jersey fire insurance fraud or somebody missed the protection money drop?

[anon]

SEKWESTER!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Either way, it's time for Christie to order Congress to pony up more federal tax dollars. But in the most small government way possible, of course.

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

+1 walk on the beach.

[Andrew S.]

Christie? I'm sure he could make it a step or two, but is he really capable of "walking"?

[UnCivilServant]

Well, ambulatory adipose tumors have been known to roll from the time to time.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Also, I understand blobfishes are wicked swimmers, so he's got that going for him...which is nice.

[sloopyinca]

Christie is already at the beach celebrating the federal money Obama is funneling him.

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

"insurance fraud"

We prefer the term Greek Lightning strike

[Lord Humungus]

Larry Summers' Citigroup Problem
Could a possible conflict of interest derail the former Treasury secretary's appointment to run the Federal Reserve?

"Citigroup is a behemoth on Wall Street, and constantly subject to Fed regulatory actions," says Craig Holman, the architect of Obama's 2009 ethics rules and currently a government affairs lobbyist for the consumer watchdog Public Citizen. "I would expect Summers would have to recuse himself quite frequently." He adds, "Recusal can be expected to be so frequent as to hinder Summers' ability to carry out his job as Fed chairman."

The Obama administration has granted dozens of ethics rules waivers since 2009, but they have mostly gone to lower-level appointees with limited conflicts of interest. Were Summers to be granted a waiver, according to Holman, it would be the most significant one yet.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Could a possible conflict of interest derail the former Treasury secretary's appointment to run the Federal Reserve?

In light of this Administration's lack of ethics and Betteridge's Law of Headlines, I think you know the answer.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Like Hank Paulson did when becoming Treasury Sec - sell all his Goldman (or Citi) stock.

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

Or Timmy not paying his taxes and blaming TurboTax?

[Rich]

Some airline passengers deemed a low-security risk will be randomly selected for quicker, less intrusive screening beginning this year

unless, of course, the flight attendants object.

Just STFU, TSA.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Low-security risk is code for government officials.

[Rich]

You know, they may want to rethink their terminology. "Low-security risk" can be interpreted in more than one way.

[Ebriosa]

Yeah, the hyphen seems off. They're still calling a person a "risk". And, yes, it's probably for politicians and other patricians who don't want to flaunt it with a private jet. Politicians in Canada at least can claim the CATSA employee didn't speak to them in perfect French to show how special they are and how much they resent being treated like everyone else.

[db]

An Al Qaeda leader calls for "small" attacks on the U.S. to bleed it economically.

Unbelievably small?

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Pinpricks even

[UnCivilServant]

Yes, all they will do is make YouTube videos threatening attack, and the US Government will do the damage for them.

[a better weapon]

Don't let The Innocence of Muslims fool you into thinking Youtube doesn't cut both ways

[Lord Humungus]

Analysis: House Republicans go for broke in fiscal battles

But the conflict is particularly volatile this time as, unlike the budget cuts demanded by Republicans in earlier fiscal showdowns, their demands for concessions on Obamacare on the eve of its October 1 insurance exchanges launch are non-negotiable for Democrats.

And this time, it's not just Republicans versus Democrats, but Republican against Republican. Party elders, lacking the power to make rebellious conservatives back off, have been reduced to pleading with them to do so. The conservatives, braced by the passion of Tea Party activists as the 2014 election approaches, are not inclined to cooperate.

I'm sure the orange man will find a worthy compromise...

[John]

Not if he doesn't have the votes. Maybe a few of them have finally figured out that the Dems are going to call them evil racist anarchists and blame all of the country's problems on them no matter what they do and stopped caring if the "right people in Washington" don't like them.

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

And Cantor will plod along too, leash intact.

[some guy]

Dem leaders are already making the argument that all this spending has already been appropriated, so no one should argue over raising the debt ceiling.

Well, if no one should argue over raising the debt ceiling then why didn't they already raise the ceiling when they passed the appropriations bill?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Dem leaders are already making the argument that all this spending has already been appropriated, so no one should argue over raising the debt ceiling.

I see this argument a lot, and it's infuriating. Just because they want to spend to the moon doesn't mean they should have to.

If the Dems were intellectually honest, they'd propose a repeal of the Second Liberty Bond Act.

[Mike M.]

Reposted because it's so important:

For the first time in several years, we're all getting to see what kind of quarterback Tom Brady is when he's not surrounded by the best group of offensive talent in the league. It sure makes a big difference, doesn't it?

The Patriots are just lucky they were playing the horrendous Jets. Any kind of halfway decent team and they would have lost.

[John]

When has Brady ever had the best offensive talent in the league? Other than Randy Moss for two years, name one other offensive HOFer or probable future HOFer that Brady has played with. Maybe Wes Welker. But Welker is a five nine slot receiver. A fine player for sure. But hardly Jerry Rice.

[Slammer]

He's had some absolutely great offensives lines, though.

[some guy]

Gronk will be a HoFer.

[John]

I think he is a HOF talent. But I don't think he will stay healthy enough to have a HOF career. He seems to get injured a lot.

[some guy]

Could be. That's what happens when you try to make a living catching tall passes in the middle of the field.

[Mike M.]

Last year Brady had the best offensive talent in the entire league.

Now Gronkowski is hurt, Hernandez was discovered to be a mass murderer, and they told Wes Welker to hit the road because he dropped a couple of passes in big games and they decided they couldn't forgive him for it.

The difference between then and now is like night and day.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

This is ridiculous. He has to play with Julian Edelman as his best receiver, and you still expect him to throw 350 yds and 3 tds?

[Mike M.]

No, of course I don't, that's my point! Up until now, he spent the last seven years or so playing with offensive talent so great that it even made a complete bum like Matt Cassel look like a good quarterback.

As a result, he has been hyped up to the point where he has made out to be one of the greatest QBs of all time, and he simply isn't.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Randy Moss wasn't doing anything until he came to New England.

Deion Branch didn't do anything once he left New England.

Wes Welker exploded when he came to New England.

But none of that has anything to do with Brady.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Randy Moss wasn't doing anything until he came to New England.

Are we talking about the same Randy Moss who dominated as a Viking?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I was referring to Raider Randy Moss.

Meaning, based on Mike M's argument, Kerry Collins and Aaron Brooks should have looked like HOF QBs playing with Moss.

[Andrew S.]

Randy Moss was one of the best receivers in the league until he went to Oakland, which proved that even the best WR can't do anything if they don't have a halfway decent QB to throw to them. He goes to the Patriots and he succeeds again because he had a good QB again.

[John]

Randy Moss did a lot when he was in Minnisota. Moss was only doing nothing in Oakland because he had basically quit trying.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Up until now, he spent the last seven years or so playing with offensive talent so great that it even made a complete bum like Matt Cassel look like a good quarterback.

I'm sorry, but I can't buy this argument that Brady needs great talent around him or he's a bum.

John Elway managed to drag Dan Reeves-led offenses with Dan Reeves-selected talent to the Super Bowl three times in four years, and nearly a fourth time in 1991. He didn't win the big one until he had a HOF left tackle, a HOF tight end, an MVP running back, and a team with multiple Pro Bowlers on both sides of the ball.

Who on those early Pats Super Bowl teams will make it to the HOF? Probably just Brady. I despise the Pats because I hate Massachusetts in general, but it's beyond dispute that Brady's a great QB.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

Who on those early Pats Super Bowl teams will make it to the HOF?

Are you forgetting the greatest offensive combo ever in Troy Brown, David Patten, Jermaine Wiggins, and Antowain Smith???

[John]

Who were the running backs on that team? And that o-line has been aging and patched together for a few years now.

And Gronkowski and Hernandez were very good players and matchup problems, the team had no outside threat and no deep threat. The two tight end thing was a clever work around to the problem that their wideouts were terrible. It is pretty difficult to play QB when you have no wideout who can go deep. I would submit to you that their success last year was in large measure the result of Brady being really good and being able to make virtually any combination of players successful.

[sgs]

"Last year Brady had the best offensive talent in the entire league."

This is the stupidest thing anyone has ever put in words.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Why do you hate Tom Brady?

(I understand why you hate Ray Lewis - he is a murderer.)

[sloopyinca]

Why do you hate Tom Brady?

For no other reason than because he went to that school up north.

Fuck Tom Brady!

[Andrew S.]

He was able to do it when he was younger, but there's something definitely off now.

Also, was I the only one that noticed last night a couple of times where the throw was behind the receiver and the commentators still blamed the receiver and now Brady?

[PBR Streetgang]

The announcers absolutely blamed the receivers for every bad throw Brady made. I had no rooting interest in the game at all but found that infuriating

[Drake]

On several occasions they seemed to be running completely wrong routes - which pisses off Brady more than the drops.

[Art Vandelay]

"Also, was I the only one that noticed last night a couple of times where the throw was behind the receiver"

He threw several passes to the WR's back shoulders, which an average NFL receiver would catch. That's how a good QB beats tight coverage.

Unfortunately for Tommy, he had the worst receiving core in the NFL last night.

[mauricegirodias]

They blamed Brady for an early overthrow, but, yeah, from that point on it was all about him "chewing out the rookies..."

[KDN]

The announcing crew was in the tank for the Pats all night. It was like watching a Pens game on NBC.

But yeah, Brady definitely looked old. His receivers didn't help him out, but he reminded me of Andy Pettitte on his return from Houston: looks like the same guy, does the same things, but just not as good as he used to. If the AFC East wasn't so terrible the Pats would have a good chance of missing out this year.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

There were a lot of straight-up drops last night. I didn't count or anything but that was my impression. (Full disclosure: NE homer)

[Drake]

You are an idiot.

Now Tom Brady is the kind of quarterback who throws passes through the hands of second-rate receivers instead of into the hands of decent ones.

I hope he reserved some glares for his fucking retard moron General Manager (Bill Belichick). The hate flowing his way for not trying to sign Welker and signing incompetents instead in the Boston Herald comments is fun to read.

[John]

How many times did they recycle Dion Branch? He was an average receiver in his prime. And they kept signing him into his late 30s. They just refuse to draft a wideout. And then they constantly trade down. At some point, having 10 picks in the third and forth round is not as valuable as getting one player you really need in the first or second.

I like Belichick as a coach. But I think he is a lousy general manager. Look how bad their defense has been. No one ever mentions that the great defenses he had on the Super Bowl teams were mostly made up of talent he inherited from Pete Carrol and Bill Parcells.

[Drake]

Yes - Coach Belichick's worst enemy is General Manager Belichick. Kraft should do Coach Belichick a big favor and hire a real GM.

[Rasilio]

I think it is kind of a stretch to say he was surrounded by the best offensive talent in the league at any point in his career.

Maybe in the first year they had Moss but that would be it.

The difference now is that he may just have the worst supporting cast of any QB in the league. Sure Thompkins and Dobson may eventually get better and eventually Gronkowski and Amendola will be back but last night, if you swapped Brady for Mallet I'm not sure the roster they played with last night could beat Alabama forget an NFL team.

What last nights game showed is that it is time for Kraft to put his foot down and force a GM on Bellichek, they don't have to make the GM Bill's boss but they do need to take away most control over personnel decisions from him because clearly he has some flaws in his talent evaluation abilities.

Who knows, now that Pioli has flamed out running the show on his own maybe they could bring him back and rebuild the front office structure they had back when they were winning Superbowls.

[John]

Don't bring back Pioli. He is a complete nut. Go read the KC Star series from spring of 2012 on him. It is like a business school hypothetical of the worst and most incompetent, toxic and dysfunctional boss. It difficult to imagine someone more abusive, paranoid and incompetent than Pioli.

They need to hire a real GM and player personnel person. But no way would Belichick agree to that. The Patriots are stuck.

[Art Vandelay]

This.

Fuck, Brady took the Pats to within 2 minutes of the Super Bowl in 2006 when his best receiver was Reche Caldwell.

But Bill has truly fucked him over this year.

[Slammer]

Herpes-infested monkeys terrorize Florida! Yikes!

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

Can't they just sic some pythons on them?

[Ken Shultz]

Pythons with herpes are better?

[Pro Libertate]

Pythons have too much mercury in them to get herpes. I mean, Vitamin M.

[invisible furry hand]

Do we know who gave them herpes?

[Ken Shultz]

I blame the Tea Party.

[Slammer]

Does it start with W?

[Rich]

The evidence indicates the Assad regime.

[Rasilio]

Why? were they taking it up the Assad?

[some guy]

Where's that guy with the timesuit?

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

DON'T SAY THE NAME!

[Ken Shultz]

"Syria says it will join the international treaty on chemical weapons, if the U.S. asks nicely and stops its threats."

They also want Obama to renounce arming the rebels. ...and how likely is Obama to publicly disavow any threats of force against Assad?

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports:

"A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime's chemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials."

http://online.wsj.com/article/.....53794.html

They're going to make an ever bigger fool out of Obama before this is over.

[Mike M.]

Here's the thing about these international treaties banning this and that kind of weapon: they mean jack and shit, and Jack left town a long time ago.

How many countries either have violated or are violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with basically no repercussions to speak of? They're nothing but meaningless pieces of paper that make liberal internationalists feel good about themselves.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

They're so meaningless they almost got the U.S. into another war.

I mean cool story bro

[Night Elf Mohawk]

How did the any treaty almost get the US into another war?

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Where do you think this Syrian Chemical Weapons thing came from?

[Mike M.]

Syria never signed the treaty banning chemical weapons.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

1925 Geneva Convention.

[Ken Shultz]

And the Nazis never signed an agreement against genocide.

I mean, the point here is that sometimes international law reflects reality, and sometimes it doesn't.

The reality is that when it isn't in the best interests of the international community to enforce something (be it a law or not), they don't and shouldn't.

And if we did enforce something because it was in our best interests to do so, then it doesn't really matter whether it was really an international law or not.

Who here thinks we shouldn't do what's in our own best interests because our best interests are against international law?

[Ken Shultz]

I see what you're saying, but now that Obama's down on the ground, there's no way Assad's gonna keep kicking him...

Because that would be unsportsmanlike.

Dear President Obama,

We only gave a tenth of our stockpiles to the Russians.

What are you gonna do about it?

Bests,

Assad

XOXOXO

P.S. Fuck you.

[Palin's Buttplug]

I have been humored by the conservative (GOP) new found love of Putin since it is obvious he is a Christian homophobic authoritarian.

Reason even wrote about it.

Putin/Cruz 2016?

Fuck you, birthers!

[Ken Shultz]

I'm sorry--love of Putin?

Obama's pretending that Putin is gonna save him, and you think the conservatives love Putin?!

There's this thing called reality, Shrike, and pointing it out isn't taking sides.

Putin and Assad have Obama's testicles in a vice--and Obama is the one that put them there. Pointing that fact out isn't like when you make fun of whatever politician. We don't pretend reality is other than it is--just because it might reflect badly on Obama.

It's reality. It is what it is.

[tarran]

The reality is that Shriek is insane; the equivalent of a urine-soaked homeless guy shrieking at a wall about the Pope enslaving all of humanity.

And yet people talk to it like it's human. Tsk.

[Ken Shultz]

Oh, you're just in love with Putin, tarran!

It comes from the same place as the idea that if you think ObamaCare is boosting the unemployment rate, than you must be stupid in love with Sarah Palin.

Now, if you think what Obama has done with Assad is stupid, you're in love with Putin?

[invisible furry hand]

That reminds me, about a week ago i went to an ATM on Sydney's main street, in the heart of the business section, about 6.30pm. There was a homeless guy sleeping on the floor, and his friend standing at one of the machines. Cool, I thought, homeless dudes can have bank accounts. Because I had earphones in, I didn't realise at first that he was actually trying to play a tune on the keypad. Not Funky Town, unfortunately

[Mike M.]

Shriek isn't insane. Shriek is David Weigel, and this is what he does.

He's a professional full time concern troll, and shilling for Obama and the democrats while pretending to be a neutral reporter, a libertarian, a resident of Georgia, a hotshot investor, and a million other things is exactly what he's paid to do.

[tarran]

Shriek is David Weigel

Suure, Wiegel has nothing better to do with his time than post insane ramblings.

[Mike M.]

He doesn't. He posts stupid shit on Twitter all day long also.

[John]

Suure, Wiegel has nothing better to do with his time than post insane ramblings.

Well, slate does pay Weigal to do that. But maybe he comes here to practice.

[KMA Too]

Suure, Wiegel has nothing better to do with his time than post insane ramblings

Well, have you ever seen Weigel and Shreeky together in the same room?

Think about it...

[Ken Shultz]

Shriek is David Weigel

I think he was being descriptive.

Like "Barack Obama is a jackass".

[sgs]

"Suure, Wiegel has nothing better to do with his time than post insane ramblings."

Clearly you've never read Wiegel.

Fuck off and die now.

[sgs]

whereas you just talk about it to pretend you're somehow better

die in a hole

[gaijin]

Putin and Assad have Obama's testicles in a vice

the power of the vice presidency!

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

I am torn between groaning and applauding....

*shrugs, goes with golf clap*

[gaijin]

Appreciate you giving me the clap 😉

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Dear Janice Lokelani Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele: Your name is way too long for your ID.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

I liked the link underneath it:

Arya for a girl, Major for a boy fastest-rising U.S. baby names; Sophia and Jacob still top picks

Ugh, Arya? Like one step away from Aryan? Why?

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

I think Arya is in the Game of Thrones character.

[Andrew S.]

Yep. Wouldn't be surprised to see a few people naming their daughters Daenerys too.

[UnCivilServant]

Actually, the study shows they screwed up and named the "Khaleesi".

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

"Holy fuck look at all those vowels"

[gaijin]

Arya Crazy?

[Zeb]

Major?

I wonder if there is anyone named "Major Major Major" out there.

[Rich]

I knew a guy named "Admiral". He worked for the Army. Endless confusion.

[Steve G]

Known a few "Sargent"s in the military, both enlisted and officer. Airman Sargent and Major Sargent: no shortage of entertainment...

[Chaucer]

I got arrested by a State Trooper Sheriff one time. I also learned that cops get mad when you point out their low rank.

[Bobarian]

My gunner for my Bradley was Sergeant 'Major' Farley.

I got endless amusement out of harrassing my fellow platoon leaders over having a Sergeant Major as my gunner.

[Zeb]

I knew a goat named Admiral.

[gaijin]

Major Wood

[BakedPenguin]

Just re-read Freakonomics - Winner Lane and Loser Lane - guess which one wound up broke and homeless?

[gaijin]

hah! I remember that. Could you imagine someone in this day naming their kid 'Winner' or 'Loser'? Good thing we've stamped out bullying in America.

[CatoTheElder]

I don't know about "Winner" or "Loser", but if a guy changed his name to "None Of Above", I bet he could win an election.

[Heroic Mulatto]

It's also a very common Hindu name meaning "noble". It's not Sanskrit's fault that ignorant German racists appropriated the adjective form of the word.

[tarran]

And the source of the name Iran. 😉

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

After reading Atlas Shrugged, I really started to like the name Dagny for a girl. My GF at the time hated the name. I blame our breakup on Ayn Rand.

[General Butt Naked]

"Major" could be from a glut of heller fan babies.

[Lord Humungus]

Politicians are bad enough...

The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary

Even the people who are supposed to like clowns?children?supposedly don't. In 2008, a widely reported University of Sheffield, England, survey of 250 children between the ages of four and 16 found that most of the children disliked and even feared images of clowns. The BBC's report on the study featured a child psychologist who broadly declared, "Very few children like clowns. They are unfamiliar and come from a different era. They don't look funny, they just look odd."

But most clowns aren't trying to be odd. They're trying to be silly and sweet, fun personified. So the question is, when did the clown, supposedly a jolly figure of innocuous, kid-friendly entertainment, become so weighed down by fear and sadness? When did clowns become so dark?

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing Gacy the Clown!

http://www.prairieghosts.com/gacy.html

[Slammer]

Have you seen Gacy's painting? Good luck getting to sleep.

[Bobarian]

That reminded me of a National Lampoon 'Letters from the Editor' bit.

Letter 1 was a letter -

Dear sirs, how do you get wine stains out of children's underwear.

Micheal J.
Out there on the edge.

Letter 2 was:

You think thats tough? You ever try to get blood stains out of a clown costume?

J. Gacy,
9th circle of hell.

[UnCivilServant]

About 1502.

[db]

It bothers me that people a freaked out by clowns. It's a little heartbreaking that people who are so dedicated to making people smile and brightening their days with goofy antics and bright clothing and makeup are derided as creepy and outdated.

If you've ever met a person who is a real clown, they are generally genuinely nice people who want to do something nice for others. And they get insulted for their efforts. In a small way it's indicative of a breakdown of society when people sneer at others who tey to do their best.

[UnCivilServant]

The one clown I know (through their day job, not their clown job) is nice to the point of creeping me right the fuck out, like it's a mask for some sort of sickness inside.

[General Butt Naked]

If you garishly paint a smile on your face (literally or figuratively), human nature dictates that others will assume a hidden sneer.

[invisible furry hand]

Fair enough db, but the problem is that there is something unnerving about a person whose emotions cannot be read on their face because they're obscured by a false painted expression

[John]

I used to make fun of clowns. Then I watched the PBS reality show on the Big Apple Circus. In it there was a guy who was a visiting artist and a clown. His normal job was head clown at a children's hospital in New York City. The guy went to work every day being a clown for sick and often dying kids.

His entire existence both made my existence feel utterly stupid, shallow and unworthy and made me feel guilty for ever making fun of clowns.

[R C Dean]

If you want to feel shallow and unworthy, take a job in a hospital with a big neonatal intensive care unit, pediatric unit, and a pediatric ER.

Occasionally, people ask me why I can be such a vicious knife artist. I tell them its because I have something worth fighting for.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Thank you for saying this, db. It was worth saying.

[KMA Too]

Count me in, too, db. They don't bother me, and I agree with the "a little heartbreaking".

[sgs]

"It bothers me that people a freaked out by clowns. "

Seriously?

Fuck off.

[trshmnstr]

They alllll float down here!

[invisible furry hand]

Meet Katakkuri-chan: A Japanese prison housing a range of convicted criminals has unveiled a cuddly life-size mascot that bosses hope will help change the jail's forbidding image.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world-n.....z2emRWrygo

[UnCivilServant]

I have to weigh this against the fact that a lot of Japan's 100% conviction rate comes from false confessions and a rigged judicial system.

[kinnath]

http://www.dilbert.com/

Never, never trust the squirrels.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

An Al Qaeda leader calls for "small" attacks on the U.S. to bleed it economically.

What a dumbass. That is how you build an economy.

[Gbob]

Those windows won't break themselves.

[The Late P Brooks]

Today on Morning Joke, sleazy little crook Ratner did a rambling incoherent story about how the richie riches are getting richer as the other ninety nine per cent starve in the street and battle packs of wild dogs for leftover scraps of food tossed out the windows of passing Bugatti Veyrons. He expended no effort to explain where his numbers came from, or how they were derived, because he was too busy suggesting confiscatory taxes and handouts to the deserving poor. Deserving poor, as usual, means college professors and administrators, because we have been underinvesting in education for decades.

The rich have a unique skill set not possessed by the poor; I took that to mean they are better at lobbying the government and navigating governemnt regulations and restrictions on productive activities.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Source = IRS. The news cycle has been all over the widest wealth gap in US history.

Politicize it all you wish.

[John]

Yes because a gap means those on the bottom are starving. It could not be that everyone is richer and the rich are just really richer. But hey don't let that stop you from engaging in envy and all other sorts of vile and evil things. That is what you do, you sick little fuck.

[Rasilio]

That is why all the talk of inequality.

Back in the 80's a Russian tv crew came to America to do a report on poverty in the west, they left empty handed because what they found was that there was no poverty in America.

None whatsoever.

The poorest people living on Welfare would have been middle class in Russia and the people below that were all mental health cases.

The situation is even more dire for class warriors today so they make up meaningless statistics like inequality and "food insecurity" that are defined to make it look like there is poverty when in reality there is only the relative poverty of not being able to pay for cable TV and having to have a plain old cell phone instead of a brand new iPhone every 2 years.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Hahaha. There's a girl I've known since highschool who spends all her workday at the local unemployment office playing Facebook games, who posted on Facebook a while ago about how she's been kind of depressed because everyone coming in has an iPhone now.

[Artifex]

Is there really any reason other than sheer envy that progressives such as yourself make this a big news item ? Without huge amounts of progressive double-think this has got to be utterly embarrassing.

Let's see, what could be causing the fortunes of the middle class to differ from those of the rich ? Maybe it could be the increasing burden of the New Deal, Great Society and whatever brain dead crap Obama is currently pushing ? Of course the vast and growing progressive regulatory apparatus can't have anything to do with it.

Not that a progressive would ever be honest enough with themselves to admit this. You'll just drool, let your eyes assume the character of an old analog TV set tuned to dead air and mutter something about those libertarian laissez-faire policies that exist only in your head

[BakedPenguin]

Okay, if you're going to engage it -and it seems people are- why not at least point out that if the gap between rich and poor is at its greatest extent right now, that this has after 8 years of Obamanomics.

[BakedPenguin]

Oops, you pretty much did. My bad.

[Mike M.]

Note that the same so-called "progressives" who decry inequality are the very same people who think Bernanke should indefinitely continue handing trillions of newly printed free dollars to the Wall Street/banking complex. They're completely full of shit.

[R C Dean]

PB, we're not the ones politicizing this.

[Lord Humungus]

The Attack on Self-Insurance

But self-insurance is now filtering down to businesses with 199 workers or fewer, as a hedge against ObamaCare's federal mandates and the danger that costs on its small-business exchanges will soar. Some insurers are now selling popular products that allow groups as small as 25 to self-insure. In a 2012 study, the Urban Institute found ObamaCare's incentives will cause as many as 60% of small firms to convert without regulatory changes.

So the White House, liberal pressure groups and state and federal regulators are trying to close what they call the self-insurance "loophole" before more escape. Their political and actuarial fear is that if enough businesses don't join, the exchanges could fail because too few younger and healthier people will subsidize everybody else.

[John]

That is a beautiful work around. Suppose I run a small sheet metal shop and have 25 employees, 24 of which are male sheet metal workers and the 25th is the 55 year old woman who runs the office and does my books. Self insuring and agreeing to pay for the health care they are likely to need and avoid paying for shit like abortions, birth control, mental health and so forth makes sense.

And think about this. What if I pooled with a few other businesses and formed our own little health cooperative? We would start to take advantage of the economies of scale available from buying insurance but avoid paying for all of the bullshit that the government requires of insurance.

You have to love human ingenuity, especially when it foils fascist planners.

[tarran]

When I was paying attention to this stuff a few years ago, nobody knew what the rules *were*, so of course they couldn't come up with any workarounds.

A law this complicated has got to have a million opportunities to be gamed. And I hope that the assholes promoting it spend the rest of their lives playing a losing game of whackamole.

And, yes, watching people make their own plans and giving the finger to the central planners gladdens my heart.

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

I predict a massive rise in captive firms...if they can not get wrecked on the shoals of regulation.

[Rich]

Senate panel defines journalist as an employee, independent contractor or agent of an entity that disseminates news or information.

OK, that oughta settle it once and for all!

[sarcasmic]

So only real journalists will be protected by the 1A. This will never be abused.

[tarran]

The Internet is an entity, right?

[Rich]

Not if a Senate panel has not so deemed it.

[Pro Libertate]

I could swear there's case law that basically says the government can't do what they are trying to do.

[sarcasmic]

Yeah, well our national security is at stake here, and that trumps everything. So journalist must be so narrowly defined so that whenever someone blows a whistle, they can be hunted down and punished (killed if possible). I mean, like national security and stuff.

[Pro Libertate]

That shouldn't fly, but, well, penaltax.

[RBS]

How do they define "entity", "new" and "information"?

[R C Dean]

And "agent".

What's interesting is that have essentially said that someone who self-publishes on the internet cannot be a "journalist" because they are not an employee, contractor or agent of an entity.

So, Michael Totten and the other "new breed" of internet journalists are just SOL.

[gaijin]

If this stands, Reason should grant all commenters a 'journalist' credential. They could even charge you a $10 fee.

[RBS]

I guess pretty soon we'll see licensing exams. Like the bar exam for journalists.

[gaijin]

I'd love to see the corpus of knowledge that exam would be based on!

Sample question: Climate deniers present factually incorrect research claiming Government manipulation of historic temperature data. Describe the government sources and the positions to emphasize in headline rebutting deniers claims without having to assess said claim or do math in body of article.

[Pro Libertate]

I would like to announce some major breaking news. Voyager 1 has left the solar system. I'm all tingly inside.

[UnCivilServant]

Took it long enough. Why was it dawdling?

[invisible furry hand]

Because it is on the public tit.

[Pro Libertate]

It must've issued fifty press releases over the last several years, as this story kept getting picked up, over and over again.

It's not fucking leaving the solar system. It's going through the heliosphere. Significant, but any definition of our borders that leaves a lot of mass orbiting the sun out of it is a stupid definition. You know, maybe Pluto is a planet.

[UnCivilServant]

So does that mean we ahve 14 planets once we count the rest of the dwarves?

[Pro Libertate]

Sure, why not? More planets means more Galactic Empire welfare money.

[Clich? Bandit]

The only definition of Planet that made sense to me is a 1st generational orbit of a star. Second should be called moons. I don't have a word for tertiary satellites but I am sure we could come up with one. Also, the ONLY restriction i will accept on the Planet definition is (and this is debatable) spherical under its own gravity...i.e. approximately 600 miles in diameter.

[Pro Libertate]

Ploons.

[Clich? Bandit]

I like it

[Pro Libertate]

Welcome to the newest Ploon, Tang. Ploon Tang.

[some guy]

There's so many definitions of "leaving the solar system". I don't think it should be defined by gravitaional influence. So we'll have to wait awhile.

[Pro Libertate]

Not "influence," because the sun's gravitational influence extends very far indeed. But pretending that the Oort cloud is outside of the solar system is silly.

[BakedPenguin]

Took it long enough. Why was it dawdling?

The Oort Cloud is lovely this time of year.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

What does the Caretaker have to say for himself?

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

"I'll be back"

[Slammer]

DJ class for babies in hipster Brooklyn. Take that fucking hat off that child you monster!

[Kaptious Kristen]

When people ask "what do you mean by 'hipster'"? I can say: "This". This is what I mean."

[Archduke Trousersenthusiast]

Are there really 'rules' to what to wear?

[Zeb]

Sure. I am generally expected to wear pants and a shirt to work and in most public places.

[Auric Demonocles]

Also some kind of footwear.

[UnCivilServant]

No. (Declared from personal conviction without even mousing over the link) There are however, norms, but those don't go into such absurd detail and generally fall under how much skin gets shown on what body parts.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I've found that fashion norms are often the collective wisdom of what flatters most people. However, to even approach a place where those norms have meaning, one must wear well-tailored clothes. I don't care how many "rules" one follows, one is not going to look good wearing a t-shirt, shorts/sweatpants/ratty-ass jeans, and ugly shoes. Period.

And don't get me started on grooming habits!

[Zeb]

That's why I've pretty much given up on dressing nicely. I'm unusually skinny, so I would have to buy custom tailored clothes if I wanted them to fit properly. And almost everything I do has potential to ruin nice clothes. So I have one nice suit that fits well and otherwise I don't bother. WHich is kind of too bad since I actually really like dressing sharply. But it's just not worth the money and effort avoiding getting dirty to me.

[R C Dean]

And almost everything I do has potential to ruin nice clothes.

[makes mental note not to go out to dnner with Zeb]

[sgs]

"one is not going to look good wearing a t-shirt, shorts/sweatpants/ratty-ass jeans, and ugly shoes. Period"

Speak for yourself, it's not my fault you dress like shit and think the wrong things matter.

You've lost this argument a dozen times before, and every time it comes down to you being old and having no fashion sense or style.

[Rich]

"I may not know *fashion*, but I know what I like."

[Lord Humungus]

Elite Syrian Unit Scatters Chemical Arms Stockpile

A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime's chemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials.

The movements of chemical weapons by Syria's elite Unit 450 could complicate any U.S. bombing campaign in Syria over its alleged chemical attacks, officials said. It also raises questions about implementation of a Russian proposal that calls for the regime to surrender control of its stockpile, they said.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Blurred Sanford (Blurred Lines mashup)

[Pro Libertate]

Fred Sanford: [to Aunt Esther] I warn you, woman, vengeance is among me! And ugly is among you.

[Slammer]

Aunt Esther comes in door: " Oh, look, it's Queen Kong."

No WAY you could get away with that today.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Watch an old Dean Martin roast sometime.

[Slammer]

I do watch 'em. Don Rickles is the man.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Blurred Lines is a shit song, and I'm damn sure not going to listen to parodies of a shit song.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The way Neoliberal Kochtopus grabs me
He wants to get nasty

[Longtorso, Johnny]

But he's a good giiiiiirlllll...

[Steve G]

Yep, 9/11 cost AQ half a mil at best and we responded w/ tens of trillions in past/future spending. They already won, no need for a new call for attacks...

[Longtorso, Johnny]

DWS: Colorado recall was a clear-cut instance of "voter suppression, pure and simple"

Bad news: Colorado Democrat defeated in recall election over gun control not taking it well

[Longtorso, Johnny]

..."Colorado voters are used to casting their ballots by mail, but because of lawsuits filed by opponents of common sense gun reform, voters were not mailed their ballots in this election. Those who intended to vote in person did not learn their polling locations until less than two weeks before Election Day. Tuesday's low turnout was a result of efforts by the NRA, the Koch brothers and other right wing groups who know that when more people vote, Democrats win....

[Clich? Bandit]

Actually it is DIRECTLY due to the Libertarian Party of Colorado and its State Chair Jeff Orrok. Silly libertarians demanding the constitution be followed.

[sarcasmic]

Maggie Gyllenhaal goes bra-less in a sheer dress as she attends fragrance launch with husband Peter Sarsgaard

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....gaard.html
John goes sha-wing!

[Certified Public Asskicker]

That ruined my morning.

[Zeb]

I like her. Though I think she looks a lot better with longer hair.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Agreed. The hair combined with the dress makes her look way too dowdy.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

I don't think that dress was too sheer. Just sheer enough to be exciting, really. Assuming the wearer is to your liking.

Maybe it looked worse in person.

[John]

She is too skinny and looks like a boy. Isn't that your type? What are her boobs too big for you.

[sarcasmic]

You're the one who has mentioned her by name as someone who makes you go sha-wing!

[The Late P Brooks]

I could swear there's case law that basically says the government can't do what they are trying to do.

Did you write that with a quill pen?

[Pro Libertate]

It may be less than one hundred years old. Actually, my recollection, which is reaching back some time, is that there are a number of cases that very broadly define what it means to be a publisher for freedom of the press purposes. Really, there's no real separation of press protections from the freedom of speech.

[sarcasmic]

Oh yeah? That was before thumb drives and the Internet and blogs and the war on Terror and stuff! Things are different now!

[Pro Libertate]

Could we maybe negotiate a freedom zone, where all the libertarians could move? They can have the rest.

[Clich? Bandit]

I put forth Boulder, CO as a suggestion. Seeing as it just got cleansed, all the dirty hippy smell has been washed down the splatte river.

[Pro Libertate]

Hippie free? Is it space-hippie free, too? Can't abide space hippies.

[Clich? Bandit]

Well, as the water rises the Space HIppies will be forced to move as well. You know NIST is in Boulder right? So even our clocks will get wiped clean.

[Snark Plissken]

Even if they end up being the lead singer and driver of the Winnebago?

[Brian D]

SOMALIA!!!!

[R C Dean]

Could we maybe negotiate a freedom zone,

I nominate the US of A.

[sarcasmic]

Taylor Momsen returns to her racy ways with topless shoot... just days after polishing up for red carpet

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....-NYFW.html
sarc goes sha-wing!

[Heroic Mulatto]

Topless doesn't count when you have the breasts of a pubescent boy with acute gynomastica.

Jus' sayin'

[sarcasmic]

Skinny girls with small titties need sex too!

[Heroic Mulatto]

That only makes more of them.

[UnCivilServant]

You say that like it's entirely bad. Variety is a good thing.

[General Butt Naked]

Skinny or not, that girl is fucking nasty. Did you see her legs?

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Those are solid As if not borderline Bs.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Sept. 11, 2013: A Muslim poem but no Pledge of Allegiance at Boston-area high school

Student destroys 9/11 memorial flag display, citing US imperialism

[Longtorso, Johnny]

...The protesters ? at least one of whom was a student ? explained that they were "confiscating" the flags in order to take a stand against U.S. imperialism.

They also claimed the area was a Native American burial ground, and that planting flags there was disrespectful....

[Longtorso, Johnny]

...Two of the protesters were identified after admitting responsibility. One is Amanda Lickers, a Native American woman who said the memorial desecrated tribal land.

"Yesterday I said no to settler occupation," she wrote in a statement. "I took those flags. It is a small reclamation and modest act of resistance."

The other confessor was a student, Anna Shireman-Grabowski.

"My intention was not to cause pain but to visibilize the necessity of honoring all human life and to help a friend heal from the violence of genocide that she carries with her on a daily basis as an indigenous person," she wrote in a statement. "While the American flags on the Middlebury hillside symbolize to some the loss of innocent lives in New York, to others they represent centuries of bloody conquest and mass murder. As a settler on stolen land, I do not have the luxury of grieving without an eye to power. Three thousand flags is a lot, but the campus is not big enough to hold a marker for every life sacrificed in the history of American conquest and colonialism."...

[Slammer]

Visibilize.

[gaijin]

visibilize

an innovationalizm of the language

[invisible furry hand]

I do not have the luxury of grieving without an eye to power

This sentence hurts my brain

[Fluffy]

There were no natives in the hills of Middlebury VT. Only European-style agriculture and trade made the ridges and mountains of Vermont inhabitable. When the Green Mountain boys got there, they were empty. That's why they were able to steal them from New York and New Hampshire.

Boston might be stolen land, but Middlebury VT was plain old first come first served.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Sorry Fluffy, but you're peddling balderdash. If the Green Mountains were empty, it was due to the massive decrease in Abenaki population due to a pandemic right before European contact and introduced disease afterwards.

Yes, overall, the Abenaki were valley dwellers; however, they possessed the technology to exploit the mountain ecosystems for hunting, trapping, and gathering nuts and berries.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Real Native American weighs in on hyper-Progressive White Woman acting in his/her name:

Mitiqtaun

I understand the concern about the placement of the flags expressed by those who I presume are Native Americans. However, the manor in which this was dealt is abrasive, and while one party may have taken offense by the placing of the flags, the removal offended the other party. It would have been much better to speak with the Dean and have the memorial moved, if possible. As a Native American myself, I am ashamed that we create greater adversity and discrimination by our actions, instead of coming to peaceful resolutions with our words.

Thanks for "speaking" for them with your Heckler's Veto, The Dumb Grabowski!

[Heroic Mulatto]

[cont]

Mitiqtaun

I would like to repeal my former comment. In learning that the student responsible is not Native American, I have many more things to say. First, that the action committed is not in the spirit of Native American Rights, and that the student had to right to impose their interpretation of justice for a group of people of which she obviously does not understand. It is exactly this violence and unnecessary malice that Native Americans have been working towards amending and it is these kinds of people that make it impossible to do so. As a Native American, I say shame on you, student, you have no right to pretend you are doing something in the service of others and I am appalled that you could even consider such an act against the innocent that died on 9/11 to be a valid retribution to the genocide of my people. You have made many enemies for yourself in the Native American community, have infringed on the delicate spirit of my people, and have left us to deal with your "justice" which reflects poorly on us. Next time you think you are doing something in the service of others, please remember that have just committed an incredibly insensitive act and reflect on the fact that you have just showed everyone that you have little understanding of the intricate and delicate subject of social justice. ? A Middlebury Native

[UnCivilServant]

Question - how many generations does it take before someone is a 'Native' of America?

[Heroic Mulatto]

You shall forever be a stranger in a strange land.

[sarcasmic]

Topless Chrissy Teigen gets between the sheets with fianc? John Legend for his All Of Me music video shoot

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....shoot.html
Titties!

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

She's OK I suppose.

[Fluffy]

The SCOTUS said that people have a right to gay marriage, when gay conduct was illegal in most or probably all states at the time of the drafting of the 14th Amendment. If you believe that, you believe that what is a "right" protected under the Constitution changes with society's tastes and mores

No, I believe what is a "right" under the Constitution is controlled by the plain text of the amendment, and if the people who approved it were too stupid or unimaginative to see what the plain text of the amendment says and what its implications are, fuck 'em, they lost.

The amendment says all persons are entitled to the equal protection of the laws.

No further analysis is required.

I don't need to open a single history book or read the statutes that existed in 1866. Because they don't matter.

The fact that human beings could pass an amendment with the wording of the 14th, but separately and on other occasions pass legislation that contravened its plain text just doesn't matter. If they wanted to pass an amendment that would allow LOTS of unequal application of the laws...I guess they fucked up. Oh well.

I think the wording of the amendment is straightforward and it should be aggressively exploited. If that destroys a lot of law, including law in effect in 1866 that even the Radical Republicans would have endorsed - awesome.

[Auric Demonocles]

When has the law stopped a gay person from marrying simply because they were gay?

SLD.

[sarcasmic]

I know it! I mean, I'm so glad that they finally decriminalized same sex marriage so all those poor homosexuals in prison for the crime of marriage will be let free!

[Fluffy]

The 14th also means you can't extend a benefit unequally.

A law awarding white persons a state subsidy but not black persons would violate the 14th in an extremely straightforward way, without criminally punishing anyone for anything.

[John]

The 14th also means you can't extend a benefit unequally.

No it doesn't fluffy. You don't get welfare do you? You don't get into every public university you want even if your grades are terrible and you didn't graduate from high school.

Your entire argument flows from a complete misunderstanding of what equal protection means.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

You don't get into every public university you want even if your grades are terrible and you didn't graduate from high school.

Your entire argument flows from a complete misunderstanding of what equal protection means.

And yours flows from a complete misunderstanding of equal protection and equal results.

[John]

And yours flows from a complete misunderstanding of equal protection and equal results.

No it doesn't. My argument flows from the fact that if you let the court decide that the amendment applies to discrimination made for reasons and against groups that the drafters never intended it to apply to, there is no reason why the Court has to or will stop there.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

If it wasn't intended to apply to "any person" then they goddamned well shouldn't have written "any person." And it sure as hell doesn't say anything about groups or protected classes so that's just an argument about what the SCOTUS can get away with, rather than what the 14th says.

It would have been very easy to have written "any person because of race" if that was the extent of the protection. They didn't. Maybe they would have if they had thought more carefully, but they didn't. Nor did they even fucking mention groups. They mentioned persons.

[John]

NEM,

You can't read it to mean total equality in all decisions. If you did, governments couldn't make any distinctions at all. Whatever it means, it can't mean that. And no one thinks it means that.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

If you did, governments couldn't make any distinctions at all.

"No one can commit murder." That makes a distinction between murderers and non-murderers and it applies equally to everyone.

[R C Dean]

Among other semantical questions, we might consider whether a right to"equal protection" really means a right to "equal benefits."

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

According to John, this equal administration of benefits is what will lead to a Constitution of Positive Rights.

Yeah, I don't know how he got there either.

[John]

It is because you won't listen and you don't understand how equal protection works. The court could tomorrow decide that cutting teacher's salaries was a violation of equal protection. All they would have to do is decide public employees are a protected class and thus any decision that effects them is subject to strict scrutiny.

Now why are public employees a protected class? For the same gays are now even though they were considered criminals when the amendment was drafted, because the Court decided they were.

You guys don't understand what equal protection means in this context. Hint, it doesn't mean the government can't discriminate.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Where does the 14th mention protected classes, exactly?

"The court could tomorrow decide..." is an argument from power, not from principle.

[John]

It doesn't. But if you don't read it that way, then the government could never discriminate against anyone for any reason no matter how rational that reason. The Amendment means that you get equal protection under the law. That doesn't mean you always get your pony. It means that the government has to have the right reason for not giving it to you.

For the entire history of the amendment, being gay was an okay reason for the government to deny marriage recognition. Then one day the SCOTUS decided that was no longer true. That is a totally arbitrary decision. There is basis in history or intent or anything other than SCOTUS decided they liked gays but today at least they don't like polygamists. Tomorrow they may decide that other groups are worthy of such an honor. And you guys are not going to like it very much.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

But if you don't read it that way, then the government could never discriminate against anyone for any reason no matter how rational that reason.

Yes, it could, as long as the "discrimination" were applied equally.

You, again, are at least implicitly talking about equal results.

[John]

Yes, it could, as long as the "discrimination" were applied equally.

If it is applied totally equally, it is not discriminating. More importantly, all you are saying is that it can't be arbitrary. Sure. But that doesn't address the issue. There is nothing arbitrary about states not recognizing gay marriages. Only marriages to the opposite sex are recognized. There is nothing unequal about that. Both gays and straights and blacks and browns and everyone else, can only marry the opposite sex.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

If it is applied totally equally, it is not discriminating.

Sure it is. Murder laws "discriminate" between murderers and non-murderers but apply to everyone. No one (theoretically) can legally murder. Those who do get different results under the law, but the law applies equally to all.

[R C Dean]

And the laws defining marriage as one man/one woman applied equally to all, as well.

[VG Zaytsev]

Yes, it could, as long as the "discrimination" were applied equally.

Which was the case in marriage law.

There was never a sexual orientation test for getting married. The standard of one man one woman applied equally to heterosexuals, bisexuals, homosexuals and asexuals

[R C Dean]

By definition, you can't discriminate equally. Discrimination means that you will treat this person differently than that person.

The real question is, what are permissible criteria on which to discriminate? That's where protected classes come in; those aren't permissible criteria. Much easier and more practical to call out the impermissible criteria than the permissible criteria, unless you want to go full libertarian and say the only criteria are those that involve the violation of another person's (negative) rights.

[Auric Demonocles]

When has the law stopped a gay person from getting the benefits of marriage, simply because they were gay?

[John]

Equal protection doesn't mean everyone gets treated equally in every decision.

Your argument flows from a complete misunderstanding of what equal protection means. It is frankly all nonsense as a result. If the Amendment meant what you think it means, governments couldn't make any distinctions at all.

[Auric Demonocles]

Pro Lib, I get a daily email from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, with a collection of industry related news. Guess what the subject line of today's email is? "13 September 2013: Voyager 1 Leaves Solar System"

[Pro Libertate]

Okay, fine. The Oort cloud is outside the solar system and merely voluntarily orbits the sun. Since everyone in the Sol system wants to disclaim ownership of the Oort cloud, I hereby declare myself owner of the Oort cloud, in fee simple.

[tarran]

Nuh uh!

I have a prior claim!

[Pro Libertate]

I doubt that, since there's total consensus by all of you Terrans that the solar system ends at the heliosphere. Auric and I are the only ones protesting this, apparently.

[tarran]

The lack of interest by others in no way invalidates my claim!

Withdraw yours, sir!

[Pro Libertate]

Why should I? Just where do you think I'm commenting from?

[tarran]

You refuse?

[Pro Libertate]

I'm in your Oort cloud, mining your resources.

[tarran]

You lie sir! I look over my holdings and they are cold and austere as ever.

[Swiss Servator - Gnome Slave]

Duel! Duel! Duel!

I'll second whomever is the better shot 🙂

[tarran]

*I* got a pistol marksmanship *ribbon* while in the Navy!

[Pro Libertate]

[Kicks Oort body towards Earth.]

[tarran]

Have at you sir!

[Pro Libertate]

What are you going to do, launch a few rockets at me? Sir, you are outmatched. Stand down.

[Auric Demonocles]

Be careful pro lib! He might fire rocks back at your.... really expansive emptiness.

[Pro Libertate]

Where from, the Earth? Ha! What few puny vehicles that have left the inner system needed gravity-assist. I've got rocks to burn.

[Auric Demonocles]

They seem to be an impasse.

[Auric Demonocles]

Maybe it's not even orbiting the sun. It's just happening to be going the same way, as a coincidence. And not because of the sun's gravitational field.

[Pro Libertate]

Nah, it's clearly a giant fleet of aliens just cruising along with the sun for a while. Space surfing.

[Clich? Bandit]

The Oort Cloud is speculated to extend a full light year from the Sun. Soo....if that is the definition or "Solar System" then we are about 364 light days and 7 light hours from that.

NOW, if you define Solar System as the boundary of solar radiation influence then V1 is out for about a year.

[Pro Libertate]

How can we, living on a hunk of matter orbiting the sun, deny other hunks of matter orbiting the sun?

[UnCivilServant]

The same way we claimed the sun orbited us.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, but that was wrong. The Oort cloud is orbiting the sun.

[UnCivilServant]

You merely asked how.

[Pro Libertate]

I could claim that the sun is a giant reactor powered by trillions of squirrels on wheels.

[Clich? Bandit]

At 3pm EST you will pay for this comment.

[Pro Libertate]

I didn't enslave those squirrels.

[Clich? Bandit]

You make light of their plight
while drinking orange juice
on ploon tang.

many will suffer.

[Pro Libertate]

Ploon Tang.
Not a planet or a moon but
Ploon Tang.

[UnCivilServant]

Hibernating until there's enough biomass to devour - then moving to the next system.

[Cascadian Ephor Xenocles]

Is that what membership gets you? I might have to reconsider thinking about joining.

[#]

Andrew Sullivan continues to live in a lonely alternate universe.

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com.....chiavelli/

[#]

"At some point, it may dawn on him that he hasn't played Obama. Obama has played him."

[Fist of Etiquette]

Oh my...

[Snark Plissken]

Wow.

This guy is trying to make Thomas Friedman look like a realist.

[John]

Sullivan was willing to admit he was wrong about Bush. So you would think he would be willing to do the same about Obama. I guess it is the race issue. Liberals are just mature enough to judge black people as they do any other human beings.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Here we go with the 12-Dimensional Chessmaster bullshit again.

[Outlaw]

Obama: Master Ruseman

http://static2.fjcdn.com/comme.....de9dec.png

[Pro Libertate]

So stupid it's brilliant! Please, show many any evidence of competence in this guy or most of his administration.

[Pro Libertate]

Sorry, show me, not many. Or show many, too.

[The Late P Brooks]

My intention was not to cause pain but to visibilize the necessity of honoring all human life and to help a friend heal from the violence of genocide that she carries with her on a daily basis as an indigenous person

Remember, these are the people you are depending on to keep Social Security your retirement Ponzi schemer afloat.

[The Late P Brooks]

Next time you think you are doing something in the service of others, please remember that have just committed an incredibly insensitive act and reflect on the fact that you have just showed everyone that you have little understanding of the intricate and delicate subject of social justice.

Wheels within wheels. Social justice! It's like a giant broken clockwork chicken.